My old chef and I were out morel hunting in a new spot in Wisconsin this week, and, unfortunately, we got skunked. Thankfully there were a few old-timers on the same patch of land who hunt it every year who came up empty handed too, so I didn’t feel too bad. As is pretty common…
Fresh Mushroom Recipes
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.
Crispy Gyromitra Mushrooms
I finally got to eat my first Gyromitra caroliniana, also known as the “Big Red”. Where I live on the border of Minnesota and Wisconsin we have a number of Gyromitra that I’ve eaten, well two species to be exact (Gyromitra korfii and Gyromitra Brunnea) and they’re ok. Gyromitra caroliniana is special in a number…
Fried Yellowfoot Chanterelle Mushrooms
Yellowfoot chanterelles are a great, underused cousin compared to golden chanterelles and black trumpets, and while many of them are small, sometimes the ones sold out of the Pacific Northwest can be just as large, if not larger than some of the golden chanterelles and black trumpets I harvest in the Midwest. I made these…
Fermented Wild Mushroom Pierogi
Fermented mushroom pierogi, along with a few different sauces I’ve made (dryad saddle shoyu/soy sauce) are the most delicious things I’ve made with fermented mushrooms yet. Fermented mushrooms are a concentrate, they’re not something I’m going to go and just eat out of a jar, especially if they’ve been long-fermented and have turned soft. The…
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…
Wild Rice Dolmas wild Mushroom Duxelles
Stuffed grape leaves are one of Nature’s perfect foods, and stuffing them with a mushroom and natural wild rice filling is a great variation on the classic, more well-known version with lamb, known as dolmas or dolmades. If you have some duxelles, it’s also a good wild mushroom recipe for using up the stash. Vegetarian…
Crab Stuffed Morel Mushrooms
Stuffed morels filled with crab meat napped with melted butter, a dusting of breadcrumbs and baked to a golden brown are a classic, and make for a great appetizer made with both fresh or dried mushrooms. With the end of winter coming, I thought it was about time I start really using up the previous…
Sesame Enoki Pancakes
As most of you know, I will make cakes and fritters out of just about anything. Wild enoki and sesame pancakes (cultivated are fine too) are a great variation on that theme, but they’re also a good example of how you can steer lots of dishes in different directions by carefully choosing your ingredients. Here’s…
