Tame that wild cherry, fool!

Cherries...you can't help but love them when they are in season.  You go to the grocery store and it looks as if they have taken over the place.  Bag after bag, these ruby red jewels will always catch your eye and aside from the price, you'd be a fool not to grab a bag...or two.

Sure these little suckers are fun to pop in your mouth and enjoy all while being careful to work around the pit.  Is that all they are meant for though?  Of course not!  So don't just wash them and leave them there.  Make something with them!  Find different ways to enjoy them beyond eating them by the handful.

As seen above: Bing Cherries come mostly from Washington as for these cherries grow best in a wet climate. They are specially cultivated to be sold in fresh markets and are the preferred eat-fresh varietal.

Maybe you prefer sour, tart cherries that are good for baking such as Montmorency cherries.  Many years ago, such a cherry tree thrived in our back yard...

Planted by my dad, specially for my mom, so she could pick cherries every summer and (correction) do nothing as they were even too sour, apparently, to bake with. 

Sadly, today, that same tree is nothing but an over sized twig sticking up from the ground after it was consumed by a tree virus and died.

Now onward... the bag of Bing cherries I recently purchased: I was determined to make something good with.  I couldn't help but be super excited every time I went to the grocery and saw how cheap they were. With no hesitation, I purchased yet another bag.  Once I got them home, what I was going to make sure came to mind quick: a cherry sauce to pair with fish.  Could they possibly go together?  I thought so.  I had the flavor complex in mind but figuring out the recipe was my next test.

I wanted to pair the cherry sauce with some kind of white fish. If the colors wouldn't be wow, then the flavors sure would be.  Usually the rule of thumb is white with white.  i.e. white fish, white wine.  In this case... white fish and lemon.  I wanted to work lemon into the sauce as well.

I was off on a mad hunt, searching for a recipe that met with the standards of the ingredients I was using.  I found nothing to my satisfaction.  Everything used dry cherries, red wine and heavy juices or some kind of simple syrups.  They weren't bad recipes considering what they were being made for such as duck.  

Instead I went out on a limb to create my own recipe.

    That first consisted of pitting the cherries...

              No cherry pitter...sure makes for a mess.

                                                    ...But such a beautiful mess   

Once pitted and sliced, in a bowl they went-

Lemon-Cherry Sauce

   

2 tablespoons butter

1 to 2 shallots, finely minced 

1/2 cup Bing Cherries, pitted and sliced in half

zest and juice of 1 lemon

1/4 cup white wine (or dry sherry)

1/4 cup water

2 tablespoons sugar

Pinch of ground cloves

1.  In a small saucepan over medium heat, add butter and shallot and sweat for 3-5 minutes.  Add the cherries and cook 5 minutes.

2. Add lemon juice, zest, sugar, wine, water and cloves to the cherry mixture.  Over med-low, simmer for 10-15 minutes until the sauce is syrupy consistency and the cherries are soft.

3. Remove from heat and serve.

As observed, this is a simple recipe. Though when I made this actual recipe I did not keep exact time, so everything is an estimate.  When I did make this, however, I used sherry because that was all that was in the house and I used a white onion as well.  The pinch of cloves in the end was that little something extra I decided to add, giving it the exact flavor I was looking for.

I used grouper for this recipe.  I baked it in the oven for 10 minutes with olive oil, salt, pepper and a pinch of allspice.  It was delicious...