I’m a charcuterie freak: if it’s cured, salted, smoked, aged, potentially strange and delicious, I’m on board. Nduja, a little known spreadable salami from Calabria that’s been a chef secret for years now checks a lot of those boxes. I had my first taste of it at a dinner by Chef Wyatt Evans at his…
Carnivore
Dried Mushroom Stuffing with Gizzard Confit
On one side of my family there’s often a collaborative effort for Thanksgiving. This year, I’m bringing my favorite dried wild mushroom stuffing, with a few handfuls of turkey gizzard confit for good measure. When I say my favorite stuffing too, I mean it. I’m including some images of the same recipe that go back…
Dry-Aged Elk Backstraps
I’ve really enjoyed dry-aging all kinds of meats in my Umai Dry aging bags, especially the whole legs I’ve done, so it was only a matter of time before I tried out the process on the most prized cut of venison: the backstrap. Being familiar with the process of dry-aging and having some ideas about…
Carpaccio with Beefsteak Mushrooms
Carpaccio, the classic Italian appetizer of tenderized, thinly sliced raw beef served with olive oil, arugula and good parmesan, was one of the first recipes I was taught to prep when I worked for Chef Angelo Volpicelli, the first teacher I can credit with showing me a few of the ins and outs of traditional…
Unborn Venison
I’ve always loved Halloween, and I usually do something “seasonal” when it comes around. As a disclaimer, I have to tell you that if you’re one of my vegetarian or vegan friends, you’ll probably want to skip this one. If you eat meat, and you appreciate the interesting odd tidbit, you may find it interesting,…
Honey Mushroom Bourgignon
Once the cold weather hits, a good Bourgignon is one of the first things that I usually make each year. If you’re wondering what it is, it’s just beef burgundy (here I use venison neck but another stewing cut will work). You take some stewing meat, soak it in decent red wine overnight, then brown…
Ajiaco con Guascas
Ajiaco, a stew of multiple types of various potatoes, poultry, and corn, is a famous Latin American dish probably best known around the world as being Colombian, although there are different permutations enjoyed in different places, like Peru and Cuba, to name a few, each with slight variations. A riff on the Colombian version is…
Suckling Pig with Chestnut Crabapples
A few years ago I did a dinner organized by my friend Mike Jozwik of Mushroom Mike LLC with James Beard Award Nominee Chef Dan Fox of Heritage Tavern in Madison. Heritage Tavern is a good restaurant, but one thing that really sets them apart is their farm they use to supply the restaurant with a…
Snapping Turtle Eggs
It’s the first week of June. Like every year, I’m watching the lambs quarters get bigger, and waiting for the purslane to show. The cattail shoots are perfect, and, hidden in the marshes nearby, another annual tradition, one that’s been taking place for roughly 90 million years in more or less the same fashion, is…
Trout with Spring Shoots and Pheasant Backs
Last week we had a couple over for dinner and the woman, a friend of my girlfriend I’d met many times before, was, unbeknownst to me, a fly-fishing apex predator. I still have trouble catching anything but rocks with my rod, but she showed up with an entire cooler filled with 8 whole brook trout,…
Grouse Scaloppini with Watercress and Bacon Vinaigrette
Here’s one of the most perfect dishes I know of for a warm summer evening: a scaloppini of grouse (or any other light-colored poultry like pheasant, partridge, etc) grilled quick over a hot fire and tossed onto an extra large salad of watercress (or whatever greens you like) with a warm vinaigrette and fresh herbs. …
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,…
Wild Goose Eggs
Where I live, and around the country, wild poultry are just about everywhere: ducks, turkeys, quail, swans, pheasants, woodcock, grouse, and many more. One species I’m acutely aware of right now in the spring, as much for the honks and flying Vs, is our native Canada Geese, Branta canadensis. One thing geese and all the…