Recipes By Sean Sherman
10 recipes found
Chia Pudding With Berries and Popped Amaranth
Based on flavors from the Ohlone tribe, this simple pudding doubles as both breakfast and dessert, and gets its silky texture from chia seeds. Though optional, the wild manzanita berries that grow abundantly throughout California make a wonderful addition to this dish. When the berries are ripe, they turn a burned-red hue and become slightly sticky. The flavor is often likened to sour apple, which adds a nice tang when crushed with milder mixed berries, though any combination of mixed berries lends plenty of acidity. Toasted amaranth seeds gives it all a nutty crunch.
Rocky Mountain Rainbow Trout With Trout Roe
Whole trout makes for a stunning presentation, especially when it is topped with delicate pink roe, which sparkles like gems on top of the fish and imparts a salty, mineral flavor. Trout from the icy Rocky Mountain streams are at their best in late spring, when the ice has just melted. Cooks from the Shoshone tribe, among many others, make delicious meals using the entire fish, wasting nothing: Cheeks and eyes are considered a delicacy, as is the roe harvested from the females, which is prized for its distinct flavor and its relationship to renewal.
Tepary Beans With Chile-Agave Glaze
The small tepary beans that grow in the harsh, dry American Southwest are an heirloom variety that has been cultivated and harvested wild by countless generations of Native people in the region. The Diné (more commonly known as the Navajo) seed savers even protected them during the Long Walk of 1864, a brutal forced march to eastern New Mexico, hiding the beans in their clothing. This is an amazing bean that can withstand and even prosper in the most extreme heat and drought. The white variety I use here is slightly sweet and nutty, while the brown variety has an earthier flavor. The combination of white and brown tepary beans is both visual and flavorful, but you could also simply use 2 cups of one variety of tepary bean. Top the beans with roasted turnips and winter squash for a satisfying vegan meal, or pair them with bison pot roast, roast turkey or other meat.
Wild Rice and Berries With Popped Rice
As delicious simmered until tender as it is popped until puffy and crisp, real hand-harvested wild rice, available from a few vendors online, is unlike any commercial paddy rice. Nutty and woodsy, it cooks in half the time of commercial wild rice and tastes of the piney forests and clear northern lakes. In the Anishinaabe language, wild rice is “manoomin,” or “good berry,” and is served at many ceremonies in the Great Lakes region, from holiday celebrations to weddings and funerals. I often garnish this dish with fresh or dried ramp leaves, depending on the time of year, but chive stems or sliced scallions are a simple substitute. Top with roasted turnips and winter squash or serve with sautéed vegetables, roast meat or pan-seared fish.
Roasted Turnips and Winter Squash With Agave Glaze
Traditionally, this dish, from the Great Plains, would include timpsula, the wild turnip that grows in patches across the region. (Old Lakota harvesting stories tell of how the timpsula point the forager from one plant to the next.) In Lakota homes, the turnips are often braided and dried for use throughout the winter. Unless you live in the region, fresh timpsula is difficult to come by, as it’s not sold commercially. It’s also milder and slightly denser than the garden turnips we’ve substituted in this traditional pairing. The agave glaze adds a touch of sweetness to the vegetables, and the toasted sunflower seeds add crunch. Serve this with bison pot roast with hominy or spooned over wild rice for a comforting vegetarian meal.
Three Sisters Bowl With Hominy, Beans and Squash
There are quite a few legends within various Indigenous communities involving the three sisters: corn, bean and squash. The ancient and advanced farming techniques from the Cherokee and so many other tribes throughout the East Coast yielded countless strains of these ingredients, in many sizes, colors and flavors. These diverse seeds are not only a direct connection to the past, but a symbol of resistance to the destruction of our cultures. This recipe showcases the simplicity of these flavors and can stand alone as a vegan meal or can accompany bison pot roast, roast turkey or salmon with crushed blackberries.
Roast Turkey With Berry-Mint Sauce and Black Walnuts
The flavor of heritage turkey breeds is richer and more pronounced than that of commercial turkeys sold at supermarkets nationwide. Put plainly, heritage breeds taste more like turkey. Heritage birds are raised outside, pecking at a varied diet. They tend to have meatier thighs and smaller breasts, and a higher ratio of dark meat to white meat. The Onondaga tribe, among others from the Northeastern United States, would have been able to serve them with forest berries, perking up the rich, dark meat with color and flavor. Sparked with mint, this berry sauce is bright and fruity, with just enough acid to complement the richness of the turkey.
Bison Pot Roast With Hominy
The American bison that once roamed the Great Plains were considered sacred animals by the Lakota and other people of the region, and served as a critical food source that was celebrated in ceremonies and honored in prayers. According to numbers published by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, there were 30 million to 60 million bison in North America in the 1500s. By the end of the 1800s, settlers had decimated the population. In the late 1990s, the number of bison in North America had grown again, to nearly 300,000 animals in public herds and on ranches. It’s exciting we now have access to this vitally important meat. When it’s slowly braised, the lean, mild bison becomes fork tender; hominy brings substance and a subtly sweet, nutty corn flavor. Serve this dish alone or pair it with roasted turnips and winter squash. Soaking the hominy overnight before adding it to the pot helps it cook faster, so the dried corn kernels are ready in the same amount of time as the bison. Leftovers are terrific served over corn cakes or folded into tortillas. A small branch of foraged white cedar adds a woodsy note, but juniper berries achieve a similar effect.
Salmon With Crushed Blackberries and Seaweed
A traditional staple on the Pacific Northwest coast, salmon is considered a sacred food. This dish is often slow-roasted on cedar or redwood spikes near an open fire, giving the fish a beautiful smoky flavor. In the kitchen, searing the salmon in a skillet allows the true flavor of wild-caught fish to shine through. Seaweed harvesting goes back countless generations, and so the salty seaweed is a great accompaniment here, along with the sweet local blackberries, a combination that is natural for the Muckleshoot and other tribes of the region.
Crawfish and Shrimp Pot With Spiced Sweet Potatoes
Plentiful throughout the Gulf Coast, crawfish and shrimp are Choctaw staples and traditional seasonings like filé, the spice ground from dried sassafras bark, and spicy chiles are a perfect accompaniment. Here, the crustaceans rest on a bed of spicy sweet potatoes, in a dish that calls back to traditional feasts and community gatherings. The sassafras adds a grassy, slightly sour note, and the berries bring more color and tang. You can vary the shellfish depending on the season and your locale in this festive dish, which is easily doubled to serve a crowd.