October 9, 2019
Silvercore Thanksgiving Recipes
Food
Thanksgiving is this weekend, and if your anything like us and despite all of our best intentions, you too have yet to plan your meal. Well, you can breathe a sigh of relief as we have curated three staple holiday recipes from our founder Tiffany Bader! Not only will these recipes be pillars for your Thanksgiving meal, but they also incorporate local, fresh, and foraged ingredients. Enjoy, and let us know how they turn out!
Master Recipe Cranberry Sauce
Ingredients:
- 12 oz fresh cranberries
- 1/2 cup to 3/4 cup sugar
- 1/2 cup water
Method: Put all ingredients into a saucepan and turn the heat up to a medium-high temperature until you can hear the cranberries pop and the mixture starts to bubble. Then turn the heat down to medium and let it simmer gently for about 10-15 minutes, stirring every so often to ensure that it’s not sticking and everything is moving around. Set the pot aside to cool slightly and then taste for sweetness. You are not looking for this to taste like a jam, but rather this cranberry sauce will have just the right amount of sweet with a distinct and complimenting tart taste, the perfect balance.
Feel free to alter the quantity and type of sugar based on your preferences and the tartness of the cranberries. As well, you can add orange juice instead of water, but I like the taste of the cranberries to shine through and never add it myself.
Forager’s Thanksgiving Stuffing
Ingredients:
- 4 fresh sausages, not cured or smoked. You can use a mild game sausage, or use whatever pork sausage you like. I would avoid overly spiced or cured sausages for this stuffing, as it will have a texture that is too firm and will be too strongly flavoured and can overpower the stuffing
- 1 leek thoroughly washed and finely diced
- 1 stalk of celery, finely diced
- Chopped assorted mushrooms, wild and/or cultivated. Use as much as you’d like and use your judgement here, dried mushrooms will absorb water and grow in size and weight, so it’s hard to give exact quantities
- 1 apple peeled and diced
- Chopped fresh herbs. Use what you have on hand or like best, such as age parsley thyme rosemary. I always use sage in my stuffing and add whatever else looks good. Again, quantity depends on what herbs you are using. Rosemary and thyme are powerful in flavour, so use less than if you are using parsley or sage. If you don’t have fresh herbs, you can use dried, but fresh is much better
- 1/2 cup roughly chopped hazelnuts or pecans
- 1-2 cups Turkey stock, or whatever stock you would like to use and the quantity will depend on how dry your bread is
- A loaf of bread roughly chopped and left out to dry for at least an hour or overnight if possible
Method: Get out your largest cast iron frying pan or large skillet. Heat the pan on the stovetop and then run a sharp knife lengthwise along each of your sausages. Pull off the sausage casing and discard. Break the sausage meat into rough bite-sized chunks and then fry them in your hot pan. Once the sausages are all broken up into pieces and browned nicely, remove from the pan and place aside in a bowl.
Get out your largest cast iron frying pan or large skillet. Heat the pan on the stovetop and then run a sharp knife lengthwise along each of your sausages. Pull off the sausage casing and discard. Break the sausage meat into rough bite-sized chunks and then fry them in your hot pan. Once the sausages are all broken up into pieces and browned nicely, remove from the pan and place aside in a bowl.
Put your leeks, celery, and mushrooms in the pan and scrape up all the browned bits at the bottom of the pan as the vegetables release some of their juices. Once the vegetables are cooked through and not releasing any more liquids, add your herbs, nuts and bread chunks. Stir around in the pan to mix thoroughly.
Add the stock in 1/4 cup increments and stir between each addition. You are looking for the stock to be absorbed after each addition. Keep adding stock and mixing until the bread appears to be soaked through but not soggy or falling apart. Season with salt and pepper to taste, place the entire pan in the oven at 400F for about 45 minutes or until golden brown on top. Remove from oven and serve alongside roasted turkey, goose, or whatever main you choose this Thanksgiving!
Foraged Quince Mostarda
Ingredients:
- 1/2 kg quince, peeled, cored and chopped into 2cm pieces
- 250ml apple juice
- 250g sugar
- 1 stick of cinnamon
- 1 lemon, peel and juice (peel, remove the pith and pips, and cut/ peel into thin slivers, then squeeze out the juice)
- 1.5 tbsp Dijon mustard
- .5 tbsp mustard seeds
Firstly, let’s talk about where you can find a quince and what a quince is. You can find quince in good quality stores and farm markets this time of year and may have mistaken them for weird-looking fuzzy pears. Quince are incredibly aromatic but cannot be eaten without first cooking. If you are doing a ham this Thanksgiving, see if you can locate some quince and make this mostarda to accompany it. There are quince trees around the Lower Mainland, but if you are unable to find any obliging trees or any in stores, you can use good baking apples as a substitute.
Method: Stew the quince in the apple juice, sugar, and cinnamon until tender, adding a bit of water if it starts to dry out. Add the lemon peel, lemon juice, mustard, and mustard seeds and cook until it has a jammy consistency. Decant into clean jars while still hot. You can also put into sterilized jars and seal, but please ensure that you are following directions on the proper method for canning. The mostarda will keep for several months in a cool, dark place if canned (it makes great Christmas presents). It goes very well with cold meat cuts, cheeses, cured meats or a Thanksgiving ham.
Tiffany Bader
Silvercore Inc.
