Tuesday 13 July 2010

Strawberries - and one of my favourite meals




There are three beds with wild strawberries in the garden. They were growing wild at ditches here initially, then young plants emerged in the garden. When we built the tunnel several years ago they were planted along one side of it. Meanwhile they’ve got tired there and wandered to the adjacent bed, where they are now covering the ground around the beans, and will fruit well next year. The same happened even in the tunnel where I allowed them to invade one part, but they are on their way to others and I’ll have to stop them.

There is the other bed that I planted two years ago with young wild strawberries that emerged elsewhere, together with large-fruited cultivars.

Now, you never get a large amount of wild strawberries at anyone time, so making jam of them is not an issue. They make lovely strawberry yoghurt though for breakfast most of the days, and good company for ice cream.

The cultivars’ fruits are now ripening, and I learned to better pick them before fully ripe, because otherwise slugs and birds steal them, or – with rainy weather like these days – they rot and get mouldy.

When I do have enough strawberries I love to make one of my favourite simple meals: A “Mehlspeise” ( = “flour meal”) that is traditional in my family and loved by kids and adults alike. I thought I tell about here as long as strawberries are in season. However, I don’t usually measure amounts of ingredients, so this is just a basic outline.



Hefeknödel mit Erdbeersosse
Yeast Dumplings with Strawberry Sauce

Sauce

For two persons mash around 20/25 large strawberries with sugar. Not too much sugar. Add cold milk. The sauce should be rather liquid. Make finger test to see that it has a nice fresh strawberry taste, has a nice rosē colour and isn’t too sweet. That’s all.

Dumplings

Make a yeast dough as for pizza. Include one or more eggs, depending on amount. Let it rise covered in a warm place for an hour. Then cut into parts and form dumplings of 5/6 cm diameter.










Cover and rest again for a while. Then steam them for 20 to 30 minutes. Best is one of these layered pots where the water boils in the bottom part.








Everyone gets a plate where the dumplings are cut, and a small bowl with sauce into which the bits are dipped.

I love the contrast between hot dumplings and cold sauce. A nice variation uses blueberries instead of strawberries, if one can get enough blueberries, that is.




No comments:

Post a Comment