Author: kitchentrails

A few years back I found a “new to me” mushroom, but all the references say inedible, which does not mean toxic, but as per Wikipedia: “Inedible mushroom species may be those of very poor quality, or poor taste or likely to cause gastric upset or closely resemble poisonous mushrooms and cannot be recommended.” But then I also read in Wikipedia that this particular mushroom is commonly eaten in Borneo, with the little caveat: [citation needed] I spent quite some time searching for a recipe or frankly just any edibility reference. Trying the Latin name “Galiella rufa” (named after Mme Marcelle Le Gal, one of the few genera named after a female mycologist,) the two common names out there “Hairy Rubber Cup” or “Peanut Butter Cup Fungus” without success.

I went down the mycelium (a mycologists’ rabbit hole) and after a long while found a youtube video of a lady stir-frying said mushroom with a few other ingredients. I am not sure which Austronesian she speaks but I get the idea. But frankly, almost anything tastes good stir-fried with vegetables and plenty of seasonings. Anyway, I got brave and tried the mushrooms, I am intrigued. It is not about the flavor, barely any, but the texture is something crazy and it doesn’t change when cooked. The outside is rubbery, the inside gelatinous. 

There are some aspects of Asian cuisine that are particularly distinctive which are texture and mouthfeel (kou gan in Chinese).  Most Westerners find slippery or rubbery textures fairly unappetizing unless the food is sweet, which is kind of strange, right?

Since I still can’t find anything but stir-fries I try to come up with something of my own. The mushrooms somewhat remind me of the Japanese Konnyaku which has little to no taste but is prized for its texture. Konnyaku is produced from the flour of a starchy corm mixed with limestone water to generate its rubbery viscosity. So I decided to cook the mushroom in a Dashi stock and serve it like a Konnyaku dish. I made a sauce of Miso, Sugar, Mirin, and Sake. Poured it over the mushrooms and topped the dish with sesame seeds and chopped Shiso.

The stock was slightly bitter after cooking the mushrooms in it, you could certainly just boil them in water or fry them in a pan. If you don’t have Shiso, you could use Cilantro, Basil, or green onions. I was quite pleased with the results and I am ready to do some more experiments with this mushroom.

I finally found what this mushroom is called in Borneo: Kulat mata kerbau (Buffalo Eye Fungus) which opened another possibility for online searches, like a research paper from the University of  Malaysia Sabah on the nutritional qualities of native mushrooms. And I learned that this mushroom is nutritionally valuable for its high iron content: 218 mg/kg, the FDA recommends 18mg for adults daily. 

You might be asking why am I writing all this?

I want to change the status of this mushroom from inedible to edible if you are not a texture phobe. If you have any experience cooking it let me know.  If you cooked it like Konnyaku let me know how you liked it. 

The Hairy Rubber Cup is, as the name says, a cup fungus that is quite gelatinous on the inside. It does not have a stem. The bottom of the cup attaches to a wooden branch. The outside is dark brown to black and fuzzy. The top is the color of peanut butter. It fruits in Spring to early Summer, along fallen branches from previous years, covered in leaf litter (the branches not the fungus). It is best to look under large deciduous trees. You want to train your eyes on shapes of empty acorn cups and the color of peanut butter. Here in the South, this fungus is quite plentiful and easy to find. 

I made another recipe that was quite tasty, I added it to Beef and Barley Soup. Barley is kind of squeaky chewy in soup anyway, I thought it was a good match. I boiled it in water before adding it to the soup. It was good and I will make it again. 

These little gummy cups are not my new favorite, but they are in season when not much else is. They are nutritious and as any mushroom, a low-calorie food packed with nutrients.

If you want to read more about the Malayan research, here is one link: https://scialert.net/abstract/?doi=jas.2007.2216.2221

Erdbeerkuchen in Germany is the messenger that summer is on its way. Once strawberries get ripe bakeries and grocery stores will sell prebaked sponge cake exactly for this purpose. Baking your own sponge is definitively worth the effort and much tastier. The same sponge cake is also used for a mixed fruit cake. Germans like to use bananas, kiwi fruit, and strawberries for their colors and flavor combination. The fruits on these kinds of cakes are always fresh and raw, a glaze preserves the fruit and keeps it in place. Jam under the fruit keeps the cake from getting soggy. Any kind of berries always makes me want to bake, and certainly when our local farmer’s strawberries get ripe. Much love to Sam Mclemore from Bountiful Harvest Farms, look at these beauties ↓

For the water sponge cake you need:

11-inch tart pan with a removable bottom

9-inch cake or pie pan that is lightweight

parchment paper cut into circles to fit above pans and buttered or oiled

butter or oil for parchment paper

3 large eggs separated

3 tbsp water

3/4 cup of white sugar

1 1/3 cup of cake flour

3/4 tsp baking powder

For the glaze you need:

1 tbsp potato starch

2 tbsp white sugar

1 cup of  red grape juice

To assemble the cake you need

3 – 4 tbsp of jam or jelly that compliments the strawberries  like raspberry, strawberry, lemon curd, etc

2 pints of clean, dry, immaculate strawberries; leaves and any white parts trimmed off

Heavy whipping cream, whipped to accompany the cake

Recipe

Oven:

Set a rack in the middle and preheat to 410°F

Pans:

Cut two parchment circles, one for each pan. Affix the larger circle inside the bottom of the larger tart pan. The smaller circle should be buttered on both sides and then attached to the outside bottom of the smaller pan. This pan will push the dough down and create the raised edge effect.  Butter or oil the inside sides of the tart pan.

3 Bowls, Whisk, Fine Mesh Strainer, Fork, Rubber Spatula:

In a small bowl stir 3 egg yolks with a fork until homogenous.

In a medium bowl whisk together the 3/4 tsp baking powder and 1 1/3 cup of cake flour.

In a large bowl whisk 3 egg whites and 3 tbsp. water until large bubbles form, slowly add the 3/4 cup of sugar while whisking, keep whisking until stiff peaks form. Add beaten egg yolks and incorporate with a spatula.

Place the strainer over the large bowl and sift flour onto eggs. With the spatula stir the flour with lifting through the middle motions, until fully incorporated.

Pans:

Using your spatula, transfer the dough into the tart pan. The tart pan should a little less than full. Hold the tart pan over your counter and drop it a few times to let bigger air bubbles escape from the dough. Place your smaller cake pan with the parchment paper stuck to the outside bottom in the middle of the dough and gently push down until the dough meets the top rim of the tart pan. (see photo above) The dough will slightly rise out of the pan while baking like a soufflé.

Oven:

Bake your cake at 410°F for 10 to 12 minutes until the top is a light golden color and a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

Plate, Plater, Small Knife:

Once the cake has cooled you can gently cut around the small pan and remove the small pan and parchment paper. Now place one hand under the tart pan and gently push up on the removable bottom to push the cake out of the pan. Invert the cake with a plate and remove the pan bottom and paper. Set the cake on a cake plater.

Microwave or Stove, Small Bowl or Saucepan, Pastry Brush:

Heat the jam or jelly until runny and brush it all over the inside of the cake. This will keep the cake relatively dry from the fruit juices and adds extra flavor.

Arrange the strawberries in a tight pattern on the cake.

Stove, Small Bowl, Rubber Spatula, Saucepan, Tablespoon:

Mix 1 tbsp potato starch and 2 tbsp sugar with a couple of tablespoons of juice until a lump-free paste forms. Heat the rest of the juice in the saucepan until it boils, stir in paste, and boil for one minute longer. Remove saucepan from heat and let cool for three minutes. With a spoon drizzle glaze over the strawberries, starting from the middle of the cake.  Let the glazed cake cool for about 15 – 20 minutes.

Refrigerate the cake to keep it fresh. Serve with whipped cream. Since fresh berries are quite perishable, the cake should be eaten within 2-3 days.

Tips

If your tart pan is smaller (9 inch) a dough from 2 eggs might be sufficient, you have to decrease the other ingredients by a third too.

If the bottom of your pan is not removable, cover the edge with parchment too; or butter and flour it.

If you don’t have a second pan to set inside, a flat cake is just as yummy.

You can also use other juices, or water, or red tea, like hibiscus for the glaze.

You can also make tartlets with this dough, they bake in about 7-8 minutes. I invert them and cut a shallow hole with a serrated knife for the strawberries.

Gathering:

Elder or Sambucus is widespread in the Northern Hemisphere; I see it in ditches and fence rows, often growing in clumps and blooming in May and the beginning of June in the South. I have been gathering the blossoms since I was a child growing up in Germany, where we made pancakes, syrups and a sparkling summer drink. I usually try to find a patch removed from the road, as with any gathering of wild foods. The flower clusters brake off easily, you don’t need any tools for gathering, usually the blackberries are pretty bad in the same area, I would recommend boots and thick pants. You can flick any insects out of the flowers while you are still outside, don’t shake your flowers too vigorously or you might loose a lot. You want to gather the most pristine, open flower heads you can find, they will have the best flavor. Please make sure you have correctly identified the plant, before gathering and using it. I have posted a link at the end of this article for identification.

Preparing:

Do not wash the flower clusters, a lot of the flavor is in the pollen. I cut the thicker stems off the clusters, since the leaves, twigs and  branches contain cyanidin glycoside, which may produce illness if ingested in sufficient quantities. I also remove any blossom which a wilted/brown already, which are usually at the margins of clusters and can easily be cut away with scissors.

Recipes:

Elder Blossom Syrup

Ingredients:

• 1 qt water
• 2 lbs white sugar
• 2 tbsp citric acid; can be found with canning supplies
• 1 organic lemon
• 14 elder flower clusters

Heat and stir the first three ingredients until dissolved in a pot you won’t need for the next few days. Remove the yellow part of the lemon rind (zest) with a vegetable peeler, peel the lemon and discard the white pith. Slice the peeled lemon. Add the lemon and zest to the sugar water; once cooled down, add the elder flowers and cover to keep insects out. Steep for three days, strain and bottle the syrup. Keep the syrup refrigerated. It tastes great with a dry champagne/prosecco or sparkling water. I would recommend a ratio of  5:1.

Other uses for the syrup:

• Use the syrup in place of simple syrup in mixed drinks
• Use it to make Elder Blossom Ice Cream
• Brush it on top of cake layers to keep them moist and give a light floral note
• Caramelize carrots in it
• Use it to sweeten tea
• Add a touch to a salad dressing
• Make Elder Blossom Jelly

Dangerous Sparkling Elder Flower

Ingredients:

• 2 quarts of spring water
• 3/4 – 1 cup of sugar
• 2 organic lemons
• 6 elder flower clusters
• enough swing top bottles to hold 70 oz
• the recipe can easily be doubled or tripled as long as you have enough empty bottles

Heat a little of the water in a sauce pan to dissolve the sugar. Pour the sugar water and the cold water in a non reactive (glass, enamel, plastic) container. Remove the yellow part of the lemon rind (zest) with a vegetable peeler, peel the lemon and discard the white pith. Slice the peeled lemon. Add the lemon, the zest and the flowers to the sugar water and cover to keep insects out. Leave at room temperature for 24 hours.

You can stir it a few times to make sure all the blossoms are submerged. Filter all the solids out and bottle in swing top bottles. Leave the bottles at room temperature 2-3 days. But let extra gases out every 8-10 hours. This is where the dangerous part comes in. If you don’t burp your bottles regularly, you have a ticking time bomb. If you have too much pressure built up to burp the bottles without loosing all the contents, you can refrigerate the bottles first and then set the refrigerated bottle in a bowl to catch any overflow. If you are not very good at remembering to burp your bottles regularly, set them in a place where they won’t kill anyone in case they do explode. That all said you can probably tell by now that this makes a great sparkling drink reminiscent of Champagne. It might have a small amount of alcohol, but not enough to get you drunk at least at this stage of fermentation. After 2-3 days you can start tasting your brew and refrigerate it when it is nice and bubbly and you like the flavor. I like drinking mine fairly quickly, I don’t think that the flavor improves with age as it does with wine.

Elder Blossom Pancakes

Ingredients:

• 2 1/8 cups of milk
• 4 eggs
• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 tbsp melted butter and some more butter to grease the pan
• 2 tbsp sugar
• pinch of salt
• 10 elder flower clusters
• powdered sugar and/or a syrup

You can put all the ingredients, but the flowers in a blender to make the batter, or you can beat it by hand until the lumps are gone. Let the batter rest for 20 minutes, or longer. If you let it rest longer, cover it and put it in the fridge. Heat a frying pan or griddle to medium high and grease it with some butter. Hold a flower cluster by the main stem and dip it in the batter and then place it in the pan. While the first side of the pancake is browning snip all the stems off with a pair of scissors. Once the edge of the pancake looks cooked flip it over and brown the second side. Since Blueberries are ripe at the same time, I served the pictured batch with blueberry syrup and powdered sugar, a very yummy combination.

Remember that Elder Blossoms turn into Elderberries, another delicious, nutritious wild food; so don’t pick all the flowers.

Links:

Identification www.ediblewildfood.com/elderberry.aspx

Wild foraged foods are just my favorite; they are packed with nutrients, super fresh, picked at prime and of course free. Wild foods are usually more nutrient dense, since they grow under optimum conditions. They have not been bred for centuries to have other attributes, like higher sugar content, longer shelf life etc.

You can imagine my delight when I spotted a very large bright orange mushroom, while walking our dog, from the road. I took some photos and a small sample and went home to properly identify it. It turned out to be what is commonly know as Chicken of the Woods, or  Laetiporus cincinnatus by it’s Latin name. Not just edible, but described as choice. I went back and picked three clusters, the largest weighed almost seven pounds. I shared it with several friends and a lot of mushroom cooking ensued in my kitchen.

It is named Chicken of the Woods, because of it’s texture and mild flavor. It does not taste like chicken, but can very easily be substituted for chicken in lots of recipes. Since it is so mild, one has to be careful not to overpower it with other flavors. It should not be eaten raw.

The underside has very fine white/yellow pores and since it grew from the base of the tree it engulfed sticks and leaves around it. The older the mushroom gets the tougher it can be. This one was was quite fresh and all the parts were very tender.

You can tear the mushroom apart just like you would chicken. If the thicker parts are a little tough you can cut them into cubes and cook them longer in stews or soups. In general this is a very dense mushroom, it does not loose much volume when it is cooked.

I sauteed some for a stir fry in ghee, very yummy. I also used some for a curry in place of meat.

Since I had so much. I also put quite a bit in the freezer. The best way is to cook the mushroom first and then freeze it.

After all this, I was inspired to create my own recipe. I kept thinking that it reminded me a little bit of crab meat. So I decided to create a “Mock Crab Cake” with the Laetipurus as my crab. Since the mushroom flavor is so mild, I wanted to add a fishy umami flavor . I love creating new spice mixes and recipes. I am not expecting you to have all these things at home and to follow suit, this is more of an armchair cooking post.

Umami, or savory is a taste associated often with fermented vegetables, meat, fish and dairy. Think of a ripe brie or Worcestershire Sauce. Our desire to enhance those flavors brought on the artificial MSG, which replicates the natural amino acids that break down in foods during cooking or fermentation.

For these crab cakes I chose: black pepper, bay leaf, tiny dried shrimp, saffron, katsuobushi (dried tuna flakes), sun dried tomatoes, dulse seaweed, smoked paprika and celery seed. I wanted to bring the fishy flavors and also a little of Old Bay seasoning into the mix. Since these flavors are complimentary I did not measure anything. Next I ground all this in the coffee grinder and gave it a taste test; yummy.

Mock Crab Cake

In the past people have invented “mock” or “faux” recipes for keeping up with high society, when they couldn’t afford the ingredients, like Mock Turtle Soup. In more recent times these terms are more common when vegetarian dishes mock a certain meat.

this recipe is for 1 mock crab cake

equipment: grater, wax paper, small ring mold, frying pan

1 cup flaked Laetiporus

1 egg beaten

1 heaping tbsp mayonnaise

1 tsp rice syrup, crab meat is always a little sweet, you can use sugar too, just a little less

1 tbsp grated shallot; if you substitute onion, run some water over it, to take the edge off

2 tbsp umami seasoning; you could substitute 1 tsp Worcestershire Sauce & tomato paste

2 tbsp bread crumbs on a piece of wax paper

Tear the mushroom to resemble crab meat, you need about a cup. Mix egg, mayonnaise, syrup, shallot and seasoning. Taste it, see if it needs anything, like salt. (don’t taste it raw if you don’t know where your eggs come from) Add the mushrooms to it.

Grate some stale bread onto a piece of wax paper, set a ring mold (this is just the top ring off a plastic drink cup) on top of the breadcrumbs and fill it with the mushroom mix. Sprinkle the remaining breadcrumbs on top. Lift it with the wax paper onto a plate and refrigerate for 15 minutes.

Heat a pan to medium with some butter, or what ever oil you like and gently fry the patty on both sides. Serve with lettuce. Make sure the patty is not so thick that the middle stays raw. You can shape the patty by hand too. The time in the refrigerator helps with moisture distribution and firming up the patty, you can leave it in the fridge longer.

The outside was nice and crunchy, the inside soft, with a nice texture to it. The taste was reminiscent of crab, but of course not identical. I will definitively make these again, even oyster mushrooms should work great with this recipe.

I am not an expert on mushrooms and I urge you to be very careful picking wild mushrooms. I usually stick to the species that don’t have poisonous lookalikes. Please don’t use this blog post for identification.

If you are what you eat, then we should eat the best we can be.

I am very grateful that my husband likes to hunt. A few years ago, as we were getting more self-sufficient and leading more of a homesteader’s life, my husband had just shot his first deer of the season, and I marveled at the animal, as he was gutting and skinning it, and wondered why we always got, what seemed so little, back from the processor and still had to pay about $1.50 to $2.00 a pound. That year we decided to tackle a new challenge to learn how to butcher venison with the help of Youtube videos. Now that I have butchered quite a few deer each year, I can really appreciate the cost processors charge and see why so much is wasted.

This will not be a post on how to butcher venison, but on how to make the most of it, once you decide to do it yourself and to give you a brief glimpse of what it is like. I also want to share some details you might not find so easily otherwise. I encourage you to butcher an animal yourself, it is very satisfying and empowering. It is not hard, I always tell people it is just a reverse puzzle, and there are many good videos and tutorials online these days. It does take time, especially if you are not proficient, which is hard to become, since a lay person isn’t butchering on a daily basis, but more on a twice a year basis.

I want to explain on how to make the most of your animal using a venison hindquarter.

The day of the kill, my husband guts and skins the animal and cuts it into quarters, which we then put in our extra fridge to let the meat age. The innards get used right away and we have tanned a few of the hides. This hindquarter had been aged for 10 days, which helps tenderize the meat. Not all deer carry this much fat, but it helps keep the meat moist during aging.

The first step is to remove as much fat as possible, so you can see where the muscle groups lie.

I am also showing you my favorite tools: A fish filet knife, a mayonnaise knife, a butter knife and a small cutting board. The filet knife has a thin flexible blade, which helps with cutting along curves, the other two knifes help with separating layers, or meat from the bone without cutting anything.

Once you identify the muscle groups, you can start pulling them apart with your fingers and the help of your knifes. I am holding the sirloin tip in my right hand and the bottom round in my left.

In regular meat butchering, cuts are made and not muscle groups separated so much, which results in meat cuts that are not uniform. Take the T-bone Steak for example, it has a New York Strip on one side and a Tenderloin on the other side. I like using each muscle separately, because it will all cook the same, have the grain in the same direction and have the same tenderness all throughout.

These are the whole hindquarter muscle groups: Bottom Round, Eye of Round, Top Round, Top Sirloin, Shanks, Sirloin Tip and Tri-tip. Except for the shank, these are all fairly tender cuts as long as they are cooked correctly. The Eye of Round (long narrow piece) is excellent in stir fry. The Tri-tip (bottom right) is a great little steak, all the other cuts are great for stew, roasts or cutting into steaks.

And this is everything else:

The outside of the hindquarter can become dry in the aging process, but if you have a cat or a dog, they will love those jerky like pieces (top right) trimmed from the outside, which make excellent treats.

Venison tallow (that is what the fat is called) is very hard and dry and not pleasant to eat, it will coat the roof of your mouth like wax, but it is an excellent skin moisturizer. It makes excellent salves, lip balm and candles. When a deer does not have much fat, you can brush the quarters with melted venison tallow, to keep the meat moist, before aging it.

Any meat cuts that are small or too tough will get ground for hamburger. I usually don’t grind any fat with it at that point; unless I am making sausage, then I will add about 20% pork fat. The hamburger will be lean, I will add more olive oil, bacon grease, or butter as I am cooking it.

The bones will make a wonderful bone broth, which can later be used for any soups, stews, rice, etc. Bone broth is rich in protein, gelatin and also contains trace minerals.

As you are butchering away, there is always scraps to be cut off: sinew, large blood vessels, ligaments, skin, etc. (bottom right, photo above) I will grind it into pet food and freeze it in plastic bags.

Often you can pull the fascia off the muscles (white pile on the right), it feels like vellum or parchment paper, for a good reason, these papers use to be made from it. It also makes good pet treats.

Lastly you can pull out and save sinew, which you can use in craft projects, it is incredibly strong.

A whole deer will yield about 3 gallons of this beautiful bone broth, you can either can it or freeze it. On the right you can see a pot that is ready to be cooked. The aromatics I used are: Thyme, Bay Leaf, Garlic, Salt, Juniper Berries, Shiitake and Apple Cider Vinegar. The vinegar helps extract the minerals from the bones, but you don’t want to use so much that you can taste it. Venison is a woodsy kind of animal, so I like using woodsy aromas in my bone broth.

As far as the fat goes, it will render easier, if you grind it first. I like rendering in water, in a crockpot on low, for a few hours.

Once the fat has rendered you can strain it through cloth or a metal coffee filter, while it is still hot, and almost all impurities will be removed.

Once it has cooled, I usually scrape the last impurities from the bottom.

Vension Dog Treats drying in the sun

There is a lot more to write, but I will save that for another blog, or two. I hope to have inspired you to do some processing yourself.

As far as we know the Sumerians in present day Iraq were the first to perfect the stone arch. Only one of these arches still stands today in the ancient city of Ur, estimated to be 4,500 years old.

Royal Tombs of Ur

Entrance to the olympic stadium

Later on ancient Romans and Greeks perfected the design, still seen today in many aqueducts and this arch over the entrance tunnel to the first Olympic stadium build around 600 B.C.

All this was going through my head one day, as I was again pondering, while cutting onions, why we always strive to cut round vegetables into cubes. I have watched respected chefs dice an onion, and I was never happy with that technique. There was always side pieces of onion lost and it was hard to hold onto the pile of onion, once it had been sliced top to bottom and then again horizontally.

While trying to think of a more even dice of concentric circles, I came to the conclusion of cutting these layers in a radial pattern, which is not just more even, it is also much more stable. And here is where the ancient Sumerians and their stone arch comes in. When you put pressure on the stone arch (weight of the stones) or the onion, it actually holds together, as in gripping the onion with your finger tips and putting pressure on with your knife.

Long story short, it is easier and you get a more even dice.

Nutrition

The onion’s anti-cancer & anti-inflammatory properties have been more and more bred out in an attempt to make onions sweeter and sweeter, where some of the new sweet varieties have as much sugar as an apple. The best onions to stick with are the pungent ones, yes the tear jerkers and also shallots. As a general rule, fruits and vegetables that are closest to their wild relatives are always more potent in phytochemicals, which can help the body ward off disease. A plants phytochemicals are always greatest on the outer layers, where the plant uses these chemicals to fight insects, disease, unfavorable weather, etc. It is best to peel away as little of your onion as possible. You can always use the outer layers for soup or stock, if they are too rubbery or dry to use. In general pesticide residues on onions are fairly low, so you don’t have to feel pressured to find organic varieties.

If you are cutting an onion not as a flavoring, where dicing is preferred, but as part of your dish, think fajitas or grilled for a sandwich, you might want to cut your onions in strips, long ways.

Don’t cry

To find out more about Phytochemicals check this out http://www.precisionnutrition.com/phytochemicals