Monday, May 26, 2008

Sunday Dessert : Goetterspeise

Local strawberries have started!

On Saturday we picked some up at the market along with some rhubarb. I thought about doing macerated strawberries with rhubarb like last weekend, but was tempted by a recipe from this month's Le Menu for Strawberry-Rhubarb Götterspeise. This isn't the German Götterspeise (i.e. jello) but the Swiss variant, which is more like trifle: layered zwieback, rhubarb compote, strawberries, and vanilla pudding.

For the pudding:
Combine 3dl milk, 1 egg, 2.5Tbs sugar, 1Tbs cornstarch, a pinch of salt, and half a vanilla bean in a pot. Heat over medium heat, whisking frequently, until the pudding thickens. Strain into a bowl and let cool.

For the rhubarb:
Combine 500g diced rhubarb in a pot with 100g sugar and the juice and zest from a lemon. Cook until the rhubarb is tender. Let cool a bit. I only used about 300g of this for the dessert.

For the strawberries:
Thickly slice 500g of berries. I ended up using about 300g.

I started the pudding in the morning to give it time to cool, then made the compote and assembled the dessert, using about 75g of zwieback, in the afternoon. After letting it steep for 4 hours in the fridge it was ready to eat.

This is nice stuff. The flavors all play well together and it's not hyper sweet. And! We have some strawberries and rhubarb left for other applications.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yay, fruit!

Just as an update on the local conditions; the rhubarb out back survived the winter, and put up strong stalks and large leaves (although it's starting to wilt out now). I'm giving it another year to strengthen, down there under grade.

Letting the strawberries run riot in the front yard has turned the place into a bit of a mess, but: strawberries. Very, very many strawberries.

Still and all, we're all still waiting here (last two weeks have been...Spring). We're getting apricots. They are plenty; they are enough.

greg landrum said...

Yeah, it's sweet that the fruit is finally starting to appear. I'm very excited.

So yinz have apricots in the 'burgh already, eh? The ones around here aren't in yet. I somehow remember them being June here; something to look forward too.

Also: rioting strawberries in the front yard is excellent. A booming berry bramble in the back would be a nice complement. :-)

Anonymous said...

So, as it turns out, about a month ago I put a gooseberry in under the locust, and a pair of raspberries in the "not quite under the locust" bit of the back border.

I'm getting gooseberries. Not many, but the damn thing is fruiting. I was not expecting that at all!

greg landrum said...

mmm, gooseberries. This weekend we put a gooseberry bush in a pot on our balcony. I'm assuming there will be no fruit this year, but maybe next year.

There are red currants out there now too, but I guess we'll be waiting on them as well.

Probably they'll both die.