Alain Passard's Strawberries in Hibiscus & Vanilla Syrup



I saw an interesting recipe for a strawberry dessert over at Chez Pim the other day - Strawberries in Hibiscus & Vanilla Syrup. I bookmarked it with a view to try it when Estonian strawberries come in season, which is usually in late June/early July. However, when browsing the Tallinn Central Market on Saturday morning, I saw loads and loads of rather fragrant strawberries imported from Spain. What a heck, I thought, and bought a small box. The recipe was really easy to make, and we enjoyed it with some softly whipped cream, seasoned with vanilla extract.

There's really no need to change or improve Pim's recipe, it's brilliant as it is. I'll add the amounts I used below, but feel free to visit Pim's blog for the original recipe and even more, her home video demonstration. But what I'll tell you is that the hibiscus syrup gives the strawberries a most beautiful deep red colour (see above), without ripping them of the strawberry flavour. I'm so going to make it again, and again, and again, when local strawberries become available..

Hibiscus, by the way, is also known as roselle, red sorrel, karkade and flor de jamaica. Its Latin name is Hibiscus sabdariffa. If you're ever been to Egypt, then you're bound to have a large bag of dried hibiscus somewhere in your cupboard, and this is a great opportunity to use them..

Strawberries in Hibiscus & Vanilla Syrup
(Hibiskisiirupis maasikad)
Alain Passard's recipe, here adapted from Chez Pim



500 grams strawberries

Hibiscus & vanilla syrup:
500 ml water
100 ml sugar
200 ml dried hibiscus flowers
1 tsp good quality vanilla extract

Mix water and sugar in a small saucepan, bring to a boil and boil for 5 minutes.
Turn off the heat, add the hibiscus flowers and let them infuse the syrup until cooled.
Drain, pressing as much liquid as possible out from the hibiscus flowers.
Season the syrup with vanilla extract.
Meanwhile, wash and drain the strawberries, remove the stems and quarter the berries. Put into a wide bowl.
Pour hibiscus syrup over and let the berries macerate in the syrup for about an hour*, refridgerated.
Divide into dessert four glasses, and spoon some softly whipped cream on top. Enjoy!

* We had some strawberries after an hour, and some after three hours. The flavour of the one-hour strawberries was much better, as the berries tend to get a bit too soggy after three hours of soaking (sorry, macerating).

Other strawberry recipes @ Nami-nami:
Strawberry & Hibiscus Sorbet (July 2007)
Strawberry Ricotta Cakes (April 2006)
Strawberry Shrikhand or spiced yogurt with strawberries (October 2005)

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Delicious Dried Plum Dessert for Autumn

Image
Two years ago in October everyone's favourite Parisian-American foodblogger, David Lebovitz , hosted a one-off Prune Blogging Thursday that resulted in a number of recipes using the humble wrinkled prune , aka dried plum. I submitted a recipe for healthy prune cake , which tasted much better than it looked. However, this time I've got a dried plum dessert recipe that both tastes good and looks good . The recipe is adapted from an Estonian cookbook " Kohupiima- ja kodujuusturaamat " (100 Rooga) and yields 6 small portions. I've garnished mine with sweet pomegranate seeds , but you can use lavender or lemon balm or simply dust the dessert with icing sugar. If you cannot find curd cheese (a popular ingredient here in Estonia), then ricotta or even cottage cheese (press through the sieve) would probably work as well. This would make a nice Christmas dessert - just in case you're already imagining the Christmas menu in your head :) Dried Plum and Curd Cheese Desse...
Read more

layered brownies.

Image
After the spice explosion of Thanksgiving (cinnamon and nutmeg and cloves, oh my!), all I could think about on Monday was something rich and chocolatey. Searching through my pantry, I was dissapointed to find nothing but a tiny bit of cocoa powder and some chocolate syrup. I was quite close to giving up and baking something else when I came across a recipe in an old christmas cookie magazine for brownies using chocolate syrup instead of regular melted chocolate. Hoorah! I was saved. The original recipe for these used a combination of chocolate and peppermint flavoring, but halfway through making them, I sadly found that I had no more mint extract. Instead, I mixed in some caramel extract into the cream mixture, which seemed to turn out just fine. I am sure a lot of different extracts and flavorings would work nicely: cherry extract, Kahlua, Amaretto, coconut flavoring, etcetera. Be on the lookout though. The spices will be back shortly. It's holiday time! Layered Brownies: recipe ...
Read more

Moist, moister, moistest: rhubarb muffins

Image
Photo updated in May 2009 We are still enjoying the rhubarb bounty . Here's a recipe for really moist rhubarb muffins that I made twice last week. Firstly, they were served at a 'girly' housewarming/ birthday party last Thursday, attended by all my aunties (that's three maternal and one paternal), my parents (my dad was unable to attend the 'real' birthday party on a previous weekend), as well as some of my first cousins (not all 11 though:). Instead of birthday cake , I made lots of these rhubarb muffins that day, served as a pyramid on a cake stand. Very pretty!! But in the midst of all the buzz and excitement, we forgot to take a picture. Not that it mattered much, as it gave me a good excuse to make these very same muffins again on Sunday. These muffins, let me tell you, are the moistest muffins you'll make. They're so moist, that even if you eat them on the following day, they taste like they're freshly baked. Delicious! Rhubarb muffins ( Rab...
Read more