It’s cherry season!
A 10 minute drive from our house lands us at a local cherry orchard where we were able to raid the trees for $5/kg lapins cherries. These dark sweet fruit are perfect to make into sauces and preserves.
This year we decided to preserve our fruit haul in a spiced port syrup. It’s amazingly simple to do and the result is a delicious addition to deserts or roasts that you will have on-hand for the year to come.
In terms of equipment you will need preserving jars to store your cherries in, a large stock pot, metal tongs (a jar cradle is preferred to tongs if you have one), baking tray and clean tea towel as well as a cherry pitter. A metal strainer is also recommended for straining the spices from the port.
This method will make approximately 6 X 500 ml jars worth of deliciousness (depending on the size of your cherries and how tightly you pack them).
Ingredients:
2 kg fresh pitted cherries
6 cups of port (2 bottles)
3 cups caster sugar
Zest of 1 orange (peel into strips)
3 star anise
1 cinnamon stick
2 vanilla beans
white vinegar for washing cherries.
balsamic vinegar
Method:
Sterilise jars – boil glass jars and lids for 10 minutes on a hard boil. While they are boiling preheat your oven to 110 degrees celcius. Once the jars have boiled for 10 minutes, turn off heat and remove them using tongs (jar cradle) and place them onto a tea towel lined baking tray. Put these into the oven for at least 10 minutes. After 10 minutes the jars should be dry. Remove them from the oven and let them cool down before you start packing them with cherries.
While the jars are being sterilised, wash your fresh cherries in white vinegar to remove any yeasts or mould from the fruit surface. Pitt them using a cherry (olive) pitter.
Pour the 2 bottles of port into a saucepan, add the orange zest, star anise, cinnamon and vanilla beans. Simmer the port until it is reduced by half (this should take about half an hour. Don’t boil it too quickly, we need the time to allow the flavours to infuse into the port.
Once the port has reduced by approximately half stir in the sugar until it has dissolved.
Strain the mixture through a metal sieve into a jug or bowl and discard the spices and orange peel. The liquid in the jug will be the port syrup we use for preserving the cherries.
Pack your clean pitted cherries into your jars leaving round 2 cm head space at the top of the jar. Pour the port syrup over the cherries, leaving around 1 cm at the top of the jar. To each jar add a tablespoon of balsamic vinegar.
Clean the rim of the jar using white vinegar (I use paper towel soaked in vinegar), then screw down the lid tightly.
We now need to pressure cook the cherries which will also seal the jars very tightly. Place the sealed jars into a large stock pot and cover with water (the water level should be about an inch over the top of the jars). Bring the pot to a boil, then boil the jars for 25 minutes.
Using a jar cradle (tongs) remove the jars from the pot and set aside to cool. Let them stand for a day before you start devouring them!
This preserve is a perfect topping for a cheesecake or pavlova. The syrup can be used as a glaze for meat (duck or pork) with the cherries served on the side.
Most of all…. enjoy!
