For Mike Bowlin:
And from an old post of mine on FLDG Classic (our former home prior to this new software), one of my favorite seasonal recipes.
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It's a cheese course and a fruit plate in one. With a loaf of bread and a good bottle of zinfandel or rich California style pinot noir, it's a meal.
In this dish the cherries are soaked in a spicy brine, then drained and combined with olive oil, salt and pepper. That mixture is then poured over chevre cheese to become a spread and dipping sauce for crusty sourdough bread. A 99 Ravenswood "Teldeschi" zinfandel was a perfect as a wine match.
My inspiration for this recipe was something called "pickled bing cherries". I dislike the term 'pickled' for it sounds too 'cooked' and all-about-the-cherries which distracts focus from the greater good achieved in combination with very good olive oil, tangy cheese and crusty bread. "Confit" veers dangerously toward trendy recipe name abuse, but after thinking about it overnight I think it's better than 'pickled', so there!
1 cup water
juice of half a lemon
1.5 T sugar
1.5 T salt
1/2 tsp black mustard seed
1/2 tsp fennel seed
1 pod star anise
1 bay leaf
1/4-1/2 cup EVOO
1.5 cups pitted/halved fresh bing cherries
salt and fresh ground black pepper
chevre cheese (6 - 8 ounces)
sourdough baguette
Combine all ingredients except the cherries and olive oil in a small saucepan and bring to a boil, then set aside and let cool.
Meanwhile, prepare the cherries. When the brine has cooled, combine with the cherries and soak for at least an hour. Drain the cherries and combine with EVOO, add salt and course ground black pepper to taste.
Break the chevre into large chunks or slices in the center of a plate, pour cherries over. Serve with a sourdough baguette (highly recommend not slicing but tearing so that each piece of bread has a bit of chewy bottom crust). Serves 4-6.
Yummy. thanks. rcp forthcoming.