Steemit Iron Chef 2017 #07 : Wild Apple-Sumac Snow
I can't resist foraging apples or the seedheads from sumac. And this super simple dessert is irresistable too! Come into my post to see how easy and incredibly delicious this Apple-Sumac Snow really is!
In the Forest - Foraging Apples
I grow 14 different apples here at Haphazard Homestead -- and I just bought two more trees, too! But when I ran across an old, abandoned orchard in the hills along the Oregon coast, I couldn't resist gathering them up and bringing them home. It's a good thing I did, too! I'll tell you more about that in a future post.
I don't know what kind of apples these are, but they are tasty. And because the orchard was in a forest, far from other apple trees, they were in wonderful shape -- no pest damage at all!
In the Kitchen - Cooking Apples
This dish is so easy. There's only 4 ingredients - peeled apples, sumac spice, sugar, and egg whites. That's it! I peeled the apples and put them right away into a saucepan, with a little water, to cook until they were soft.
I'm using Smooth Sumac (Rhus glabra). The hairs are shorter than on Staghorn Sumac (R. typhina). But any kind of red-seeded sumac works just the same. This is the same Sumac Spice I used a couple weeks ago in my Pear Sampler entry for the Steemit Iron Chef contest. I also made a post about using it to make a Faux Pink Lemonade. And I have a YouTube video on how to make a great Wild Sumac Sorbet, too. I like Sumac!
I'll write a post about how to forage and make this Sumac Spice, sometime soon. In the meantime, here's what I do. I rub the sumac seeds off their seedhead. I put them in a blender for a couple quick grinds, just to separate the parts of the seeds. With sumac, it's the little hairs on the outside of the seed that are tart, like a lemon. The inner seed is hard! I rub the quick-ground sumac through a wire strainer, to get those hard seeds out - leaving the fine hairs as my Sumac Spice.
Once my cooked apples were soft, I pureed them and the sumac spice in a blender, with a bit of sugar, to make a flavorful and colorful applesauce. I cooled the applesauce in the refrigerator. Then I beat the whites of 3 eggs until they made hard peaks. I folded the egg whites into the cooled applesauce. That's it!
I did pick some spearmint and fennel flowers from my yard, to chop and drop on top of my Apple-Sumac Snow.
On My Plate - Eating Apple-Sumac Snow
This dessert is so simple, but so good. It's light and fluffy. It's so full of flavors -- apple, the lemon tartness of the sumac, and the bright counterpoints of spearmint and fennel. I would order this at a restaurant, every time!
What Do You Think?
- Do you have a favorite apple variety?
- Have you ever foraged apples in an old orchard?
- Have you ever eaten Sumac?
- Would you eat my Wild Apple-Sumac Snow?
I eat a lot of wild plants and show you how, because I believe that we can all have lives that are richer, more secure, more grounded, and more interesting by getting to know the plants and the land around us – in our yards, our parks, and our wild places.
I would like Steemit to be the premier site for Foraging on the Internet! If you have any thoughts about foraging, or experiences to share, write a post and be sure to use the Foraging tag. And check out the @foraging-trail to see curated quality posts about foraging. Happy Foraging!
Thanks @progressivechef for creating the Steemit Iron Chef contest series. I haven't been able to be on Steemit much lately, but I can't miss the contest series or I would miss out on my 1 point! ;D
Plant List
- Apples Malus pumila - fruit
- Smooth Sumac Rhus glabra - red seedhairs
- Spearmint Mentha spicata - leaves
- Fennel Foeniculum vulgare - flowers
The post is interesting! Think the food too is delicious. I will try this evening.
I love the snow but i do not know the zumac i review the Rhus glabra and i do not find some here, but the snow it is great specially the proccess, by the way i love your combination to enjoy the zumac snow apples with a delicious cup of coffee. This is my favorite parts of the proccess :). :)
Best regard @galberto
Reestem now.
Thanks, @galberto! I thought of you when I poured my cup of coffee with my dessert! The Rhus glabra is in Mexico, but does not quite go so far south as El Salvador. But you have lemons -- and that's what all the original Apple Snow recipes use. But lemons don't grow in my region. I'm glad the Sumac does, though! :D Thanks for the resteem, too!
WOW! Apples apples apples, a lot of apples on the ground.... Really beautiful looking! I love apples! It's great that you found them before the deer or elk!
This dessert looks really yummy! You are a great chef indeed!
Good luck for the contest! ;)
Thanks, @tangmo. I think you would like this dessert! Another animal came eventually, to eat the apples that I didn't get. I will write a post about it. Maybe you can guess what animal it would be. It's a big wild animal.
A bear?
: )
@haphazard-hstead! You’re welcome! Yeah! You're right, I would certainly like this dessert!
Oh! I’m much curious to know what kind of animal who eat the apples… Is it an elephant? I’m looking forward to reading your post about it with much interest! ;)
Would love to taste it ! looks yummie !
Thanks! If you don't have wild sumac, the juice of a lemon will do. All the recipes I've ever seen for Apple Snow use lemons.
MMmm. We don't forage as much as we'd like, and the last time I did, the grapes were already essentially raisins, but we have lately been turning milk into yogurt at home.
Free natural raisins, can't beat that! As long as there aren't old moldy ones mixed in, lol. That yogurt sounds like a good thing to make. (And I'm thinking about a pun for your Punday Monday I enjoy puns, but they seem hard for me to come up with.).
Have you read the how-to I posted?
More times than you can imagine. Topic - Tangential topic - Homophones of tangents - Connect the dots. It seems so simple. The only "old joke format" that I know is the knock-knock joke. Maybe I know another format: What do you get when you cross (this) and (that)? Are there other real joke formats?
Sure: what do you call a ______ with a _____? for example
Or there are Shaggy Dog stories (my personal favorite) - long meandering stories to set up a punchline.
A (setup) walks into a bar and says "____(punchline)____"
Where does a ______ sit? (this is often an anti-joke.)
Wow those apples really do look perfect! Great find and nice creation!
They are in better condition than some of the ones on my own trees, lol. I think the isolation of these trees really helps them avoid the common apple pests. I've run across other apple trees like that, too. Apple foraging can pay big dividends! Maybe it's even easier than growing them myself, lol.
Are you familiar with the Holistic orchard? They feel very strongly about never planting the same kind of tree next to each other....
I can appreciate that design. It is more like a diverse forest. I do think scale matters, too. In this abandoned orchard, there are 4 apple trees still alive, all next to each other. But there aren't any other apple trees within a few miles, with that distance full of 100 foot tall Douglas-Fir trees, lol. Apple maggots and other tiny insects would have a hard time getting to these apple trees.
Down in the Willamette Valley, where I live, there are apple trees and other fruit trees, all over - yard after yard, neighborhood after neighborhood. Separated by other trees, but not a towering wall like the Douglas-Fir forest. So winds alone move those insects all over the area.
I'm an advocate of finding the resistant varieties! I'm amazed how some varieties are so much less susceptible to disease or pests.
yes!! And good soil and supportive plants. But we can't control what the neighbors do :(
This is delicious!! I can taste it as I read your post!! Are you going back to get some scion wood and graft it on your trees?
Is this the same sumac you buy in a Middle Eastern store? There is another recipe challenge with the theme apples going on right now. You could submit for that as well :)
I should be able to get to this orchard in the winter, so I could cut some scions. I don't have a variety of apple that looks like this one. It's a keeper. I think one of the other varieties in the orchard is a Yellow Transparent -- an old variety that's all over the place, but the apples are in good condition for only about a half hour! Then they get all mealy. And one of the others I think is a Hudson Golden Gem -- an old Oregon specialty. I already have one of those.
Yes, this is the same Sumac. Check if they add any other spices, though. Because they use Sumac in so many ways. There are Sumac Spice blends. But I'm just using straight Sumac, for it's lemon tartness.
I better go find the other recipe challenge! Thanks for the heads-up!
here it is
https://busy.org/steemitculinarychallenge/@woman-onthe-wing/steemit-culinary-challenge-46-new-theme-announcement
That desert looks really delish! Of course I would eat it :)
And I love all kinds of apples... must be my favourite fruit. I am not good naming varieties. I just eat them all :)
And sure I would pick the wild ones. Used to pick pears like that. I remember near my grandparents was some big pear trees growing right at the side of the woods. The fruits weren't big, like your apples. But oh so yummy!
This is really incredibly tasty! And you must have Sumac in your area, although it's probably a European species. I agree -- eat all the apple varieties. And whatever wild fruit is right around you! It's amazing how productive some trees can be, without any help at all.
Stunning entry!
You know, for me, it wouldn't matter what you made. It's just amazing that you foraged this off your land. That is truly living the dream!
One day I will have a farm! One day!
incredible dish. The most simple is the best in my book. I have never used sumac in a dessert. Usually just with grilled meats. Thanks for teaching me yet again!