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…
Fish/Seafood
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…
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,…
Braised Halibut With Chanterelles and Acorn Oil
One of my favorite things is talking to people about ingredients we’re both excited about. Last Spring I met my friend Francois who’s from France and now helps organize the logistics and sourcing of a well known restaurant in Duluth. He’d been following my work for a bit and made it down to the Slow…
Rainbow Trout Meuniere With Wild Capers
Spring is here and with it all sorts of little tender buds will be here soon. After cooking root vegetables and sauerkraut throughout a Minnesota winter, I’m pretty ravenous to find any little green thing at all. Here’s a recipe that celebrates that. Your classic meuniere, or “in the style of the miller’s wife” is…
Salmon With 6 Lilies and Saffron
Here’s a recipe with one of my favorite themes: members of the onion/lily family. I’ve shared a couple recipes that kind of function as a study in lilies, another being a spring version with sunflower seed crusted whitefish and trout lily. I borrowed the idea years ago from Mario Batali in his Babbo cookbook–one of…
Buckwheat Sole With Red Chanterelles and Carrot Ribbons
It’s chanterelle season again, and I was lucky enough to grab a few reds, which are a little hard to come by in my area. I wanted to make a dish that would compliment them, something easy, uncomlicated. Their aroma makes me think of vegetables that are sweet, in this case some carrots. It’s a…
Seared Tenderloins with Hericiums and King Crab
It’s been a while since I’ve seen some good fruiting of hericiums in Minnesota-a couple years. It’s not that I don’t have anywhere to go and pick them, it’s just that as is the case with hen of the woods and chickens, sometimes they skip a year or two and you won’t see them at…
Scallops Crudo, With Wild Szechuan Peppercorn Sauce And Sumac
Last year I got to cook for a chef from Italy I used to cook under for his anniversary. I wanted to showcase a couple wild ingredients to show my old chef what I learned, some super fresh scallops with a sauce made from wild Szechuan peppercorns and sprinkled with a little tangy sumac was…
Shad Roe With Pickled Morels And Bacon
Want to impress your friends with a little known Spring delicacy? Well here you go, It’s shad roe. Basically this is the egg filled ovary of a fish related to herring, it’s a Spring treat, and one of the forgotten treasures of our American culinary heritage. It was eaten seasonally by the Native Americans,…