A few years ago I had the pleasure of having dinner at my friend, Author and food writer Stephen Hoffman’s house. We started the dinner with the visual and interactive French classic eclade de moules (mussels cooked in pine needles) moved onto a nice salad with anchovy dressing, and a dish of slow-cooked halibut with…
Soup
Ajiaco con Guascas
Ajiaco, a stew of multiple types of various potatoes, poultry, and corn, is a famous Latin American dish probably best known around the world as being Colombian, although there are different permutations enjoyed in different places, like Peru and Cuba, to name a few, each with slight variations. A riff on the Colombian version is…
Pheasant Back-Spring Vegetable Soup
Here’s a great recipe to celebrate some of the young growing plants of spring: a simple, brothy soup made from green garlic or wild onions, pheasant back mushrooms, a spring shoot/vegetable of your choice (I used fiddleheads and elm samaras) wild rice or another grain, and a little meat broth or whatever you have on…
Nettle Soup with Ham from Extramadura
I’ve been in love with researching traditional uses of nettles around the world, and soup is one of the standbys that seem to be omnipresent wherever nettles are eaten. This delicious Spanish nettle soup scented with Jamon Serrano and thickened with cornmeal is a bit different than others I’ve come across, and can make for…
Wild Spring Vegetable Soup aux Pistou
Every year in the spring one of the first things I do is make a few dishes that are pure spring on a plate, or in a bowl as the case may be here. Vegetable soup aux pistou is a classic French recipe for vegetable soup, and one that’s perfect for celebrating springs bounty of…
Wild Mushroom Chowder
A good, simple chowder made with wild mushrooms has been a reader request for a while here that I finally got around to posting. It comes together in just under an hour, and is a good way to use some fresh or dried wild mushrooms if you need a bowl of comfort food. A soup…
Hot and Sour Soup with Wood Ears and Yellowfeet
I’ve been saving a bag of wood ear mushrooms my friend from Forest Mushrooms gave me the last time I saw him for a good batch of hot and sour soup for months. Wood ears are special in that, after rehydrating they’re nearly indistinguishable from their fresh state. Finally I got around to using them…
Hedgehog Mushroom Soup with Beans, Watercress and Tomato
I love hedgehog mushrooms (especially the giant ones) but during the off-season here in Minnesota I sometimes cook with the smaller Hydnum umbillicatum that are sold commercially out of the PNW during our winter when I have a craving for fresh mushrooms. Hedgehogs are great in just about anything you’d add them to, but I love…
Dried Venison Soup with Timpsila (Bapa Wohanpi)
Venison bapa wohanpi soup is a rich stew made from all-dried ingredients that makes for a delicious, creative meal in the winter. After I cooked my venison trotters, the first thing I wanted to make was a traditional Lakota bison hoof soup, but, once I saw how much meat I got off the venison trotters,…
Smoked Venison Neck Chili
I love a good bowl of chili, and smoked venison chili is a great one. Deer chili is probably one of the most trusty recipes a lot of people who cook game keep around as it’s a great place to toss a couple pounds of ground or stew meat: just forget about it for a…
Wild Mushroom Tom Kha Gai (Thai Coconut Soup)
Oh this is a good one, and a recipe for chicken of the woods (or other wild mushrooms like hen of the woods) I’ve been meaning to get up for a while. Tom kha gai is a classic Thai soup typically using chicken, mushrooms, coconut milk, and a few aromatics. It’s a well known soup,…
Smoked Rams Head Posole
Some people might say an image of an animal head is unappealing, down right spooky. What I think is unnerving is the fact that we’re disconnected from where our meat comes from. More and more, and I feel like most Americans just can’t deal with the fact that the meat they eat had a life,…
Honey Mushroom Gulyas / Goulash
Honey Mushroom Goulash / Gulyas has been in the works for years over here, and I’m excited to finally share it with you. It’s without a doubt, one of the best things I’ve had with them, and, it’s pretty traditional, more or less. I know I’ll get some contentious comments about my creative liberties here,…