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,…
Fish/Seafood
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 meunierre, 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 fruitings 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,…
Rainbow Trout With Pickled Chicken Of The Woods
I came up with the recipe one day when I had a nice rainbow trout on hand. I wanted to start burning through my mushroom pickles too, since I tend to hoard them until the next season and wind up having too much, every year. It’s an easy preparation, and one that I would make…
Stuffed Giant Lobster Mushrooms
After lobster season has been at it for a while, you can find some really large mushrooms. The shape of lobsters can be irregular, but you can always count on a couple here and there that are big and concave-more than once I’ve heard my friends refer to them as giant tacos. If you’re like…
Swordfish With Lobster Mushroom Stuffing
This is what happens when you have extra swordfish samples laying around, and need to start using up duxelles from a great lobster mushroom season. I can’t remember where I got the idea, but I’ve been making this for years. Here’s the jist: you take a thin piece of swordfish in the middle of each…
Cornmeal Catfish, Bergamot Salmoriglio Sauce, Tomato-Corn Salad
Here’s a great way to use that bergamot salmoriglio sauce: as a summery garnish to a piece of fish. Catfish is a great, often overlooked fish in restaurants, it’s meaty, and juicy, not to mention cheap. Fried in a crispy dredge of some seasoned cornmeal, it’s the beginning of a great meal. Summer time means…
Gamberoni Portofino, With Porcini-Soy Cream
This is a very special recipe to me. At first glance it looks like some shrimp with vegetables and mushrooms. In reality, it’s a snap shot of my formative years as a cook, when I was working under a man from Rome I adored; trying to learn all that I could from him. In…