Sour cherries are one of those fruits that just don't travel. You never see them in the supermarket in January, flown in from Peru. Sometimes you can find them in a jar, packed in juice, usually European. I know they're available frozen, but the shipping makes them rather spendy.
But, now, here in NY, it's the fleeting season of sour cherries, and therefore time for pie. About 10 days ago, I made a strawberry cherry pie with the last of the strawberries and the first of the sour cherries. This weekend, I might try blueberry cherry.
Some years ago, I was at the greenmarket and idly asked the cherry seller "what can I do besides pie?". She replied "why, cherry bounce!" and I ran right home and made some.
Cherry bounce is basically a cherry cordial, and because I know you need to run home and make some, the recipe is at the bottom.
The best low-tech way to pit cherries is with a hairpin - an old-fashioned metal hairpin. You sort of scoop the pit out with the bend in the middle. You could try with a partially unbent paper clip, I bet, if you've got no hairpins.
There are hand-held cherry pitters out there, but I find that they tend to punch out a piece of cherry along with the pit. My mother has an antique cast iron one that clamps on to a table - the cherries roll along into a divot, where you punch the pit out. The pit goes one way, the cherry into a bowl. It is as clever as all get out, but not for sale at Bed Bath & Beyond.
Cherry Bounce
1 quart pitted sour cherries
1 750 ml bottle vodka
2 cups sugar
Combine ingredients a big glass jar with a cap and let stand in a dark cool place for a month or 3, stirring occasionally. Serve the cherries over vanilla ice cream, and drink the liquor.
13 July 2007
Sour Cherries
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9 comments:
I want that gadget...too cool. And good recipe!
Oh sour cherries!!!
Hey that recipe looks yum.
Do you travel? ;)
THAT sounds good.
This makes me want to raid the cherry tree up the street whose owners are letting the lovely fruit rot.
my favorite way to seed a cherry is to put it in my mouth, eat all the fruit off, and then spit the seen as far as I can. But i guess that won't work for making pies or bounces.
If I weren't the only alcohol drinker in the household, I would run out (because I already am home) and make some. I know you're thinking that there'd just be more for me, but it doesn't work that way.
now THAT is a bounce. i so admire those who bake. and create.
Hm, you have given me Ideas.
Sigh. I love Massachusetts, but Mass-grown fresh cherries are not an option. I have to wait until the NY/NJ cherries hit the markets, and then gobble them up.
Blueberry/cherry sounds great. I made a cherry jam once with candied ginger and candied lemon peel. It was amazing. I will have to try your infusion when the east coast cherries hit the supermarket. (We still are getting Washington cherries.)
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