Thanksgiving is just a couple of days away and I am happily doing less than ever this year. I have a very small family and none of us are really interested in celebrating the holidays. But I am still cooking a little fall feast this weekend as I really enjoy the flavors of traditional Thanksgiving dishes. Also, I would like some leftovers; the loaded sandwich the day after is more important to me than the meal itself. Since I don’t have to cater to the tastes of others, I am getting a little funky this year and incorporating some foraged and fermented ingredients in the feast. We’re talking fermented drinks, misozuke & umeboshi pickles with some soft cheese, chicken of the woods instead of turkey & wild mushrooms in the dessert!
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Drinks
This year we going no (or low) alcohol and I have a couple non-alcoholic drinks planned to satisfy the craving of something delicious in a nice glass to pair with our meal.
Pear “Shrub”
A true shrub is made from vinegar fermented with fruit or herbs and sweetened with sugar or honey. The resulting tart and infused syrup can be used in cocktails, or as an ingredient in non-alcoholic beverages. I made a batch of Edna Lewis’s spiced pears earlier this week using beautiful Seckel pears, kombucha vinegar, and top-shelf dark brown sugar. Brilliant folks in the recipe comments shared that they enjoyed the leftover pickling syrup topped with sparkling water. The pear & clove-infused vinegar syrup is essentially a shrub and should make a nice homemade drink option.
Apple Amazake
Amazake is a Japanese sake-style beverage made by fermenting rice koji with cooked white rice and water. It usually has a very low (or zero) alcohol content. Just One Cookbook shares a tutorial for making your own amazake using a rice cooker that I will be following, with the addition of apples (inspired by The Koji House’s blueberry take on amazake). The fermentation lends a natural sweetness to the amazake & Just One Cookbook also suggests adding freshly grated ginger before drinking. Amazake is creamy and can be consumed warm or cold, so I’m thinking it will pair well with dessert. This is my first time attempting to make my own amazake – will report back with the results.
Appetizer
Cheese, Ferments & Crackers
The only appetizer will be a wedge or two of soft cheese with crackers & an assortment of fermented fruits and veggies. I have a lot of interesting holiday-eqsue ferments stashed in the fridge to pair with the cheese: lacto-fermented Fuyu persimmons, charred & lacto-fermented red peppers, umeboshi pickled celery and misozuke blueberries.
I tried umeboshi pickles for the first time this past spring on the tsukemono plate from the incredible Obon Shokudo in Portland, Oregon. To make the umeboshi pickled celery, I processed umeboshi plums into a paste, coated slices of organic celery in the paste & let it ferment at room temperature for week or so. The resulting pickle was very salty and intense, so I threw it in the fridge and sort of forgot about it. A few months later, the celery is still super crunchy but the salinity has mellowed and the plummy flavor of the umeboshi is more prominent; it’s honestly the perfect Thanksgiving pickle. I made misozuke blueberries back in May with King Grove organic blueberries from Eustis, Florida. Chef Dan Barber (of Blue Hill at Stone Barns) claimed they were the best blueberries he has ever had. I am a lifelong Floridian & had never heard of them! I ordered 10 lbs and wholeheartedly agree that they are incredibly delicious/possibly the perfect blueberry. I preserved a few handfuls in a jar of organic miso & the resulting pickle is really special with the flavor of a perfectly balanced blueberry pie in a single berry.
Main Meal
Confit Chicken of the Woods & Sides (Fermented Cranberry Sauce!)
We’re having chicken of the woods mushrooms instead of turkey. We haven’t eaten meat in years and our main course during the holidays is often mushrooms. Sometimes I make a mushroom tart or galette, but this year I thought ahead and saved some wild foraged chicken of the woods from our big mushroom haul back in September. Evan Kleinman shared a video of her cooking turkey confit, and it got me thinking that would be a nice way to cook the mushrooms. Forager Chef has a method for making confit wild mushrooms that sounds fantastic. I don’t want to dish out the cash for an extra bottle of good olive oil, but the upside is the leftover oil will be mushroom-infused and can be used in other dishes. The mushrooms will also be getting a heavy dose of backyard sage, thyme, rosemary and oregano in the form of a garlic/herb/honey paste post-confit. We’re keeping it minimal sides-wise. I will be making a loaf of Jim Lahey’s no-knead bread to dry out for a pan of brown butter, sage & apple stuffing. I like but don’t really care about green bean casserole etc. and much prefer Alison Roman’s incredible fennel gratin with walnut-thyme breadcrumbs. I don’t really cook from recipes, but that one is a banger if you love fennel and decadence. I think you gotta have potatoes, so I’m making a chunky yukon gold mashed potato with black trumpet mushroom gravy. Brad Leone shared the method for the fermented cranberry sauce so I splurged on a jar of local orange-blossom honey and made a small jar. I feel like dinner rolls are a must, but I don’t have a favorite recipe and haven’t decided on one yet.
Dessert
Apple & Chanterelle Caramel Galette
It was a big year for chanterelles in my area, and I was trying to think outside the box when using them up. I was inspired by one of my favorite Instagram follows Ecologica Projects to make a chanterelle-infused caramel sauce. I just threw a handful of fresh chanterelles in a saucepan with melted butter, sugar, and homemade toasted walnut milk and let it simmer on low for about 10-15 minutes until it thickened. The end result was a fragrant caramel sauce that tasted of the essence of chanterelle, and the mushrooms themselves were chewy and sweet. My local produce shop had a bounty of in-season apples to choose from, so I made an apple galette using a couple different varieties of apples, the candied chanterelles, and a bit of the chanterelle caramel. I served it with good vanilla bean ice cream & more of the chanterelle caramel sauce on top. The apples and mushrooms paired very well together, and the chanterelle caramel over the ice cream was decadent but also earthy and balanced. I am attempting to recreate this galette this weekend using the dried chanterelles in my pantry.
I am pretty stoked to be incorporating wild mushrooms and ferments into my holiday meal this year. I love getting creative with fermentation and cooking wild food, and it’s giving me something to look forward to. Hoping everyone has a peaceful holiday season full of the foods they like to cook & eat.
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