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Tag: Sumac Trees

  • Sumac Essence: A Native Alternative to Pomegranate Molasses

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    If you like tart flavors, then sumac essence might be the ingredient you didn’t know your kitchen was missing. Sumac essence is one of my pantry’s most prized seasonal ingredients, to be eked out or traded when times are tough. It is a surprisingly nuanced condiment that I developed from sumac-ade (or sumac water)—a traditional Native American beverage made by soaking the fruit in water. Reducing that tart infusion results in an intense, pomegranate molasses-adjacent condiment whose flavor and versatility will blow your culinary socks off. Sumac has a long fruiting season, and any edible sumac can be used to make sumac essence. But in early fall, the last of the native American species to ripen beckons: winged sumac might be my favorite of these native sour flavors.

    Here’s how to make sumac water, sumac essence, and a quick recipe that highlights how to deploy this bright, liquid gold.

    Above: Sumac water (in the red bottles) is made by covering ripe sumac in water, then straining.
    Above: Ripe fruit heads of winged sumac.

    Late summer and fall-ripening Rhus copallinum, known as winged or shining sumac, has compound leaves whose midribs are flanked by distinctive and narrow winged adornments. Its clusters of fruit (a collection of tightly packed drupes) are browner than the torch-oranges and reds of staghorn and smooth sumacs (which ripen earlier in summer).

    When sumac looks frosted you know it’s as good as it gets.

    Above: You know it will be sour if sumac is frosted with crystalline acids.
    Above: Winged sumac, ready to be soaked.
    Above: Even dry, early-winter sumac can used for sumac essence, but taste before collecting, since rain and snow may have washed the sourness away.
    Above: Making sumac water or sumac-ade with smooth sumac.

    Sumac Water (or Sumac–Ade)

    Makes 5 cups

    This is the first step in making Sumac Essence. While I give quantities below, sumac water is really just a method: Sweeten it, or not, as you like. Quantities and concentrations will vary according to what you have gathered. The ratio below yields a very sour drink and is the perfect starting-point for the essence. You must taste your sumac before collecting, since the tartness washes off after rain (it builds up again).

    • 12 ounces ripe sumac, broken from the main green stalk
    • 5 cups water

    Combine the fruit and water in a large clean jug, bowl, or jar. Leave at room temperature for 24 hours if you mean to drink it right away. Leave for 48 hours if you are going on to make Sumac Essence.

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  • A Westchester Garden Designed by Landscape Designer Ashley Lloyd

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    Oftentimes landscape designers are called in to execute a one-time overhaul or to create an instant landscape for a site that’s been ravaged by construction. Every once in a while, though, they’re enlisted for more nuanced work, such as when a mature garden needs a new steward and editor. The “before and after” results may not be as dramatic, but the process of refinement can take a garden from good to great. Such was the case when landscape designer and ISA-certified arborist Ashley Lloyd, of Lloyd Landwright, was brought in to usher a garden in lower Westchester into its next chapter.

    The garden had been lovingly designed and tended by a fine gardener for many years, but after his departure, weeds had overtaken the property and much of the perennial layer had been lost during construction projects, including a new retaining wall. “The goal was to create layered texture, seasonal contrast, and movement—and to design with the garden’s future evolution in mind,” Lloyd says.

    Arriving as the homeowners were in the midst of rethinking the garden, ended up being a gift. “I had time to observe the land—its microclimates, light shifts, drainage patterns—and respond accordingly,” Lloyd says. Building on the existing palette of shrubs and evergreens, she brought in more native and pollinator plants and created moments that would consistently surprise and delight the clients. She also designed dozens of seasonal planters and new outdoor lighting.

    Through her years of working on this garden, Lloyd learned that “the best design happens in relationship and collaboration with the land and not from a fixed plan,” she says. Lloyd recently relocated to the West Coast, handing this garden off to its next steward in much better shape than she found it.

    Take a tour of the resulting garden, a layered landscape that evolves through the seasons.

    Photography by Kyle J Caldwell.

    “This wasn’t a
    Above: “This wasn’t a ‘look but don’t touch’ garden,” says Lloyd. Rather, it was designed to invite interaction, with the client choosing to leave the front garden unfenced, so neighbors could enjoy it too. However, no fencing meant intense deer pressure, so Lloyd focussed her plant palette on those that were unpalatable to deer, including floss flower and allium. “Grasses, including sesleria, really knit everything together there,” she says.
    Lloyd says she tries to place plants that deer don’t like around plants they prefer; for example, lamb
    Above: Lloyd says she tries to place plants that deer don’t like around plants they prefer; for example, lamb’s ear and allium are positioned to protect asters. As part of a local Pollinator Pathway, the garden is pesticide-free and designed to support bees, birds, and butterflies.

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  • Sumac Spice: How to Forage for the Autumn Fruit and Make Your Own

    Sumac Spice: How to Forage for the Autumn Fruit and Make Your Own

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    Above: Use a single mesh sieve to sift out the dry pericarps.

    Above: Seeds sifted out, and you have fresh, delicious sumac.

    Ground Sumac

    (Adapted from the Sumac chapter of Forage, Harvest, Feast—A Wild-Inspired Cuisine.)

    For reference,  2½ ounces (about ½ cup) of dried sumac drupes will create 3 tablespoons of ground sumac. Most recipes will call for at least 1 tablespoon.

    To dry sumac, you can either leave your clusters whole, or pick off all the fresh, ripe drupes from the clusters. After years of collecting, I now favor the former method: It’s easier, and less precious juice is wasted on your fingers. Either way, spread the fruit out on a parchment-lined surface and leave out at room temperature until dry (from 3 to 7 days, if the humidity is low).

    Transfer the dried drupes in batches to a spice grinder and grind for a few seconds. When you notice the pale seeds revealed, test by sifting some through a single-mesh strainer (double mesh is too fine). If the sour pericarp is sifting through, leaving behind the hard flavorless seed,  you’re good to go. If it is still too bulky, grind some more. Sift in batches, returning the leftover pieces to the grinder and sifting again.

    (If some of the seeds have been chewed up more finely by the grinder and sift through, they won’t hurt you—they’re just tasteless.)

    Once the sumac has all been sifted, transfer to small, airtight containers. Keep one for immediate use and freeze any extra.

    Above: Sumac shortbread crackers.

    Buttery Sumac Shortbread Crackers

    Makes about 40 crackers

    These crackers are of the melt-in-the-mouth variety. Embrace the butter. (They evolved one day from the pastry trimmings left over after making mushroom hand pies.)

    • 4 oz plus 3 Tablespoons butter, very cold
    • ½ teaspoon salt
    • 5 oz all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting the rolling surface
    • 3 Tablespoons Half and Half
    • 1 Tablespoon ground sumac
    • 1 Tablespoons dried mugwort flowers (optional)

    Combine the flour and salt in a bowl*. Using the coarse side of box grater, grate the cold butter into the flour (no grater? Cut it into small cubes). Toss some flour into the butter-mound to help prevent clumping, and then work the butter and flour between your fingertips until the mixture resembles evenly coarse sand. Pour in the Half and Half and work with a wooden spoon a few times. Bring the pastry together with your hands, taking care to use as few motions as possible.  (All of this can be done in a food processor, too; just don’t overwork it, or the crackers become tough.)

    Form the pastry into a fat disc. Wrap it and chill until solid (at least an hour and as long as 24), or freeze for later use.

    Preheat the oven to 375’F.

    Dust a clean surface with flour and roll out one pastry disc to about 1/8-inch. Sprinkle half the sumac and half the optional mugwort across the surface and pass the rolling over the pastry two more times to press in the seasoning/s.

    Using a wheeled pastry cutter or a knife cut the pastry into ribbons about 2 inches wide. Cut across those ribbons to make the short side around 1.5 inches (or go wild and make any size you like!). You can also press out individual crackers, using a cookie cutter, but it’s more time-consuming and creates more trimmings. Transfer the cut crackers to a parchment-lined baking sheet and chill for 10 minutes.

    Slide the chilled crackers into the hot oven and bake for about 15 minutes, removing the tray the minute the edges of the crackers turn deep golden. Immediately, sprinkle the remaining sumac and mugwort, if using, over the hot crackers. Cool on wire racks.

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