Come the end of fall It’s getting colder, the mushrooms are fewer and farther between and alot of times I’m just hoping not to get skunked. When the blewits, hens, shaggy’s, puffballs or parasols aren’t playing nice, I know I can probably run over to a patch of pine trees and grab a few slippery…
Boletes
Bolete mushrooms are the fleshy mushrooms with pores under the cap instead of gills, including the famous porcini and many others. The classifications in the links below are the four most common genera I'm most familiar with, but know this is only a sample of the boletes that are out there, so know there are more boletes to find. The rest of the posts below are a catch all for posts on boletes or where I think they would work well in one way or another. Use it as inspiration.
Midwestern Pine Porcini: Boletus subcaerulescens
Update 2020 With the help of other local mushroomers, I’m relatively certain that these boletes are Boletus subcaerulescens. I’ve updated this post with new images in-situ. One thing to mention about these that was so confusing, is the “sub-caerulescens” part of the epithet. “Almost blue staining” The confusing part of the name here, and why…
A Raw Porcini Affetatti
Years ago when I was working at Pazzaluna, I was on the garde manger station making hot and cold apps, salads, and desserts, as well as curating a daily changing selection of antipasti I came up with. One of my favorite snacks, and plates to make was the affetati, an Italian platter of cured meats….
Bison Stew with Dried Bolete Mushrooms and Coffee
The good part about the dead of winter is that I can run all the heavy stuff the line cooks like to make, or as we call it: fat kid food. Braised meats galore, pastas layered with cheese, sausage and breadcrumbs, different types of lasagna, ragus of beans and smoked meat, sauces made with…
Wild Mushrooms With Garlic And Parsley
There are some recipes so timeless that they’re known across borders and cultures with the only change being their name. Wild mushrooms with garlic and parsley, or persillade, is one of those dishes. In France, this would be called mushrooms with persillade. In Italian it’s known as mushrooms “la loro morte” roughly “cooked to their…
Scaber Stalk-Gruyere Fritters
Crispy on the outside, cheesy, and mushroomy on the inside, these fritters are simple to make, and can be cooked a number of ways besides frying. In a nutshell, they’re just basic pate aux choux dough with a duxelles of scaber stalk mushrooms and some cheese mixed in. Scaber stalks, a.k.a Leccinum mushrooms have a…
Bolete Julienne
Behold the julienne-a molten hot, cheese crusted, creamy mushroom extravaganza. Just about every hunter of Eastern European descent I’ve talked to has told me about this dish in some way shape or form, and for good reason. If you look around, there’s plenty of recipes for mushroom julienne out there, most using button mushrooms. When…
Dark Beer Short Ribs, Dried Boletes And Root Vegetables
I often get asked things like “what’s your favorite mushroom” or “what’s the most interesting mushroom you’ve cooked with?”. They’re questions I can’t really answer, but there’s a particular shroom I like to mention as a conversation piece, since it’s a good example of the possibilities I see in boletes. The tricky part is that…
Slippery Jack Gnudi, Ramps, Wild Rice, And Nettles
Here’s a great recipe I donated to the non profit cookbook for the Cascade Mycological Society of Oregon. They were looking for recipes featuring slippery jacks, as well as a couple other underused species, like Lactarius. I’ve fought off Eastern European grandmothers a’plenty here in Minnesota for them, so you bet I have plenty of…
Hot Beef Commercial, With Dried Bolete Mushrooms
Childhood food memories, everyone has some, those dishes that take you back in time. A hot beef commercial is one of mine. It reminds me of being a kid, about waist high on my Father. My dad and I would make trips back and forth to Willmar Minnesota from Grove City where the family…
Peas With Porcini, Proscuitto, And Radish Snaps
This recipe came about after I talked to my friend Jess Flemming, food writer for the St. Paul Pioneer press. Jess and I met last year when she did a piece on the restaurant I was working at. Jess recently dedicated a piece of flesh to pork: she agreed to get a tattoo of the…
Fresh Porcini Butter
It’s been a banner year for mushrooms in Minnesota. The cool temperature and rain has made the forests erupt in boletes. I’ve seen enormous Leccinums with stems larger than I have ever come across, two bitter Tylopilus species I have never witnessed, bi-color boletes galore, and it goes without saying, plenty of porcini. I’ve taken…
Gamberoni Portofino, With Porcini-Soy Cream
This is a very special recipe to me. At first glance it looks like some shrimp with vegetables and mushrooms. In reality, it’s a snap shot of my formative years as a cook, when I was working under a man from Rome I adored; trying to learn all that I could from him. In…