Midsummer means a lot of things, but heat and garden weeds are probably two that many of us are familiar with right now. A few weeks ago, there was a dinner on the farm I was going to contribute a dish too, and, as my partner’s family is proud of their Greek heritage, I thought…
Purslane
Purslane, Avocado, and Cucumber Salad
It’s summer: high purslane season here, and that means I’m eating it every day, sometimes for two meals a day, mostly in cold salads like this one. I like purslane cooked, but most of the time in the summer when I eat it, I just want to wash it, chop it, and call it a…
Purslane and Sweet Corn Salad
Purslane and sweetcorn salad isn’t a traditional Mexican salad, but it might as well be. An homage to Mexico, and it’s love of quelites, a sort of catch-all term for edible wild plants, it’s a generous dose of the famous edible garden weed mixed with roasted sweet corn, charred tomatoes, and simple Mexican seasonings and…
Braised Purslane with Tomatoes and Duck Fat
I love purslane, but until a while ago I hadn’t really thought about cooking it. I knew it was done in some places, but there were a few reasons I didn’t ever entertain cooking it: I was harvesting purslane for a restauarant where I was the chef, and since I was picking it myself, I…
Wild Mushroom Tartine with Purslane and Pickled Vegetables
It’s the heart of wild mushroom season in the Midwest, the boom time when you can go to your favorite patch and come home with all sorts of different types. Multiple types of chanterelles, chicken and maybe hen of the woods, Aborted Entoloma, Lactifluus, lobster mushrooms, various black trumpets, coral mushrooms/Ramaria, Hygrophorus, all manner of…
Watermelon Salad With Purslane and Anise Hyssop
Watermelon salad is on plenty of menus in the summer for good reason, it’s cold, refreshing, and evocative of the season. At it’s best it can be paradigm shifting, at it’s worst, it’s nothing more than a glorified fruit salad. While I was in San Francisco this past month, I had one that was basically…
Black Trumpet-Shell Pea Soup, With Purslane
The black trumpets are out now. After I found the first flush of the year, I remembered some frustration I had working with them a while back. I was playing with a big batch of them, testing out a creamy trumpet soup recipe for a cookout I was making an appearance at. It was going…
Purslane Panzanella Salad
I don’t really go out of my way to eat tons of “salads”. Don’t get me wrong, they’re great and all, and I will make one from time to time. Its just that working in a restaurant 60+ hours a week can have a part to play in how quickly you can get to…
Purslane
Purslane, or Portulaca oleracea is one of the most ubiquitous, underused wild greens out there. It’s a juxtaposition in and of itself, as you can find it growing out of a crack in the road, but also at Asian grocery stores, farmers markets and on the tables of some very nice restaurant. It’s truly a…