A bite into a raw plum perplexes my mouth: a mouth-puckering sour skin is the gateway to mildly sweet flesh?  For me, the two tastes and textures don’t go together.

But apply a little cooking heat to that same plum and it’s kitchen alchemy.  After cooking, the tough, tart, astringent skins melt down into silk, the watery flesh thickens into syrup.  Best of all, the skin and the flesh seem to meet in the middle to live together harmoniously, a place that is tartly sweet and unctuously velvety.  Oh, how I love cooking with plums!

Plums are a late summer fruit, available from August through mid-September, in several varieties.  To make this gingery plum sauce to accompany turkey, duck or pork, I like to use purple plums, either the standard lunch bag black plum, or the later-in-the-season Italian prune plum. Plums freeze well, so you can buy more than you think you need when they are in season, and keep them stored in the freezer wrapped in a heavy-duty freezer bag for at most 2 months.  To use frozen plums, thaw only partially and they will be easy to cut and store for any recipe. 

We love this savory Gingered Plum Relish because it is so different yet tasty, a salty-sweet-almost smoky substitute for even the more traditional cranberry sauce on your Thanksgiving table.This video was filmed in the Doyon's Kitchen & Appliance Showroom at the Doyon's location in Gloucester, MA. You can obtain more information at their web site; www.doyonsappliance.com