Savory Sweet: Simple Preserves from a Northern Kitchen

“Let’s dispense with the usual old notions of preserving,” Beth Dooley suggests, leading us into Mette Nielsen’s kitchen, where old-world Danish traditions meld with the freshest ideas and latest techniques to fill the pantry with the best of the season, all year long. Because those seasons can prove especially challenging in the northern heartland, Nielsen’s Nordic heritage is handy as she and Dooley show cooks, first-time and experienced canners alike, how to make the most of a short growing season. Their approach combines the brightness and bold flavors of the Nordic cuisines with an emphasis on the local, the practical, and the freshest ingredients to turn each season’s produce into a bounty of condiments. 

From corn salsa to carrot lemon marmalade with ginger and cardamom, crispy pickled red onions to garlic scape pesto with lemon thyme, and caramel apple butter with lemongrass to puttanesca sauce to “Fit for a Queen Jam”—these recipes bring the best of the sweet and the savory to every menu. Low tech, simple, and fast, they eschew hot-water-bath methods in favor of chilling and freezing, keeping flavors and colors bold and bright; and they ease up on sugar to make way for the true savory sweetness of nature’s finest food.

Savory Sweet is not your grandmother’s canning cookbook—but it is likely to be your grandchildren’s. 

Beth Dooley is author and coauthor of several award-winning cookbooks, including Savoring the Seasons of the Northern Heartland (Minnesota, 2004), The Northern Heartland Kitchen (Minnesota, 2011), Minnesota’s Bounty (Minnesota, 2013), In Winter’s Kitchen, and The Birchwood Cafe Cookbook (Minnesota, 2015). She writes for the Minneapolis–St. Paul Star Tribune and appears regularly on KARE 11 TV and Minnesota Public Radio’s “Appetites.”

Mette Nielsen’s photographs have graced the pages of numerous books, newspapers, and magazines. A talented master gardener, she created the edible garden for the Birchwood Cafe in Minneapolis and collaborated on The Birchwood Cafe Cookbook and Minnesota’s Bounty.