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Forager Chef

Foraging and Cooking Mushrooms, Wild and Obscure Food

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Purslane

Purslane

Purslane, or Portulaca oleracea is one of the most ubiquitous, underused wild greens out there. It’s a juxtaposition in and of itself, as you can find it growing out of a crack in the road, but also at Asian grocery stores, farmers markets and on the tables of some very nice restaurant. It’s truly a poster child for the dysfunctional way that society perceives wild plants.

I’d read about purslane in a few books on herbs and greens, and I was exited to try them out when my sous chef brought some in from the farmer’s market. I tried some right away and was intrigued by the chewy texture of the stem, and the slightly tart taste. Not quite as tart as sorrel, but still with a little bit of zip. It’s a funky sort of flavor.

Braised Purslane with Tomato and Duck Fat

Mexican style purslane with tomato, jalapeno, lard and onion.

Habitat

The hardest thing with purslane is knowing where to get some. It grows out of the sidewalk just about everywhere you look, but personally I don’t really want to eat those. What you want, is a garden, or a friends garden.

Purslane loves disturbance, like so many delicious wild greens, and the more you pull it out of the ground, the more it seems to want to come back. The good part, is that when you go through and weed out the purslane, instead of tossing it in the compost, or leaving it to smother the garden crops, you can take it home and cook it.

Other cultures have known about eating purslane for a long time, especially in Latin America where it’s known as verdolagas, as well as in Spain and Portugal. In those places, cooking purslane is common, but especially in Mexico where it’s often made with lard, tomato, onion, and jalapeno.

See a version of that here. Anytime I was in a kitchen and want to start up a conversation with a new employee from South America, all I had to do was ask them if they liked verdolagas and, just like that, they’d instantly take a shine to me. The deep appreciation for specific culinary plants, the sort of love for respect for eating them that transcends class and location is a cultural thing, and something I think Americans could learn a lot from.

Purslane

I like to separate the clusters of greens from the larger stem sometimes, but all of it is edible. If I wilt and cook it, I may leave more of the larger stem portion attached.

Cooking

Speaking of cooking, generally when I use purslane, I eat it raw. All I do is wash little clusters of it and throw it into a salad or on top of a piece of fish–that’s it. A lot of recipes are out there for cooked purslane though, so it can definitely be done, but know that the texture changes and it can get a little slippery and the flavor gets stronger, if you can believe that. My advice is to try it raw and make sure you like it first, then

I’ve had a lot of fun building little salads of Purslane and other ingredients. With it’s chunky shape, it can be picked into pieces of say, two leaf clusters at a time, then tossed with some ingredients of roughly the same size, like quartered cherry tomatoes, small pieces of artichokes, diced potato, chopped green beans or peas, chickpeas or small lentils, or whatever else you want and make a nice composed salad.

Watermelon Salad With Purslane, Goat Cheese, Jalapeno, and Anise Hyssop

It’s great with watermelon, or another chunky salad in the summer.

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Previous Post: « Hen of the Woods or Maitake Mushroom
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  1. Forager|Chef – Purslane Panzanella With Golden Cucumbers And Lemon Basil says:
    October 16, 2013 at 11:20 pm

    […] See my basic notes here on Purslane […]

    Reply
  2. Cooking with Broccoli Leaves says:
    December 10, 2020 at 10:40 am

    […] was walking through one of the large gardens at my girlfriends family farm, clipping some weeds (purslane, amaranth) to bring to the restaurant that grow in between the rows of broccoli. I’d cooked […]

    Reply

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Some nice wild enoki clones from @unkle_fungus Can Some nice wild enoki clones from @unkle_fungus Cant wait until these start popping up when the snow melts. The difference between the coloration of wild ones (pic 1) and cultivated that are white from the lack of sun (pic 2) is always interesting to compare. (The cultivated ones are a different species of Flammulina too). 

We’re really lucky to have such a vibrant community of small, local mushroom growers and related makers. Feel free to tag your favorite you like or one I should know about in the comments. 

#enokimushroom #mushroomgrowers #flammulinavelutipes #blanche #allthemushroomtags #wintermushrooms
Celebrated my birthday last night with a few stiff Celebrated my birthday last night with a few stiff spruce’n’sodas. The spruce tip liquor I collaborated on with @ida_graves_distillery drinks like a mildly piney gin. Dangerously easy to drink. #sprucetips #craftliquor #drinkatree #itsmybirthdaybitches #im25again
Social media can be a wall-to-wall, endless string Social media can be a wall-to-wall, endless string of triumphs. We all know reality isn’t like that, so with the snow melting here, I thought I’d share a funny maple season fail with you (at the time it was not funny).

I was making maple soda out of sap, sweetfern and syrup that I like. I’d kept the glass bottle of soda in the fridge for a couple weeks, waiting for a good time to get to it. I’d started the mother batch with a pinch of commercial champagne yeast, which is vigorous stuff. 

One night I got up and poured myself a glass of water, and sleepily forgot to close the fridge all the way, which increased the temp. A few hours later I woke up to what sounded like a grenade going off. 

The bottle exploded and the inside of the fridge, all its contents, and the floor were covered with sticky maple juice, and I spent the next two hours mopping and picking out shards of glass that had embedded themselves like shrapnel in the walls of the fridge. 

Now, I use plastic restaurant cambros to make carbonated drinks. 💫

#fermentationfails #fail #soda #fermentation #explosions #dontrythisathome
My chief editorial assistant about to do backflips My chief editorial assistant about to do backflips for smoked goat kidneys. 

If you would have asked me a few years ago if I would see myself writing recipes (and filming videos) on making dog treats I would have laughed. 

But, working with @shepherdsongfarm, trying to figure out creative, economical methods for butchery and whole carcass utilization for lamb and goat has pushed my creativity into new places. Grateful for that. 💫

If you get down on kidneys, I have a good version for humans on my site too. A good piece of charcuterie to know. 

Hand model @pgerasimo 

#grassfed #goat #eatmoregoat #kidneys #offal #dogtreats #rescuepitbull #editorialassistant
7pm ET tonight on @the_outdoor_channel I take @dan 7pm ET tonight on @the_outdoor_channel I take @danielvitalis hunting for mushrooms and pigeons in WI, then I cook dinner on the farm for @wild.fed, his outdoors series that shows that wild food is much more than just meat. 

If you don’t have the outdoor channel, you could use the free trial of @frndlytv that will let you watch it live. 

Finished dishes I did were pigeon brochettes with rams bacon, sunflower roulades and wild cherry sauce and pigeon, sweet corn and wild mushroom stew. 

#mushroomhunting #wildfed #foragerchef #outdoorchannel #pigeon #foraging
After watching an old episode of Munchies (see You After watching an old episode of Munchies (see YouTube/Vice) I scribbled down a prep for yellow foot chanterelles a Swedish food truck was making. They took flatbread (tonnebrod, but I use lefse, because 🇳🇴💪) piled high with hot yellowfeet and fresh kraut, mayo, Västerbotten cheese (fontina or Hushållsost are ok subs). 

It’s one of the best ways I’ve had yellowfeet, like a funky, cheese, Nordic burrito. Just killer. 

I even forgot my lefse and served some to family in a couple BS flour tortillas Grandma had (heresy, IK) —still didn’t suck. 

Props to @ingebretsens in Mpls for making their own lefse since my Norwegian Grandma wasn’t  around. I channeled her though. 

#midwestwinter #lefse #lefseforlife #youbetcha #oleandlenawouldbeproud #yellowfootchanterelles #wildmushrooms
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