Tag Archive for 'strawberry'

Strawberry pavlova with white chocolate mousse

Published
by
marc
on July 10, 2008
in Dessert and Fruit
. 17 Comments

I’m back from a long weekend of gluttony in Montreal the details of which I’ll share in another post, but first I wanted to follow up on the promise to deliver a strawberry recipe. This is my interpretation of the most delicious dessert I’ve ever eaten. It was served for dessert as part of our seven course “gourmet menu” at Restaurant Toqué in Montreal.

Since my first visit over 5 years ago, I’ve held Chef Normand Laprise’s cuisine in the highest regard. I’ve even called Toqué my favourite restaurant of all time. Since that first visit though, I’ve had the opportunity to try many wonderful restaurants and I worried that I’d be disappointed on my return. That concern was quickly put to rest after a course or two and I walked out practically glowing. While every course struck the perfect balance between creative and delicious, the dessert was the real humdinger.

It was a bowl of fresh strawberries covered with a white chocolate foam, crumbled meringue flakes, aerated maple candy and topped with a scoop of strawberry sorbet. It was sweet, tart, creamy, fluffy, refreshing, fruity, cool and crisp all at the same time. Definitely something that would be a part of my last meal on Earth.

With this version, you get thin layers of crisp meringue with rich creamy dollops of white chocolate mousse and maple sweetened strawberries. It’s not quite the same, but it was simple enough to prepare on a weeknight and almost as tasty.
Continue for full recipe

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Who’s the Top Berry

Published
by
marc
on July 3, 2008
in Events
. 16 Comments

One of the perks of food blogging is getting to eat lots of good food. One of the perks of being a FoodBuzz Featured Publisher is getting invited to food events.

On Tuesday the California Strawberry Commission put on a “Top Berry” luncheon at the Culinary Loft in SoHo with “C.J” from Top Chef season 3. While I have to admit I’ve never actually watched the show (I’m not much of a TV guy), he was smiley and affable and seemed like a nice guy.

We started off with a plate of strawberries accompanied by powdered dashi, roasted radicchio, balsamic vinegar, jalepenos, and salt. The idea was to pair the berries with umami, bitter, sour, spice and salt to see what combos worked and what didn’t. Although it sounds pretty weird, I actually liked how it tasted dipped in dashi powder. It smoothed over some of the astringency and really rounded out the flavour of the strawberry (look for something featuring strawberries and dashi here soon).

For the main course we had some amazing lamb chops with hazelnuts, fresh strawberries, and a strawberry gastrique. Beyond the fact that the flavours worked well together, the lamb they used was nicely marbled and incredibly moist (way to pay attention to the details). For that matter, the entire event was well organized with lots of little touches that made it more personal than your average industry event.

They brought out two strawberry farmers from California, who both seemed genuinely passionate about what they do, talking about the focus on small family farms in California despite a global trend towards massive corporate farming. Another interesting tidbit was that there are many cultivars of strawberries being grown in CA, some of which are proprietary to a brand (which explains why I’ve always been a big fan of Well-Pict Berries, they have their own cultivar).

As we were headed out the door, we were handed signed copies of the Top Chef Cookbook, which was a sweet end to a sweet event. A quick flip through the book reveals bios of the contestants and episode recaps from seasons 1-3 along with recipes of the dishes the contestants made.

Some strawberry facts:

  • Strawberries are an excellent source of vitamin C, rivaling a glass of orange juice while much less caloric.
  • Strawberries are loaded with cancer preventing compounds including quercetin, a phytonutrient that’s shown a propensity to destroy cancer cells.
  • An average strawberry has 200 seeds
  • 85% of the strawberries in the US come from California

Here are some strawberry recipes I’ve posted in the past. I’m off to Montreal for a long weekend, but I promise I’ll post some fresh strawberry recipes when I get back.

Danish Braid with Spicy Strawberries and Lillet
Strawberry Buttermilkshake
Strawberry Rhubarb Crostata with Lavender Crust
Strawberry Cheesecake Ice Cream

P.S. One last cool thing about these events is meeting people in the biz. I had the pleasure of sitting at a table with a few folks from various magazines as well as Nichelle from Cupcakes Take the Cake.

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Strawberry buttermilkshake

Published
by
marc
on June 14, 2008
in Fruit
. 21 Comments

I’d like to call for a moment of silence for Tastespotting………………………….

When I first saw they shut down at midnight this morning, I could hardly believe my eyes. “Was this some kind of cruel joke?!” Then came anger “Why did some jackass have to go and nail them with DMCA horseshit and ruin it for all of us”. Now I’m just sad more than anything… I keep checking it every few hours to see if it’s magically come back to us.

In all seriousness, I think it’s become like an addiction to both bloggers trying to promote their posts and foodies just looking for some inspiration. That’s why I’ve decided to pick up where Tastespotting left off and launch a new service for sharing your glorious food photos (hopefully without the legal issues). Look for an announcement in the coming weeks.

In other news, Grace from A Southern Grace has given us a Blog of Distinction award. Thanks!

I’m going to be in Oregon for a few days attending a graduation, so I won’t be posting, but I’ll be back before you know it. Here’s a quick little something to tide you over until then:-)

This isn’t a recipe so much as an idea for a wonderfully refreshing summer beverage. The strawberry lady told me the season was wrapping up, so I bought a few cartons on Tuesday and washed, stemmed and froze most of them. While they’re great to make jam and pies out of, my favourite use is to turn them into blended beverages.

Instead of adding ice, you just add the frozen strawberries and some liquid (I used a mix of buttermilk and water) and you have a wonderfully cooling beverage. To make it even more refreshing, try adding lemon juice or mint!

frozen strawberries
water
buttermilk
sweetened condensed milk

Add some frozen strawberries to a blender and pour half water half buttermilk until the strawberries are sumberged. Add some sweetened condensed milk, blend, then add some more if it needs it.

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Strawberry rhubarb crostata with lavender crust

Published
by
marc
on May 3, 2008
in Dessert, Fruit and Spring
. 16 Comments

While strawberries and rhubarb haven’t started showing up at the green market yet, they were being prominently displayed at Wholefoods today so I went ahead and bought some. To my surprise, the strawberries where incredibly sweet and flavorful and I had to stop myself from eating all of them so I could make this crostata.

This is one of my favourite ways of preparing fruit from all seasons. It’s so simple to prepare and really allows the fruit to shine. The addition of a spice or two adds a bit of character without covering up anything. If I’m using apples I’ll add some nutmeg and cinnamon, for blackberries I might add a smidge of lemon zest. But for strawberries, I’m enamored with the the fresh floral aroma of lavender.

As I was making the dough, I accidentally added twice the water I was supposed. Rather than throw it out, I just added some baking powder, and rolled it in crystalized sugar and turned them into lavender “cookies”. I wasn’t sure what would come out of the oven, but they turned out to be somewhere between a biscuit and a cookie. I think they’d actually be quite good with some chopped up fresh strawberries and whipped cream.
Continue for full recipe

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Strawberry buttermilk ice cream

Published
by
marc
on March 20, 2008
in Dessert
. 6 Comments

Strawberry buttermilk ice cream

Strawberry buttermilk ice creamCraving desert, but with no eggs or milk and not enough strawberries to make a sorbet, I thought I might just have to be healthy tonight… Then I spotted a carton of buttermilk! I’ve also been meaning to try using sweetened condensed milk in an ice cream to make it extra creamy, so this seemed like the perfect opportunity.

It didn’t quite turn out how I thought it would taste, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Some interaction between the sweetened condensed milk and the buttermilk makes this a dead ringer for strawberry cheesecake. I might even try adding some graham crackers next time:-)

2 C buttermilk
1/2 C sweetened condensed milk
1 Tbs sugar
1/2 C strawberries diced

2 Tbs sweetened condensed milk

Whisk the first 4 ingredients together and chill in the fridge for 30 minutes.

Dump it into an ice cream maker following the manufactures directions.

When the ice cream is done, swirl in 2 Tbs sweetened condensed milk. Serve soft or throw it in the freezer for 30 minutes to set up more like store bought ice cream.

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