Savory Sweet
Simple Preserves from a Northern Kitchen
Beth Dooley and Mette Nielsen
“Let’s dispense with the usual old notions of preserving,” Beth Dooley suggests, leading us into Mette Nielsen’s kitchen, where old-world Danish traditions meld with the freshest ideas and latest techniques. Their approach combines the bright, bold flavors of Nordic cuisines while emphasizing the local, the practical, and the freshest ingredients to turn each season’s produce into a bounty of condiments.
Beth Dooley and Mette Nielsen break through the mystery of the pickle in these masterfully created recipes on preserving the northern way. They explore produce from the cucumber to the gooseberry in imaginative but approachable and fun ways.
Paul Berglund, 2016 James Beard Foundation Best Chef: Midwest
“Let’s dispense with the usual old notions of preserving,” Beth Dooley suggests, leading us into Mette Nielsen’s kitchen, where old-world Danish traditions meld with the freshest ideas and latest techniques to fill the pantry with the best of the season, all year long. Because those seasons can prove especially challenging in the northern heartland, Nielsen’s Nordic heritage is handy as she and Dooley show cooks, first-time and experienced canners alike, how to make the most of a short growing season. Their approach combines the brightness and bold flavors of the Nordic cuisines with an emphasis on the local, the practical, and the freshest ingredients to turn each season’s produce into a bounty of condiments.
From corn salsa to carrot lemon marmalade with ginger and cardamom, crispy pickled red onions to garlic scape pesto with lemon thyme, and caramel apple butter with lemongrass to puttanesca sauce to “Fit for a Queen Jam”—these recipes bring the best of the sweet and the savory to every menu. Low tech, simple, and fast, they eschew hot-water-bath methods in favor of chilling and freezing, keeping flavors and colors bold and bright; and they ease up on sugar to make way for the true savory sweetness of nature’s finest food.
Savory Sweet is not your grandmother’s canning cookbook—but it is likely to be your grandchildren’s.
Awards
Gourmand World Cookbook Awards - US Pastry Winner
$24.95 ISBN 978-0-8166-9958-2
216 pages, 60 color plates, 7 x 9, 2017
Beth Dooley is author and coauthor of several award-winning cookbooks, including Savoring the Seasons of the Northern Heartland (Minnesota, 2004), The Northern Heartland Kitchen (Minnesota, 2011), Minnesota’s Bounty (Minnesota, 2013), In Winter’s Kitchen, and The Birchwood Cafe Cookbook (Minnesota, 2015). She writes for the Minneapolis–St. Paul Star Tribune and appears regularly on KARE 11 TV and Minnesota Public Radio’s “Appetites.”
Mette Nielsen’s photographs have graced the pages of numerous books, newspapers, and magazines. A talented master gardener, she created the edible garden for the Birchwood Cafe in Minneapolis and collaborated on The Birchwood Cafe Cookbook and Minnesota’s Bounty.
Beth Dooley and Mette Nielsen break through the mystery of the pickle in these masterfully created recipes on preserving the northern way. They explore produce from the cucumber to the gooseberry in imaginative but approachable and fun ways.
Paul Berglund, 2016 James Beard Foundation Best Chef: Midwest
Mette Nielsen and Beth Dooley have conjured one of those books you'll stain, stuff with Post-it notes, and save. Anyone can make a tomato taste good, but a parsnip, as in a very good sweet parsnip preserve? Now we're talking imagination. We may yearn for entire weekends of making old-time preserves, yet it's rarely possible. These two make this happen on work nights in time to slather your new condiment over that 'same-old' veggie burger with swell results. This one is a keeper.
Lynne Rossetto Kasper, host, The Splendid Table® from American Public Media
This delightful book is full of promise—the promise of summer being everlasting, the promise of the beguiling sweet and savory flavors of herbs, fruit, vegetables and surprising spices and combinations gracing a winter table. I love its practical side, too, such as the use of dried fruit when it’s better than fresh—a situation I’m too familiar with. This is a lovely work.
Deborah Madison, author of Vegetable Literacy and The New Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone
Absolutely a home cook’s canning bible.
St. Cloud Times
There are 200 pages of recipes here to keep you occupied during harvest season and ensure that you’ll have a stocked pantry in the coldest, most barren months.
City Pages
In their cookbook Beth Dooley and Mette Nielsen show first-time cooks and experienced canners alike how to turn fresh produce at the peak of the season into brilliant condiments.
Viking Magazine
The instructions invite experimentation, but provide a clear road map for first-time canners. Meanwhile, the range of flavors—spicy, smoky, sour, savory and sweet—will send cooks of all stripes straight to their local farmers market for fresh, colorful ingredients.
Shelf Awareness
Contents
Conserves: Nordic Flavors of the New Heartland
The New Heartland Approach
The Tools!
The Techniques
The Good Stuff
Fruit
Apples
Applesauce with Grapefruit and Cardamom
Caramel Apple Butter with Lemongrass
Earl Grey Crabapple Jelly
Oven-dried Apples
Savory Apple Compote with Horseradish and Chili
Blackberries
Blackberry Bay Jam
Blackberry Preserves with Lime and Candied Ginger
Blackberry Syrup with Lime and Lemongrass
Blueberries
Fit for a Queen Jam
Savory Blueberry Jam with Rosemary, Black Pepper, and Lemon Verbena
Sweet Blueberry Vinegar
Cherries
Tart Cherry Jam with Vanilla, Almond, and Star Anise
Tart Cherry Syrup with Cardamom and Black Pepper
Sweet and Savory Pickled Tart Cherries
Tart Cherry Compote with Ginger, Fennel, and Bay Leaves
Citrus
Blood Orange Marmalade with Vanilla and Chili
Preserved Limes with Bay Leaves and Coriander
Classic Orange Marmalade
Orange Cherry Chutney
Sweet Brined Lemons
Candied Citrus Peel
Bonus! Citrus Syrup
Cranberries
Rustic Cranberry Strawberry Jam with Lime and Vanilla
Cranberry Ketchup
Pickled Cranberries
Currants
Black Currant Preserves with Rum
Black Currant Jam with Candied Ginger and Lemon Thyme
Lavender Scented White Currant Syrup
Sweet and Hot Red Currant Relish
Dried Fruit
Apricot Prune Jam
Boozy Fruits
Elderberries
Elderberry Apple Butter
Elderberry and Lemon Thyme Shrub
Gooseberries
Gooseberry Chutney
Gooseberry Jam with Lemon and Vanilla
Grapes
Spicy Grape BBQ Sauce
Pears
Lime Ginger Pear Shrub
Sweet and Savory Pickled Pears
Sweet and Spicy Pear Chutney
Plums
Chunky Plum Compote
Oven Roasted Plum Chutney
Plum Jam with Port Wine
Raspberries
Minty Raspberry Jam
Chipotle Raspberry Syrup
Simple Raspberry Sauce
Rhubarb
Vanilla Scented Oven Baked Rhubarb Compote
Mint and Chili Sweet Pickled Rhubarb
Roasted Rhubarb Ketchup
Strawberries
Oven Baked Strawberry Preserves with Ginger and Lemon Verbena
Hot and Tangy Strawberry Jam
Vegetables
Asparagus
Pickled Asparagus with Juniper and Fennel
Beans
Spicy Wax Beans with Tarragon
White Bean Dip with Oven Dried Tomatoes and Smoked Paprika
Beets
Pickled Golden Beets with Chili and Grapefruit
Roasted Beet and Tomato Relish
Broccoli and Cauliflower
Pickled Broccoli with Indian Spices
Spicy Pickled Vegetables
Cabbage
Crunchy Pickled Red Cabbage with Jalapeño
Simple Kraut with Apples and Coriander
Carrots
Carrot Lemon Marmalade with Ginger and Cardamom
Danish Pickled Carrots
Hot and Sweet Carrot Relish
Corn
Corn Salsa
Hot and Sweet Pickled Corn
Sweet Spicy Corn and Cabbage Relish
Cucumbers
Savory Cucumber Relish
Sweet Pickled Cucumber Slices
Eggplant
Eggplant Chutney with Cardamom and Pomegranate Molasses
Eggplant Dip with Poblano Peppers
Fennel
Fennel and Onion Confit
Pickled Fennel with Lemongrass
Garlic
Garlic Scape Pesto with Lemon and Thyme
Indian Spiced Garlic Chutney
Saffron Pickled Garlic
Mushrooms
Preserved Mushrooms
Mushroom Ketchup
Onions
Crispy Pickled Red Onions
Onion Pomegranate Marmalade
Parsnips
Parsnip and Grapefruit Relish
Parsnip Lime Marmalade with Chili and Coriander
Peppers – Hot and Sweet
Sweet Hot Pepper Pickles
Harissa Sauce
Roasted Red Pepper Dip
Pepper Packed Ketchup
Romesco Dip
Picante Pepper Chutney
Radishes
Fermented Radishes with Juniper and Coriander
Tomatillos
Chipotle Tomatillo Salsa
Spicy Tomatillo and Lime Jam
Tomatoes
Oven-dried Tomatoes
Chunky Tamarind Ketchup
Curried Ketchup with Star Anise
Puttanesca Sauce
Tomato and Pepper Salsa
Tomato and Apple Chutney
Winter Squash
Sweet Pickled Winter Squash
Squash and Apricot Chutney
Zucchini and Summer Squash
Zucchini Onion Relish
Seasonings: Sweet and Salty
Ginger
3 in 1 Ginger
Candied Ginger
Bonus! Ginger Syrup
Bonus Bonus! Ginger Sugar
Honey Pickled Ginger
Herbs
Pesto – The Simplest Fresh Sauce
Any Herb Pesto
Minty Mint Syrup
Traditional Mint Sauce
Horseradish
Pickled Horseradish
Mustard
Coarse Grain Chili Mustard
Honey Mustard
Smoked Paprika and Horseradish Mustard
Stout Mustard
Nuts
Hazelnut Chocolate Spread
Maple Pickled Nuts
Salt and Sugar
Chive Sea Salt
Lemon Chili Sea Salt
Lime Rosemary Sugar
Lavender Lemon-Thyme Sugar
Dukkah
Acknowledgments
Index
About This Book
Related Publications
Related News & Events
Twin Cities Live: Pickled Cranberries
St. Cloud Times: 'Savory Sweet' is just that
Star Tribune | Pickles and jams: Nordic approach offers easy, modern recipes for busy cooks
St. Cloud Times: 'Savory Sweet' is just that
In the opening passages of “Savory Sweet,” Minnesota author Beth Dooley describes her co-author, photographer and friend Mette Nielsen’s propensity for gardening and farmers markets. “We cook from different perspectives,” writes Dooley. “Yet share a desire to preserve summer’s bounty.”
Star Tribune | Pickles and jams: Nordic approach offers easy, modern recipes for busy cooks
A new cookbook offers a perspective from a master gardener's backyard.
Rochester Post-Bulletin: There's a new, simpler way to can preserves
Forget about sterilized jars and lids, or adding pectin, no hot-water bath either. The authors describe it as "preserving the northern way."
Appetites: A simpler way of preserving
Take all your old notions of preserving and throw them away, says Beth Dooley.
Hot & Sweet Carrot Relish Freezer Preserves from Savory Sweet
Make delicious hot and sweet carrot relish and keep in your freezer to bring a burst of flavor to so many dishes – grilled or roasted chicken, cured meats, salads, or topping crackers.
Is there anything sexier than preserves? The correct answer, of course, is “no.” Preserves capture the bounty of the north’s brief but glorious growing season in a format that stores indefinitely, plays well with other foods, and creates flavors brasher than just about anything else on the plate.