In The Centre #5 | Strawberrymisu
Silly name, superb dessert
If you’re a UK reader: strawberry season is very much here.
And if you’re not, well, I hope good strawberries are with you too, or will be soon (Australia and New Zealand … hang tight).
Some thoughts:
Strawberries are one of the few things I personally think are best bought from supermarkets. Yes yes, evil corporates etc etc. But the volume they get through, the speed of rotation, the chilled display conditions … the percentages are in the consumer’s favour here. The flavour at this time of year is supreme, the growers are local, and the supermarket price can’t be beaten. It’s 2 for 1 and yellow sticker bargain berry season as much as anything else.
It feels like strawberries are good earlier and earlier every year … and then at some point in mid-late June you have a strawberry and it blows your tiny mind. This happened to me last week.
No strawberry-focused recipe in the world could truly improve the simple act of pairing a tip top, peak season and recently picked strawberry with dairy — be it cream, ice cream or Greek yoghurt.
BUT that doesn't mean you can’t or shouldn’t cook, macerate or use strawberries as an ingredient:
this dish by Anna Higham involving strawberry ice cream, dried strawberries and fresh strawberries will (again) blow your tiny mind;
gently warmed strawberries (so more syrupy than macerated and only slightly jammy) are one of my favourite partners for cold rice pudding, panna cotta, set custard, creme brulée and any other vanilla-heavy creamy and generally delicious thing. There’s a recipe for them (and the rice pudding) in my cookbook Crave.
- ’s strawberry cobbler caught my eye the other week;
there are loads of strawberry galette recipes in the wild. I like
’ strawberry and anise number from her book The Modern Cook’s Year, which involves fennel seeds with the fruit and is served with coconut ice cream or yoghurt.
Anna’s galette is also a reminder that adding a sweet spice or another ‘surprise’ seasoning to strawberries frequently works well. Fennel seeds are my current favourite. Vanilla is obviously an excellent match too. See also elderflower (a splash of cordial if the blossom is no longer around), or strawberries roasted with cracked black pepper and/or balsamic vinegar.
And so, a recipe
As mentioned, fennel seeds are my current favourite match for strawberries. Most of time I simply macerate the strawberries using pounded fennel seed-laced sugar — until the grains of sugar have magicked themselves into a syrup, and strawberries are glossy. But if I’ve got a glut of strawberries and they’re clearly going to turn before we can get through them (you know when you take a bit too long to get the punnets home and they’re already beginning to sweat?), well, then I like to roast them. And use the excess of ruby-coloured juices as a soaking liquor for a kind of tiramisu. There’s no coffee here, although fwiw I can confirm that leftovers make an excellent breakfast alongside a black filter coffee. There is a bit of booze (I used Chambord, a raspberry liqueur, although an orange, almond or hazelnut option would be excellent too).
All the key details, nuances and practicalities are discussed in the recipe below, which is for paid subscribers. Come on in and give this recipe a try — it’s mighty good.
