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Award-winning chef, author and forager Alan Bergo. Food is all around you.

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Fresh Cranberry Sauce with Cow Parsnip Seed / Golpar

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Fresh Cranberry Sauce with Cow Parsnip Seeds and Warm Spices_It’s almost time for the annual stuff your face and have a food coma celebration. I’m not doing the turkey this year since I have to travel back to the farm near Willmar Minnesota from the Twin Cities, but I did volunteer to do all the sides, which I don’t mind doing.

Prepping ahead makes things so much easier, if you’ve never started prepping for Thanksgiving at least two days in advance, try it sometime. If I ask any chef I know that’s making dinner for their family, you’d better believe that the flawless execution and ease of cranking out food for the whole family rests on prepping in advance, it’s a part that professional restaurant training that will always linger, no matter if you’re in a kitchen or not.

One of the easiest things to make ahead is fresh cranberry sauce. Don’t get me wrong, the gelatinized ruby-red can loaf has a special place in my heart, and I’ll crush half of one by myself if left to my own devices.

Fresh cranberry sauce though, is a more raw, natural way to present a hyper-seasonal ingredient. It functions so well with a caveman serving of turkey and all the fixings, the tartness balancing roasted meat and salty (hopefully butter-mounted) gravy, ensuring nobody’s palate gets bored.

At a couple of the events I did this year, one of the dependable eye openers has been fruit sauces flavored with cow parsnip seeds / golpar. The seeds have this funky, citrus from another dimension aspect to them.

As well, they’re a jaw dropping point of conversation when I explain, again and again to guests that “poison parsnip” is a derogatory mis-nomer for a few beautiful and fascinating species of plants, some of them having been enjoyed as a food source In North America and Europe, for a very long time.

Needless to say, fresh cranberry sauce flavored with the cow parsnip seeds is super fun, and one I’ve stashed away in the archives after I made it.

Fresh Cranberry Sauce with Cow Parsnip Seeds and Warm Spices

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Fresh Cranberry Sauce with Cow Parsnip Seeds and Warm Spices

Yield: about 4 cups, plenty for a crowd
Prep Time20 mins
Cook Time28 mins
Course: Side Dish
Cuisine: American
Keyword: Cow Parsnip, Cranberry Sauce

Ingredients

  • 1.5 lbs fresh cranberries
  • 3/4 cup sugar
  • 2 tablespoons chopped fresh ginger
  • 2 teaspoons dried cow parsnip seeds
  • 3 peels of orange zest peeled with a vegetable peeler
  • 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
  • 3 allspice berries
  • 1 star anise
  • 3 whole cloves
  • 2 tablespoons water

Instructions

  • Toast the spices *except the cow parsnip seeds* (they don't like to be toasted) and reserve. Combine the remaining ingredients and bring the mixture to simmer in a small sauce pan, about 2-3 qt capacity.
  • Bring the mixture to a simmer and cook on medium low for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally, or until the cranberries are broken down and soft.
  • Transfer the mixture to the bowl of a highspeed blender, then puree until very smooth. If you want a perfectly smooth sauce, pass it through a chinois strainer afterwords.
  • If the sauce became too thick on the stove, thin it with a tablespoon of warm water at a time in the blender to help it puree.
  • Transfer the sauce to a container, place plastic wrap directly onto the surface to prevent the oxidization and forming of a skin, chill, label, date, and reserve until needed.

Notes

First, for the correct flavor it's important to use some warm spices besides the cow parsnip seeds, their flavor is strong, but they taste better with some friends in the background, just don't go crazy with the cinnamon or cardamom since they get super strong, fast.
A part of me almost felt bad pureeing all the nice cranberries I had too. The sauce will be good either way, but if you want to leave it chunky, make sure to grind all of the spices, especially the cow parsnip seeds very fine in a spice grinder since they're fibrous and guests will be pulling them out of their teeth.

More 

Cow Parsnip: Identification, Edible Parts, and Cooking

 

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  1. Harvesting and cooking cow parsnip seeds says:
    December 15, 2019 at 10:55 am

    […] Cranberry Sauce with Cow Parsnip  […]

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FORAGER | CHEF®
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Author: The Forager Chef’s Book of Flora
James Beard Award ‘22
Host: Field Forest Feast 👇
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Alan Bergo
Had a blast on the last day of the @wild.fed shoot Had a blast on the last day of the @wild.fed shoot cooking in the Garden of Eden, a.k.a Sam Thayer’s orchard. 

We’d planned on making ground squirrel, bullfrog and crayfish gumbo but only the crayfish came through. Luckily I had some back up andouille just in case. 

It’s may not be traditional, but gumbo with crayfish broth, a heap of @mushroomforaginginmn porcini, milkweed pods (in lieu of okra) wild rice and crayfish-chanterelle salad didn’t suck. 6 of us polished off a gallon 😁.

H/o to chef Lenny Russo who I pestered with questions on frog-based foods beforehand. Hyper-local meals like this are what we made at Heartland in St Paul during my tenure there. 

@danielvitalis 
@grantguiliano 

#ditchlobster #mudbugs #gumbo #crayfish #wildrice #wildfed
Long, fun day snatching crayfish out of the water Long, fun day snatching crayfish out of the water by hand with Sam Thayer and @danielvitalis for @wild.fed 

Daniel and Sam were the apex predators, but I got a few. 

Without a net catching crayfish by hand is definitely a wax-on wax-off sort of skill. Clears your mind. 

They’re going into gumbo with porcini, sausage and milkweed pods today. 

#crayfish #ninjareflexes #waxonwaxoff #normalthings #onset🎥🎬
Working all day on preps for cattail lateral rhizo Working all day on preps for cattail lateral rhizomes and blueberries for this weeks shoot with @wildfed 

Been a few years since I worked with these. Thankfully Sam Thayer dropped a couple off for me to work with. They’re tender, crisp and delicious. 

Sam mentioned their mild flavor and texture could be because they don’t have to worry about predators eating them, since they grow in the muck of cattail marshes. 

I think they could use a pet name. Pond tusk? Swamp spears? Help me out here. 😂

Nature makes the coolest things. 

#itcamefromthepond #cattail #rhizomes #foraging #typhalatifolia
I liked the staff meal I made for Mondays shoot so I liked the staff meal I made for Mondays shoot so much we filmed it instead of the original dish I’d planned. 

Cooked natural wild rice (not the black shiny stuff) is great hot, cold, sweet or savory. It’s a perfect, filling lunch for a long day of berry picking. 

I make them with whatever I have on hand. Mushrooms will fade into the background a little here, so I use a bunch of them, along with lots of herbs and hickory nut oil + dill flowers. 

I’m eating the leftovers today back up in the barrens (hopefully) getting some more bluebs for another shoot this week w @wild.fed 

#wilwilwice #wildrice #chanterelles #campfood #castironcooking
Baby’s first homegrown mushrooms! Backyard wine Baby’s first homegrown mushrooms! Backyard wine caps on hardwood sawdust from my lumberjack buddy.

Next up blewits. Spawn from @northsporemushrooms

#winecaps #strophariaaeruginosa #allthemushroomtags
It’s wild cherry season. I’ll be picking from It’s wild cherry season. I’ll be picking from my favorite spot tomorrow a.m. and have room for a couple helpers. It’s at an event on a farm just south of St. Cloud. 

If you’re interested send me a message and I’ll raffle off the spots. Plenty of cherries to go around. I’ll be leading a short plant walk around the farm too. 

#chokecherries #foraging #prunusvirginiana #summervibes
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