Pickled Cherries

When I was a kid, cherries were my favorite fruit. My mother used to talk about how I begged for them on trips to the Broadway Market. "Mommy, beeps!" I'd exclaim, as I pointed to piles of cherries arranged on the counter of our favorite produce stand. (Not sure why I thought "beeps" was the right word for the succulent burgundy orbs, but Mom understood me. That's the most important thing, right?)

Unfortunately, an teenage overdose of peaches left me with an unfortunate allergy to all fresh drupes, including cherries. It's been a good 30 years since I've had the pleasure of purple-stained fingers caused by eating raw cherries by the handful, but I'm fortunate in that I can enjoy them dried, or cooked, as in pies or jams.

Or even...pickled.

When I saw the recipe for pickled cherries in the June 2011 issue of Bon Appetit, I immediately became obsessed with making them. I mean, wouldn't they make a great addition to a martini? And a perfect accompaniment to a lunch of paté and cheese? Not that I drink martinis or eat paté very often...but still! So I whipped up a half batch. I must have cooked it a bit longer than necessary, because when I poured the cherries into a jar, there wasn't enough liquid to cover. Rather than adding more harsh white vinegar, or doing more cooking, I topped it off with some balsamic.

After ignoring them for a couple of weeks, I figured it was high time to eat some pickled cherries, with some store-bought paté, cheese, and a recent purchase of walnut preserves from FoodSherpa.com. Wow - they were good! They still tasted like cherries, but they had a lovely sweet tang, which was indeed a perfect way to cut the richness of a slab of puréed pork guts.

Pickle fans, I recommend the recipe highly. I'm definitely going to try it again, next time using other fruits that I can no longer enjoy raw, like plums, peaches, or apricots.

Posted by theminx on Minxeats.com.