Savory Sweet

Simple Preserves from a Northern Kitchen

2017
Authors:

Beth Dooley and Mette Nielsen

Not your grandmother’s canning cookbook

“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

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