I try to remember to dry as much stuff as I can to use during the Winter, which if you live in the Midwest you know can mean a lot of time in doors fighting cabin fever and looking for things to do. Inevitably I usually have plenty of bergamot (Monarda fistulosa) every year since…
Charcuterie
Corned Venison Heart
At Thanksgiving this year, I was wandering around my girlfriend’s family farm in Wisconsin. I went outside to check on someone when I spotted something sitting on the grill outside (it’s cold enough at thanksgiving to refrigerate things outdoors, as most people who’ve brined a turkey in the Midwest know). Sitting on the grill was…
Winter Greens With Lentils, Chicken Heart Confit and Hedgehog Mushrooms
As the head of purchasing for the restaurant I have plenty of local purveyors I buy food from but there’s one that stands out from the others. He isn’t technically local, but he might as well be. His name is George Weppler, and in the Twin Cities there’s plenty of restaurants that would like to…
Peacock Thigh Confit, With Chanterelles and Leeks
As I was dreaming up how to make a 4 year old peacock taste good, I knew right away some of it would be made into confit. There’s a transformation that happens with meat with bones in it or ribbons of fat after it’s been seasoned and poached slowly in lard at a low temperature…
Peacock Neck Sausage
American culture has a predilection for looking at exotic food from safe distances. We want to watch shows about eating bugs and snakes, but the majority of us would balk if someone tried to feed them to us. We’re fascinated by foods we deem strange, but that fascination is strictly for the value of the…
Spruce Ham
A while ago I was having fun working with my old boss Andy, now executive chef of Oxcart Ale House in St. Paul while he did recipe development in my kitchen before opening the restaurant. He started out with the most difficult stuff: dialing in the from-scratch charcuterie program, which is similar to what I…
Goose Confit with Blackcap Raspberries
In my search for interesting and funky fruit, sometimes I forget about the things I’ve known about all along. Even if you don’t pick wild berries, you probably know the black cap. They’re easy to find, and most people don’t need a field guide to know what a raspberry looks like. That being said, there’s…
Duck Liver-Crab Apple Mousse, With Elderberry Jelly
If you’re a hunter of wild things, there’s a natural habit you get into: you keep going back to the places you know where things grow you like, since you can count on it. If you’re like me, your time is precious, and you want to make the most of it. This year, I didn’t…
Bacon Fat-Turkey Gizzard Confit
Smoked pork fat. Is there anything it can’t make delicious? I don’t think so. Bacon has been on my mind lately, since at the new restaurant we’ll be going through a lot of the stuff. I don’t know how much yet, but it will be a lot. 3-4 whole pork bellies, or more a week…
Classic Pork Headcheese
When I heard that suckling pigs were coming into the kitchen at Heartland, I squealed with joy. I knew that the heads would be leftover since they wouldn’t give up the amount of meat a large pig would for our typical headcheese. I begged the butcher to save the heads for me, so I could…
Pheasant Thigh Confit With Herbs
If you’re from the Midwest, no doubt you’ve enjoyed some pheasant cooked in mushroom soup, or maybe even a plucked, skin-on breast if you have a friend who really knows how to cook them. There are other parts of the bird that are great too, here’s a fun way to treat one of the more…
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….
Dried Morel-Pheasant Paté Chaud Froid
The culinary possibilities of working with fresh mushrooms are infinite, and dried mushrooms are no different. Cooking with dried shrooms can take some know-how and experience though; it can be heartbreaking when something doesn’t work out since a lot of time went into picking them. There is nothing worse than making a nice dinner with…