• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Forager Chef

Foraging and Cooking Mushrooms, Wild and Obscure Food

  • Home
  • About
  • Mushrooms
    • Mushroom Archive
    • Posts by Species
      • Other Mushrooms
        • Lobster Mushrooms
        • Shrimp of the Woods
        • Truffles
        • Morels
        • Shaggy Mane
        • Hericium
        • Puffball
      • Polypores
        • Hen of the Woods
        • Dryad Saddle
        • Chicken of The Woods
        • Cauliflowers
        • Ischnoderma
        • Beefsteak
      • Chanterelles
        • Black Trumpet
        • Hedgehogs
        • Yellowfeet
      • Gilled
        • Matsutake
        • Honey Mushrooms
        • Russula / Lactarius
          • Candy Caps
          • Saffron Milkcap
          • Indigo Milkcap
      • Boletes
        • Porcini
        • Leccinum
        • Slippery Jacks
    • Recipes
      • Fresh
      • Dried
      • Preserves
    • The Basics
  • Plants
    • Plant Archive
    • Leafy Green Recipes
      • Leafy Green Plant Varieties
    • Ramps
    • Wild Herbs and Spices
      • Spruce and Conifers
      • Pollen
      • Prickly Ash
      • Bergamot / Wild Oregano
      • Golpar / Cow Parsnip
    • Wild Fruit
      • Wild Plums
      • Highbush Cranberry
      • Wild Grapes
      • Rowanberries
      • Wild Cherries
      • Aronia
      • Nannyberry
      • Wild Blueberries
    • From The Garden
    • Nuts, Roots, Tubers and Grains
    • Stalks and Shoots
  • Meat
    • Four-Legged Animals
      • Venison
      • Small Game
    • Poultry
    • Fish/Seafood
    • Offal
    • Charcuterie
  • Recipes
    • Pickles, Preserves, Etc
    • Fermentation
    • Condiments
    • Appetizers
    • Soup
    • Salad
    • Side Dishes
    • Entrees
    • Baking
    • Sweets
  • Video
    • Foraging Videos
    • Lamb and Goat Series
    • YouTube Tutorials
  • Press
    • Podcasts
  • Work
    • Public Speaking
    • Charity and Private Dinners
    • Forays / Classes / Demos

Highbush Cranberry Tkemali

Jump to Recipe Print Recipe

Highbush Cranberry TkemaliThe cuisine of Georgia and the Caucasus offers a lot of inspiration for the adventurous cook and forager, and Tkemali sauce (Tee-guh-molly) is one of the crown jewels of their cuisine—a sort of ketchup like condiment rich with garlic, hot chilies and spices like fenugreek and coriander that would make a shoe taste good. It’s an interesting condiment to make with sour fruit juice from highbush cranberries, and, unlike other more common preservation methods like jelly and jam, doesn’t include a lick of sugar. 

Georgia country

The ketchup of the Caucasus 

It’s said that Tkemali is to Georgia what ketchup is to the United States, just more interesting, and not filled with corn syrup (in my opinion). I got interested in the food of the Caucuses from reading about condiments made in the region from conifers, specifically Zirbenshnapps, Pine Cone Mugolio, and Spruce Tip Syrup, the latter of which is supposedly still made by mixing spruce tips with sugar and burying them in jars for a year in Romania before unearthing them, like a sort of culinary time capsule. 

Spices for highbush cranberry tkemali sauce

Dried dill, coriander, garlic fenugreek, and hot chili are key components of this sauce, especially fenugreek. 

Reading a few books on Georgian Cuisine, especially Dara Goldstein’s, and watching YouTube videos of Georgian ladies making Tkemali sauce showed me a few other useful things, specifically how to separate the flesh of wild plums from the skin and seeds using a colander when making Tkemali sauce. 

Tkemali had a quick blip on the culinary radar a few years ago, but people seem to quickly forget about it. When I read that the sauce was made from a sort of wild plum in the region, I had to see how I could fashion a version from Prunus americana and Prunus nigra.

Seared scallops with highbush cranberry sauce, watercress, mint, pomegranite, and hummus

Tkemali is great with fish, like these scallops with hummus, watercress and pomegranite. See the method for those at the end of the post. Also a good example of how one sears a MF scallop. 

I tried to make a version that was delicious, I even served some of them to small groups to test the waters and brought it in for my line cooks to taste. I also ordered plenty of bottles of the commercial Tkemalis to test to make sure I had the seasoning blend right (it’s a stripped-down variation on the Georgian spice mixture called Khumeli Sunneli that I use to make Kharcho). Quick aside, the commercial Tkemalis are delicious and addictive, and worth trying  if you like tasting food out of your comfort zone. Pomona is my favorite brand. 

Sweet and sour venison Kharcho stew with wild plum leather recipe

You can also cook with this sauce. Tkemali is commonly added to soups made with sour plum leather.

Wild plums didn’t work 

I tried in vain to make wild plum Tkemali for 3 years. The problem is that the species of wild plum I’ve worked with are just too tannic. Unripe, overripe, in-between, perfectly ripe, unripe and fermented, fermented, dried, rehydrated and boiled—I tried it all.

Tkemali from wild plums

A handful of wild plum tkemali sauces I worked on. We’ll call that a learning experience.

Some of the versions were ok, the tartness was on-point, but they weren’t good enough for me to share with people and say: “here’s something interesting you can make and enjoy”, they were just too tannic.

Tkemali from wild plums

The finest wild plum Tkemali was still a far cry from Tkemali made from true Georgian Tkemali plums.

Then, this year, Sam Thayer dropped a metric ton (approximately) of his highbush cranberry cultivars on me (he’s named 3 so far-each one superior to the Viburnum trilobum, which is itself superior to the foul-tasting European Viburnum opulus that’s widespread and said erroneously sold by nurseries (and even the D.N.R.) as a native North American food plant. 

Highbush cranberries

Sam’s highbush cranberries. 10 lbs or about 1/3 of the total I processed this year. 

As I juiced the berries, I reduced some of the finished juice down to save freezer space when it hit me. Tasting the deep red juice, reveling in the deep tartness and thickness that came from cooking off the water, I realized that the substrate for a North American Tkemali had been sitting in front of me the whole time.

Highbush Cranberry Reduction

Thick highbush cranberry puree. This I thinned slightly since Tkemali should be a bit more loose.

Highbush cranberries would give me the tartness I wanted that mimics the Tkemali plum, without the aggressive tannins from my local wild plums. From there, all I had to do was plug in the spice mixture (at least I got that dialed in after 3 years!) and I was off to the races. The finished sauce is a good condiment for vegetables, seafood and chicken, and can hold up to pork, too.

Highbush Cranberry Tkemali

Highbush Cranberry Tkemali
Print Recipe
5 from 1 vote

Highbush Cranberry Tkemali

A spicy, herby sauce made from highbush cranberries inspired by traditional Georgian Tkemali. Makes 2 cups, scale and tweak it to your taste.
Prep Time15 mins
Cook Time5 mins
Maceration3 d
Course: Condiment
Cuisine: American, Goergian
Keyword: highbush cranberry, Tkemali
Servings: 10

Ingredients

  • 16 oz thick highbush cranberry juice*
  • ½ teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes or equivalent
  • 2 teaspoons 14 g salt or (3% salt to highbush cranberry juice)
  • ¼ teaspoon dried dill
  • 2 large 12 g cloves garlic grated or minced
  • 10 fresh mint leaves coarsely chopped
  • Small handful of fresh cilantro coarsely chopped
  • 1/2 teaspoon dried fenugreek
  • 1/4 teaspoon coriander seed
  • Fresh lemon juice to taste

Instructions

Activate the chilies

  • Heat the highbush cranberry puree and chili flakes until hot and steaming, then cool to room temperature.

Mix the sauce and allow it age

  • Combine the cooled highbush cranberry puree with the remaining ingredients and allow to ferment, covered, at room temperature for 3-4 days, then refrigerate.
  • It may be difficult to notice fermentation, and in reality, it may not ferment that much, so don't worry. The maceration at room temperature also serves to imbue the highbush cranberry puree with the flavors of the spices and herbs.
  • The sauce should be tart, fenugreek forward, and mildly spicy. If you'd like it more spicy, increase the chilies accordingly.
  • The finished Tkemali will last for a long time in the fridge, and can be canned in a water bath, (12 minutes for pints).

Notes

*To make a thick highbush cranberry juice, you’ll want to take regular highbush cranberry juice and reduce it by half. You will need about 32 oz of fresh juice for this recipe.
Seared scallops with highbush cranberry sauce, watercress, mint, pomegranite, and hummus (1)
Print Recipe
5 from 1 vote

Seared Scallops with Tkemali, Hummus, and Pomegranite

Seared scallops with tart Tkemali sauce, hummus, watercress, pomegranite and mint.
Prep Time15 mins
Cook Time20 mins
Course: Appetizer, Main Course
Cuisine: American
Keyword: highbush cranberry, Scallops
Servings: 4

Ingredients

  • 12 oz Sea Scallops, preferably u-10 size
  • Kosher salt, as needed
  • 1/4 cup high heat cooking oil or ghee
  • 1/2 cup highbush cranberry kemali sauce warmed
  • 1/2 cup hummus your favorite brand, just make sure it's unflavored
  • a handful of fresh watercress, cleaned and dried (optional)
  • Fresh torn mint leaves, to garnish optional
  • Pomegranite seeds, to garnish optional

Instructions

  • Pat the scallops dry well and let them sit covered with paper towels in the fridge for an hour before you cook them to ensure they're dry. this is especially important with frozen scallops, which can be good.
  • Inspect the scallops you will cook and choose which side will look more attractive when it's seared--the attractive side of each scallop is the plating side, and the one you will sear.
  • Heat a heavy skillet with the fat until smoking. Turn on a fan or hood vent, or open a window to help it not get smoky. Alternately, heat a cast iron pan in the coals of a grill outside.
  • Season the scallops on the plating side, then put them plating side down in the ripping hot skillet. Make sure to use a large pan (12 inches in size will be good) to make sure the scalllops do not touch.
  • Cook the scallops on high heat, without touching them, until you can see a touch of brown around the edges. This should take at least 5 minutes. Using a pair of tongs, peek until the side of the scallops and judge the color. You are looking for a mohogany crust here, not some blonde, yellow B.S. sear.
  • When the scallops have a solid sear on them, turn the heat to medium, then flip them over in the pan to just kiss the other side. Attempting to brown both sides of the scallops will ensure your home-cooking keeseter will overcook them.
  • Meanwhile, heat up a few plates, then put a spoonful of hummus in three spots on each plate to act as a bed for the scallops. Put a scallop on each dollop of hummus, then spoon the Tkemali sauce around.
  • Toss the watercress with olive oil, salt, pepper, and a touch of lemon juice to taste, and arrange a few sprigs in the middle of each cluster of scallops. Finish by sprinkling on a few pomegranate seeds and torn mint leaves. Serve.

Share this:

  • Facebook
  • Print
  • Email
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter
  • Pinterest
  • Reddit

Related

Previous Post: « Fried Yellowfoot Chanterelles
Next Post: Smoked Oxtails with Dried Mushrooms and Tomato »

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Ellen

    March 6, 2021 at 8:53 am

    I realize Zirbenschnapps wasn’t the main topic of this post, but I’ve never heard anyone else mention it! I made some from immature ponderosa cones a few summers ago. It’s got a crazy red color. Still trying to figure out how to use it best.

    Reply
    • Alan Bergo

      March 6, 2021 at 9:01 am

      Of course you know Zirbenschnapps! I learned about it from a famous wine importer I did a talk with a few years ago. Currently I only know one restaurant that serves it in MN. We were working on a version to sell commercially with my booze project (that I still haven’t shared here) and the distillates were coming out perfectly clear, which is obv what distillates do, and not how Z shnapps is supposed to look. Capturing the red color of it was tricky, and for whatever reason my P. resinosum cones weren’t doing a great job. I discovered some ornamental Siberian pine cones last year though and they’re the best I’ve tasted, you could *almost* take a bit out of them straight up. Hopefully a simple maceration gives us the red color and the Siberian cones a more mild result. Was yours super duper astringent? Did a simple maceration keep the red color?

      Reply
  2. David Britton

    March 6, 2021 at 9:15 am

    Lord luv ya for tryin’, Alan. I’m gonna do this. But you really need to disclose to those uninformed about the properties of Highbush Cranberries — just how old-wet-wool-worksock-smelly their whole house will be when they boil up the berries! My wife!! … well that’s best left unsaid. Let’s just say I pick my occasions and locations more carefully. 😉

    Reply
    • Alan Bergo

      March 6, 2021 at 9:48 am

      David, you’re mistaking Viburnum opulus for Viburnum trilobum. I’m cooking with Virburnum trilobum, and three different cultivars Sam Thayer has propagated. Sam’s cultivars specifically have giant fruit, and far less of any funky taste than even V. trilobum, which tastes fantastic compared to the one you’re describing. If you tasted V. opulus and hated it, like I did, you owe it to yourself to find the species that actually taste good. Viburnum opulus tastes like bitter wet dog, the others taste like tart berries. Good tasting highbush cranberries exist, and Sam is now supplying the DNR with truly native varieties. Unfortunately the European imposter that tastes so awful is the only species most people know.

      Reply
      • Carla Beaudet

        March 6, 2021 at 10:40 am

        Do you happen to know whether Sam is selling V. trilobum cultivars?

        Reply
        • Alan Bergo

          March 6, 2021 at 2:25 pm

          Carla, yes he sells them. The ones pictured here are called Flag River, and the berries were nearly the size of grapes. As far as I know he only sells them in person. He typically brings some to the Wild Harvest Festival in Sept.

          Reply
    • Alan Bergo

      March 6, 2021 at 9:52 am

      I’ll add too, that I don’t cook the fruit while I process it, I use a cold extraction/juicing so there isn’t any noticeable smell.

      Reply
  3. Gilbert

    March 6, 2021 at 9:27 am

    Chokecherries that grow here, Grand Marais area, don’t seem extremely tannic to me. I cook them or kalinka (hb cranberries) then macerate them with food mill. Need to use the right sieve plate and adjust the spring so seeds don’t come flying out like popcorn.

    Reply
    • Alan Bergo

      March 6, 2021 at 9:50 am

      Chokecherries are beyond the scope of this post. I loved learning the name kalinka from my friends from Eastern Europe. They cook with Viburnum opulus and I just cannot understand how anyone could make it taste good. I sure tried.

      Reply
      • Gilbert

        March 6, 2021 at 7:21 pm

        The song is going through my head… Kalinka moya, the unofficial national anthem of Russia, also mentions malinka, raspberry.
        Chokecherries, Prunus virginiana vs “I had to see how I could fashion a version from Prunus americana and Prunus nigra.”
        Something else I learned from Russian food culture, the leaves and growing branch tips of some fruit trees and bushes are delicious. Black currant especially. Water extract, no alcohol needed.

        Reply
        • Alan Bergo

          March 7, 2021 at 7:10 am

          Ah, I see! Thanks for clarifying. I keep forgetting to try the young meristems (growing tips) of cherry trees. I know they’re pickled in Japan, and there’s a famous avante-garde distillery called Empirical that’s using them to flavor liquors.

          Reply
  4. Elizabeth Blair

    March 6, 2021 at 10:23 am

    Exciting Alan. Plenty of wild highbush cranberries near my cabin and I have been wanting to find a way to use them. Doubt there are the European invaders you mention. They’re i n the forest. Looking forward to trying this Georgian “Ketchup” in the fall. Thank you!

    Reply
    • Alan Bergo

      March 6, 2021 at 2:26 pm

      Elizabeth, nice to hear from you. Up near your cabin is their prime habitat, and I see mostly Native species up there. One taste will tell you: if it’s bitter and tastes like wet dog, it’s no good. Easy to differentiate.

      Reply
  5. Flanman

    March 6, 2021 at 12:48 pm

    Alan- I don’t find hb cranberry a lot in Western NY but we have a TON of autumn olive (Elaeagnus umbellata) which makes a nice tart jam. Do think this recipe would work for autumn olives? I realize it’s not the same flavor but they do have a funky tart taste and people like the jam – especially with cheese. Love to give this a shot next fall using those. I cook them down a bit and then run them through my tomato strainer to get the seeds out – then destroy the seeds by cooking the crap out of them. It’s an invasive species and picking berries and then destroying them helps mitigate the spread.

    Thanks!!!

    Reply
    • Alan Bergo

      March 6, 2021 at 2:24 pm

      Hey David. I’d think that autumn olive would work fine for this, if it needs some tartness, just adjust it with lemon at the end. You could do this with just about any tart red fruit you can make a thick coulis out of. Someone suggested rhubarb today and I’m going to try that this year for sure, it would have a texture more similar to the plums, which is a bit thready/thick.

      Reply
  6. cKaty

    March 12, 2021 at 7:51 am

    5 stars
    I’m so glad you posted this. I’m living in Tbilisi now and the food and the people are just lovely. This is a place that everyone should see once the world returns to some semblance of normal. But no Russian required. Thanks!

    Reply
    • Alan Bergo

      March 12, 2021 at 9:47 am

      Thanks Katy.

      Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Recipe Rating




Primary Sidebar

Pre-Order MY BOOK

Categories

Forager Chef

Forager Chef

Instagram

foragerchef

Toothwort is peaking right now. Makes a great garn Toothwort is peaking right now. Makes a great garnish. Here with @shepherdsongfarm goat tartare, ramp vinaigrette and wild rice sourdough. It adds a nice bitter, mustardy note. 

#cutleaftoothwort #cardamineconcatenata #goat #tartare #normalizegoatmeat
Consider the salad, here, a little mix of ephemera Consider the salad, here, a little mix of ephemerals, and other tender young plants and herbs. 

The instinctual knowledge involved in choosing different plants at their peak to serve together raw, with thought put into how the textures and flavors will work on someone’s palette, to me, is one of the highest forms of culinary artistry. Something most people will never taste in their life. 

A little oil, salt, pepper, acid, a touch of sweetness from maple, maybe few fresh herbs are all you need. Bottled dressing of any kind would be like putting Axe Body spray on food. 

#spring #ephemerals #toothwort #troutlily #springbeauty #foraging
🌱Ephemeral Week🌱 Last entry. I’ve saved t 🌱Ephemeral Week🌱

Last entry. I’ve saved the smallest, fern gulliest plant for last. 

False Mermaid Weed (Floerkea proserpinacoides) is a good little plant Sam Thayer showed me. It’s tiny, as in all the photos are from me on my belly, in a wet ditch. It’s so small it’s hard to get the camera to even focus on it (see pic with my finger for scale). 

Mermaid weed likes wet areas, like ditches and spots that hold a bit of water (perfect mosquito habitat😁). 

Like chickweed, Floerkia greens are like nature’s Microgreens. They’re in the Limnanthaceae, (a new-ish group of brassicas) and like the Toothwort form earlier this week, you’ll taste a strong mustard-family flavor in a mouthful of their tender stems. 

They’re literally wild mustard sprouts, and, unlike other wild sprouts (garlic mustard 🤬) they stay sprouts, and, they actually taste good. 

It has a wide range over much of the eastern and western U.S., and is listed as secure globally, but is endangered in some states and shouldn’t be disturbed in those places. 

I’m lucky enough to have some large colonies near me so I do clip a few handfuls each year-my annual reward for removing some of the garlic mustard nearby, that, along with atvs, dirt bikes, and contamination from local water pollution, is one of the biggest threats to this tiny green. 

#floerkiaproserpinacoides 
#wildsprouts #mustardsprouts #ferngully #tiny #foraging #mermaid #🧜‍♀️
🌱Ephemeral Week🌱 Virginia Bluebells (Merten 🌱Ephemeral Week🌱

Virginia Bluebells (Mertensia virginica) are one of the most beautiful harbingers of spring I know, as well as one of the most delicious. 

They’re in the Borage family, along with the namesake plant, Comfrey (which I only eat a few flowers of occasionally) and Honeywort. 

The flavor of the greens, like borage, has a rich flavor some people might describe as mushroomy or fishy, but after a just a few moments of cooking (30-60 seconds) they get mild and delicious, with a subtle bitterness. It’s a good bitter though-nothing like dandelions or garlic mustard that aren’t fit to be in the same basket, let alone on the same plate. 

The shoots are sweet and delicious, much more mild than the greens. As they can grow to be over a foot long, they’re almost more of a vegetable than a leafy green, depending on when you harvest them. 

Bluebells love moist, rich soil, but you don’t have to go to the woods to get them. Many people know Virginia Bluebells as a garden plant, and they can make a great edible addition to your landscape.

#virginiabluebells #foraging #ephemerals #springwildflowers #wildfoodlove #mertensiavirginica
🌱Ephemeral Week🌱 Narrow-leaved Wild Leek / 🌱Ephemeral Week🌱

Narrow-leaved Wild Leek / White Ramp (Allium burdickii) 

If you’re in a ramp patch you might occasionally see some with white stems (pic 1,2). These are a cousin to the more common variety with much larger leaves and red stems (pic 3,4,5)

Allium burdickii is not as common as the red-stemmed variety, and in every ramp patch I’ve been in, the white ramp is heavily outnumbered. 

Where I harvest, I like to leave them alone, and mark the areas where they grow with sticks or middens on the ground so I can go back in the fall and help them spread their seeds. I also try and remove garlic mustard when I see it-a much more imminent threat in my mind to ramps than foragers out to gather some leaves. 

2020 was a banner year for ramp seeds, and you can still help the plants right now (pic 7) as some seed heads are still full and would love for you to give them a shake as you walk by. 

#alliumburdickii #ramps #ephemerals #foraging #spring
🌱Ephemeral Week🌱 #4: Erythronium leaves E 🌱Ephemeral Week🌱

#4: Erythronium leaves 

Erythronium (Trout Lily) are another ephemeral that I see widespread in my ramp patches, there’s at least 32 species world-wide, with at least one endangered species in MN (Dwarf Trout Lily). 

They’re a beautiful, delicious plant I eat every year, but I can’t recommend serving them to the general public. Plenty of people say these are edible, but also emetic if eaten in “quantity”. 

I can tell you, at least with E. albidum and E. americanum I’ve eaten, that some people are much more sensitive than others, so if you want to make a salad to serve people, make sure they’re comfortable eating it, and use a few leaves as a garnish. 

Funny enough, I didn’t learn about these from a foraging book. Like knotweed, I learned about them from one of my favorite chefs: Michel Bras, one of the most influential chefs of the turn of the 21 century. 

Any chef that works with wild plants owes a debt to Bras. His book, although a little dated now, still teaches me new things all the time. While flipping through the book I also caught a recipe using tansy flowers 😳 that I’d probably pass on. 

The whitefish crusted with sunflower seeds is a dish of mine from 2012, and an example of how I eat the leaves: a few at a time, as a garnish. 

#troutlily #erythronium #michelbras #ephemerals #foraging
Load More... Follow on Instagram

Footer

Privacy

  • Privacy Policy

Copyright © 2021 · Foodie Pro & The Genesis Framework

loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.