If you’ve passed a strawberry stand lately, I’m guessing the
marvelous smell stopped you cold or made you turn your car around.
It’s the season for strawberries and you don’t want to miss out on
the farm-fresh variety.
If you’ve passed a strawberry stand lately, I’m guessing the marvelous smell stopped you cold or made you turn your car around. It’s the season for strawberries and you don’t want to miss out on the farm-fresh variety.
People often ask why some berries have no flavor. Is the berry too big? Was it harvested too early? Flavor is influenced by three main factors: the weather, the variety, and the stage of ripeness when harvested.
Strawberries do not continue to ripen once they are picked, so what you see is what you get. They do, however, decompose rapidly.
All berries should be consumed within two to three days of purchase, though with strawberries, I go with the lower number. Eat them, freeze them, or miss out on their extraordinary flavor and their nutritional value.
Eight strawberries contain 140 percent of the recommended daily allowance of Vitamin C. They’re also good sources of folic acid, potassium and fiber. They’re fat-free and low in calories. Can you beat that?
California strawberries are widely thought to be the sweetest in the country, though Florida has a good market, too. The simple fact is, if they are harvested at peak ripeness near your home, they will taste better.
Strawberries do not travel particularly well, so we are lucky that we have many wonderful stands in Gilroy, San Martin and Morgan Hill.
As wonderful as they are, they’re not the best cooking fruit. They’re fragile and fall apart easily. They seem to do best just as they are, garnished simply and enjoyed at the height of fragrance and flavor. Enjoy!
• For perfect strawberries: If you find the perfect berries, and you will in South County, try serving them with this wonderful sauce. It’s the perfect way to taste the best of the fruit with a simple garnish.
Swedish cream is a mixture of sour and fresh cream, kind of like Crème Fraiche, but quicker to make.
This recipe is by cookbook author Mark Bittman and looks especially pretty in clear, broad champagne or wine glasses.
Strawberries with Swedish Cream
1 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup sour cream
Sugar or honey to taste
1 T. Grand Marnier, Amaretto or other liqueur (optional)
1 quart strawberries, washed, hulled and left whole or halved
Whip the cream until it holds soft peaks, then fold it into the sour cream. Add sugar to taste and liqueur if you like. Place the berries in four to six bowls or stemmed glasses and top with the cream.
• No-shortcut shortcakes: There are really no shortcuts if you want perfect strawberry shortcake biscuits. Then again, this recipe doesn’t take much time at all. From Cook’s Illustrated’s 1997 annual issue, this recipe uses a unique technique for the strawberries: mash some of them, sugar them, and let them sit for a couple of hours. I liked this because it made more sauce than just slicing and sugaring before serving.
Now, if you are really stuck, you can make the biscuit recipe on the side of the Bisquick box and add about a tablespoon of sugar. But these are light, creamy, true biscuits and they deserve a try. In either case, I don’t think you’ll go back to Hostess.
Topping
3 pints strawberries, hulled
6 T. sugar
Mash 1 pint of strawberries with a potato masher or fork. Mix with sugar, cover with plastic wrap and set aside for up to two hours. Quarter the rest of the berries.
Shortcakes
2 cups bleached flour
1/2 tsp. salt
1 T. baking powder
3 T. sugar, plus 2 T. for sprinkling 1 stick unsalted butter, frozen
1 egg, beaten
1/2 cup plus 1 T. half-and-half
1 egg white, lightly beaten
1/2 pint heavy cream, whipped
Adjust oven rack to middle position; preheat oven to 425 degrees.
Mix flour, salt, baking powder and 3 T. sugar in medium bowl. Using the large holes on a grater, grate butter into dry ingredients. Toss butter with flour to coat. Use a pastry cutter or your fingers to finish mixing butter into flour mixture; it should resemble small peas.
Mix egg with half-and-half; pour into flour mixture. Toss with fork until large clumps form. Turn mixture onto floured work surface and lightly knead until it comes together.
Pat dough into a 9×6-inch rectangle, about 3/4-inch thick. With a biscuit cutter (or a juice glass), cut 6 biscuits. Place 1 inch apart on a greased baking sheet. Brush tops of biscuits with egg white and sprinkle with remaining sugar. (You can stop here and refrigerate the biscuits up to 2 hours before baking.)
Bake until golden brown, 12 to 14 minutes. Remove to wire rack and cool about 10 minutes before serving.
Split each biscuit, spoon berries onto the bottom half and top with whipped cream. You can decoratively rest the biscuit top against the cream, or fill both halves with berries.
• Summer cooler: For a special brunch or an afternoon by the pool, you may get a hankering for a strawberry daiquiri. It won’t transport you to Hawaii, but you may feel a little glam sipping one under a big-brimmed hat. To make this a virgin, of course, just cut out the rum.
Frozen Daiquiri
3/4 cup rum
1 T. superfine sugar
1/4 cup freshly squeezed lime juice
1 cup crushed ice
1 cup cleaned, hulled and roughly chopped strawberries
Combine all ingredients in a blender and whiz until creamy. Pour into cocktail glasses and serve. Serves 4.
• New take on strawberries: This dessert recipe is from the California
Strawberry Commission’s web site www.calstrawberry.com. It’s a very informative site, containing nutritional information, recipes and fun facts about strawberries – like the fact that each berry contains about 200 seeds.
This is a dreamy dessert: ready in five minutes or less.
Strawberry Velvet
1 pint strawberries, sliced and partially frozen
1 1/4 cups vanilla ice cream
1/4 to 1/2 cup white Crème de Cacao
1/4 to 1/2 cup brandy
Sweetened whipped cream
Semisweet chocolate curls, for garnish
In blender combine strawberries, ice cream, Créme de Cacao and brandy; whirl until smooth. Pour into stemmed glasses. Garnish with whipped cream and chocolate curls. Serve immediately with straws and spoons. Serves 4.
Note: The easiest way I have found to make chocolate curls is to freeze a chocolate bar for about half an hour, then use a vegetable peeler to peel off the edge of the candy bar. It has to be plain chocolate and a thicker bar (like Cadbury) works better.
In a pinch, just chop the chocolate bar into tiny pieces and sprinkle on top or sift a little chocolate milk powder on top. It still looks and tastes great.
This week’s tip
You can soften hard avocados in the microwave oven at medium for about 30 to 45 seconds (rotate halfway through). They won’t be ripe, but they will be softer.
Notes
• Berry fresh: For strawberries to stay fresh, do not wash them right away. Store them in a large container with a dry paper towel at the bottom. For maximum freshness, separate the berries by layering with paper towels.
• Berry bath:• Just before using, wash strawberries in a gentle spray of water with the caps still on. If you hull the berries first, they will absorb the water and become soggy.
• Berry good:• To prepare strawberries, first remove the leaves, then cut a cone-shaped wedge with a paring knife to remove the top of the core. A small melon baller also works well.
• End note: Doubtless God could have made a better berry, but doubtless God never did.
– William Butler Yeats on strawberries
Happy cooking!
