Announcing blueberry week!!!
In honour of our holiday to Sweden (Jonas first trip home since 2003!), I have decided to post seven blueberry recipes in seven days.
Prepare yourself for:
Chilled Blueberry Soup
Steamed Blueberry Puddings
Myrtille (cocktail)
Blueberry & Sour Cream Wholemeal Pancakes
Blueberry Pie
Venison w Juniper, Blueberries & Thyme
Sweet Blueberry Focaccia
When Jonas was a wee-one, he was allergic to blueberries. How terrible to live in a country where delicious blueberries grow wild along the roadside, only to discover your allergies had subsided once you migrate to Australia, a country where one tiny punnet can easily cost $7!!!
Oh, the irony!
Blueberries are now one of Jonas’ favourite berries and whenever I think of them I always remember our camping trip through southern Sweden with his mother, Ulla.
Somewhere in a Småland forest, in the Glasriket, Jonas and Ulla smiled patiently at me while I jumped from bush to bush shouting with glee and collecting handfuls of these precious, wild berries.
Once we set up our tent that evening, Ulla fried up some tomatoes and Karljohanssvamp (porcini /cep) and then we ate fresh wild blueberries and raspberries. I was so excited I didn’t even mind the occasional worm.
Blueberries have always been one of her favourite berries too and at Christmas she took her partner, Tombolina, to spend some time on her mother’s property in Robertson. The neighbours had a huge blueberry farm that they weren’t harvesting so Shamu went nuts picking buckets of blueberries, twigs, leaves and unfortunately a few lizards.
She brought me back a 3kg bag which, given how expensive these little buggers are in Sydney, was AMAZING!
After freezing this bag, I managed to make an extensive array of blueberry dishes, and in the lead up to our Swedish holiday, I am going to post blueberry recipes for the next seven days.
First up is Studená Borůvková Polévka, a chilled blueberry soup from the Czech Republic.
Fruit soups are common summer starters in Central Europe. The Hungarians have the famous sour cherry based meggyleves, but Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia all have various chilled fruit soup dishes too, usually served before pork main courses. Although these soups can be sweet due to the natural sugars of the fruit and the addition of wine, the dishes are served as savoury courses.
My soup recipe was used for a pre-dessert course during one of my multi-course dinners: taken between the main of veal and a dessert of rich, sticky fig and chocolate cake.
The tart, fresh flavours of the berries made an excellent contrast between the richer courses and even though the soup was very strong in flavour, it still acted as a palate cleanser.
Studená Borůvková Polévka
(Czech Chilled Blueberry Soup)
Anna’s adaptation of various internet recipes. Serves 8 x 125ml or 4 x 250ml.
Ingredients:2 cups blueberries
½ cup apple juice
1/3 cup light red wine
¼ cup honey
2 tablespoons lemon juice
¼ cup vanilla yoghurt, for serving
Method:
1. Simmer the wine for 2 minutes to evaporate some of the alcohol.
2. While the wine is still hot, stir in honey to dissolve. Allow mixture to cool.
3. Combine all ingredients (except yoghurt) in a food processor and purée well.
4. Refrigerate until completely chilled.
5. Serve with a swirl of yoghurt.
~~~
By creating this recipe, I managed to tick off another 2008 Food Resolution to create my own recipe for a fruit soup, although I do have plans to make another one once the weather warms up a little.
Well, that’s the first of the seven blueberry recipes for the week and I’d like to enter it into July’s berry themed Key Ingredient Cook’s Kitchen (KICK) recipe contest hosted by Sophie from The Back Burner.
Tags: morsels and musings food blog food and drink australia recipes soups blueberry soup blueberries dessert recipes berry recipes blueberry soup recipes fruit soup recipes dessert soup recipes soup recipes blueberry recipes czech recipes czech food czech cuisine
This sounds fabulous! Blueberries are my very favorite treat. I am looking forward to a week of blueberry goodness. Great idea!
ReplyDeleteHey Anna. I think that you may be taking a bit too much writer's/poetic license here.... I picked the blueberries !! Shamu, with a just - operated - upon finger, provided moral support from her sick-bed across the creek.
ReplyDeleteAh, my memory is failing me .... and i need to retract the above comment. Shamu and Tombolina did indeed pick blueberries on another occasion !!
ReplyDelete3kg of blueberries! Wow. Considering how woefully expensive they normally are in the shops, I've never managed to possess more than 125g at a time. Love the look of that soup, by the way. Same goes for all your other great blueberry inspired dishes!
ReplyDeleteBeautiful blueberries! I tried this recipe with Greek yogurt, and it came out very well. Thank you so much! You have so many recipes that I want to try, and your photos are absolutely fantastic.
ReplyDelete(By the way, nominated you for “I Heart Your Blog,” a meme/award.)