This week at Key Ingredient: Shin Thompson of Bonsoiree cooks with burdock root. Read the piece here.

Longtime SFOB watchers will recall that burdock root was seen in the wild in this classic SFOB video.

This being episode #40, time to recap the last ten as dishes, as I last did here:

• Shawn McClain/Blood: although seeing it in its brownie-batter state was pretty appalling, by the time it had all that savory stuff around it, it was just like a pate, and quite tasty.
• Nick Lacasse/Whelk: much the same is true of this one, though I can’t see why anyone much wants to eat the decidedly rubbery, not very flavorful whelk.
• Justin White/Ostrich egg: in the end, it’s an egg. A lot of egg. It was good, if overabundant.
• Jeffrey Hedin/Rabbit Lungs: just another thing in a pate. Good country pate, I liked the balance of sweet and tart things around it, which made it more sophisticated.
• David Dworshak/Milkweed: I loved the cocktail, the cured beef bacon, and the ice cream. Anything that had a higher concentration of the green pods was harder to take; they really don’t have much flavor.
• Mark Mendez/Tomato leaves: super-simple (like the video) and clean. Probably my favorite in this series, although it was so plain it was hardly more than drinking after a squeezed tomato. But just enough more.
• Rob Levitt/Abalone: as Rob said, he kind of overwhelmed the subtle abalone with the (certainly tasty) other things going on. Abalone at least more rewarding than whelk.
• Jason Vincent/Duck tongues: the duck tongues themselves were fine, just crispy fatty friedness. The sandwich was ridiculously overstuffed, but enjoyable. I wanted one the next day.
• B.K. Park/Chufa: I loved the idea of replacing the sushi rice with something else; I thought chufa was kind of dry and chewy for the role, though. Don’t quit your day job, chufa.
• Shin Thompson/Burdock root: I really liked this soup a lot, although I think it’s too rich and savory-sweet for a whole bowl. But for a small shooter or whatever, a really interesting and complex flavor.