I have a few friends in particular that go out every year for morels and consistently can’t grab enough for a meal. But, one thing they can usually count on are a few dryad saddles / pheasant backs (Cerioporus squamosus). The flavor is strong, and some people don’t care for it, but, however you feel…
Preserves
Venison Pot Roast with Chanterelle Stuffing
I was a good mushroom hunter last year, and made plenty of chanterelle duxelles for the Winter, both to save freezer space and as I love having a seasoned concentrate around. There’s lots talk about making duxelles, but definitely not as much illustating the actual uses of the finished product. With that in mind, I…
Grilled Hen of the Woods Duxelles
We’ve all been there, you came upon your hen tree, or maybe you just stumbled on a new one, and it’s packed with pounds and pounds of clean, fresh hens. Finding them was the easy part. Now comes the work of bringing them home, along with hours of cleaning, cooking and processing. With mushrooms so…
Woodchuck Salad with Hickory Nut Oil and Squash
When I was in Costa Rica I ordered a tuna salad at a little restaurant and throwing the cautionary tales of eating only cooked food to the wind (which I later paid for after drinking a couple drinks with ice) in order to have as big a variety of local food as possible. The salad…
Warm Pickled Chanterelles with Brie, Sourdough and Wild Greens
I’ve mentioned a number of times about the benefits of my low acid conserve recipe. It’s easy to think of pickled chanterelles and other mushrooms purely as something to eat cold of out a jar, but that’s not why I pickle them. I preserve mushrooms in acidic liquid since it’s the best way to keep…
Chicken Breast with Crispy Skin and Duxelle Pan Sauce
You had a great mushroom hunting season, you crushed the chanterelles, boletes, and all the mushrooms you wanted to get. You made duxelles, and put some in the freezer for a rainy day in the off-season. Great, but now what do you do with the duxelles? Duxelles in stuffings and such is great, but one…
Dryad Saddle Relish
It’s springtime again, and with it comes the onslaught of Dryad saddle, a.k.a pheasant back mushrooms here in Minnesota. With so many fresh ingredients available at once, I often preserve things to make sure everything gets used and to save time and shelf life of stuff I’ve worked so hard to pick. This preserve I…
Kale Tart + Mushroom Conserve
This smooth forest-green tart is a recipe from my time as sous chef at Heartland. We had two daily changing tasting menus: one vegetarian, one meat. The vegetarian menu was always the tricky one for me, as cooking good meat by comparison, is easy, you just cook it. Sure, you can always do something like…
Dried Morel Butter
Over the past few years I’ve had a few chats about creating value added products for commercial outlets or things like that, which is a lot easier to talk about than actually do. One of the first things people mention to me is: “You could make wild mushroom butter!”. I nod and agree it’s good,…
Lactarius Indigo Vinaigrette
I went through a phase where whenever I found Lactarius indigo growing I tried to come up with preparations that would keep their blue color. This is one of the more interesting ones: a blue mushroom vinaigrette. It’s not the type of vinaigrette you’re going to throw on a salad, since you won’t be able…
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…
Potted Chanterelles
Every thing that’s edible has different stages of growth, and some stages are better than others. Broccoli, cauliflower and romanesco for instance, get very bitter after they’ve bolted and gone to flower. If they’re not harvested young enough, chickens tend to get tough, and need to be marinated and cooked low and slow for good…
Shad Roe With Pickled Morels And Bacon
Want to impress your friends with a little known Spring delicacy? Well here you go, It’s shad roe. Basically this is the egg filled ovary of a fish related to herring, it’s a Spring treat, and one of the forgotten treasures of our American culinary heritage. It was eaten seasonally by the Native Americans,…