Oh how I love cauliflower mushrooms. Sparassis radicata, Sparassis crispa–I don’t care if they come from the East Coast, West Coast, or Timbuktu, all I know is that they don’t grow in the Midwest, for all intents and purposes. Once in a while, when our fall mushroom season winds down in Minnesota, I might order…
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.
Angelos Dried Wild Mushroom Ragu
A simple ragu of wild mushrooms was one of the recipes on the saute station back in the day when I was working at the now-closed Trattoria Da Vinci under Chef Angelo Volpicelli. Angelo was super talented, barely spoke English, and had owned his own restaurant in Rome for 12 years. Twelve years is a…
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,…
Wild Mushroom Tacos
If you’re a mushroom hunter, the thought of making wild mushrooms tacos has probably crossed your mind, as it has mine. The thing is, wild mushroom tacos aren’t some gringo adaptation, or heretical thing, they’re actually a traditional way of preparing mushrooms in certain parts of Mexico, specifically (to my knowledge, chime in if you…
Grilled Hen of the Woods with Ginger-Soy Vinaigrette
There’s something so primal about a big hen of the woods and breaking off giant clusters to cook whole like a piece of meat, there a great entry level mushroom too, easy to identify, big in size, typically worm-free, delicious. I don’t know any cooking technique more raw than cooking over burning wood, so…
Shaggy Mane Ink
“Leave mushrooms on the counter until they turn into a black, inky mess, then puree this goop and eat it” sounds like instructions in a recipe for someone on a quest to make themselves sick. For the unfamiliar, Shaggies are part of a group of mushrooms called inky caps because the mushrooms quickly turn to…
Mushroom Fricasee Fredy Girardet
Old cookbooks are a wealth of knowledge. Back in the day, it didn’t matter how many art directors were on set for the photo shoot, and how many different plate props you had, good food was just good food. One of my favorite old books is Fredy Girardet, a famous Swiss chef who reached the…
Honey Truffles
I love working with truffles, so when a truffle hunter from Hungary and his friend asked me if I’d contribute to a new book on truffles they were writing by sampling Honey truffles (Mattirolomyces terfezioides) fresh from the earth, shipped direct from Hungary, I agreed (and squealed with joy). Shipping mushrooms across the pond is…
Matsutake Fried Rice
If you’re skilled enough to have access to wild matsutake mushrooms (or lucky, or know a have a nice friend), fried rice needs to be in your rotation. Matsutake are strange creatures, even though we know they grow in places outside of Japan and Korea where they’re especially treasured (PNW, Scandinavia, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Maine, Ontario,…
Heirloom Acorn Squash with Truffled Maple, Honey Truffles and Butternuts
A while back I was contacted by a truffle hunter and soon to be author from Hungary wanting to know if I could contribute some recipes to a book on Honey Truffles (Mattirolomyces terfezioides). They offered to ship some to me direct from Hungary for the project, and being a fan both of truffles and…
Oven Fried Shrimp of the Woods
Fall is here, and one thing I know I can always count on are aborted entoloma / Entoloma abortivum / shrimp of the woods, no matter how bad the maitake are teasing me. If you have some, oven frying the arboreal crustaceans is a recipe you’re going to want to bookmark. As long as you…
Shrimp of the Woods Scampi
It’s that time of year again, time for a nice mushroom with a generally horrible name to start oozing and popping it’s way out of the Earth. I like to use the name shrimp of the woods as their texture is slightly similar, but, the majority of people are still going to know them by…
Candied Black Trumpets
Candied mushrooms? Like, with sugar?? Hard pass. Candied mushrooms are the sort of frou-frou B.S. I’d expect 15 year old me to try making, or a young cook still trying to figure out what a palette is. Honestly, I found the idea so annoying it was nearly offensive. These are mushrooms we’re talking about, I…