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Kernza Salad with Butternuts and Mushrooms

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Kernza Salad Recipe with Preserved Mushrooms and Bergamot (6)Kernza, a crop being researched by the land institute in the University of Minnesota is a potentially groundbreaking game changing grain. Most grains, like wheat, corn and soy beans, need to be planted as an annual. Kernza is the opposite, a perennial grain that needs no planting, no tilling, and, because of that, actually replenishes topsoil. See more from The Land Institute here.

I was first introduced to it in the form of flour that I’m lucky enough to be able to purchase occasionally from Bakersfield, and I’ve been addicted to keeping some around ever since I heard about it. Kernza flour is difficult to work with for things like bread though, and, although it contains some gluten, it isn’t nearly as much as some heirloom wheats like Turkish red and Sonoran white carried by Sunrise Flour Mill, which also have lower gluten contents than, say, conventional all purpose flour.

This means that baking the with flour, if you want something like bread with a decent airy crumb, needs to be in proportions of about 50% with a traditional, higher protein flour. The other thing Kernza adds to the mix is a certain texture the flour gives to a dough, it’s a sort of fudgy, almost custardy feel that I think really shines in quick breads, things like pancakes, waffles, or the flatbreads I made for a few hundred people at the MWHF in 2019.

But, just like other grains, Kernza can also be cooked just like you would whole wheat berries, spelt, or wild rice—as a loose grain for salads, soups, or quick sautés and stir frys. While I like the fudgy texture kernza flour gives to baked goods, right now I’ve been partial to using it in salads or pilafs to show off the unique shape and texture, especially if I’m serving it to first timers. It’s smaller and more thin than spelt or wheat berries, and, as a definite bonus, is also more tender than either of the other two. For a simple example of how it could be used, I made a little kernza salad to take with me on my recent pilgrimage to harvest praire turnips in South Dakota with members of the Standing Rock Lakota tribe.

It’s really simple, you cook the kernza in some stock with aromatics, then toss with mushrooms, herbs and toasted nuts. I used hedgehog mushrooms and butternuts (white walnuts), but you could use whatever combo of nuts, seeds and shrooms you like. It’s a filling, portable meal—just the kind of thing I like to keep in a backpack to eat in the middle of the field for lunch, or in this case, the middle of the prairie digging timpsila/prairie turnips.

Kernza Salad Recipe with Preserved Mushrooms and Bergamot (6)

Kernza salad with preserved hedgehog mushrooms and bergamot
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Kernza Salad with Butternuts and Hedgehog Mushrooms

A salad of chewy kernza berries with butternuts, hedgehog mushrooms and wild herbs
Prep Time15 mins
Cook Time30 mins
Course: Side Dish
Cuisine: American
Keyword: Kernza
Servings: 4

Ingredients

Kernza

  • 1 cup whole kernza berries
  • 2 cups water
  • Small chunk each of carrot onion, celery
  • Small handful crumbled dried mushrooms, or generous pinch mushroom powder

Salad

  • ¼ cup butternuts black walnuts or other nuts, lightly toasted
  • 1 scant cup gently sautéed hedgehog or other mushrooms or use mushroom conserve
  • 6 oz small diced carrot, onion, and celery
  • 4-5 green onions, sliced
  • 1 tablespoon chopped fresh bergamot Monarda fistulosa or other fresh herbs you like
  • Kosher salt and fresh ground black pepper
  • Good tasting oil such as sunflower, hickory nut, or olive
  • Dash of apple cider vinegar

Instructions

  • Lightly toast the kernza in a skillet for a few minutes until you can just smell it. Bring the kernza and water to a simmer with the remaining kernza ingredients, turn the heat to low, cover, and cook until the kernza is just tender and most of the water is absorbed. Discard the vegetables.
  • Meanwhile, sweat the diced vegetables in a good glug of oil, slowly, until they start to brown along the edges, about 20 minutes.
  • Toss the vegetables with the still hot kernza, mushrooms, herbs, and green onions double check the seasoning, then adjust with salt, pepper, vinegar and oil.
  • If you use pickled mushrooms, you may want to rinse them depending on how much vinegar is in your recipe. My conserve can be added straight to the grain salad.

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🌱Ephemeral Week🌱 Last entry. I’ve saved t 🌱Ephemeral Week🌱

Last entry. I’ve saved the smallest, fern gulliest plant for last. 

False Mermaid Weed (Floerkea proserpinacoides) is a good little plant Sam Thayer showed me. It’s tiny, as in all the photos are from me on my belly, in a wet ditch. It’s so small it’s hard to get the camera to even focus on it (see pic with my finger for scale). 

Mermaid weed likes wet areas, like ditches and spots that hold a bit of water (perfect mosquito habitat😁). 

Like chickweed, Floerkia greens are like nature’s Microgreens. They’re in the Limnanthaceae, (a new-ish group of brassicas) and like the Toothwort form earlier this week, you’ll taste a strong mustard-family flavor in a mouthful of their tender stems. 

They’re literally wild mustard sprouts, and, unlike other wild sprouts (garlic mustard 🤬) they stay sprouts, and, they actually taste good. 

It has a wide range over much of the eastern and western U.S., and is listed as secure globally, but is endangered in some states and shouldn’t be disturbed in those places. 

I’m lucky enough to have some large colonies near me so I do clip a few handfuls each year-my annual reward for removing some of the garlic mustard nearby, that, along with atvs, dirt bikes, and contamination from local water pollution, is one of the biggest threats to this tiny green. 

#floerkiaproserpinacoides 
#wildsprouts #mustardsprouts #ferngully #tiny #foraging #mermaid #🧜‍♀️
🌱Ephemeral Week🌱 Virginia Bluebells (Merten 🌱Ephemeral Week🌱

Virginia Bluebells (Mertensia virginica) are one of the most beautiful harbingers of spring I know, as well as one of the most delicious. 

They’re in the Borage family, along with the namesake plant, Comfrey (which I only eat a few flowers of occasionally) and Honeywort. 

The flavor of the greens, like borage, has a rich flavor some people might describe as mushroomy or fishy, but after a just a few moments of cooking (30-60 seconds) they get mild and delicious, with a subtle bitterness. It’s a good bitter though-nothing like dandelions or garlic mustard that aren’t fit to be in the same basket, let alone on the same plate. 

The shoots are sweet and delicious, much more mild than the greens. As they can grow to be over a foot long, they’re almost more of a vegetable than a leafy green, depending on when you harvest them. 

Bluebells love moist, rich soil, but you don’t have to go to the woods to get them. Many people know Virginia Bluebells as a garden plant, and they can make a great edible addition to your landscape.

#virginiabluebells #foraging #ephemerals #springwildflowers #wildfoodlove #mertensiavirginica
🌱Ephemeral Week🌱 Narrow-leaved Wild Leek / 🌱Ephemeral Week🌱

Narrow-leaved Wild Leek / White Ramp (Allium burdickii) 

If you’re in a ramp patch you might occasionally see some with white stems (pic 1,2). These are a cousin to the more common variety with much larger leaves and red stems (pic 3,4,5)

Allium burdickii is not as common as the red-stemmed variety, and in every ramp patch I’ve been in, the white ramp is heavily outnumbered. 

Where I harvest, I like to leave them alone, and mark the areas where they grow with sticks or middens on the ground so I can go back in the fall and help them spread their seeds. I also try and remove garlic mustard when I see it-a much more imminent threat in my mind to ramps than foragers out to gather some leaves. 

2020 was a banner year for ramp seeds, and you can still help the plants right now (pic 7) as some seed heads are still full and would love for you to give them a shake as you walk by. 

#alliumburdickii #ramps #ephemerals #foraging #spring
🌱Ephemeral Week🌱 #4: Erythronium leaves E 🌱Ephemeral Week🌱

#4: Erythronium leaves 

Erythronium (Trout Lily) are another ephemeral that I see widespread in my ramp patches, there’s at least 32 species world-wide, with at least one endangered species in MN (Dwarf Trout Lily). 

They’re a beautiful, delicious plant I eat every year, but I can’t recommend serving them to the general public. Plenty of people say these are edible, but also emetic if eaten in “quantity”. 

I can tell you, at least with E. albidum and E. americanum I’ve eaten, that some people are much more sensitive than others, so if you want to make a salad to serve people, make sure they’re comfortable eating it, and use a few leaves as a garnish. 

Funny enough, I didn’t learn about these from a foraging book. Like knotweed, I learned about them from one of my favorite chefs: Michel Bras, one of the most influential chefs of the turn of the 21 century. 

Any chef that works with wild plants owes a debt to Bras. His book, although a little dated now, still teaches me new things all the time. While flipping through the book I also caught a recipe using tansy flowers 😳 that I’d probably pass on. 

The whitefish crusted with sunflower seeds is a dish of mine from 2012, and an example of how I eat the leaves: a few at a time, as a garnish. 

#troutlily #erythronium #michelbras #ephemerals #foraging
🌱Ephemeral Week🌱 Plant #3: Cutleaf Toothwor 🌱Ephemeral Week🌱

Plant #3: Cutleaf Toothwort (Cardamine concatenata) is another beautiful spring wildflower that loves to grow in the same habitat you’ll see ramps and spring beauty. 

Its small at first, but grows to a worthy size for eating as it flowers. It’s related to cabbage and mustard greens (Brassicaceae) and eating just a few leaves will give you a potent, spicy pop of mustard-family flavor reminiscent of horseradish. 

Eaten in combination with other things, like in a salad, the flavor becomes submissive and you’ll barely know it’s there. 

Some people eat the spicy roots shaped like canine teeth, but for the work I hardly think they’re worth it. 

A great wild spring green for the salad bowl-eat them leaves, tender stem, flowers and all🤤. 

#cutleaftoothwort #cadamineconcatenata #ephemeral #springedibles #foraging #wildfoodlove
🌱Ephemeral Week🌱 Plant #2 is Virginia water 🌱Ephemeral Week🌱

Plant #2 is Virginia waterleaf, and, I’m cheating a bit as it’s semi-ephemeral. The plant comes up in spring and goes to flower, but gives a second harvest of fresh growth in the fall, where other ephemerals I know do not. 

This is a great starter wild green-easy to recognize with the splashes of white on the leaves that may or may not be present. After you learn it though, don’t be surprised if, like me, you eventually pass it up for more delicious greens nearby. 

The plant gets tough quick, and the flavor is..meh, so I usually have small amounts of very young greens in blends of blanched and sautéed mixes. 

My favorite part is the wee flower buds, that, if you get at the right time, can be harvested in decent quantity and are good steamed as they’ll soak up oil sautéed. 

#hydrophyllumvirginianum #waterleaf #foraging #fueledbynature #weedeater
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