Last weekend, Jamie of Wayward Seed Farm generously introduced me to ground cherries. She let me taste one right there at their North Market stand while I was picking up my weekly box of produce. I was so intrigued, I just had to take some home. After using the fruit to make a sauce I decided I needed more to tweak the recipe and share it with all of you.

Ground cherries are relatives of tomatillos and are a good source of potassium. Upon first taste it reminded me of a sweet almost pineapple flavored tomato.

This sauce would be good on any mild fish, chicken, pork or duck. For non meat eaters it can be a nice sauce for a mildly seasoned seitan or a simple seared tofu.

Here, I served the sauce as an accompaniment to seared sea scallops garnished with Cyprus black lava sea salt.

Ground Cherry Sauce

• 2 pints ground cherries
• 6 T. white wine
• 3 T. sugar
• 4 t. szechuan peppercorns*
• 1 cinnamon stick
• pinch salt**

Remove husks from ground cherries and rinse. Combine all ingredients in a small saucepan. Bring mixture to a boil then reduce to a simmer, cover and cook covered about 3 minutes or until fruit is soft. Crush the fruit with the back of a wooden spoon and bring temperature up to medium to medium high. You want the mixture to be at a vigorous simmer. Cook about 30 minutes, stirring occasionally until the sauce thickens a bit. I like the consistency of a thin syrup, but cook longer if you’d like it to be more of a glaze. When the sauce is sufficiently thick, pass it through a fine mesh sieve to separate the skins and peppercorns from the sauce. Serve as desired.

Yield: about 1/2 cup

Notes:

*Szechaun peppercorns are available at Penzey’s Spices. Penzey’s sells by mail order and at their retail outlets across the country.

**Use salt very sparingly in this recipe. Just the slightest bit too much can easily throw the slightly sweet, tangy, peppery flavors off balance even before it begins to taste too salty.

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