Sumerian pigeon soup is a love letter on pigeons being worthy for the table, and an example of how I get inspired by historical texts. I like variety, and my collection of food references spans everything from Greco-Roman Apicius, Archestratus, and Byzantine Geoponika, to the more modern A Discourse of Sallets and The Little House…
Poultry
Chicken of the Woods Wild Rice Casserole
It’s getting colder outside, and I’m starting to crave that cold weather food. Stews and braises have happened already happened, but one thing that’s been gnawing at me was a good, solid casserole. Coming from the Midwest, I have casserole in my blood, and there’s nothing like the classic chicken wild rice casserole laced with…
Braised Pheasant Legs In Morel Sauce
I love my Grandma, and occasionally I re-invent dishes of hers I’ve eaten over the years. Grandpa loves Grandma’s pheasant breasts cooked in a can of Campbells golden mushroom soup. Braised pheasant legs with morel sauce is my version of that family classic. I originally made this as a dinner for them on one of…
Watercress Omelet with Herbs (Green Eggs and Ham)
When I was in college, I cooked constantly (not much has changed). One of the things I often made for my roomates in our cramped house, besides big bowls of hummus, was colored scrambled eggs. Typically they were red eggs, with a little tomato puree, or hot chili. To this day, I don’t really understand…
Unlaid Eggs
For the most part, we don’t appreciate older animals much. We want things young, tender, and easy to chew. Old dairy cattle are an unwanted, tough by-product of industry, the same goes for old milking ewes (and their unwanted male offspring necessary to keep them producing goat milk for cheese). Old laying hens are the…
Cibreo: Renaissance Chicken Livers on Toast
Cibreo, also known as everything-but-the-cluck stew, is an interesting Italian sauce off the beaten path of the usual tomato sauces, ragus, sugos, and things you might associate with Italian cooking. It’s a literal, visceral celebration of chicken, and speaks to a time when nothing was wasted. Not. A. Thing. This version is basically a little…
Turkey Wild Rice Soup with Black Trumpets
As far as food is concerned, the main course for holidays will change here and there. One year it’s a ham for Christmas, the next year we’ll smoke a prime rib. One thing that’s constant is somewhere along the line there’s probably turkey at one of the gatherings I’ll attend, either for my girlfriend’s family…
Grouse Wild Rice with Wild Mushrooms
While I was up north hunting matsutake last week, I completely forgot that I was going to be hunting at the same time as grouse season opener. As I walked on the trails I’d charted, it seemed like every 30 minutes or so I’d inadvertently flush a few birds. After two birds made me jump…
Vietnamese Coral Mushroom-Chicken Noodle Soup
I’ve been working on recipes with Rau-Ram, or Vietnamese coriander, as it’s basically my new favorite herb. If you don’t like cilantro, you should probably close your browser immediately, and walk away slowly from the computer, using your fingers to form a crucifix. Trust me, it may not be in the cilantro family, but the…
WildFed: The Pigeon Hunt
Pigeons were the first fowl domesticated by man, but we’ve moved a long way from what they used to be: companions used for communication, and sustenance. Only 200 years ago, owning a few breeds of “fancy” pigeons would have been seen as a worthwhile hobby like falconry, as well as fashionable, in the Victorian era….
Pigeon Pie
I talked to a hunter last year and told him I was excited to harvest pigeons. He laughed, looked at me like I was idiot, and told me he shoots them and throws them in the woods as they’re not worth eating. I kept my mouth shut. Now, I’ve never really been a hunter, spending…
Goose Confit Glazed with Wild Grape
This past Summer I really became aware of the presence of geese. You see them so often it’s easy for them to blend in and look like just like any other animal doing their thing. They’re a kind of menace though, and have been wreaking havoc on the watercress pond, and just being pests in…
Crock Pot Stock and Bone Broth
Guess what? You can make higher quality stock than the majority of professional chefs in the restaurant industry at home using a crock pot. Story goes last year I read a book about the science of home cooking from J Kenji Lopez-Alt, the man behind the intensive blog at Serious Eats. The book won the…