I Have Fresh Ingredients
The Forager's Recipe
Collect only enough for those who you feed, and collect only where the species grows commonly and exhuberantly.
Do not collect rare or theatened edibles to eat. Walk lightly on the earth.
clean all ingredients. depending on shape, wash gently.
Slice into thin needles/ strips
saute over low heat in oil of your choice. For mushrooms, they must be completely cooked through. This is a good rule for all forage.
Add coarse pale salt.
Seperately, cook lentils until done. Add lemon (ideally fermented) and sesame, and a touch of pepper and heat-flavor if desired.
Toast bread. Ideally thick crust and homemade, but any will serve for food.
Serve sauteed forage with spiced lentils, thick yogurt, and bread (if desired).
This works with most mushrooms, most bitter greens, and most tubers.
Salted dandelions and lemon lentils and yogurt are stupendously delicious in spring,
Lion's mane mushrooms play beautifully with the bite of the lentils,
Sunchokes spread out on bread, dipped in yogurt are marvelous in fall.
This does not work for some strongly uniquely flavored forage plants, or for fruits and flowers.
I recommend flowers in tea, myself. fruits that cannot be eaten fresh are good in jam tarts.
dandelion salad
huevos rancheros
green onion pancakes
mushroom soba
Also works with ramen noodles. Spectacular with Thai rice noodles.
Ingredients:
Process
Mince garlic and ginger, saute in oil of choice until softened.
In a different pot, begin cooking noodles.
Slice half of the mushrooms and add to pan, cook until softened.
Mix black miso, black garlic, shitake (just a little), and Lao Gan Ma with water. Add to mushrooms in pan.
Bring to a light boil. Add the rest of the mushrooms, cut largeish.
When the mushrooms are just cooked, add cooked noodles.
Add sliced green onion.
Add daikon and bean sprouts.
Enjoy!
ginger lemon tonic soup/ pickle soup
Good on cold days to warm the soul and the sinuses.Ingredients:
Process: Make a mirepoux with onions, carrots, celery, garlic, red chilis, and a small amount of ginger root and preserved lemon, all very finely minced.
Cook in oil of choice until just beginning to caramelise. Crush lightly in the pan.
Add cumin, coriander (small amount), just enough soy sauce to color the mirepoux, pepper, and mustard seed. Let it color for a minute.
Add water until it reaches a broth consistency.
Add miso until it gains slightly less saltiness than your preference.
Mix together a large spoonful peanuts with the brine ferment in another bowl. Stir until incorporated.
Add IN SMALL AMOUNTS to the broth. If you accidentally add too much, just add more water.
This soup should be strongly aromatic and salty, with a savouriness cut by the sharpness of the brine, lemons, ginger, and red chilis.
I figured out crunchy peanut butter as an aid to the mouthfeel of soups a while back, it isn't necessary to the flavor. Add less brine and salt if you're not using it. Note: Do not be shy on the ginger and garlic. This soup should wake you up. It's called 'pickle soup' because it contains most of the ingredients I add to my ferments. I've tried it with beets, and other than the extreme red color, it's lovely.
I Do Not Have Fresh Ingredients
dead cheap peanut soup
tacos de papa
inarizushi
"What?" I hear you say, "Sushi with no fresh ingredients?" Yes.
Ingredients:
Process:
Cook rice.
Open can, take out the Inarizushi curd sheets. Keep the liquid in the can.
Gently open the curd sheets and fill with rice. There will be a lot of rolls.
Add a pinch of Lao Gan Ma and a drop of Fish sauce to every roll.
Add a spoonful of the liquid from the can to every roll.
Slice laver into thin strips. Wrap strips around the rolls.
If the sheets come loose, a drop of liquid will bind them together.
This is a beautiful, simple, and delicious form of sushi. I've made it in a dorm room before.
The ingredients pack smaller than you would believe possible.
mackerel cakes and roumelade
Auxillary Recipes
ghee
obscenely good mushroom moirpoux
morrocan preserved lemon
Ingredients:Wash the lemons. Wash some glass or ceramic containers with lids.
Next, slice the lemons. There's a bit of a trick to slicing the whole lemons.
Hold the lemon on its point on your cutting board. Cut through it vertically just until you touch the rind on the bottom. Stop.
Turn the lemon and slice perpendicular to your first cut, still holding the lemon on its point. Stop at the rind on the other side.
Repeat for all lemons. They should open into what looks like a stack of lemon wedges that you can pull apart at the peel.
Fill a bowl with salt. Measure at least a tablespoon of salt into every lemon. Be generous.
When every lemon is COVERED in salt, let them sit for a few minutes.
Squeeze the lemon juice into your jars.
Put the lemons into the jars. Crush down ideally until they are under the juice. Add a few more tablespoons salt on top.
If the lemons are not under the juice, add juice until they are.
Put in a cool environment. (fridge, cellar, etc) Taste often. The lemons will lose their sourness until they have a crisp and clean lemony goodness. I add the brine as a flavoring, crush the fermented lemon flesh into sauces, and slice the lemon peels into everything. The jar can always be topped up with fresh salted lemons. I've had a jar going for two years straight now, the brine is thick as syrup and is wonderfully complex.