Cherry

Sour cherries are too acidic to eat raw but are the best for cooking. This simple preparation amounts to cherry pie without the crust.

Think of this as osso buco, Russian style; the technique is almost identical to that in the following, better-known classic, but the result is sweeter and more fragrant. Serve with pilaf or buttered noodles. If you are lucky enough to find fresh sour cherries, by all means use them; pit about a pound and add them to the pan as you would bottled sour cherries, along with about 1/4 cup sugar and a bit more stock. Other cuts of meat you can use here: as in classic osso buco, you will lose something by substituting chunks of boneless veal for the shank, but you will gain time, and the results will still be quite good.

Pronounced cla-FOO-tee, this is one of the most successful spontaneous desserts you can add to your repertoire, yet fancy enough for a blowout dinner party. It can be made with any ripe fruit (including berries, and even apples if you cook them) and (aside from such tasks as pitting cherries and the like) takes well under an hour to prepare. Note that in place of the cream and milk mixture you can use half-and-half.

Sound like just about the least appealing dessert you’ve ever encountered? That’s exactly what I thought when I was offered it in Istanbul. But you know what? I crave it. Whenever you have good cherries, sweet or sour, this is worth considering. And the most difficult part is pitting the cherries.

This is often served as an appetizer, but most people are going to find it more appropriate for dessert. The fruit can be varied, but cherries really make the best base. For wine, use Gewürztraminer or Riesling, preferably from Germany and at least slightly sweet (if the wine is very sweet, reduce the sugar).

It’s no surprise that lime is used widely in Mexican cooking, although it can be confusing because the translation is limón. We don’t have the yellow lemon (well, it is very rare). Lime’s lovely puckery, tart flavor is celebrated in many of our preparations, including this one. The filling for the tart is essentially a curd with a creamy texture and a bright flavor. I don’t like to hide the qualities of the lime at all, and I love the combination of cherries with it. I originally made the fruit mixture with capulines, dark-fleshed wild cherries with large pits, but I’ve never seen them outside Mexico; regular cherries or blueberries are a tasty substitute.

If the combination of olive oil and dessert falls outside your comfort zone, I guarantee this cake will make you a total convert. This luscious specimen has the richness of a traditional pound cake but a more complex texture, all complemented by the haunting fruitiness of extra-virgin olive oil. Almond meal, or almonds ground until fine, gives it a delicate nuttiness. Completely addictive on its own, this cake is even better dressed up with fresh spring cherries scented with fresh bay and a tangy dollop of crème fraîche. These pretty, yellow- and pink-hued cherries are more commonly known as Rainiers, but I like this moniker better because one of the restaurants sits perched atop Seattle’s Queen Anne Hill. It’s essential to use fresh bay leaves in this recipe. Dried bay is too strong and will give the cherries an almost medicinal taste, not a quality I look for in a dessert.

The Southern climate is inhospitable to all but the bravest sour cherry trees, whose exact locations are often as closely guarded as those of choice swimming holes and wild berry patches. These sour cherry preserves, which are wildly good on Favorite Buttermilk Biscuits (page 51), are what I often make when I’m lucky enough to get my hands on some sour cherries.

These turnovers are delicious! Plus, they’re quick to make and everyone loves them. When you’re making them, be sure to put only a few cherries and a little bit of sauce in each one; otherwise, they’ll be really hard to close and they’ll leak all over the place.

Imagine running through the tessellated shadows of the forest with a mustard jar of just-caught pollywogs and a sharpened stick for a spear, scrambling up the levee and lunging into culverts, your dog baying ahead in the distance. You slip on a wet log, stumble, catch yourself on the mossy shoulder of a boulder, oblivious to the mud and moist lichen flecking your arms. You are lean, quick, alert, leaping streams and plunging through dense brush. Lungs filled with the crisp air, perspiration on your back, eyes wild with happiness—you are free, alive, home. The old hound nuzzles up to your hand as you mount the porch steps, your mother’s greeting at the screen door, the aroma of cherry pie on the windowsill, your life a storybook distilled in the sweet mirth of salt.

This is a terrific recipe for preserving fresh cherries during their relatively short season. As they cook, their ruby red juices gush out and continue to deepen in color until they thicken to a flavorful syrup. Before folding them into ice cream, you’ll want to make sure they’re dry, since the liquid will muddy the ice cream. Drain the cherries in a strainer for at least 1 hour first, until they are sticky and dry (save the syrup for drizzling over ice cream). Then coarsely chop the cherries, or fold them into the ice cream whole as you remove it from the machine. Candied cherries are excellent on top of Lemon Sherbet (page 116) or Olive Oil Ice Cream (page 83), and on any homemade ice cream sundae you make as well.

If you’re as wild about sour cherries as I am, you’ll be as happy as I was to discover that big jars of them are available in Eastern European markets and specialty grocers (see Resources, page 237). They come packed in light syrup and are a fraction of the cost of their pricey Italian counterparts, and they’re simple to candy yourself. Once cooked and cooled, if you wish to mix the cherries into ice cream, drain them of their syrup completely (until they feel dry and sticky), and then fold them into your favorite flavor. I recommend White Chocolate Ice Cream (page 33), or try the Toasted Almond and Candied Cherry Ice Cream (page 60). Or simply use one, or more, to top off an ice cream sundae. (Save any leftover syrup to mix with sparkling water to make homemade sour cherry soda.) This recipe calls for 3 cups of cherries, which includes their syrup.

I’m insatiable when it comes to fresh cherries, and I eat pounds and pounds of them right off the stem during their ridiculously brief season, which I’m convinced is one of nature’s cruelest acts. But their characteristic flavor really becomes pronounced when warmed, so I sauté them first to deepen their luxurious flavor. Be sure to start with full-flavored, very dark cherries, like plump Burlat cherries or blackish red Bings.