I had a nice hike the other day casually looking for chanterelles and boletes. It was a little windy, which is great since it’ll keep the bugs at bay. I went over to one of my patches, picked what I could, and headed back to the car-chanterelles haven’t seemed to explode like I’d hoped this…
Four-Legged
Ramp Leaf Sausage
A couple years ago, my friend, chef, and mentor Andy told me one of his favorite ways to use ramp bulbs was to put them through the grinder with meat while he makes sausage or grinds burger meat. I thought it sounded awesome and had to try making a version for myself: it was terrible….
Rabbit Poached In Wild Carrot Broth With Chanterelles
I love rabbit, If you’ve never had it, you could compare it’s flavor to turkey: it’s sweet, tender, and mild. A little tradition that my boss instilled in me is serving rabbit with carrots. Far from being morbid, the pairing is a natural one. Now if you’ve read children’s stories like Beatrix Potter, you know…
Crispy Pork Snout with Black Truffle
The last time I visited the Butcher Block restaurant in Minneapolis, Chef Fillipo Caffari gave us a tour of the kitchen. Fillipo moved here from Rome, where he used to be a butcher. I haven’t worked directly under him except for one or two special dinners, but I always admired the magic he works with…
Basic Steak and Morel Sauce
Out of all the things that can be made with dried morels, this is one of my favorites. Everybody loves a good steak, and the addition of mushrooms is classic. Using morels instead of cultivated mushrooms brings this basic combination to new heights. I’ll let you in on a little secret of mine too: when…
Dan Farmer’s Maitake-Swiss Burger
Making friends with other mushroom hunters can be a bit awkward from my experience, you want to share, but you don’t. If you meet another hunter out in the field, you are hunting the same areas, and that means you’re competing. You might give each other a knowing glance or nod, or take out your…
Sweet and Sour Venison-Honey Mushroom Soup
Hot and sour soup! Is it Asian food? Nope. Asian cuisine is not the only one to take advantage of the awesome combination of sweet and sour. There is another locale that values the combo of sweet and sour, and it’s Eastern Europe. Just thinking about a bowl of sour, sweet, meaty soup makes my…
How To Cook Brains
In our era, nose-to-tail eating and honoring the whole animal is a dying art, and, even among those who occasionally eat organ meats, brains are a one-off, and occupy a curious place in the hierarchy of organ meats. For the culinary purposes of this post, I’m only speaking about brains I’ve eaten: pork, lamb,…
Beef Tartare With Ramp Vinaigrette And Pickled Maitake
Beef tartare conjures mixed feelings in people, those who truly know what it can be love it, people who haven’t had a nicely prepared one might think it’s a little strange, since raw meat can seem a little weird if you aren’t used to it. When you have some high quality beef though, there are…