This basic anchovy vinaigrette recipe is one of the cornerstones of fine home cooking for me–think of it like Ceasar salads lighter, more delicate cousin. I keep a number of simple vinaigrettes in jars around so I can make salads and have them on the table in seconds. Anchovy vinaigrette, along with a basic white…
Fish/Seafood
Monkfish Piccata with Cardoons, Chard, and Dandelion Capers
A simple piccata with monkfish and preserved cardoons. Feel free to use any capers you like. Monkfish is wonderful served to people who might prefer chicken over fish. This uses my preserved cardoon recipe here.
Simple Shrimp Mousseline
One of the best selling appetizers I used to run at my first restaurant, The Salt Cellar, was a simple deep fried shrimp cake served with lovage aioli. It went through a number of different preparations behind the scenes as I tried to dial in efficiency, but at it’s heart it was always nothing more…
Nasturtium, Arugula, and Purslane Salad with Milkcaps and Shrimp
The marinated milkcap mushroom preserves I talked about in this post are fine out of the jar, but even better warmed up and put on a plate with something. I love a good salad, and my nasturtiums have been in full swing, so whatever I made, I knew they’d be going in there. A great…
Linguine with White Clam Sauce and Chanterelles
If you pick chanterelles you know the excitement that comes with the first buttons of the year, and picking what recipe you’ll make with the first teeny guys is something I really look forward to. Bright egg-yellow, rock hard wine corks that squeak like cheese curds when you chew them whole, giving off whiffs of…
Fried Frog Legs Marinated in Ramp Leaf Oil
A French club was coming in for dinner, and I was told they would expect escargot. The only problem was snails weren’t on the menu, and the party was coming in the next day. Fresh out of helix snails in cans, I gathered a party to excavate the deep freeze of the French concept/restaurant I…
Halibut Cheeks with Wild Peppermint, and Watercress
A few years ago I was reading a book on Venetian cooking when I came across something interesting: a dish of scallops cooked in a simple pan sauce with peppermint. Along with watercress and teeny nettles, peppermint is the first wild herb I start to see in the Midwest. The mint seems to cry for…
Lobster Mushroom Burbot with Crayfish Butter
Burbot was one of those interesting local fish, like sunnies, crappies and perch that were hard to source through fish purveyors, no one seemed to carry it. Eventually I got to try my first after someone was nice enough to grab me a couple packages from a fish shop up in Cumberland, Wisconsin. I knew…
Puffball Mushroom Bratwurst
Here’s a fun way to use meat, and dried mushroom powder, specifically puffballs. In charcuterie and sausage making, milk powder is often used, especially in finely ground emulsions like bologna and hot dogs to achieve a nice, bouncy texture. Here, instead of using milk powder in the sausages, I use toasted, dried puffball powder, which…
Smoked Heart Sausage
A while ago I was planning the menu for a dinner revolving around lamb, which was going to take the shape of 3 separate courses dedicated to the animal. The first course in a menu like that I usually like to include offal, to convey the importance of whole animal butchery and how creative you…
A Northwoods Garum
Garum. Ever since I read Apicius I wanted to make, or just taste it. Maybe it was being a teenager (read as large child) fascinated with food other people always thought was weird that drew me to it, maybe the desire to eat the unknown, the old, the historic, I don’t know. What is it?…
Wild Rice Flour Crusted Sunfish
I love keeping a little bit of wild rice flour around for projects here and there. There’s a lot of gluten-free flours out there, but none that I’ve come across that pack quite the flavor punch of wild rice flour, amaranth flour coming in a close second. I don’t use wild rice flour specifically because…
Lobster With Yellowfoot Chanterelles and Dandelion Purée
A few years ago my girlfriend asked me the type of question that lets you know someone loves you: “Sweetheart, if you could eat anywhere in Provence, where would you go?” I knew the answer right away, even though I had never really thought I’d be able to go: La Bastide St. Antoine in Grasse,…