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Cod a l’Anglaise with Ramp Butter
Sauces & Condiments Seafood Wild Foods

Crisp Cod a l’Anglaise with Ramp Butter

“À l’anglaise” is just a fancy way of saying “English-style” in French. It really has little to do with actual English cooking but refers to the way that the French imagine English cooking to be – in other words, plain and boring. The term à l’anglaise is used without much consistency. In general, it means food that is prepared very simply and presented with no sauce more complex than melted butter. Sometimes it means boiled; other times, it means turned …

Pickled Ramp Bulbs
Appetizers Sauces & Condiments Wild Foods

Preserving the Wild Harvest: Quick Pickled Ramp (Wild Leek) Bulbs

Ramps (or wild leeks as they’re also known), are a wild-growing member of the onion family that have become one of America’s most popular “rediscovered” folk foods. Of course, ramps have never really been forgotten or gone out of style in their heartland, a broad swath of eastern North America stretching from southern Appalachia, west to the Great Lakes region and north into southern Canada. Spring is the season for ramps, beginning in mid-March in their southern range and ending …

Ingredients for chanterelle-apricot mustard
Sauces & Condiments Wild Foods

A Taste of Summer: Chanterelle-Apricot Mustard

This mellow mustard tastes like pure, sweet summer sunshine. It’s got that keen mustardy kick that every good mustard should have, but the bite is tempered with sunny sweetness of apricots and complex, nutty notes of chanterelle mushrooms. The familiar fruity-floral flavor and aroma of chanterelle mushrooms is often compared to – and paired with – apricots. The chanterelle’s distinctive flavor intensifies when the orange-yellow mushrooms are dried, becoming deeper, darker, richer and toastier. Here’s the tricky bit: dried chanterelles …

Grilled Artichokes with Morel-Date Butter
Appetizers Mushrooms Sauces & Condiments Vegetables Wild Foods

Grilled Artichokes with Morel-Date Butter

From now on, whenever we cook artichokes, we’ll be finishing them on the grill. A quick trip to the grill transforms the prickly domesticated relative of the thistle into something altogether more subtle and flavorful, with a deep smokey intensity that soars above the simple steamed version. Grilled artichokes are easier to eat, too. Once the artichoke has been steamed, it’s a simple matter to quarter it and pull out the fuzzy inedible “choke” and inner leaves. After grilling, just …

Salads Sauces & Condiments Seafood

Grilled Tuna with Balaton Cherries, Sweet Onion and Arugula

What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you think of tart cherries? Cherry pie? Cherry cobbler? Cherry jam? Think again; a juicy grilled tuna steak might not seem to be a likely pairing for fresh cherries, but the lively flavor of the Balaton cherry is big enough to take on the job. A meaty fish like tuna (or for that matter, salmon, halibut and cod) cries out for a generous dash of acidity to balance all that oily …

Ramp Biscuits with Ramp and Jowl Bacon Gravy from Above
Breads & Baked Goods Meat Sauces & Condiments Wild Foods

Country Comfort: Ramp & Jowl Bacon Gravy

It’s not surprising that most classic recipes are built on the solid foundation of good old-fashioned country cooking. Ramp and Jowl Bacon Gravy is insanely good over hot, homemade biscuits (check our recipe for Ramp Buttermilk Biscuits), but would be equally at home gracing a roasted veal chop in a fancy white-tablecloth restaurant. No wonder that down-home ingredients like ramps have found their way onto the menus of so many upscale dining establishments! A spoonful or two of this rich, …

Ramps laying on a green platter
Sauces & Condiments Vegetables Wild Foods

Ramps: America’s Love Affair with the Smelly (But Addictively Delicious) Wild Leek

Over the years, many North Americans have come to know and love the lowly wild member of the onion family known as the “ramp” (Allium tricoccum). Why? Ramps possess an unmistakable flavor and powerful aroma that immediately announces their membership in the widespread onion family (Alliaceae), but which is, at the same time, absolutely unique. Ramps, or wild leeks, as they are commonly known in the northern part of their range, have earned their place in the lore of the …

Meat Sauces & Condiments

Ramp Chimichurri

It’s now officially spring, and while winter weather is still hanging on across much of the country, we can’t help but anticipate warmer weather and all the wild spring bounty that comes along with it. Fresh ramps, or wild leeks as they’re known in the north, are beginning to shoot up and should be ready for harvest in a few more days, but in the meanwhile, we’re satisfying our cravings with plump, mellow ramp bulbs that were frozen at the …

Pan-Fried Bison Steak with Morel & Ramp Bordelaise Sauce
Meat Mushrooms Sauces & Condiments Wild Foods

Steak with Morel & Ramp Bordelaise Sauce

The quickest, easiest and – some would say – best way to cook a steak is to pan-fry it. Certainly, this is an attractive option in the depths of winter, but the results are exceptional enough to make it a preferred method year round. After a quick sear on both sides, the steak can be cooked to perfection in 10 minutes or less without all the fuss and mess of a broiler or grill. With the steak right there in …

Shishito Pepper Tempura
Appetizers Asian Cheese Eggs Any Style Sauces & Condiments Vegetables

Four Things to Do with Super-cool Shishito Peppers

They’ve been popping up on appetizer menus of trendy restaurants for a while, but tiny, tasty shishito peppers have fully entered the mainstream and are now seen frequently at farmer’s markets and grocery stores around the country. Shishito peppers are a favorite snack food in Japan, where this thin-skinned mild breed of pepper was developed. While similar to the Spanish Padrone, the shishito has a distinctive flavor and appearance all its own. The slender, finger-sized peppers are bright green in …