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| Cherry & Almond Strudel |
The soft fruit season is always a time of too much arriving too quickly and then come the cherries, sometimes before we've had time to eat our fill of strawberries and raspberries. This year is racing along on the fruit front. The cherries are here and very soon we'll be feasting on plums too. Checking the the allotments' communal plum trees today, it looks like we're in for a bumper crop. The boughs are laden with clusters of green fruit just beginning to show a streak of purple.
So, while I continue to pick raspberries and gooseberries, and now the first blackcurrants, am busy bottling fruit and making ice cream, there are cherries to consider. So, what to do with the first of cherries? Well, as I have a few sheets of filo pastry left over from making a chicken pastilla, strudel immediately comes to mind. A recent visit to Trieste, where a Mitteleuropean cuisine still fights for supremacy with Italian food, reminded me that strudel is not only about apples. Cherry Strudel was much in evidence, a legacy of Trieste's Habsburg era.
Cherries have an affinity with almonds. Not surprising when you consider the tiny kernel inside the stone of cherries, apricots and peaches (all stone fruit in fact) has an almond flavour and is known as noyau. Don't worry, I'm not going to suggest you take a hammer to the cherry stones here. If you do want to try extracting the noyau, apricots are a bit more rewarding. Add a few to an Amaretti biscuit mix for a delicious hint of bitter almond. I have to give the warning to use sparingly as they do contain tiny traces of cyanide, though you'd have to eat quite some quantity for it to have any effect..
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| Cherry Strudel & cream |
Having very good juicy, sweet cherries with just a hint of sharpness, (variety Summer Sun) I didn't want to interfere with their flavour too much so I've kept the filling simple for this one.
Cherry & Almond Strudel
(Serves 4)
350g (12oz) cherries (weight before removing stones)
60g (2oz)caster sugar (depending on sweetness of cherries)
1 level teaspoon of cinnamon
30g (1oz) finely chopped almonds or hazelnuts of a mix of both
30g (1oz) roughly chopped almonds (preferably skins removed)
2 sheets of filo pastry (about 45cm x 25cm)
60g (2oz) unsalted butter, melted
1 heaped teaspoon of icing sugar
STEP 1
Heat oven to 180C (160C Fan)/Gas 4. Line a baking tray with greaseproof paper.
Remove the stones from the cherries and mix with the caster sugar and cinnamon.
Combine both the fine and roughly chopped nuts.
STEP 2
Place first sheet of filo pastry on a clean tea towel, narrow end closest to you, and butter the sheet, leaving 1cm unbuttered on the end farthest away from you. Brush that strip lightly with water.
Scatter the nuts over the pastry to within 1cm of each side.
Add the cherries in a heap at the end closest to you about 5-6cm from the edge and leaving 3-4cm either side uncovered.
Place the uncovered pastry nearest to you over the cherries then use the tea towel to help roll almost to the far edge. Tuck the right and left edges up into the parcel to help seal-in the contents and finish rolling to the end. Make sure the water-brushed pastry strip seals to the parcel. Place it on the lined baking sheet. Brush with melted butter.
Repeat STEP 2 with the second pastry sheet and then bake the parcels in the oven for 30 minutes.
Allow to cool for 10 minutes. Cut each pastry in two, dust with sifted icing sugar and serve.
Good with double cream or vanilla ice cream.
Note: It's also almost time for the Brogdale Cherry Festival - this year it's 19-20 July.
Other recipes using cherries:
Cherries with almonds & Sabayon sauce
Summer Pudding with cherries
Cherry frangipane tart
