Skip to primary navigation
Skip to main content
Skip to primary sidebar
Skip to footer

Foraging and Cooking Mushrooms, Wild and Obscure Food

Home
Book
About
Mushrooms
Plants
Meat
Recipes
- Pickles, Preserves, Etc
- Fermentation
- Condiments
- Appetizers
- Soup
- Salad
- Side Dishes
- Entrees
- Baking
- Sweets
Video
Press
- Podcasts / Interviews
Work
Search

Privacy Policy

Mediavine Programmatic Advertising

For information regarding data collection by Mediavine ad partners including how to opt out of data collection, please click here

Primary Sidebar

ORDER THE BOOK

UPDATED OPTIONS FOR CA / EU / US

Categories

Forager Chef

Forager Chef

Instagram

foragerchef

Silphium leaves from young to mature. Final entry.

Silphium leaves from young to mature. Final entry.

Aside from the tender tops, I also eat the young and mature leaves. The young leaves are fine blanched and cooked in places where you’d use strong tasting greens like dandelions.

The older leaves that can get immense (10 in +) as the plant grows, especially in full sun, make fun wraps for food with all kinds of fillings.

Mature leaves are a bit much on their own with a rough texture (comparing it to the feeling of a cats tongue is odd but accurate) and a strong flavor, but you won’t notice it at all if they’re used to wrap food.

Pic 1: (LtR) green rolls using grape, sunflower, cow parsnip, and silphium leaves. The mature leaves keep a dark green-blue color after blanching. I get a kick out of the different shades of green.
Pic 2: very young leaves for cooking
Pic 3: mature leaves
Pic 4: mature leaf underside

#silphium #silphiumperfoliatum #cupplant #dolmas

Silphium shoots / meristems /tender tops are my fa

Silphium shoots / meristems /tender tops are my favorite part of the plant. They look a little like angry bok choi or some kind of small vegetable.

Raw, the flavor is strong and “aster-y” like mature Sochan, or a mouthful of Chinese celery leaves, but nowhere near as intense as something like Goldenrod.

After blanching (without shocking as it can make them discolor) you can heat them up in a pan and try as-is if you want the full flavor, preferably with some kind of punchy condiment (harissa sauce in pic 6).

For a mild taste where they blend into the background, I’ve been adding them as a garnish to wild rice bowls (pic 1). Mixed with other ingredients, some people won’t even notice they’re In there.

If you find the flavor too strong, you can soak the shoots in a bowl of cold water in the fridge after blanching for a couple hours and it will tame them even further (an old Italian trick-pic 4).

Just another beautiful, edible plant part you won’t see in stores.

#silphiumperfoliatum #cupplant #asteraceae #edimentals #foraging

The “cup” of Cup Plant (Silphium perfioliatum)

The “cup” of Cup Plant (Silphium perfioliatum) where the leaves envelope the flower stalk, a.k.a Bird Bath of the Woods.

Silphium (no relation to the extinct Roman herb) is a great plant I’ve been eating for about 7-8 years.

References to it as a food plant are scarce, but it’s a fun one. I’ll be sharing a bunch of pics going over some of the characteristics this week as it’s a lot for one post.

Pic1: The Cup Plant Cup
Pic2: Mature plants before flowering showing tasty+tender top meristems
Mature leaf underside showing tell-tale teeth on the margin

#birdbathofthewoods
#silphiumperfoliatum #foodplants #foraging #asteraceae #birdbath #cupplant

Using up the last of my Cerulean Trumpets (Cratere

Using up the last of my Cerulean Trumpets (Craterellus caeruleofuscus) to go with some lamb scottaditti. These have a great flavor comparable to regular trumpets, but are often very large mushrooms by trumpet standards, with a beautiful blue cast to them. They’re a pine associate, mostly I see them in Northern MN growing with Red Pine. The blue fades to cream after drying.

#blacktrumpets #craterellusceruleofuscus #mushroomhunting #allthemushroomtags

#🎤drop Find the article by googling the title

#🎤drop

Find the article by googling the title.

@mspmag and words from the ever talented, 5-time #jamesbeardaward winning food writer @dearlydara
#foraging #florabook #foragerchef

Great time to harvest Cryptotaenia canadensis / No

Great time to harvest Cryptotaenia canadensis / North American Mistuba / Wild Chervil.

These can be a little tricky at first, and it’s good to be mindful of eating new plants in the carrot family, but the leaves don’t resemble any really dangerous plants.

The only thing they resemble to me worth mentioning are Ranunculus which are non-lethal. The first image shows the Mitsuba leaves right now, the second shows a ranunculus, which has more rounded, lobed leaves when young.

It’s a great sub for parsley, making green sauces, or any traditional dish calling for Mitsuba. And don’t miss the delicious tender stems!

#mitsuba #cryptotaeniacanadensis #foraging #wildherbs #wildfoodlove

Load More... Follow on Instagram

Footer

Privacy

Privacy Policy

Copyright © 2021 · Foodie Pro & The Genesis Framework