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Kale Tart + Mushroom Conserve

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Kale tart,with a chanterelle mushroom salad

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 make homemade pasta, useful for all its sizes and variations, but there’s something to be said for a well-executed vegetarian entree that’s not pasta, or a giant cooked vegetable, or some conglomeration of vegetables.

One week I thought of a new dish a sort of dinosaur kale and parmesan custard that I would bake in a crust on sheet trays, and then cut out into little rounds. You can make them in advance, and they take well to lots of different garnishes throughout the season when dark, leafy greens are growing. My boss liked it too, and we ended up putting a home version of it in his book Heartland: Farm Forward Recipes From the Great Midwest a few years ago.

lacinato kale or dino kale

When I made this tart, I was just starting to think critically about how I used my camera, and a job perk I will be forever grateful for is the time I got to spend with photographer and friend Tom Thulen on the book. The kale tart, one of the simplest things, ended up being one of the longest shoots, taking about 2.5 hours. Seeing the end photos inspired me and I had to go home, make another pie, and try to recreate the magic Tom did.

For home cooking, it isn’t practical to bake large trays and cut out rounds like I originally did for restaurant service as I’d sell anywhere from 30-50 slices a day, but the kale pie works great in a 3:2:1 dough, 3,2,1 referring loosely to the proportions of flour, butter and water respectively-a handy kitchen pnemonic recipe for generic pie dough. After the pie is done and cooled, you can serve slices warmed up, cool, room temp, and everything in between.

Lacinato kale tart,with a chanterelle mushroom salad

One of my favorite ways I served it at home was as a simple lunch with some of my mushroom conserve from the previous season, warmed up and tossed with a few leaves of lacinato kale dressed with the mushroom liquid a squeeze of lemon. Winter is best time to use up your preserves, and I like to really stress the idea that pickled mushrooms don’t need to be ice cold, or be a novelty eaten all themselves out of a jar, using them in general cooking is great.

You also don’t necessarily have to puree the filling. There’s a lot of other interesting greens that when blanched, squeezed dry and finely chopped would work, but soft greens like chard, and spinach are probably my favorite. More or less, I’ve meant this post to be an example of the different ways I use pickled mushrooms in assembling a dish, not a tour-de-force on making a kale tart.

Kale tart,with a chanterelle mushroom salad

 

Kale tart,with a chanterelle mushroom salad
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Lacinato Kale Tart with Pickled Wild Mushroom Salad

Creamy lacinato kale and parmesan tart with a wild mushroom salad
Prep Time1 hr 30 mins
Cook Time45 mins
Course: Appetizer, Breakfast, Main Course, Salad, Snack
Cuisine: French, Italian
Keyword: Lacinato Kale, Mushroom Salad
Servings: 8

Equipment

  • 10 inch Tart Shell, Pie Weights

Ingredients

Lacinato Kale Filling

  • 1 bunch of Lacinato kale about 1 lb, washed and cleaned
  • 2 cups heavy cream or half and half
  • 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
  • 3 large eggs + 3 yolks
  • 1/8 teaspoon fresh grated nutmeg a couple good gratings
  • 5 ounces grated Parmigiano Reggiano Grana Padano, or other high quality parmesan
  • 1/4 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper

Mushroom Salad

  • A few leaves of lacinato kale
  • Extra virgin olive olive oil or other tasty salad oil
  • Pickled chanterelles to taste, the finest ones will be the youngest, bouncy buttons
  • Pinch of coarse salt for massaging the kale
  • Fresh ground black pepper
  • Fresh lemon juice mushroom pickle liquid if it's nice and strong, or white wine vinegar

Tart Shell

  • 12 oz flour chilled (roughly 2 cups)
  • A good pinch of flaked salt gently crumbled to break up large flakes kosher salt can be used in a pinch
  • 8 ounces cold unsalted butter, diced small
  • 4 oz ice water or a scant 1/2 cup
  • 1 large egg beaten well or pureed with a tablespoon or two of milk for eggwash (optional)

Instructions

  • Prepare an icewater bath and bring a two quarts or so of salted water to a boil. Meanwhile, remove the stems from the kale, preferably using a paring knife, but you can also rip in a hurry.
  • Blanch the greens in the boiling water for a few seconds then shock in ice water, squeeze dry, and coarsely chop. You should have about 1 cup of kale.
  • Put the kale and the remaining ingredients in the bowl of a high powered blender and puree finely-and I stress: super-duper fine, fine enough to go through a strainer. Make sure not to blend the custard for too long though, since the green mixture will heat up and the color will be destroyed.
  • Strain the kale-custard mix through a chinois, (optional) taste and adjust the seasoning, yes there is raw egg, no it won't hurt you. Reserve the filling.

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

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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. 

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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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