The motto of HungryTravelers is “bringing the taste of travel back home,” but sometimes we don’t have to go very far for extraordinary flavor. The Ocean Spray Cooperative (oceanspray.com) is headquartered just 50 miles south-southeast from our home in Cambridge, Mass., but its 700-plus members in North and South America represent a world of flavor. They grow 80 percent of the globe’s cranberries.

Similarly, Puritan & Company restaurant is a 13-minute walk from home. Chef-owner Will Gilson champions New England cuisine, so it was logical that the restaurant host a debut dinner by the Cranberry Chef Collective last week. The CCC connects chefs to the member farmers of the cranberry cooperative. Ocean Spray estimates that more than 100 billion cranberries will be consumed this holiday season, but the collective seeks to instill the tart little fruits into year-round menus.

The founding chefs are Gilson (top right), Irene Li (top center) of Mei Mei in Boston, Evan Mallet of Black Trumpet in Portsmouth, N.H., Cassie Piuma of Sarma in Somerville, Mass., and Liam Luttrell Rowland (top left) of Spindler’s in Provincetown, Mass.

Rowland summarized the appeal to the chefs. “The cranberry is a legacy ingredient,” he said. “It’s one that helps define New England cuisine.”

For the dinner he served grilled Wellfleet oysters with sea bean butter and a cranberry mignonette. “The oyster, the sea bean, and the cranberry all grow within feet of each other,” Rowland explained. “The natural world is teaching us how to cook every day.”

That said, the chefs are interpreting those lessons through the lens of their individual approaches. The Cranberry Chef Collective meal was a showcase of contemporary cookery that reflected each chef’s personal history.

Three savory courses take different tacks of the simple cranberry

Irene Li runs her family’s contemporary Chinese casual spot in Boston, Mei Mei. She and her siblings grew up “with a Chinese pantry, a Chinese refrigerator, and American taste. We think of it as ‘Chinese with cheese,’” she explained. (They are also authors of a cookbook, Double Awesome Chinese Food available on Amazon.)

These gorgeous dumpling were filled with a cranberry-sage-pork stuffing. She also made a tangy cranberry-laced version of Ah-So sauce, the garlicky red marinade popular in Chinese-American cooking in the Northeast U.S. The pumpkin seeds on top gave the dish a nutty edge.

Cassie Piuma contributed the fish course for the dinner with this beautiful plate of yellowtail “nayeh” with a cranberry “ezme.” That sounds a little more exotic than it actually was. “Nayeh” is a Middle Eastern term usually reserved for thinly sliced or chopped raw meat. In this dish, yellowtail amberjack (known to sushi enthusiasts as hamachi) takes the place of the meat. The “ezme” resembles a tomato salsa—but made with cranberries in place of tomato. Tangy cranberry was a perfect foil to the sumptuously fatty fish.

In keeping with his standing as a 13th generation descendant of Mayflower Pilgrims, Will Gilson provided the most Thanksgiving-like dish of the night. His ballotine of turkey with cornbread and turkey sausage stuffing and cranberry jus brought the all-American turkey day ingredients together in a French technical tour de force. (You try boning a turkey in one piece and roasting it stuffed with forcemeat….) The cranberry jus was a nice riff on one of Ocean Spray’s first products in the 1930s, Jellied Cranberry Sauce.

We’re not aspiring to that complex turkey for our Thanksgiving table, but Gilson’s Cranberry-Apple Cobbler Pie could definitely find a spot. Here’s the recipe.

CRANBERRY-APPLE COBBLER PIE

Prep time: 1 hour; Total time 3 hours
Makes one pie

4 cups sliced and peeled Cortland apples (about 4 medium)
2 cups Craisins or fresh cranberries
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground coriander
1 recipe pie dough

For the topping
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
dash nutmeg
1/4 cup unsalted butter
1/4 cup pistachios, chopped

Heat oven to 375°F.

In a large bowl, gently mix apples and cranberries. In small bowl, combine the flour, sugars, and spices. Add the dry ingredients to the fruit; gently, but thoroughly, toss to coat the apples. Pour into pastry-lined pan. (See below for pastry recipe.)

In small bowl, make the topping by combining flour, brown sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg. With pastry blender or fork, cut in the butter until crumbly. Stir in the pistachios. Sprinkle evenly over the top of the apple filling.

Bake 45-55 minutes or until apples are tender, and the pastry and topping are golden brown. (After 15 to 20 minutes of baking, cover crust edge with strips of foil to prevent excessive browning.) If desired, serve warm with whipped cream or ice cream.

PASTRY CRUST

Makes two crusts—reserve one for another use

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, plus extra for rolling
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon sugar
1 cups (2 sticks/8 ounces) unsalted butter, very cold, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
6 to 8 tablespoons ice water, discard any cubes before using

In the bowl of a food processor, pulse to combine the flour, salt, and sugar. Add about half of the butter to the food processor and pulse several times. Add the remaining butter and pulse 6 to 8 times until the largest pieces of butter are about the size of large peas. Slowly add the ice water by sprinkling the dough with about half of the water; pulse again. Add more water 1 tablespoon at a time, pulsing after each addition, until the dough just barely begins to hold together.

Carefully empty the crumbly dough mixture from the food processor on to a clean, dry, flat surface. Gather the mixture in a mound. Divide the dough mixture into two even-sized mounds. Use your hands and knead each mound just enough to form each one into a disk. You should just knead enough so that the dough holds together without cracks. Sprinkle each disk with a little flour, wrap each one in plastic wrap, and refrigerate for one hour or up to 2 days.

Remove one crust disk from the refrigerator. Let sit at room temperature 5-10 minutes to soften just enough to make rolling out a bit easier. Roll out with a rolling pin on a lightly floured surface to a 12-inch circle, about 1/8 of an inch thick. As you roll out the dough, check if the dough is sticking to the surface below. If necessary, add a few sprinkles of flour under the dough to keep dough from sticking.

Carefully place onto a 9-inch pie plate. Gently press the pie dough down so that it lines the bottom and sides of the pie plate. Use a pair of kitchen scissors to trim the dough to within 1/2 inch of the edge of the pie dish.

Add the filling to the pie and proceed with baking instructions.