In the world of wild mushrooms, chicken of the woods / sulphur shelf mushrooms are pretty special-as long as they’ve been harvested when young and tender. Mixing them into a simple pasta with lemon cream is one of my favorite things to do with them, and an annual tradition for a couple serious mushroom hunter…
Chicken of the woods
Chicken of the woods, along with hen of the woods, are one of the largest and easiest mushrooms to identify you can find. If you're new to them, check out my basic guide to chicken of the woods. If you have some you want to cook, you must try my Chicken Fried Chicken of the Woods, and Chicken of the Woods with Lemon Cream.
Burdock Flower Stalk and Mushroom Vegetable Soup
Burdock flower stalks have an interesting, grassy flavor that has a tendency to meld into the background–it’s just not as flavor-forward as the roots. For me, the texture is really where this easily harvested part of the vegetable shines, as it’s tender and takes only a few minutes to cook, where burdock roots take digging,…
Roasted Chicken or Hen of the Woods Stock
Chicken of the woods stock, made with woody trim from a large haul is a good example of one of the best parts about hunting wild mushrooms: not only do you get to bear witness to the incredible volume of nature’s bounty, you get to take it home, too, and you can often find yourself…
Wild Mushroom Chili
Back when I was the chef at Lucia’s restaurant, making vegetarian chili was a twice a week ritual as it was one of the most popular take-away items served at the deli connected to the restaurant. We served a simple vegetarian chili, filled with all the things you’d expect, and it was good, for vegetarian…
Chicken of the Woods Piccata
I went to one of my favorite places a few days ago: a wayside rest on the way up to Northern Minnesota. Well, the wayside rest isn’t my favorite, but there’s a tree I know of, that *is* my favorite. The tree in question is a red oak that typically bears chickens early in June,…
Chicken of The Woods Lemon Cream Sauce
Talk to a non-mushroom hunter about flavor pairings and you’ll probably get responses like “all mushrooms are the same, and they can be substituted interchangeably”. In my opinion that isn’t true, but most people give me very strange looks when I describe what I eat. There is truth in that sort of typical assumption that…
Chicken Smothered With Chicken Of The Woods
Summer mushroom season has started here in Minnesota, and the chicken of the woods / sulphur shelves have started to appear. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again though, you need to find them young, as in as young as possible. If you find some growing and leave them, hoping to come back…
Rainbow Trout With Pickled Chicken Of The Woods
I came up with the recipe one day when I had a nice rainbow trout on hand. I wanted to start burning through my mushroom pickles too, since I tend to hoard them until the next season and wind up having too much, every year. It’s an easy preparation, and one that I would make…
