Venison shanks (any shanks, really) make great soup and stews, and this one, with Mexican flavors of dried beans and huitlacoche, is fantastic. Originally I was trying to recreate a soup my mother described to me from a trip to Mazatlan, but, instead of the brothy soup I intended, it turned into a more stick-to-your…
Recipes for Fresh Wild Mushrooms
Fresh mushrooms work in two basic ways: as the main ingredient in a recipe, or as a supporting character working in the background. Here you'll find a little bit of everything.
Fresh Tortillas Stuffed with Huitlacoche and Cheese
When I hired a new prep cook from Oaxaca, one of the first things I asked him about was how mushrooms are traditionally prepared in the region. I remember scribbling down “fresh tortilla with Oaxaca cheese“, assuming it was a sort of quesadilla made with tortillas. I was both write and wrong in my assumption,…
Huitlacoche Tacos
Cooking huitlacoche to make a simple taco filling is probably one of my favorite recipes using the mushroom, it’s also a very traditional huitlacoche recipe, and you can find all kinds of versions of it online, from all over Mexico and the surrounding area. Traditionally, the mushrooms are gathered and typically stewed with onions, garlic,…
Chanterelle Pudding
Chanterelle pudding is an old-school mushroom recipe from the one and only Richard Olney-one of the defining authors of modern French Cuisine (back in the era of Julia Child and James Beard). In his most famous book, Simple French Food, Olney shares a recipe for “mushroom pudding”, a sort of side dish or casserole made…
Pheasant Back Frittata
I love a good frittata, and I use to rely on them for brunch dishes when I wasn’t feeling creative. This frittata I made to use up a nice haul of pheasant back / dryad saddle mushrooms one year, inspired by an herby, slightly spicy omelet I saw French Chef Pierre Gagnierre make. Pheasant back…
Parasol Caps Stuffed with Wild Rice
Large, elegant parasol mushroom caps are basically the hot cousin of regular portobellos from a store. The shape of the caps of both (as well as many others, especially agaricoid mushrooms) makes for great stuffed mushrooms, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that there’s lots of recipes for doing just that. Unfortunately, wild mushrooms…
Raw Porcini Salad with Chickweed, Watercress and Parmesan
I have a couple different ways I’ve shared to enjoy the freshest, most perfect porcini buttons I’ve found. This is one of the more simple ways you might enjoy them, but sometimes less is more. Raw porcini served with parmesan and fresh greens (typically arugula) is a classic Italian salad, and one everyone should try…
Slow Cooked Honeys and Entolomas
If you hunt mushrooms in the fall, you’re probably familiar with honey mushrooms. If you’re familiar with honey mushrooms, you probably know the shrimp of the woods or aborted entoloma. These two mushrooms often grow in close proximity due to one having an effect on the other, so cooking them together as I do here…
Puffball and Squash Gratin with Goat Cheese
Wild mushrooms make fantastic gratins, which is probably evident in that there’s at least 3 separate mushroom gratins on this website. Gratin is a sort of loose word though, and each recipe I’ve put up is very different, since, at the end of the day, the word gratin itself just means baked. Think of gratin…
Puffball Parmesan
Besides fried puffballs, a good puff parmesan is a great thing to know how to make, especially in the Midwest where puffballs can be so abundant. It’s pretty simple: take some crisp fried puffballs, layer them in a pan with homemade tomato sauce, mozzarella cheese, more tomato, a drizzle of white sauce or bechamel and…
Marinated Honey Mushrooms
I cook honey mushrooms all sorts of ways, but these marinated honeys are the first thing you should make if you’re new to them, or if you’re a honey-harvesting veteran who’s looking for something new tricks. They’re delicious, addicting, the perfect compliment to a charcuterie platter, and work warm or cold. Most of us are…
Carpaccio with Beefsteak Mushrooms
Carpaccio, the classic Italian appetizer of tenderized, thinly sliced raw beef served with olive oil, arugula and good parmesan, was one of the first recipes I was taught to prep when I worked for Chef Angelo Volpicelli, the first teacher I can credit with showing me a few of the ins and outs of traditional…
Honey Mushroom Bourgignon
Once the cold weather hits, a good Bourgignon is one of the first things that I usually make each year. If you’re wondering what it is, it’s just beef burgundy (here I use venison neck but another stewing cut will work). You take some stewing meat, soak it in decent red wine overnight, then brown…