URBAN FORAGER
Herald food columnist offers up suggestions for Thanksgiving
I’ve been cooking my way towards fall in anticipation of Thanksgiving. Markets are brimming with inspiring ingredients and I’ve gleaned some ideas to make the big day – or big weekend – a delicious treat.
To this end, I love making vegetable side dishes. I view them as mini explorations of flavour and texture, and they offset a meal of heavy protein, especially turkey.
Here are a few of my favourites that don’t require hours at the stove.
Brussels sprouts deserve to be elevated from their usual boiled-to-death doldrums. I free them from their spherical confines and slice thin. (Any loose leaves can be used whole.) Sauteed in olive oil with thinly sliced onion, garlic (if you like) and a bit of stock to simmer, I then add capers, lemon zest and a bit of dried chile pepper. They bring a lift to the sprouts and I cook them just short of al dente. Before serving, I add a snowy finish of Parmesan.
The baby turnips I recently purchased from the Penticton Farmers’ Market are delicious roasted and have a texture much like a potato – if you don’t overcook them.
I can’t get enough of beet greens, lush and verdant. The long leaves are best handled stacked and rolled like a cigar before slicing thin for beautiful chiffonade strips. I omit the blanching step by adding them to a pan of sauteed sliced-thin garlic cloves and shallots in some quality olive oil. Add a splash of quality stock or water – or even white wine – and toss the leaves until wilted but still maintaining their dark green colour. Season to taste, and voila! This treatment also works successfully with long leafy Lacinato kale, spinach, Swiss chard or collard greens. (It’s also a lovely addition to pasta.)
Anaheim or poblano peppers are wonderful roasted first to remove their tough outer skins, peeled and seeds removed, then sliced or chopped and added to an autumn corn succotash.
And if you’re still hankering for corn on the cob, one of my go-to treatments is chile-lime butter. Simply melt some butter, add chile powder and freshly squeezed lime juice to taste. It’s earthy, tangy and luscious.
I give last-of-the-season zucchini, marrow, or patty pan squash their swan song with an au gratin treatment. I don’t smother in a cheese sauce but instead make buttery-garlicky breadcrumbs – panko is my favourite – and bake until the crumbs are a beautiful toasty brown and the sliced or chunked squash is cooked through.
Wild chanterelles from Dan the Mushroom Man and What the Fungus – both at the Penticton Farmers’ Market – are hitting their peak right now. They add wonderful texture to a stuffing but I enjoy them simply sautéed with thyme or sage, chopped shallots and a bit of bacon for good measure.
For appetizers, my new food craving is a moreish Syrian walnut dip called harhora, made and sold by the Al-Hamwi family at the farmers’ market. Walnuts – they literally grow on trees in Penticton – are ground with buckwheat groats and blended with tahini and pomegranate molasses for an exquisite marriage of savoury and sweet. It’s a traditional companion alongside the usual hoummus and baba ganoush, but I took the advice from the family and tried it as a dip with French fries – crazy good!
Happy Thanksgiving!