Wild Bramble Berry Gastrique
working in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley provide her with many opportunities to expand her
culinary horizons and continue to learn and grow through hunting, fishing, foraging, and farming.
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This is such an easy and effective recipe; I can’t believe I haven’t tried it sooner.
A gastrique is a French sauce featuring caramelized sugar, an acid like vinegar, and a sweet element like fruit — reduced until thickened.
My rendition uses red wine vinegar, red sangria, and a bounty of bramble berries. They’re the thorny ones that tug on your clothes and chastise you with cuts and scratches as if to check your greediness. Preparation for this recipe began in June, when I was delighted that the black raspberry canes growing by my driveway have begun to bear their first fruit. There is something so intimate and special to be able to step out of your car after commuting home to savor a palmful of summer sweetness. They’re small, but they’re my favorite berries of the year.
You can easily identify black raspberry bushes by their bluish, frosty-looking stems, with delicate thorns. The leaves are also useful in plant medicine; I use them as part of my monthly “moon cycle tea” along with red clover and nettle. The taste is pleasantly tannic and almost like vanilla. I served the finished dish with it.
Blackberries grow on stout green canes with longer thorns. But both black raspberries and blackberries are far outnumbered in my yard by wineberries, a non-native raspberry species from Asia. You can distinguish the plants by their reddish hairs, sparse thorns, and fuzzy clusters of racemes that flower and eventually bear blood-red drupelets that taste amazing.
Because berries don’t keep well, I recommend freezing them until you have enough for the recipe, or picking what you need and using them immediately. Long pants and sleeves are advised during foraging, and a pair of shears helps. Your efforts will be rewarded with a simple yet stunning accompaniment to just about any meat of the woods and waters: venison, wild hog, bear, duck, goose, and the like.
The most daunting part is caramelizing the sugar, but once you taste this sweet and sour sauce, you’ll understand that it’s worth the work. And remember: eat more invasive species!
Serving Size: 2-4 servings
Time to make: 55 minutes
Special equipment: Electric chopper or food processor, mesh strainer basket
Also works with: Blueberries and other wild berries, great with any wild game meat
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Wild Bramble Berry Gastrique
4
servings15
minutes40
minutesDrizzle over venison steaks, duck or turkey breast, pork chops, breakfast sausage…the possibilities are endless.
Keep the screen of your device on
Ingredients
2 cups bramble berries (defrosted if frozen)
¼ cup white sugar
¼ cup water
¼ cup red wine vinegar
¼ cup red sangria
2 tbs grassfed butter
Half a small sweet onion, finely minced
Preparation
- Combine sugar and water in a heavy-bottom saucepan and bring to a boil over medium heat.
- Puree your berries in your chopper or food processor until blended smooth, and remove the seeds by straining the puree in a mesh basket over a bowl. Pressing into the basket with a large spoon helps.
- Boil the sugar until it caramelizes, diligently monitoring the temperature and color. You will start to smell a nutty aroma and the mixture will begin to darken; it happens quickly after this. Be careful not to burn it!
- Remove the pan from heat and add the vinegar, stirring to combine and breaking up any solids that may form.
- Add the caramelized sugar to the berry puree, stirring to combine.
- Melt the butter in another pan and cook the onion until translucent.
- Deglaze the onions with the wine (add wine to the pan and scrape up any stuck bits with a spoon or spatula), and pour in the berry-sugar mixture.
- Reduce the heat and simmer until the sauce is reduced by about ½ and the onions are totally cooked down. Make sure not to burn it or agitate it too much.
- Spoon over meat and serve while still warm; sauce will continue to thicken and form a sticky consistency when cooled.
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