I’m sitting in my kitchen and, a bit like Winnie the Pooh, there, beside me, are ten pots of jam. The house smells delightful, and I’m accepting requests from friends and neighbours for a jar of homemade jam. My current address is Strawberry Fields now!
I get the berries from a Pick Your Own farm in the near locality, one I only discovered last year, having lived here for mere twenty-odd years. Fields and fields: and this year thanks to clement weather, you enter the field and you can basically sit down there in a spot, filling your punnet without moving much. They are plentiful, ripe and delicious.
They are obviously much, much cheaper than supermarkets’ or even farmers markets’, and tastier since strawberries (like asparagus) are the better the more locally picked. Plus, because freshly picked, they will keep fresh for a good few days in the fridge.
How to store strawberries? Don’t immediately wash them. Personally, I never wash berries but everyone should follow their own judgement: strawberries may be sprayed with pesticides and washing will get rid of some of the residue. However, store them in the fridge in plastic tubs, and only rinse them immediately before eating. If you want to avoid the outcome of bruised, waterlogged mushy fruit, rinse them very gently with a dispersed spray then let them dry on a tray. If your berries are particularly ripe and fragile, dip them in a large bowl of water instead, then gently lift them.
And now, what to do with the fragrant bumper crop? That is, apart from eating bowlfuls with cream while watching Wimbledon? That is admittedly the best use of the berries this month, featuring recipe twists of strawberry fool, Athens mess or strawberries and labneh.
But you can obviously bake a variety of cakes with strawberries, from strawberry and cream Victoria sponge, through strawberry crumble cake to strawberry yoghurt Bundt cake.
Ice cream season beckons: summer berry or strawberry ripple? Both with no egg, rich dairy base. And for a no-dairy variant, try the strawberry option of granita.
Do like me and make jam, or slow roast them – the latter recipe is not quite a proper preserve but it makes mind-blowingly delicious, jammy berries that can be used in all kinds of desserts.
Booze and strawberries? Of course, be it Pimms or fizz. And you might discover the savoury use of strawberries in a mixed green salad, recipe shortly on its way to you. Strawberry Fields Forever!