Strawberry fields forever
30 ways with strawberries
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6/9/20263 min read
Strawberry fields forever
For me, strawberries are the quintessential summer fruit. I love them. I always wait for the English strawberries to start appearing in mid- to late May and enjoy them every week until September. If I can go and pick my own, so much the better. Fresh, sun-ripened strawberries are just the best.
You can tell when local ones are getting to the end of their season: when they come less ripe, harder, and whiter, it’s time to stop and wait for next year. But at that point there will be plums and apples and pears to enjoy, so it’s no hardship; it’s just passing the seasonal baton.
My favourite way to enjoy them is with cream or a creamy dessert, but they are very versatile and can be used and prepared in many ways.
Here are 30 ways with strawberries.
With cream . . .
1. With cream – regular English double cream, for classic Strawberries and Cream
2. Adorning panna cotta
3. Or a Pavlova
4. Or a cheesecake
5. Or in an Eton Mess
6. Strawberry trifle
7. Strawberry fool
8. Strawberry mousse
9. Layered with cream and mint
With cake/pastry . . .
10. Filling a Victoria sponge (with fresh cream)
11. Or a roulade/Swiss roll
12. With shortbread
13. Topping scones with clotted cream
14. Tarte aux fraises (simple) (see my Strawberry and Rose Tart in Recipes)
15. Tarte aux fraises (atop crème pâtissière)
Cooked . . .
16. Roasted
17. Strawberry and rhubarb galette
18. Strawberry jam
(If it can include aromatic wild strawberries, so much the better. Fortnum & Mason used to sell a wild strawberry jam, but sadly no longer. Bonne Maman has a Strawberry and Wild Strawberry preserve that I am always on the lookout for.)
19. Strawberry and gooseberry jam
(My favourite jam pairing apart from the above. No one makes it commercially, so you have to make your own. The tart gooseberries balance the super-sweetness of the strawberries and meld with them to create a delicious, perfumed blend.)
Frozen . . .
20. Strawberry ice cream
21. Strawberry sorbet
22. Strawberry parfait
Macerated . . .
23. In wine
24. Strawberry compote
Drinks . . .
25. Strawberry smoothie
26. Strawberry vodka
27. Strawberry Bellini
Other . . .
28. With a sabayon or zabaglione
29. With peaches
30. Elizabeth David’s Melon aux fraises des bois
This last one is one of those enchanting classic recipes I dream about*, but I’ve never made it. You need “¾–1 lb of wild or wood strawberries”. Where they are going to come from, I don’t know. Ideally, as in Berlioz’s Villanelle, the opening song of Les Nuits d’été, Op. 7, we would gather them on a romantic walk in the woods . . . Failing that, I’m trying out growing them.
I sowed some Fragaria vesca seeds in February and nurtured them as the shoots grew no bigger than a pinhead. I then clocked that they grow like weeds in my in-laws' garden in Devon, so I grabbed a handful to take home and transplant into our London space. Let’s see if they take.
I adore wild strawberries most of all. Aromatic and floral. If I could get my hands on 1 lb of them, I would definitely try Elizabeth David’s melon idea.
The French have developed a hybrid that is a gorgeous treat if you go on holiday there: the Mara des Bois strawberry. It was developed by French plant breeder Jacques Marionnet in 1991, who sought to create a strawberry with the intense flavour and perfume of wild strawberries. Try them if you spot them at your local marché.
Talking of French ways, I have to say I have never tried the French habit of serving strawberries in wine or adding black pepper. I am so in love with strawberries and cream that I find it hard to deviate, but this year I will push myself out of that proverbial comfort zone.
This year, I have come across another way to use them, and it's using the tops that one would ordinarily throw away: steep them in white wine vinegar to create strawberry vinegar. It's lovely. See recipes for more details.
It can be hard in summer to get through all the fruity deliciousness on offer! As well as strawberries, you get gooseberries, then raspberries, currants (red, black, and white), and blackberries, as well as the delicious imports of apricots, melons, peaches, and nectarines, and there’s a litany of dishes to get through. The hardship!
I am focussing on strawberries for now, in June, which feels to me like the height of the English strawberry season.
*Like Margaret Costa’s white peach recipe: “…or prick a small, rosy, white-fleshed peach all over with a silver fork. Put it in a large wineglass. Fill up with chilled champagne. Look at it. Drink it. Eat the peach.”
I did do this once, but it was a Primark version: a slightly hard yellow peach in a glass of under-par Prosecco. It didn’t work, and my friends have never forgotten it. I will try the Rolls-Royce version soon.
