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…
Appetizers
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…
Brain Fritters with Gruyere, Lemon and Sage
If you’ve never eaten brains, but are curious about them, these fritters should be the first thing on your list to make. If you’re a seasoned eater of elusive cranial sweets, you can probably say hello to your new favorite brain recipe. The key with brains, at least for me, in trying to serve them…
Brain Salad with Herbs and Pickled Peppers (Salade de Cervelle)
Nothing conjurs up the appetite like a canape of cold, chilled brains, am I right? In all seriousness, I’m serious about normalizing offal, and, as brains are some of the most obscure, wiggly, and to most, ghoulish of organ meats, I’m trying to build a section of this site that can show how to cook…
Smoked Venison Kidneys
Smoked venison kidneys are not only one of the best ways I’ve had kidneys (steak and kidney pie is my other standby) but it’s one of the best recipes for offal and organ meats in my repertoire, period. If you’ve had kidneys are didn’t care for them in the past, or if you’re new to…
Smoked Venison Shank and Trotter Terrine
I love a good chunk of charcuterie, and this year’s wealth of venison has been crying out to be made into a sliceable terrine en gelee./aspic. The venison trotters I mention in this post are chock-ful of collagen, making them the perfect thing to help bind a chilled headcheese-style terrine. You could definitely make a…
Venison Trotter Cakes (Cromesquis)
What’s golden brown, crispy-fried, ooey-goey and delicious? Venison trotter cakes. Almost like a meat-filled tater tot, trotter cakes or cromesquis as they might be called are a little chef secret I’ve adapted to venison here. Most of the time you’re going to see them made with pork, which is how I was taught to make…
How to Cook Venison Ribs
There’s a lot of overlooked cuts on a deer, but ribs are probably one of the most commonly left on the carcass or tossed into the coyote pile. It’s a shame, since they can be great if they’re prepped right, but I also understand why a lot of people don’t harvest and cook venison ribs. …
Steamed Cauliflower Mushrooms with Ponzu
Oh how I love cauliflower mushrooms. Sparassis radicata, Sparassis crispa–I don’t care if they come from the East Coast, West Coast, or Timbuktu, all I know is that they don’t grow in the Midwest, for all intents and purposes. Once in a while, when our fall mushroom season winds down in Minnesota, I might order…
Raw Turnips with Acorn Oil
Raw turnips with acorn oil might sound like something you’d be served during winter in a Polish Gulag, but I can assure you, it’s a far cry from a punishment. The idea for this came from a couple different places, but the most inspirational was a book many of you will know (and love): The…
Wild Berry Cassis
I have a tendency to miss some berries during foraging season. Black caps (Rubus occidentalis) especially I love, but never seem to take the time to pick enough. This year I found a great new patch though, so I made sure to try a few new things that weren’t jam or jelly. Wild berry cassis…
Oven Fried Shrimp of the Woods
Fall is here, and one thing I know I can always count on are aborted entoloma / Entoloma abortivum / shrimp of the woods, no matter how bad the maitake are teasing me. If you have some, oven frying the arboreal crustaceans is a recipe you’re going to want to bookmark. As long as you…
Venison Breast / Brisket with Mustard and Breadcrumbs
I eat a lot of meat, but I’m not much of a hunter. I know plenty about butchery and processing animals though, so when I got my first charity deer year, one of the first cuts I knew I would take out was the breast or brisket, which I’ve never, if rarely seen people mention…