The Wild Harvest | Episode 6: Autumn

• Wash the burdock well to remove dirt.
• Have a bowl of cold water ready. Trim the ends off of the gobo, then cut into manageable lengths, about 6 inches long. Peel the lengths one at a time, then cut on the diagonal into ¼ inch-thick long ovals. Stack the ovals on each other a few at a time, then cut into ¼ inch match sticks.
• Repeat with the rest of the gobo, putting the cut sticks into the water as you go. Repeat the process with the carrots, reserving them separate from the gobo (they don’t need to sit in water).
• In a 10 inch pan, such as cast iron, or wide skillet, bring the gobo and 1 cup of water to a boil and cook for 5 minutes, covered. Pour off the water. Add the carrots, maple, ginger, vinegar, fish sauce, soy, half the sesame oil and the remaining 1/4 of water and cook rapidly on high heat, until the pan is nearly dry.
• Turn off the heat, stir in the remaining sesame oil and chives, then transfer to a serving bowl. Garnish with the sesame seeds, and sliced herbs if using and serve warm, cool, or at room temperature.

Prep

• If you use larger sunchokes, cut them into 2 inch pieces, otherwise leave them whole, trimming any long ends. Pour boiling water over the sunchokes, cool and reserve.
• For the prickly ash oil, toast the Szechuan peppercorns, then pound in a mortar and pestle. Grate the garlic and ginger very fine into the oil, then mix with the remaining ingredients and reserve.

Chokes, hens, greens

• Prepare a grill with wood. Cut the hen of the woods into 2 pieces, oil and season them with salt and pepper and reserve.
• Ball the greens up and slice into 1/4-1/2 inch wide ribbons. Cook the sunchokes gently in a pan with oil until just tender.
• Meanwhile, grill the hen until cook lightly browned, and hot throughout. When both the hen and the sunchokes are just don’t, quickly wilt the greens in a dash of oil, stirring well and adding a splash of water to help the greens cook quickly. Very lightly season the greens

Plating

• Mound the greens in the middle of two dinner plates, arrange a chunk of grilled hen on the greens pretty side up, scatter the sunchokes around, drizzle with the chili oil and serve with fresh lemon on the side.

• Grind the Szechuan peppercorns in a spice grinder or highspeed blender until very fine-they won’t be totally powdered.
• Slice the garlic and ginger thin, then combine with the oil and heat gently, until the garlic is lightly browned, and the oil is hot and bubbling. Add the remaining ingredients and pour into a bowl to cool, then strain and reserve the oil. Store the infused oil in the fridge after cooling.

• Make the plum coulis
• Freeze or gently warm the plums in a 250 degree oven until softened. Cool the plums until you can handle them, then mash in a bowl. Gradually add 1 cup of luke warm water and mix to help extract the wild plum puree. Mash the mixture through a colander, then reserve the puree. Discard the pits and skins, or save to make plum vinegar. You should have about 2.5 cups of plum puree.
• Infuse the coulis
• Tie the lemon balm leaves with twine into a bundle, mush them up a bit to release their aroma.
• Heat 50% of the plum puree with the maple syrup and lemon balm bouquet and bring to a simmer, then turn off the heat, cool to room temperature, add the lime juice and salt, then refrigerate overnight, covered.
• Spin/Churn
• The next day, discard the herbs and spin in an ice cream maker until thickened, like soft serve, then freeze. When the plum sorbet freezes, it will be firm, allow it to sit at room temperature for a bit to soften it and make it scoop-able.