SUMMER // Recipe for four
Cherries, soured cream, buckwheat and liquorice
The cherry season in New South Wales is short, starting in November and finishing around the first week of January. Every year we like to have a dish – sweet or savoury – that celebrates the cherry and shows off the fruit at its prime time.
CHERRIES
20 cherries, pitted
Burn the cherries on a barbecue or in a hot, dry pan until blackened all over. Then refrigerate.
CHERRY SORBET
500 ml (17 fl oz) cherry purée (pitted, blended and sieved fresh cherries)
240 ml (8 fl oz) sorbet base
Put the cherry purée and sorbet base in an ice-cream maker, add 240 ml (8 fl oz) water and churn until frozen. If you don’t have an ice-cream machine, pour into a shallow freezer container. Freeze until semi-frozen, then whisk very thoroughly. Freeze and whisk again, twice more.
BUCKWHEAT ROCKS
100 g (3½ oz) butter
300 g (10½ oz) buckwheat
500 g (1 lb 2 oz) icing (confectioners’) sugar
Melt the butter in a pan over medium heat and then toss in the buckwheat. Sift the icing sugar over the buckwheat in small batches, tossing so it’s fully coated. Keep the pan on the heat and use a wooden spoon to stop the buckwheat sticking. When all the sugar has been added, remove from the heat and leave to cool.
Put the liquorice compound and gellan gum in a pan with 150 ml (5 fl oz) water. Bring to the boil, stirring continuously, and then remove from the heat. Leave to set in the fridge. Once set, purée until smooth.
ALSO ON THE PLATE
160 g (53/4 oz) soured cream