Cherries are the sweetheart fruit of summer, just as it gets hotter and you start desiring sweetness and freshness. The cherry has become a fruit that brings everyone together, eaten au naturel, in the form of a dessert or an invigorating drink.
With a little imagination and effort, you can give this summer fruit (even in the variety of sour cherries) some room to create even unusual recipes in which their delicate but particular taste and their soft flesh combine perfectly with savory ingredients. A way to give your menus a note of unexpected taste and color, not only in salads, but also in main dishes, surprising your family.
Cherry appetizer: sweet-and-sour skewer
Cherries can first of all be used in an appetizer buffet with a tasty and simple antipasto: sweet and sour kebabs. Just wash and stone them and then add them on a stick alternating, for example, with cherry tomatoes cut in half and mozzarella balls. More ideal ingredients can include other cheeses with a fresh taste, such as primosale cheese, olives or, if you want to be more daring, shrimps or pieces of bacon quickly fried off in the pan.
Giving new life to risottos (with cherries)
A first course classic recipe can find new vitality with cherries: the risotto. It’s enough to add the pitted fruit in pieces during the cooking phase of the rice together with the broth so that the flavor and aroma of the cherries is transferred to the dish. Do you want to get a stronger flavor? Then use a little stracchino or robiola along with Parmigiano Reggiano for the creaming phase.
The combination of cherries and fish
What could be more summery than a fish main course? Even here cherries can do their part. They go particularly well in recipes that don’t require cooking such as carpaccio, for example sea bass or swordfish. To perfectly blend the flavors together, sprinkle the stoned and chopped cherries (keeping the juice aside) over the fish season with only oil, salt, pepper and chives. Then emulsify the juice from the cherries with lemon juice and sprinkle it all with the mixture.
If, on the other hand, you prefer a warm fish main course, then it’s better to limit the presence of cherries to a side dish by mixing them, after having cut them in half and pitted them, with grilled zucchini and peppers and having everything flavored in a marinade of lemon juice, oil and flavorings. This way you will have the perfect accompaniment for sea bass fillets or slices of tuna breaded with breadcrumbs aromatized with spices and then baked in the oven.
Gazpacho - You can also make it with cherries
Finally, if you want something of an "exotic" suggestion, use cherries for a variation on Spanish gazpacho. Place in a container the pitted cherries in small pieces, blanched and peeled tomatoes, sliced spring onions and peppers cut very thinly, add water, oil and vinegar (wine or apple depending on your preference) and blend everything until you get a sufficiently homogeneous and fairly liquid mixture. Filter it to remove any solid residue and then let it rest in the fridge for at least 30 minutes. Serve with a drizzle of fresh olive oil and a few mint leaves.