I finally got to eat my first Gyromitra caroliniana, also known as the “Big Red”. Where I live on the border of Minnesota and Wisconsin we have a number of Gyromitra that I’ve eaten, well two species to be exact (Gyromitra korfii and Gyromitra Brunnea) and they’re ok. Gyromitra caroliniana is special in a number…
Appetizers
Wild Greens with Walnut Sauce
As I was cooking with my Virginia Bluebells this year, I started looking around in my library for recipes specifically calling for borage greens, since Virginia Bluebells are in the Boraginaceae. Borage has been cooked in the Mediterranean for a very long time, but I also found different recipes from Eastern Europe like Georgia, as…
Turkish Nettles (Isirgan Buğulaması)
Today, I have for you one of the best recipes for nettles I’ve tasted to date. Turkish nettles? Oh yes. I’m unsure of the exact species of nettle that might be cooked in the Middle East, as there’s a number of nettle genera eaten around the world, like the giant Nepali nettle (Girardinia diversifolia which,…
Italian Nettle Breadcrumb Gnocchi
Deep green nettle gnocchi are a great way to celebrate spring. Unlike typical gnocchi you’re probably familiar with, these are a rustic, peasant gnocchi that (gasp!) include no potato, or flour in the dough. There’s a number of different specific pasta names that you could use to refer to them, malfatti could work, although sometimes…
Rabbit Ragu with Wild Herb Gnocchi
I love small game, and I have plenty of rabbit recipes on this site, but most of them are for the whole creature cut into parts, or maybe stewed. One thing I’ve been meaning to put up is a solid rabbit pasta sauce like I used to make working under my chef from Rome, Angelo,…
Blackened Venison Tips
Blackened venison tips are a secret of fine meat cutting and butchery, and a perfect example of things I squirrel away for myself when butchering deer with friends. When you cut out a venison backstrap / loin there’s some trimming involved. Before you remove the silverskin, you remove another muscle called the chain, a sort…
Lebanese Dandelions with Caramelized Onions (Hindbeh)
If you were to order them on a menu, Hindbeh, Hindiba, or Hindbeh b’Zeit will all probably arrive at your table looking like the same thing: a bowl of cooked dandelions with caramelized onions. Or maybe it’s wild chicory with fried onions? Whatever you call it, you’re in for a treat. If you crave the…
Eggs de Gaulle with Morels and Shrimp
Baked eggs with dried morel mushrooms and shrimp is one a great recipe I’ve borrowed from the Legendary Jacques Pepin, and a favorite of a number of people I know in the mushroom hunting community, including myself. Technically, the dish has two names, the first is Eggs en Cocotte, which basically means eggs steamed or…
Fried Yellowfoot Chanterelles
Yellowfoot chanterelles are a great, underused cousin compared to golden chanterelles and black trumpets, and while many of them are small, sometimes the ones sold out of the Pacific Northwest can be just as large, if not larger than some of the golden chanterelles and black trumpets I harvest in the Midwest. I made these…
Fermented Mushroom Pierogi
Fermented mushroom pierogi, along with a few different sauces I’ve made (dryad saddle shoyu/soy sauce) are the most delicious things I’ve made with fermented mushrooms yet. Fermented mushrooms are a concentrate, they’re not something I’m going to go and just eat out of a jar, especially if they’ve been long-fermented and have turned soft. The…
Wild Rice-Mushroom Dolmas
Stuffed grape leaves are one of Nature’s perfect foods, and stuffing them with a mushroom and natural wild rice filling is a great variation on the classic, more well-known version with lamb, known as dolmas or dolmades. Vegetarian stuffed grape leaves are nothing new, but most of the time they use a filling relying on…
Crab Stuffed Morels
Stuffed morels filled with crab meat napped with melted butter, a dusting of breadcrumbs and baked to a golden brown are a classic, and make for a great appetizer made with both fresh or dried mushrooms. With the end of winter coming, I thought it was about time I start really using up the previous…
Sesame Enoki Pancakes
As most of you know, I will make cakes and fritters out of just about anything. Wild enoki and sesame pancakes (cultivated are fine too) are a great variation on that theme, but they’re also a good example of how you can steer lots of dishes in different directions by carefully choosing your ingredients. Here’s…