When I’m hunting Hen of the Woods, aborted entolomas can get passed up as I scan the trees for a white oak with a giant mushroom at it’s base. It’s a shame to pass them up since aborted entolomas are so easy to hunt and cook, but if every mushroom tasted as good as every…
Other Wild Mushrooms
Lobster Mushroom Pavé
Once again, lobster mushroom season has left me shocked at the amount of fungus a single patch of ground can produce. The years of wandering my patches looking for them has changed the mushrooms I tend to pick though. When I first started picking lobster mushrooms I would pick everything that wasn’t rotten. Mushrooms that…
Wild Mushroom Tartine with Purslane and Pickled Vegetables
It’s the heart of wild mushroom season in the Midwest, the boom time when you can go to your favorite patch and come home with all sorts of different types. Multiple types of chanterelles, chicken and maybe hen of the woods, Aborted Entoloma, Lactifluus, lobster mushrooms, various black trumpets, coral mushrooms/Ramaria, Hygrophorus, all manner of…
On Cooking False Morels / Gyromitra
Behold Gyromitra, scourge of the morel hunter, the terror of Spring! I can still remember the first time I saw one, I felt insulted. I knew they were deadly from seeing a picture of them with a skull and crossbones in a guide, even seeing them was scary. They were some sort of desecration of…
Lobster Mushroom Rice Pilaf
It can be tricky to get lobster mushrooms to take on a flavor that resembles their name. Cooked fresh, they need a little help sometimes. They fruit heavily during their season where I live in Minnesota, and I’ve found myself with more than I can use within a few days after picking plenty of times….
Cauliflower Mushrooms with Dandelion Farfalle
Cauliflower mushrooms have such a great shape and texture. They’re big and fluffy like a hen of the woods, but unlike a hen, they don’t keep that texture when cooked, instead they deflate a bit and end up having the texture of noodles, so when I have some cauliflowers around I love to sneak in…
Caramelized Puffball Puree
Generally speaking puffballs are large, very large. Most of them that I find can’t even be put in a refrigerator. I luck out since I have giant walk in coolers where storing food of any size is no problem at all. At home this poses an obstacle though. I have lots of friends that hunt…
Thoughts on Ramarias / Coral Mushrooms
One of my personal heroes, mycologist David Arora recently put up a social media post on different cultures that eat Ramarias (various species of coral mushrooms). In a nutshell, he talked about the variety of Ramaria species and the supposed intestinal distress that deters American mushroom hunters from eating them, then shows evidence to the…
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…
Lobster Mushroom Cakes (Video)
Here’s another fun video from photographer Chris Bohnhoff and myself. We’ve been trying to shoot a couple videos each year together as a collaborative/creative project. We both have our main gigs, Chris being a professional shooter of photos and video, and myself running the Salt Cellar. Even so, if you’ve ever known a creative, you…
Lobster Mushroom Cakes
Nothings says a good morning like a bag of giant lobster mushrooms. Their size can be stunning, along with their heartiness against bugs. But, when push comes to shove, they can be bland simply fried up in a pan, compared with something like a morel or a chanterelle which can be at their best cooked…
Lobster Mushroom Hollandaise
This happened during a night in the kitchen at Heartland. It was one of those days where the other guys on the line and I would shoot ideas back and forth during service, trying to come up with the best things to make with what the season gave us. That night, we were in the…
Beef Tartare With Shaved Mushrooms and Ramp Vinaigrette
Update Over the years, I’ve never had a problem consuming small amounts of these mushrooms, but, some experiments in India that have been discussed in the comment section in this post are building evidence for the case that people who consume Xylaria could be exposed to certain mushroom toxins, specifically amatoxin. Until we know more…