Late-night snacking
Okay....so remember how I claim to be not-so-fancy? I often get pegged as being really snobby about food because I have a lot of restrictions on what I can eat. Luckily, I can eat most of the good stuff...and trust me, I do. Tonight I've lined up a perfect example of simple goodness.
I've always been pretty opposed to the sugaring of raw fruit because I always thought that it just made the fruit taste more bitter by comparison. The only time I every put fruit and sugar together in a non-meal way was with citrus, because we always had lemons and limes growing in our yard when I was growing up and my mom would wedge them and serve them with white cane.
I got some cherries at the market yesterday which were just this side of bad...so ripe and juicy that they've stopped tasting very sweet. I don't know how that worked, because I understand that ripening really is just the fruit converting more of its flesh into sugars, but trust me, with cherries, there's definitely a point where they just stop getting sweeter and start reverting. HEY, it's my Western, all right? :)
I tried this out as a sort of last ditch attempt to put these cherries to use, because absolutely NO BAKING was going to get done in this kitchen in this awful 110-degree weather, and you really can't cook much of anything with overripe cherries anyway because they'll just get really soupy and fermented and come out that pale pinky-brown color (NOT ATTRACTIVE).
Okay, bear with me here...I'm about to prove my craziness, in case you weren't positive. I wanted to eat those darned cherries, but they were not quite sweet enough to satisfy my "I'm eating this in place of theater candy" craving. My genius plan? Well, okay, not a plan...it happened on accident. I thought about what sort of things you could do with tart cherries, and I realized that when you're simmering them pre-pie, you add sugar!
Duh.
Sugar + stuff = sweeter stuff.
Pretty basic, right?
I was going to be serving this to Branden, so I wanted them to look really pretty and glossy (not tough to do...Washington cherries rock so hard), and so I rinsed them up really super well in cold water.
Then (cue crazy--I'm from a family of extreme diabetics, but let's forget that...I normally eat really super well...er, by American standards) I slopped a few different types of sugar (I tried raw, granulated white, powdered, and palm) onto a plate in piles, and then did some testing to see which (if any) enhanced the flavor/texture/overall awesomeness of the cherries. After some experimenting, I decided that I preferred the granulated white. I took the cherries from the colander and put a few of them in a bowl that had a cold water-granulated sugar mixture in it. It wasn't a paste, just maybe 1/16 cup of sugar to 1/4 cup of water. I folded them around in the mixture, adding more as soon as the ones already present were covered.
I decided that I am in love with this totally accidental discovery. I have some reasons (yeah, I think of this stuff....I'm a foodie):
1. against all odds, the sugar enhanced the flavor, rather than making the fruit more tart in comparison as it would normally do
2. similar to the effects of salt on fruit, the sugar definitely made the cherries juicier
3. they had a PERFECT glossy sheen that lasted for over an hour as we snacked, making them look like I'd just tossed them in the water any given moment before you looked at them
Since this was made for movie night (Watchmen: I liked the middle third of it...that's really the best I can say) I set it up on a platter with some cheeses (my favorite that went with the cherries was provolone, which I sliced PAPER THIN...any thicker and the smokey flavor will overwhelm the fruit), nuts, other fruit, and chocolate, both melted and un-. Nom. I got about nine compliments on this, since he kept forgetting he'd already told me how happy it made him. We've had it twice again since then.
Okay! Super easy, right? Well, be careful. If you want the right amount of sugar paste stuff on it, it will just look WET, it won't look "sugared." Trust me, I tried the massive amount of sugar. I will go in for any excuse to use more sugar on something, but it doesn't work well for this. Just say no. Here's an easy guide to getting the balance right.
If your cherries come out looking like THIS...
...perfect!
If your cherries come out looking like THIS...
...bad! Just say no to drugs and skyrocketing insulin levels!
ENJOY!
(See? Didn't I promise simple?)
Make platters like this, and always have friends! :P
I've always been pretty opposed to the sugaring of raw fruit because I always thought that it just made the fruit taste more bitter by comparison. The only time I every put fruit and sugar together in a non-meal way was with citrus, because we always had lemons and limes growing in our yard when I was growing up and my mom would wedge them and serve them with white cane.
I got some cherries at the market yesterday which were just this side of bad...so ripe and juicy that they've stopped tasting very sweet. I don't know how that worked, because I understand that ripening really is just the fruit converting more of its flesh into sugars, but trust me, with cherries, there's definitely a point where they just stop getting sweeter and start reverting. HEY, it's my Western, all right? :)
I tried this out as a sort of last ditch attempt to put these cherries to use, because absolutely NO BAKING was going to get done in this kitchen in this awful 110-degree weather, and you really can't cook much of anything with overripe cherries anyway because they'll just get really soupy and fermented and come out that pale pinky-brown color (NOT ATTRACTIVE).
Okay, bear with me here...I'm about to prove my craziness, in case you weren't positive. I wanted to eat those darned cherries, but they were not quite sweet enough to satisfy my "I'm eating this in place of theater candy" craving. My genius plan? Well, okay, not a plan...it happened on accident. I thought about what sort of things you could do with tart cherries, and I realized that when you're simmering them pre-pie, you add sugar!
Duh.
Sugar + stuff = sweeter stuff.
Pretty basic, right?
I was going to be serving this to Branden, so I wanted them to look really pretty and glossy (not tough to do...Washington cherries rock so hard), and so I rinsed them up really super well in cold water.
Then (cue crazy--I'm from a family of extreme diabetics, but let's forget that...I normally eat really super well...er, by American standards) I slopped a few different types of sugar (I tried raw, granulated white, powdered, and palm) onto a plate in piles, and then did some testing to see which (if any) enhanced the flavor/texture/overall awesomeness of the cherries. After some experimenting, I decided that I preferred the granulated white. I took the cherries from the colander and put a few of them in a bowl that had a cold water-granulated sugar mixture in it. It wasn't a paste, just maybe 1/16 cup of sugar to 1/4 cup of water. I folded them around in the mixture, adding more as soon as the ones already present were covered.
I decided that I am in love with this totally accidental discovery. I have some reasons (yeah, I think of this stuff....I'm a foodie):
1. against all odds, the sugar enhanced the flavor, rather than making the fruit more tart in comparison as it would normally do
2. similar to the effects of salt on fruit, the sugar definitely made the cherries juicier
3. they had a PERFECT glossy sheen that lasted for over an hour as we snacked, making them look like I'd just tossed them in the water any given moment before you looked at them
Since this was made for movie night (Watchmen: I liked the middle third of it...that's really the best I can say) I set it up on a platter with some cheeses (my favorite that went with the cherries was provolone, which I sliced PAPER THIN...any thicker and the smokey flavor will overwhelm the fruit), nuts, other fruit, and chocolate, both melted and un-. Nom. I got about nine compliments on this, since he kept forgetting he'd already told me how happy it made him. We've had it twice again since then.
Okay! Super easy, right? Well, be careful. If you want the right amount of sugar paste stuff on it, it will just look WET, it won't look "sugared." Trust me, I tried the massive amount of sugar. I will go in for any excuse to use more sugar on something, but it doesn't work well for this. Just say no. Here's an easy guide to getting the balance right.
If your cherries come out looking like THIS...
...perfect!
If your cherries come out looking like THIS...
...bad! Just say no to drugs and skyrocketing insulin levels!
ENJOY!
(See? Didn't I promise simple?)
Make platters like this, and always have friends! :P
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