Vegan fillets in chanterelle cream and pepper sauce with dumplings
When I was editing my own photos for this recipe, I briefly thought that some of them didn't look like a vegan dish at all, and I wasn't sure if those were actually the photos I had taken. But they were. Everything here is and will remain vegan. Even these vegan fillets in chanterelle cream sauce.
- 20 g dried chanterelle mushrooms
- 250 ml hot water
- 1 onion
- 2 cloves of garlic
- 300 g chanterelles
- 4 vegan chicken fillets
- 2 EL Mehl
- approx. 200 ml mushroom broth from dried chanterelles (alternatively vegetable broth)
- 150 g vegan Sahne
- 1–2 tablespoons of pickled green peppercorns from a jar
- 1 tsp mustard
- approx. 500 g vegan mini dumplings
- 1 EL vegane Butter
- Vegetable oil for frying
- Parsley for serving
- Salt
- Nutmeg
- Lemon juice
- Wash and clean the dried chanterelles if necessary. Then soak them in hot water for about 20 minutes. Remove the mushrooms from the liquid, squeeze out any excess liquid, but reserve it.
- Meanwhile, peel and finely dice the onion and garlic. Thoroughly clean the fresh chanterelles and cut any particularly large ones into smaller pieces if necessary.
- Heat vegetable oil in a large pan and first fry the vegan fillets until browned on both sides. Then remove them from the pan and set aside.
- Add a little more oil to the pan and sauté the fresh mushrooms over high heat for about 5 minutes. Add the onion and garlic and sauté for another 2-3 minutes, until the onion is translucent. Then add the soaked chanterelles and sauté for another 2-3 minutes.
- Dust the mushroom mixture with flour, deglaze with the mushroom stock, and simmer the liquid for 4–5 minutes over medium heat. Then add the vegan cream, pickled peppercorns, and mustard, and mix well. Season with salt and pepper, place the vegan fillets in the sauce, and simmer over low heat.
- While the sauce simmers, prepare (mini) dumplings according to the package instructions.
- Season the sauce with salt, nutmeg, and a little lemon juice before serving. Finally, stir in vegan butter until melted. Serve the chanterelle and fillet skillet with the dumplings and sprinkle with chopped parsley.
From June to October it's chanterelle season! We're right in the middle of chanterelle season, and for me they're like rhubarb and asparagus in spring: rare highlights that I look forward to every year and then spend several weeks trying to get the most out of them until it's time to say "Goodbye, see you next year." Personally, I don't like frozen or jarred chanterelles at all, and dried chanterelles are (as in this recipe) more of an additional ingredient for me, where I'm mainly interested in the mushroom broth. Fresh chanterelles are and always will be the best.
What's the best way to clean chanterelles? The only thing I always forget is the endless cleaning. No other mushrooms require such a thorough cleaning as chanterelles, and their shape makes it quite tricky. If you're not getting anywhere with a kitchen brush or paper towel because the chanterelles are still dirty, you can first dust them thoroughly with flour and then, as an exception, rinse them briefly with water until the flour (along with the dirt) is gone. Afterward, they should ideally be laid out on a clean tea towel in the sun so they dry completely quickly.
An alternative to chanterelles: If it's not chanterelle season, you can make this dish with any other mushrooms of your choice. This also applies to dried mushrooms, which should be soaked in hot water and then used for cooking along with the soaking liquid. I would recommend dried porcini mushrooms as an alternative, but if you don't want to use any mushrooms at all, you could also replace the soaking liquid with vegetable broth.
The alternative to vegan fillets: I was looking for a whole chicken alternative for this recipe, which is why I ended up using vegan fillets, which are now available from numerous companies. However, the recipe would also taste great with your favorite natural tofu, which you can halve horizontally so it's not quite so thick.
Vegan Creamy Pepper Sauce: We've known that chanterelles and vegan cream are a perfect culinary match ever since we cooked ribbon pasta with soy strips and chanterelles. Since we've already shown you this combination, I wanted to introduce a third star this time: pickled peppercorns. Perhaps you've already eaten a pepper sauce made with crushed dried peppercorns. However, we're using green, pickled peppercorns, which still have an intense flavor but aren't as hot as the dried ones. The biggest difference is that they soften during the pickling and cooking process in the sauce. If you've never cooked with them before, it's best to start with a small amount and add it gradually. If you don't like the intense pepper flavor at all, you can omit the peppercorns entirely and season the sauce with ground pepper.
Even more recipes with chanterelles! If you've already cleaned a large batch of chanterelles, why not plan another recipe with them in the next few days? How about vegan pretzel dumplings with chanterelle ragout, vegan hunter's schnitzel with chanterelles and spaetzle, or our chanterelle and leek quiche?
