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Award-winning chef, author and forager Alan Bergo. Food is all around you.

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Pork Short Rib and Burdock Stew

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Pork short rib and burdock root soup, with millet, cilantro and chili oilI’m constantly blown away by the connections I get to make, in the Midwest, and the United States, but especially from other countries around the world.

A few years ago, I was talking about using burdock root to make a relish I had been serving with fish, and I got an interesting conversation going with a woman from China. More or less, what I took away was that she suggested using burdock in a soup along with pork ribs, other than that, I don’t remember much.

I’d been meaning to work the inspiration I got from her into a soup for the past few years, and I finally got around to it. Don’t worry, you wouldn’t have to dig a burdock root to make it, (especially in our hellacious weather) since I like to use gobo from the Asian markets for it’s consistency, and dependable tenderness compared to it’s wild cousin.

Before I started the soup, I did some research online to find templates for traditional pork rib and burdock soup recipes. I saw a few mentions of pork and burdock root here and there, but no real descriptions of a tried and true, traditional preparation, so I did my best to meld what I knew, and honor what I didn’t. In the process, I wanted to do justice to a couple things: my friend from China, the idea of incorporating wild food into a modern diet, and the Midwest.

I saw some recipes with radishes and turnips in them, and I know millet has been a peasant food in China, as well as being something I can source locally. For the ribs, I chose short ribs, both for economy, but also because they contain more of the gelatin-rich connective tissue and tendons that make broth so good.  The first soup I made contained the following:

Burdock and pork rib soup #1

Turnips, cabbage, leeks, celery, onion, garlic, ginger, smoked paprika, tomato puree, chicken stock, pork short ribs, bouquet garni of herbs and warm spices, millet, carrots and burdock.

The soup tasted good, the only problem was that it tasted like cabbage and turnips, not burdock and pork. I was frustrated with myself for a couple days, but sometimes it’s good for me to remember it’s just food, and it tasted good, it just wasn’t exactly what I wanted. Unfortunately I made 5 gallons of it.

Burdock and pork rib soup #2

The next week I made the soup again, with the following adjustments

Turnips, cabbage, leeks, celery, onion, garlic, ginger, smoked paprika, tomato puree, shiitake mushrooms, fennel, chicken stock, pork short ribs, bouquet garni of herbs and warm spices, millet, carrots and burdock.

To draw out the flavor of the burdock and the pork, I added shiitake mushrooms, which really helped underscore the flavors. The biggest thing was taking the fluff out of the soup though, cabbage and turnips, smoked paprika and garlic are aggressive partners, the soup was much more delicate and nuanced without them, replacing some of the volume they took up in the soup with more mild bulb fennel worked out well. After the soup was done I tasted a spoonful: a deeply scented meat stock was what I got first, followed by the haunting, earthy essence from the burdock.

Most likely, this is nothing like what is made in China, but it is damn good.

Pork short rib and burdock root soup, with millet, cilantro and chili oil

Pork short rib and burdock root soup, with millet, cilantro and chili oil
Print Recipe
5 from 1 vote

Pork Rib and Burdock Root Stew with Millet and Shiitakes

An Asian-inspired stew with pork short ribs, burdock root, millet, and shiitake mushrooms
Course: Main Course, Soup
Cuisine: Chinese
Keyword: Burdock, Millet, Pork Ribs

Ingredients

  • 2 lbs pork spare ribs cut into 2-3 bone pieces
  • 1 cup yellow and orange carrots quartered and cut into 1/4 inch slices
  • 1 cup yellow sweet onion diced ½ inch
  • 1 cup leek diced ½ inch tender white and green parts only
  • 1 cup fennel diced ½ inch
  • 2 cup pureed canned whole tomatoes
  • 8 cups chicken stock
  • 3 cups burdock peeled and sliced into ¼ inch rounds
  • 1/2 lb shiitake mushrooms stems remove and reserved for another purpose, caps sliced ¼ inch
  • 2 tablespoons fresh ginger minced
  • Kosher salt to taste
  • ¼ cup flavorless oil
  • Bouquet garni: 5 allspice berries 5 cloves, 2 star anise, 2 fresh bay leaves, 1 bulb of garlic, halved
  • For finishing and serving the soup
  • Hot chili oil or substitute toasted sesame oil and hot chilis
  • Fresh cilantro
  • Cooked millet to taste

Instructions



  • Sweat the leeks, onion, and ginger, then add the remaining
    ingredients (except millet and garnishes) and cook for 2 hours at a gentle
    simmer until the meat removes from the bones.








  •  Season the soup to taste with salt, transfer the mixture to an ice bath, then remove the ribs and
    pick the meat, coarsely chop the meat, then put back in the soup. Add cooked
    millet to taste just before serving. Serve garnished with sesame oil, and
    chopped cilantro.

Notes

This is my 4 gallon recipe scaled down by 75% Think of this more as a rough guideline than an exact template. A little bit more or less of some of the ingredients isn't going to hurt anything. Make sure to add the millet at the end, before serving, to keep it's texture. If no millet is available, quinoa, wild rice, sorghum or lentils would be great instead.

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FORAGER | CHEF®
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Author: The Forager Chef’s Book of Flora
James Beard Award ‘22
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Alan Bergo
Had a blast on the last day of the @wild.fed shoot Had a blast on the last day of the @wild.fed shoot cooking in the Garden of Eden, a.k.a Sam Thayer’s orchard. 

We’d planned on making ground squirrel, bullfrog and crayfish gumbo but only the crayfish came through. Luckily I had some back up andouille just in case. 

It’s may not be traditional, but gumbo with crayfish broth, a heap of @mushroomforaginginmn porcini, milkweed pods (in lieu of okra) wild rice and crayfish-chanterelle salad didn’t suck. 6 of us polished off a gallon 😁.

H/o to chef Lenny Russo who I pestered with questions on frog-based foods beforehand. Hyper-local meals like this are what we made at Heartland in St Paul during my tenure there. 

@danielvitalis 
@grantguiliano 

#ditchlobster #mudbugs #gumbo #crayfish #wildrice #wildfed
Long, fun day snatching crayfish out of the water Long, fun day snatching crayfish out of the water by hand with Sam Thayer and @danielvitalis for @wild.fed 

Daniel and Sam were the apex predators, but I got a few. 

Without a net catching crayfish by hand is definitely a wax-on wax-off sort of skill. Clears your mind. 

They’re going into gumbo with porcini, sausage and milkweed pods today. 

#crayfish #ninjareflexes #waxonwaxoff #normalthings #onset🎥🎬
Working all day on preps for cattail lateral rhizo Working all day on preps for cattail lateral rhizomes and blueberries for this weeks shoot with @wildfed 

Been a few years since I worked with these. Thankfully Sam Thayer dropped a couple off for me to work with. They’re tender, crisp and delicious. 

Sam mentioned their mild flavor and texture could be because they don’t have to worry about predators eating them, since they grow in the muck of cattail marshes. 

I think they could use a pet name. Pond tusk? Swamp spears? Help me out here. 😂

Nature makes the coolest things. 

#itcamefromthepond #cattail #rhizomes #foraging #typhalatifolia
I liked the staff meal I made for Mondays shoot so I liked the staff meal I made for Mondays shoot so much we filmed it instead of the original dish I’d planned. 

Cooked natural wild rice (not the black shiny stuff) is great hot, cold, sweet or savory. It’s a perfect, filling lunch for a long day of berry picking. 

I make them with whatever I have on hand. Mushrooms will fade into the background a little here, so I use a bunch of them, along with lots of herbs and hickory nut oil + dill flowers. 

I’m eating the leftovers today back up in the barrens (hopefully) getting some more bluebs for another shoot this week w @wild.fed 

#wilwilwice #wildrice #chanterelles #campfood #castironcooking
Baby’s first homegrown mushrooms! Backyard wine Baby’s first homegrown mushrooms! Backyard wine caps on hardwood sawdust from my lumberjack buddy.

Next up blewits. Spawn from @northsporemushrooms

#winecaps #strophariaaeruginosa #allthemushroomtags
It’s wild cherry season. I’ll be picking from It’s wild cherry season. I’ll be picking from my favorite spot tomorrow a.m. and have room for a couple helpers. It’s at an event on a farm just south of St. Cloud. 

If you’re interested send me a message and I’ll raffle off the spots. Plenty of cherries to go around. I’ll be leading a short plant walk around the farm too. 

#chokecherries #foraging #prunusvirginiana #summervibes
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