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

Forager Chef

Foraging and Cooking Mushrooms, Wild and Obscure Food

  • Home
  • About
  • Mushrooms
    • Mushroom Species Archive
    • Posts by Species
      • Other
        • Lobster Mushrooms
        • Shrimp of the Woods
        • Truffles
        • Morels
        • Shaggy Mane
        • Hericium
        • Puffball
      • Polypores
        • Hen of the Woods
        • Dryad Saddle
        • Chicken of The Woods
        • Cauliflowers
        • Ischnoderma
        • Beefsteak
      • Chanterelles
        • Black Trumpet
        • Red Cinnabar
        • Yellowfeet
      • Gilled
        • Matsutake
        • Russula / Lactarius
          • Candy Caps
          • Saffron Milkcap
          • Indigo Milkcap
        • Fairy Rings
      • Boletes
        • Porcini
        • Leccinum
        • Slippery Jacks
    • Recipes
      • Fresh
      • Dried
      • Preserves
    • The Basics
  • Plants
    • Plant Archive
    • Leafy Green Recipes
      • Leafy Green Plant Varieties
    • Wild Fruit
      • Wild Plums
      • Highbush Cranberry
      • Wild Grapes
      • Rowanberries
      • Wild Cherries
      • Aronia
      • Elderberry
      • Nannyberry
      • Wild Blueberries
    • Wild Herbs and Spices
    • From The Garden
    • Nuts, Roots, Tubers and Grains
    • Stalks and Shoots
  • Meat
    • Four-Legged
    • Poultry
    • Fish/Seafood
    • Offal
    • Charcuterie
  • Recipes
    • Pickles, Preserves, Etc
    • Fermentation
    • Condiments
    • Appetizers
    • Soup
    • Salad
    • Side Dishes
    • Entrees
    • Baking
    • Sweets
  • Video
    • The Wild Harvest
    • Foraging Videos
    • Lamb and Goat Series
    • YouTube Tutorials
  • Press
    • Podcasts
  • Work
    • Public Speaking
    • Charity and Private Dinners
    • Forays / Classes / Demos

Puffball Mushroom Bratwurst

Jump to Recipe Print Recipe

lamb and puffball mushroom brats,Here’s a fun way to use meat, and dried mushroom powder, specifically puffballs. In charcuterie and sausage making, milk powder is often used, especially in finely ground emulsions like bologna and hot dogs to achieve a nice, bouncy texture. Here, instead of using milk powder in the sausages, I use toasted, dried puffball powder, which acts similarly in that it absorbs moisture. Unlike the milk powder, which has an innert flavor, the toasted puffball powder adds some great mushroom-y depth to what is otherwise a pretty straight-forward brat, well, except for the lamb garum.

Chef’s Note

I was playing with an obscure thing here called lamb garum to season the sausages, but it is totally optional, and you can just season to taste with salt instead, or, you could substitute mushroom ketchup, if you have any of that. If you use regular (kosher) salt, I would start with around 8 grams, or around 2 teaspoons, mix it in, cook a bit, taste and adjust, and go from there. Know too, that the dried puffball mushroom powder here acts as a way to absorb moisture, which means this sausage, in it’s bulk form, will be very stiff, and slighlty more difficult to case than you may be used to, which is natural.

Puffball powder

The dried puffball powder functions as a seasoning here, but make sure you toast the slices of mushroom before you powder them in a blender for optimum flavor, and since trying to toast already ground, untoasted puffball powder could be a dusty, stinky mess. To prevent your entire kitchen from being covered in mushroom dust, toast slices of dried puffball, and then grind in a highspeed blender to make a powder, preferably with a towel wrapped around the top. Never heard of puffball powder? I have a post on it here.

Tweaking the puffball flavor 

Sausage making is an art, and I never expect my sausages to taste when I add the first seasonings to the batch. I liked the puffball flavor of these, but, what if you want it more mushroomy? Since the sausage is stiff, it might be difficult to case if you add too much. To get around that it would help by hydrating the mushroom powder.

Here’s one thing you could do: take some extra puffball powder, and moisten it with some heavy cream, just enough to hydrate it, then put the sausage mixture back in a stand mixer and process, on low speed, adding the puffball slurry until incorporated.

Afterwords, cook a small amount, taste and adjust, and go from there. Cream, milk and/or eggs are sometimes added to bratwurst, but, if you add egg, know that it can expand while cooking, and you’ll want to poach them gently to coagulate the protein before grilling.

https://foragerchef.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Lamb-and-puffball-brats-3.jpg

lamb and puffball mushroom brats,
Print Recipe
5 from 1 vote

Puffball Mushroom Bratwurst

Bratwurst flavored with dried puffball mushrooms and your choice of meat garum, soy, or salt
Course: Appetizer, Main Course
Cuisine: American
Keyword: Bratwurst, Puffball mushroom
Servings: 10 3 oz brats

Equipment

  • Sausage stuffer, meat grinder

Ingredients

  • 2 lbs lamb or pork shoulder
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
  • 3 grams/1 teaspoon finely minced or grated garlic optional
  • 25 grams toasted puffball powder
  • 1/2 nutmeg freshly grated
  • 1 teaspoon finely ground black pepper
  • 6 tablespoon lamb garum soy, or substitute salt, starting with 2 teaspoons and adding to taste
  • Lamb or pork casings as needed for packing

Instructions

  • Soak a length of casings in water to loosen them and remove salt. Cut the shoulder into 1 inch pieces, then grind through the fine die of a meat grinder.
  • Combine the meat and all ingredients except the puffball powder in the bowl of a stand mixer and mix well for 30 seconds on the lowest setting. Turn off the machine, and drape a towel over the bowl to prevent the puffball powder from going everywhere.
  • Add the puffball powder carefully to the bowl and mix well, the sausage should visibly tighten up as the powder absorbs moisture.
  • Cook a small amount of the sausage to test the seasoning, adjust as needed, and repeat until you like it. Pack the sausage into 29 mm hog casings or sheep casings, tie off at 3oz each, then allow to dry overnight uncovered in the fridge. The next day, separate the sausages, portion and freeze, or refrigerate and cook within 5 days.

Previous Post: « My Best Tips for Successful Mushroom Hunting
Next Post: Meat Garum »

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Jeanne Medlyn

    February 12, 2019 at 6:25 am

    Great idea. I have a few jars of dried puffballs that were just waiting to be used, and I love brats.

    Reply
    • Alan Bergo

      February 16, 2019 at 7:29 pm

      Yeah these are good, don’t be scared of the garum, it’s fine to just use salt, or a little soy. I was really surprised how nice and clean the puffball tastes in there.

      Reply

Trackbacks

  1. Wild Mushroom Ketchup Recipe says:
    February 29, 2020 at 11:13 pm

    […] the myosin (the coagulative substance that gives sausage a good bite) Try using the ketchup in my puffball brat […]

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Recipe Rating




Primary Sidebar

Categories

Instagram

foragerchef

Sam Thayer dropped 25 lbs of his highbush cranberr Sam Thayer dropped 25 lbs of his highbush cranberry cultivars (3 types!) on me before the last snowfall and I honestly don’t even know where to start after processing them. I’d already made jams and hot sauce already and I have enough for a year. 😅

Great time to practice the cold-juice which ensures the juice isn’t bitter. 

Anyone else have any ideas? 

You can still find some on the shrubs if the birds didn’t get them up by the north shore. 

#highbushcranberry #winterforaging #birdberries #sweetnectar #foragerproblems #juiceme #embarassmentofriches #wildfoodlove
100% wild candy bars. I don’t usually make raw v 100% wild candy bars. I don’t usually make raw vegan snacks, but when I read about Euell Gibbon’s wild hackberry candy bars I had to try them. The  originals were just crushed hackberries and hickory nuts, but, I’ve read that Euell grew to dislike the crunch of hackberry seeds later in life. 

Here’s the thing though, if you sift the hackberry flour, you get a fun texture, with no worries about cracking a tooth. 

These are equal parts ground hackberries, dried wild blueberries, and hickory nuts, with a splash of maple syrup to bind.

The end product is a shelf stable, nutrient-packed bite filled with protein, carbohydrates, fats and natural sugars infinitely adaptable to your local landscape.

The texture is chewy and nougat-like, and now I’m curious to see how they’d perform baked in recipes that use frangipane or almond paste. 

#euellgibbons #energybars #hackberry #crushin #paleobreakfast #tradionalfood #wildfoodlove #rawfoods
Hackberry milk spoonbread with black walnuts and c Hackberry milk spoonbread with black walnuts and chokecherry gastrique is one of the dishes @credononfiction and I filmed for @headspace. 

I cook hackberry milk with cornmeal and maple syrup, whip some egg whites and fold them in, then bake. Eats a bit like crust-less pumpkin pie, if pumpkin pie came from a tree. 

#hackberry #souffle #wildfoodlove #chokecherry #blackwalnuts #brunching
Hackberry milk is a sort of rustic nut milk made f Hackberry milk is a sort of rustic nut milk made from ground hackberries and water. I grind the berries to a meal, then simmer with 3x their volume of water, strain through a chinois (without pressing) season with maple and a pinch of cinnamon. Tastes like pumpkin pie in a glass, also a decent cooking medium. 

#hackberries #nutmilk #foraging #wildfoodlove #celtisoccidentalis
Are hackberries a fruit? A nut? They're a bit of b Are hackberries a fruit? A nut? They're a bit of both. They also contain protein, fat, and carbs, and the oldest evidence of humans enjoying them goes back 500,000 years. Right now is the best time to harvest them in the Midwest as the leaves have fallen. The full break down and introduction to them is in my bio. 
#hackberry #celtisoccidentalis #winterforaging #wildfoodlove #traditionalfoods #manbird
If you’re in the Twin Cities the nocino I collab If you’re in the Twin Cities the nocino I collaborated on with @ida_graves_distillery for 2020 is on the shelves @surdyksliquor along with our spruce tip liquor. I’d give it a couple weeks before they sell out. 

Brock did a good job on this one: mellow flavor that almost reminds me of a tootsie roll, with spices and mellow tannins. 

#nocino #liquor #distillery #craftspirits #blackwalnuts #mnwinter
Load More... Follow on Instagram

Footer

Privacy

  • Privacy Policy

Copyright © 2021 · Foodie Pro & The Genesis Framework