sour cherry recipe ideas besides desserts?

[texanatheart]

I couldn't resist the bunch of sour cherries I saw at the farmer's market yesterday; they were beautiful! I ate a few yesterday solo, but ds1 and dh won't touch them. DS1 is just a funny eater like that, but dh said, "It just sounds bad...'sour cherries'...yuck."

I'd love to do something with them, but I don't want to use the oven to bake a pie. Any ideas?

[Carley]

Put them in a jar with a good brandy or sherry They'll be pretty awesome 'round Christmas time!

[jeanine123]

And when you take the cherries out you can dip them in chocolate and created chocolate covered cherries with a real kick. My grandma did this one year but didn't tell anybody. My one aunt spent the whole night munching on the chocolate covered cherries and raving about how good they were. At the end of the night they found her passed out drunk on the bed even though she had never had a drink.


Have you checked www.allrecipes.com they might have some cherry sauce recipes that you could use for meat?

[texanatheart]

Originally Posted by Carley

Put them in a jar with a good brandy or sherry They'll be pretty awesome 'round Christmas time!

Wow, what a great idea! So just in a jar on the shelf in the pantry? (Forgive my cluelessness on jarring, etc).

They still have the pits. I presume I should pit them before doing this? How would I go about pitting them?

Originally Posted by jeanine123

And when you take the cherries out you can dip them in chocolate and created chocolate covered cherries with a real kick. My grandma did this one year but didn't tell anybody. My one aunt spent the whole night munching on the chocolate covered cherries and raving about how good they were. At the end of the night they found her passed out drunk on the bed even though she had never had a drink.

Yummy! And what a funny story!!

[Carley]

Yum!! You can leave them pit in or out... do you have a cherry pitter? They're really simple nutcracker like gagets that are super cheap & usually near the other kitchen gagets or with the canning supplies.

I've read the pits add a great flavor to the liquor. We always drink the liquor, but I can't tell the difference between pits or no pits

I think whether you remove them or not depends on what you want to use them for. If you want just the liquor, cocktail garnishes or like eating around the pit then leave them in! If you want to put them over ice cream or make a sauce then pit them!

Fruit + alcohol = best fruit & liquor you've ever had Last year I made a type of fruit+alcohol for everyone for Christmas. I had spiced cherry brandy, vanilla cardamom fig bourbon, strawberry tarragon chile tequila & limoncello ginger vodka. I strained them before I rebottled them (in bottles from Value Village) & we gnoshed on the fruit. Mmmmm.... the possibilities are endless...

[bella_stranger]

cherries and pork go together really well, you could braise them into some kind of sauce. yum! lucky you, cherries are awesome.

[texanatheart]

I thought I had brandy in the house, but it's cognac. My FIL stayed with us for a few weeks and bought it...not sure he'd appreciate me using it to put cherries in it. There's about 1/2 bottle. He'll be coming back in a few weeks, and I'd hate for him to expect it to be there!

Would that even be worth doing the cherries in cognac? Can you get brandy cheap? Should I? I really need to do something quick...the cherries won't last forever! I'll probably end up doing something with pork...

Thanks for all the ideas!!

[texaspeach]

There's a persian restaurant here that makes albaloo polow (sour cherry rice) and it's really, really yummy. I don't know if you have to use canned cherries for it, but I'm sure some recipe searching might get you headed in the right direction. Obviously I've never made it but now I want to eat some :

It goes well with grilled meats.

[Carley]

What kind of cognac is it? If it's anything VSOP or better I wouldn't pour it over the cherries (um... unless it was mine! : ) However, if it were my cognac I'd definitely appreciate it, especially the eating of the cognac cherries part! I love me some cognac! Rawr!

There are inexpensive Sherrys and Brandy, just like wine, and they make fine infusions! I used the cheapest liquors for mine because they end up tasting more like whatever you infuse them with (& it's cheaper! )

You can cover the cherries in sugar first, which I did for the Limoncello (which is traditional), but I prefered the no-sugar infusions. You could taste the complexity & it wasn't a syrup liquer, which I only like as additions to cocktails or as a flavoring. Personal choice!

I googled the cognac & found this: http://www.fortnumandmason-usa.com/P...ac,171,14.aspx

Looks like if you start infusing them in cognac you've got yourself a business!

I also found this amazing recipe that only infuses the cherries in sherry for 24 hours!!! Um... yummmm.... http://www.oprah.com/recipe/omagazin...erry-ice-cream

I imagine you could also use the cherries in a delicious salad or, like the PP mentioned, an awesome chutney. I bet infused cherries & pickled onions (onions covered in vinegar & let to sit) or carmelized onions would be amazing!

I recently had a sherry "martini" with dry sherry, Auchentoshan whiskey & a sherried cherry as a "garnish" which I totally ate Sherried cherries would make a great "bar snack" too, which I bet your Uncle would love considering he's an old school cognac kind of guy.

Go out & buy some el cheapo liquor & tell us how it turns out!!!

[Thalia]

What about sour cherry chutney? I don't have a recipe but I bet you could modify any old chutney recipe.

[texanatheart]

Well, after all my hemming and hawing this week, (and working two full days...and keeping the babies...*sigh*) I just peeked at my cherries and they aren't looking so hot. I couldn't make it to the liquor store to get cheap brandy...darn! So I just now searched online for 'sour cherries recipe' and got this. No idea what a kilo of them is, and I was only able to salvage *maybe* half of them...a pint? I have them sitting in a pan with about 1/2 cup sugar on them. I'll probably just try to fudge the rest of the ingredients.

Oh, and I used the hairpin trick she mentions in the recipe to pit them, and it worked pretty well!

Wish me luck.......