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Forager Chef

Foraging and Cooking Mushrooms, Wild and Obscure Food

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Mushrooms

blewit mushroom clitocybe nuda wood blewit

Mushrooms were my gateway to the world of wild food. Over the years as a Chef in Twin Cities kitchens the mushrooms would just show up, and being taught to cook with them was on the job training. It wasn’t long until I started to look for them outside of the kitchen, since I already knew what I was looking for.

I found a world of new, complex seasons, layered on one another other. I wanted to be able to walk into the woods anytime and come out with a basket to cook, so I bought all the books I could and studied them when I wasn’t at the stove. I still study those books.

Mushroom Species Archive

Most guides and sites are pretty formal and written in science speak when they describe mushrooms, since I’m a chef, not a scientist, I leave that to them. I’ve tried to make accessible profiles of mushroom species that I hope can be helpful as a culinary companion to your field guides. These are not meant to be authoritative, but attempt to explain mushroom hunting, and my opinions on it in words that newcomers could understand better. porcini, minnesota porcini, boletus edulis

 All Mushroom Recipes

Online, I saw a lack of recipes that celebrated certain mushrooms, or took into account alternative ways to preserve them than drying. You can search this website by individual species, learn some new species it might be fun to find, or start with recipes in 3 general categories:

Fresh Mushrooms

Nothing helps me celebrate a new mushroom season like picking some young buttons and trowing them into a pan.

Arugula, Blewit, and Heirloom Bean Salad

Dried Mushrooms

The off season. Time to use the dried mushrooms from that legendary hunt.

dried morels

Mushroom Preserves

Drying is only one way to preserve your haul. Browse my selection of shelf-stable pickles, marinades, and other methods, these types of preserves are the best way to keep the texture of fresh mushrooms, and their just as good served warm as they are cold, if not better.

pickled chicken mushrooms

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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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