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Award-winning chef, author and forager Alan Bergo. Food is all around you.

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Venison Rib Chops with a Black Trumpet Crust

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Rack of venison crusted with black trumpet mushroomsThe best part of butchering your own animals is the creativity, giving you the ability to make all sorts of things, and one of the grand daddy’s of them all is a rack of venison.

If you want to know how to cut a rack, just search you tube, there’s lots of info out there. If you’re scared about prions, fine, this probably isn’t for you, but there’s plenty of people that do cut up deer like this, and are fine. CWD prions have never passed to humans, and the only tests that have been done on monkeys are a little skewed. But I digress.

I had a really nice, young buck here, a yearling, with fat so mellow I rendered it all for cooking. With such a good cut of meat, you really want to do as little as possible to it, some simple seasoning, and perfect cooking, that’s it.

A favorite of mine that’s a great flavor, but also won’t hide the meat’s taste, is a crust of mushrooms. Black trumpet mushrooms make a great one, but you could use porcini, morels, or whatever else you have.

Black trumpet mushrooms or craterellus fallax in a bowl

Fresh black trumpets. Left out, they just about dry themselves.

Portioning a rack of venison into 2-bone chops 

A note on the fabritating/portioning. You’ll get two whole rib racks from a deer, and if you’re used to just peeling off the backstraps, burning through a whole rack of deer at a time might seem like a lot to commit to.

What I did was portion my racks into two bone chops, and then freeze the chops in packs of two, stretching those 2 deer racks into 4 meals for two people each, a modest portion, and even more, if you leave the rib meat attached.

In the photos here, I’ve Frenched the ribs for a clean look, but you don’t have to at home. Frenching is good for having company though, or if you want to impress your hunting buddies, or say, a father in law.

Venison rib chop crusted with black trumpet mushrooms

Chops are cooked in two-bone portions here, but you can also just cook a whole rack like this.

Your mushrooms must be clean, before drying 

The only key for a great crust is making sure your mushrooms were clean when they were dried, because, if they weren’t, and your not 100% sure there’s no grit, you could run the chance of botching one of the greatest cuts of meat known to man.

Other than that, the method couldn’t be simpler: grind some trumpets to powder, season the deer rack with beaten egg white, salt, pepper, and thyme, then roll it all over and crust it with the trumpets, sear, rest and eat.

Using beaten egg white for a thick crust

This is a good chef trick for adding a crust for a showy dinner, or when you really want something to stick to a piece of meat. You don’t have to brush the meat with egg white, but if you do, it will get a wicked crust.

If you don’t, it will still crust ok, but, you should try it sometime. It’s especially good for making seed crusted fish, or where you only want to heavily crust a piece of meat on one side, typically the top.

Rack of venison crusted with black trumpet mushrooms

Rack of venison crusted with black trumpet mushrooms
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Rack of Venison with a Black Trumpet Crust 

A great twist on a rack of venison: crusted with black trumpet mushrooms
Course: Main Course
Cuisine: American
Keyword: Blacktrumpet mushrooms, Rack of venison

Ingredients

  • 1 egg white beaten with a bit of water until smooth
  • Ground black trumpet mushrooms about 1 tablespoon per serving
  • Kosher salt and fresh ground black pepper
  • Fresh chopped thyme about 1/2 teaspoon per serving
  • Venison lard duck fat, or high heat cooking oil, for searing

Instructions

  • French the venison rack by scraping with a paring knife to clean the bones of meat and then polishing the bones by scraping with a scrubby, or small piece of steel wool, which I usually discard afterwords or sterlize/boil.
  • Brush the venison rack with the beaten egg white, season liberally with salt and pepper, a healthy pinch of fresh thyme, then roll all over in the ground black trumpets. Meanwhile, heat the cooking oil in a cast iron or heavy pan.
  • Brown the rack well on one side, then the other. Continue searing all over, being careful not to break the crust, until rare-medium rare, then allow to rest for a few minutes while you heat up some vegetables, or any accompaniments, and serve.

More 

The Forager’s Guide to Black Trumpet Mushrooms

 

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FORAGER | CHEF®
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Author: The Forager Chef’s Book of Flora
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Alan Bergo
Baby’s first homegrown mushrooms! Backyard wine Baby’s first homegrown mushrooms! Backyard wine caps on hardwood sawdust from my lumberjack buddy.

Next up blewits. Spawn from @northsporemushrooms

#winecaps #strophariaaeruginosa #allthemushroomtags
It’s wild cherry season. I’ll be picking from It’s wild cherry season. I’ll be picking from my favorite spot tomorrow a.m. and have room for a couple helpers. It’s at an event on a farm just south of St. Cloud. 

If you’re interested send me a message and I’ll raffle off the spots. Plenty of cherries to go around. I’ll be leading a short plant walk around the farm too. 

#chokecherries #foraging #prunusvirginiana #summervibes
Special thanks to the beach in Ashland for hooking Special thanks to the beach in Ashland for hooking it up with on-site garnishes. Beach pea flowers taste strong and leguminous, similar to vetch, or like a rich tasting pea shoot. 

#lathyrusjaponicus #beachpeas #peaflower #foraging #northshore #bts
Great, long day of filming in near the south shore Great, long day of filming in near the south shore of Lake Superior yesterday. 

Blueberries were sparse, and some kind of blight seems to be affecting the serviceberries. Chanterelles weren’t as good as 2020, but they were there. 

Quick dip in the Lake Superior after we broke set was a bonus. 

W/ @barebonesliving  @misterberndt @jesseroesler

#barebonesliving #foraging #lakesuperiorrocks #serviceberries #chanterelles #bts
Green ramp seed make a great lactoferment. Just pu Green ramp seed make a great lactoferment. Just put the green seeds in brine in a jar, leave for 2 weeks. 

After they’re sour they can be water bath processed, although I’ve stored them at room temp without an issue too. 

Finished product is great minced or puréed into places where you’d like garlic, capers, or both. 

Makes a great tzatziki with a little crumbled, dried bee balm. 

#tzatziki #ramps #rampseeds #foraging #fermentation
If you move quick you might still be able to get s If you move quick you might still be able to get some unripe, green ramp seeds. I saw a bunch yesterday near Lake Superior. 

At the right stage, they’re tender and the seed hasn’t started to form. 

They have the same potent garlicky flavor as the leaves and bulbs of the plant. 

I only harvest seeds from places where I haven’t harvest harvested bulbs and leaves the same year. 

#ramps #foraging #alliumtricoccum #seedhead
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