ABOVE: CHERRY AND CHOCOLATE CLAFOUTIS
Seasonal Flavours - Cherries
As deep red juice spurts across my kitchen, leaving stubborn stains on my wooden countertop, I ask myself yet again if I’m doing the right thing.
To pit or not to pit cherries for clafoutis: this is one of the great, unresolved questions of French gastronomy. Purists say the pits impart a subtle almond flavour to this classic baked pudding, while those less attached to tradition bring up the high cost of dental work. Rather than enter into the debate, I’ve devised a rule of my own: if anyone at the table is under eight (like my son) or over 80 (like my father), out comes the cherry pitter. Cherries are probably the fruit I welcome the most, even if I also have strong feelings about strawberries, apricots, peaches and melons. More than any other fruit, it seems, they are impossible to stop eating – so it’s probably a good thing that their season lasts a brief two months.
When I lived in the Fontainebleau forest south of Paris I was lucky enough to have a cherry tree, or so I thought as I saw the pale pink flowers give way to ripening fruit. Day after day I watched the cherries blush just a little deeper, holding off from plucking them until they reached their peak of sweetness. That moment never came: the blackbirds and magpies had been surveying the tree with an even more beady eye than I, and one day they swooped down en masse to pick it clean. The cherry harvest is always a capricious one, but living in the south of France I have my pick of this fruit at the market in May and June. Most irresistible to me are big, fleshy, burlat cherries, the sweetest and darkest of the many French varieties I have tasted. They make extraordinary clafoutis, even if the acidic griotte cherry is the more traditional choice (and one I also appreciate, on the rare occasions that I’ve had enough of burlats). First on the market stands in Nice is an unusual variety known in French as the cerise japonaise, which is pale orangey-red with sweet, delicate flesh. I also keep an eye out for the Napoléon, a creamy-red fruit from the bigarreau (sweet cherry) family that is perfectly suited to jams and preserves. For clafoutis, nothing is more authentic than the Montmorency cherry, a griotte from the Limousin in central France where this dessert originated. The French rarely cook cherries except in clafoutis or jam, or perhaps as an accompaniment to duck or game.
Once you’ve tasted clafoutis, you’ll understand why they have rarely bothered to think up more creative desserts involving this fruit. For a variation on the standard recipe, try sprinkling a couple of handfuls of chocolate chips or chopped chocolate over the fruit, as in the recipe on the facing page.
You can make clafoutis with other fruits, such as pears, plums, prunes and even pineapple, although it’s hard to beat the original recipe. There is nothing to stop you from using tinned or frozen cherries the rest of the year, but I think the real point of this dessert is to celebrate the short-lived period when cherries are abundant: ‘Le temps des cerises’, as the revolutionary French song puts it.
ALSO IN THE MARKETS
Apricots are another fruit with a fleeting season. Rose-blushed apricots from Provence are available all summer long, but I seek out the less uniform fruit from small producers. Only in Nice have I learned to buy apricots that seem a little overripe, which are the sweetest for eating and the best for compotes and jams. Apricot jam is one of the easiest to make, thanks to the fruit’s high pectin content. The first local tomatoes also make their appearance in early June, changing the way I eat for the next few months. This is the month when versatile courgettes and their bright yellow flowers become abundant, ensuring that I am never short of inspiration. One of my favourite ways to eat them is simply stir-fried with purple spring onions, known as cébettes in southern France.
CHERRY AND CHOCOLATE CLAFOUTIS
Serves 6
• 1¾lbs (800g) cherries
• 2 knobs butter
• 2 tbsp light brown cane sugar or white sugar
• 3oz (75g) bittersweet chocolate chopped, or chocolate chips
FOR THE BATTER:
• 3 heaped tbsp (2½oz, 70g) flour
• 2 heaped tbsp (2oz, 50g) white sugar
• Pinch of salt
• 2 whole eggs
• 3/4 (200ml) cup milk
• 1 tbsp kirsch or other eau-de-vie
• A little sugar for sprinkling
- Butter a deep pie dish with a knob of butter. Place the cherries, pitted or not, in the dish and sprinkle with 2tbsp sugar. Set aside for an hour. After an hour, sprinkle the chopped chocolate or chocolate chips over the fruit.
- In a large bowl, combine the flour, sugar, salt and eggs to make a thick paste. Add the milk bit by bit, whisking to make a smooth and slightly thick crêpe batter. Stir in the eau-de-vie. Set this batter aside for 40 mins at room temperature.
- Preheat the oven to 400°F (180°C). I use the convection setting at a slightly lower temperature, about 375°F (160°C). Pour the batter over the cherries, top with little pieces of butter and place in the oven. Bake for 35-40 mins, until the clafoutis is puffed and golden.
- Remove the clafoutis from the oven and sprinkle with a little light brown cane sugar or white sugar. Serve warm.
Rosa Jackson
Food critic and cookbook author Rosa Jackson moved to France from Canada in 1995 to work as an interpreter at the Cordon Bleu cooking school. She has since edited five editions of the Time Out Paris Eating and Drinking Guide and written for various magazines and newspapers worldwide.
She now divides her time between Paris, where she runs the personalised food itinerary service Edible Paris (www.edible-paris.com) and Nice, where she runs the cooking school Les Petits Farcis (www.petitsfarcis.com).