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Sweet and savory, salty and nutty, ridiculously delicious and fairly super healthy to boot, I hadn’t really thought that I could improve on my carrot-cherry-farro salad from the other night. Until I looked down at the surfeit of cherries I had in my possession this weekend. The original intent had been to make some cherry lime rickey jam with half and eat the other half as they were, in various things. But it had been an oddly toast-free week and the wee jar of cherry jam that I had made last weekend was still nearly full, which made jam making a little less urgent, and left me with a lot of cherries to play with. Sour cherries from Race Farm, black cherries, sweet cherries and white cherries from Samascott Orchards. I flirted with a clafouti or a pie, but as I was shifting things around on the counter to make room for potential baker-y, I laid hands on a bottle of bourbon, a bottle of vermouth and some orange bitters, which firstly made me more excited to make a cocktail than a tart, and then had me pulling out the spices and vinegar for pickled cherries.
I brought 1/2 cup of white vinegar, 1/3 cup of water, and 1/2 cup of sugar to a boil, stirring at random moments until the sugar dissolved, then lowered the flame to simmer and added a handful of pink peppercorns, a healthy sprinkle of salt and three super thin slices of fresh ginger and let gently heat while I stemmed and pitted 1 pint of sour cherries. I put the cherries in a canning jar and covered the fruit completely with the pickling liquid and left in the fridge overnight, although it’s better if you leave them for about a week. I could not wait. I made the carrot-farro-cherry salad again with the 1 day pickled cherries and it added spice and depth to the already great salad. The pickling solution can be tweaked for your palate — I sometimes add crushed red chile flakes or thin slices of chile peppers, or swap out the vinegar for mirin. The cherries are great thrown into salads, served with rich runny cheeses and coarse pâtés in place of cornichons. And a few of these cherries and a splash of the pickling juice in a Manhattan is pretty amazing.
Image may be NSFW.
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Image may be NSFW.Clik here to view.
