Spiced Pickled Cherries

For me, one of the best things about Christmas lunch is the condiments. Where would the pudding be without the brandy sauce or (gasp) brandy butter? Where would turkey be without a generous dollop of cranberry sauce?  And let us not forget the little guys, the unsung heroes like mustard (seeded, Dijon and Hot English, if you please), horseradish cream and dipping sauces for prawns.

The condiments make a Christmas feast. They add pops of flavour to complement whatever protein you are inhaling and allow you to make that plate piled high with ham, prawns, turkey, beef, salad and veg your own.

When I was younger, my job for Christmas was to make two sauces for the prawns: Marie Rose and Dill Sauce. The Marie Rose sauce consisted of mayo, tomato sauce, Worcestershire, lemon juice, and pepper. All squirted in and mixed together, I would taste and add until  I had found the perfect balance. I took my job very, very seriously.  

I haven’t been given a job this year, you would think that I would have been given a challenging task like the pudding or maybe even a salad given that I started a food blog this year… but the menu had already been planned by my foodie family well in advance. “Menu, schmenu”, I thought, “I am going to contribute something anyway and they can all just smile and enjoy it”. And since it’s what I do, it was still  going to be a condiment; just a more grown up and sophisticated affair.

You see, I was given a mountain of cherries from work and (I kid you not) these were the biggest and juiciest cherries I had ever seen. I had to do something with them before I guzzled them all and when I saw a recipe for pickling cherries in last week’s ‘Good Living’, I knew what had to be done.

First I needed to get myself a cherry pitter. Now you are probably rolling your eyes at this point and thinking fabulous, another useless gadget to clog up my drawer, but just hear me out. I am so happy with my pitter, if I hadn’t bought it, it would have required hours of slicing through cherries to remove the stones; that or keeping a watchful eye on my family to make sure that nobody  breaks a tooth (it is hard to get into the dentists at this time of the year, trust me, I have tried). Not only that, it is actually very cathartic standing there, pitting cherries, glass of wine nearby and carols playing in the background…

This recipe is pretty much foolproof (once you have managed to find whole allspice) and you can get a little creative in terms of what spice you would like to use. For instance, the original recipe did not call for star anise but who can resist a little star anise at this time of the year? I also used brown sugar instead of white and added 100mls of verjuice.  I wish I had remembered to put in a cinnamon quill, that would have been good.  

Now let’s talk about jar sterilisation.  This is the most important step to take when preserving, especially when you are giving preserves away as gifts. There are a lot of tips out there on how to do this but here’s how I did it: First I washed them in hot, soapy water. Then I rinsed them off and left them in the sink. Next I boiled the kettle and tipped the boiling water over the jars , rubber rings and lids. Then I put the jars and the lids on a baking tray and put them in a medium oven to dry off. While all this was happening, I was making  the pickling liquid and once the jars were dry I was able to add the cherries straight into the jars and seal them. You are not supposed to add cold things to hot jars or hot things to cold jars when preserving so I added the cherries to the liquid in the saucepan to heat up rather than putting the cold cherries in the jar and then topping with the liquid.

So I have a jar to take with me to Orange to eat with the ham for Christmas lunch and two left for gifting. Will I be pickling again? You betcha. Did I use all the cherries on this project? Nope, not even close!

Tune in same place soon to see what I made next with them!

Spiced Pickled Cherries

Adapted from Caroline Velik's recipe in the SMH Good Living,13th December 2011 

325mls of white wine vinegar

100mls Verjuice

12 pepper corns

12 whole allspice

350 gm brown sugar

4 bay leaves

3 star anise

500g fresh cherries, pitted and left whole

Bring all ingredients except cherries, to boil in a small pot.  Turn off the heat and add the cherries, stir for a couple of minutes to warm them through. Spoon the cherries into your *sterilised jars, pour over the remaining liquid. Once the lids are on, turn the jars upside down to create a vacuum   Leave to pickle for a day before placing in the fridge.  Will keep indefinitely.

Goes beautifully with ham or pork!