Strawberries Again?

Maine is popping strawberries with recipes too

Yes, they come back every year, some years more prolifically than others. This year is developing into an especially bountiful one here in Maine where our farm stands and farmers markets are full of fruit. Connoisseurs look for berries from the farms along the intervale around Merrymeeting Bay, that great inland confluence of the Kennebec and Androscoggin rivers, places like Goransen Farms and Fair Winds, but if you can’t get down to Merrymeeting, there are plenty of other luscious options all throughout the state. In a bowl on my kitchen porch at the moment are some fine specimens from Full Fork Farm in China (China, Maine, that is) and I’m looking forward to berries from White Oak Farm in Warren next week. I take advantage of the season to wrap myself around as many strawberries in as many different ways as I possibly can before it all ends next month.

Irresistible, the first bite!

I’ve tasted strawberries in many places—from the small, unbelievably sweet, almost wild ones from Aranjuez, south of Madrid, to the white berries, ripe but just tinged with a blush of red, from Dalat in Vietnam, to the big fat red strawberries grown in fields around San Diego that are, incredibly to me, ready to harvest in March. But to my palate the finest strawberries in the world come from cool northern latitudes, as in Maine and the Canadian Maritimes, along toward the end of June when daylight lasts a good 15 hours, and the sun is intense, but nights are notably cool. Warm days and chilly nights with plenty of sunshine make an unbeatable combination for producing fine flavored fruit—ask your favorite wine-maker if you don’t believe me.

What’s the best way to consume these precious beauties? Sitting right in a strawberry patch, I’d say, happily eating your fill, reaching for berry after berry, each one sun-warmed on the outside but still dewy cool within. Second best? Sliced in a bowl, lightly crushed with a fork (the way my Down-East father liked the berries from his own garden), sprinkled with a bit of sugar, and doused with thick cream. Third best (oh, but perhaps this is best of all): strawberry shortcake, made properly with sweetened baking powder biscuits, warm from the oven and cracked open, spread liberally with butter, then the crushed sweet berries piled on top and the whole crowned with a hefty cap of vanilla-flavored whipped cream.

Strawberry shortcake at the Lincolnville strawberry festival

This is a bountiful treat, not something in which to indulge after a full meal. Indeed, in old Maine farmhouse kitchens strawberry shortcake was the evening meal, that and nothing more, maybe enjoyed on the porch outside the summer kitchen as the heat of the day faded, dusk diminished into twilight and fireflies began to glimmer in the field across the yard. “My word,” Grammy would say, offering up another helping, “hard to believe it’s nine o’clock and still bright out.”

Strawberry Shortcake

There are few desserts to compare with strawberry shortcake for both ease of preparation and elegance of presentation. In Maine, in June, this is not considered elegant fare; rather it is farmhouse food par excellence and served almost daily as long as the strawberries keep coming in. The recipe makes 4 to 6 very generous servings—perhaps too generous to serve after anything but a light supper. Or you might do as Mainers do when our local strawberries are at their finest and just serve a big plate of strawberry shortcake for supper, all on its own. With a glass of prosecco or slightly sparking moscato d’Asti, which would have shocked my grammies on both sides, it is close to perfection.

• 1 quart of the absolutely finest kind of strawberries

• ½ cup sugar, or more to taste

For the biscuits:

• 4 cups flour + a little more for the board

• ¼ teaspoon salt

• 5 teaspoons baking powder

• 3 tablespoons sugar

• 1 ¼ cups butter, at cool room temperature

• 1 cup heavy whipping cream

• ¼ cup butter, melted and cooled

For the top:

• 2 cups heavy whipping cream

• 2 tablespoons sugar, or more to taste

• ¼ teaspoon vanilla extract

Rinse the strawberries thoroughly and then pull off or cut away the hulls. Cut the berries in half—in quarters if they’re very large—and combine in a bowl with 1/4 cup of the sugar, tossing to distribute it evenly. Set aside to macerate while you make the biscuits.

Combine the flour with the salt, baking powder, and 3 tablespoons of sugar, tossing to mix well. Add the butter in chunks, rubbing it into the flour as you would for making pastry. When the butter is incorporated, add the cup of cream and stir it in. It will be very shaggy, but remove it to a lightly floured board and knead it for just about a minute and it should come together. Cover the dough and set it aside to rest in a cool place or the refrigerator for at least 15 minutes or up to a couple of hours.

When you’re ready to bake, cover a baking sheet with parchment paper and butter the paper lightly. Set the oven on 375º.

Roll the rested dough out on the lightly floured board—don’t be too aggressive with it. Patting and stretching it, rolling it gently but firmly, is better than vigorously attacking it. The dough should be about ½ inch thick.

Now take a 3-inch biscuit cutter (or you can use a glass if you have one that fits), dust it lightly in the flour on the board, and cut out biscuits, one by one, placing them on the buttered parchment. When you’ve cut as many as you can, roll the remaining dough up and again pat it out on the board, You should have at least 12 biscuits.

Using a pastry brush, brush a little melted butter on the top of each of 6 biscuits, then set the remaining 6 on top of the buttered biscuits—so that you have a double biscuit, the layers separated by a layer of melted butter. Brush a little more butter over the tops (these are very buttery biscuits), then transfer to the oven and bake for about 20 minutes or until the biscuits are golden on top.

While the biscuits are baking, whip the cream to a stiff froth, adding a little sugar to help stiffen it. Beat in a couple of drops of vanilla toward the end.

Remove the biscuits to a rack and when they are cool enough to handle, separate each one into two halves. Arrange a bottom half on a dessert plate. Top with a generous spoonful of berries, then with the top half of the biscuit, more berries, and finally a big dollop of whipped cream.

Serve immediately.

Grammy gets going with strawberries

Next day, after that strawberry shortcake, Grammy gets out her lard bucket to make the crust for a strawberry-rhubarb pie, another great seasonal treat, made with the rhubarb that arches its dark red stalks at the end of the vegetable garden exactly when the strawberries reach apotheosis in the beds nearby.

I would like to say I’m a fan of strawberry-rhubarb pie but truth to tell I’m not an enthusiast of pie in any form. All that crust, it seems to me, somehow gets in the way of pleasure. So I was inspired by the thought of a strawberry-rhubarb crisp, or, as they call it in Europe where this old-fashioned American dessert has become newly fashionable, a “crumble” (imagine that with a French accent). It’s easy and a great way to show off the delicious contrast between sweet berries and acid rhubarb. Here’s how I make it (note that quantities are not exact—roughly half berries and half rhubarb but a little more or less either way won’t make a difference):

            Strawberry-Rhubarb Crumble

            Makes about 8 servings.

•             About 1 ¼ pounds rhubarb, trimmed in half-inch lengths

•             1 ¼ cups sugar

•             About 1 ¼ pounds fresh strawberries, hulled and halved or quartered

•             3 tablespoons cornstarch

•             1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon or orange juice

•             1 teaspoon grated lemon or orange zest

•             Butter for an 8” x 11” inch baking dish

            For the topping:

•                         1 cup rolled oats (not quick cooking)

•                         ½ cup all-purpose flour

•                         1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

•                         ½ cup sugar, mixed brown and white

•                         6 tablespoons room temperature butter

Combine the sliced rhubarb with about half the sugar and toss to mix well. Set aside for at least 30 minutes. Combine the strawberries with the remaining sugar and toss to mix well. Set aside for at least 30 minutes.

(You can do this ahead of time and refrigerate the two fruits, covered, until ready to proceed with the cooking.)

When you’re ready to cook, set the oven on 350º. Liberally butter the bottom and sides of an 8” x 11” baking dish.

Use a slotted spoon to remove the rhubarb, leaving behind most of the juice. Combine the rhubarb with the strawberries, then sprinkle with the cornstarch and the orange or lemon juice and zest. Toss to combine everything. Spread the fruit evenly over the buttered baking dish, scraping all the juices and any residual sugar into the dish.

Add the rolled oats to the bowl of a food processor and process briefly, not more than about 10 seconds, just to break up the oats into smaller pieces. Add the flour and process again, not more than 5 seconds. With the motor running, pour in the vanilla. Add the sugar and process briefly. Now add the butter in several chunks. Turn the processor on and process just enough to mix the butter in—about 5 seconds. You want a grainy texture, not a smooth buttery puree.

Crumble the topping all over the fruit in the baking dish. There should be enough to cover the fruit with a fairly uneven layer—in some places, the fruit will be peeking through, in others it will be completely covered. Transfer to the hot oven and bake for about 45 minutes, or until the topping is golden brown and the fruit has come together in a pleasantly sticky mass. Remove and set aside to rest for at least 15 minutes before serving. You can also make this well ahead—in the morning for an evening meal, for instance. It does not need to be refrigerated.

Serve as is, or with a scoop of vanilla ice cream, a dollop of plain yogurt, or a spoonful of whipped cream.

Jam, you said?

As for strawberry jam, I can’t wait to try Mrs. C. F. Leyel’s version, though I’ll have to search down cellar for the jar that I tucked away the last time I made jugged hare:

'Put into a stone jar half a pound of white sugar for each pound of strawberries, and the strawberries, and screw on the lid. The kind of jar that is used for jugged hare or pies is best to use. Place the jar, nearly full and well-stoppered, in a pan of boiling water and cook it for two hours, only allowing the water to simmer. This preserves the flavour of the strawberries in a wonderful way.'

Strawberry Bavarian Cream

And then there’s this delight, strawberry Bavarian cream (crème bavaroise), a very old-fashioned dessert. A true Bavarian cream is made with a crème anglaise or custard base, but standing over a hot stove anxiously attending to a custard is not my idea of fun on a splendid June afternoon so I prefer this egg-less, custard-less but still deliciously refreshing version. It will serve 8.

• 1 quart (4 cups) hulled strawberries, halved or quartered if large

• 1 cup sugar, divided

• 2 tablespoons unflavored gelatin

• Oil for the pan (almond oil is ideal, lacking that use a tasteless oil such as grapeseed or even ordinary vegetable oil)

• 2 cups heavy cream

• ¼ teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Prepare the strawberries and toss them in a bowl with about ¼ cup of sugar. Set them aside to macerate for at least 45 minutes.

Transfer half the strawberries to a blender or food processor and process until they form a thick puree—not too find, there should still be quite a bit of texture.

Using a fork or a potato masher, gently crush the remaining strawberries in their bowl. (This creates two different textures of strawberries for a pleasing contrast.)

Add the gelatin to about ¼ cup of cold water and stir gently to combine. In a small saucepan, mix the gelatin with the pureed berries and another ¼ cup of sugar. Set over low heat and cook, stirring, until the gelatin is completely dissolved and the mixture is just starting to reach a boil around the edges of the pan. Remove from the heat and combine with the crushed, uncooked berries, stirring to mix. Then set aside to cool to warm room temperature before refrigerating to chill and firm.

After about 30 to 40 minutes, the strawberry mixture will be firmed up to the texture of unbeaten egg whites—i.e., starting to gel but not completely firm. At this point, use a tasteless, odorless oil to grease an 8-cup mold or a Bundt pan; or use eight small one-cup serving dishes.

Beat the cream to stiff peaks, adding a little sugar from time to time, but not more than another ¼ cup in all. Beat in the vanilla. Now fold the cream and the gelatin together to combine thoroughly and turn the mixture into the mold(s). Refrigerate, covered, for several hours or overnight. Serve garnished with more cut strawberries.