Cooking with redcurrants

Redcurrants are a little fruits with sweet flavor which are used to prepare various dishes from cocktails or fruit salads to sauces, dressings, beer, water, juices, desserts such as jellies, ice cream, cakes, etc.. Currants are high in vitamin C, E and A, and are effective to fight cholesterol, lower stress levels and to burn fat.

Here are some recipes using gooseberries

Redcurrant liqueur

Ingredients (for approximately 2 liters of liquor)

• 1 kg. of redcurrants
• 6 leaves of currant tree
• 1 liter of Grape marc
• 1 natural vanilla pod
• ½ kg. of sugar
• ¾ liter of water

Preparation

1. Wash the currants and leaves, drain and dry on a clean cloth.
2. Move them to a jar previously sterilized, alternating currants with leaves, and vanilla into pieces. Add Marc, cover and leave to soak for 2 months. After this time, filter through a sieve cloth and save this residue. Place the currants with the water in a large bowl, and mash lightly with a hand mixer.
3. Pass through wire sieve, put the liquid in a pot of jam, add sugar and dissolve over low heat. Cook 5 min. And cool. Mix with reserved Marc, put in bottles and wait 1 month before using. Serve chilled or with ice.

Redcurrant Jelly

Ingredients

• 700 g of currants
• 350 g of brown sugar
• Little port wine
• 40 g of gelatin for sweets
• 1.5 dl of cream

Preparation

1. Heat sugar and currants in a saucepan over low heat, until they are completely crushed. Reduce the mixture to a puree.
2. Add port wine and water to produce one liter of mixture. Dissolve gelatin in three tablespoons of water. Let soak for 10 minutes and heat it until it looks clean (do not boil). Incorporate the mashed currants.
3. Wet under running cold water 6 small molds or a large one. Reserve 6 tablespoons of the mixture and pour the rest into the molds. Chill in refrigerator for 6 hours.
4. Soak molds for a minute in boiling water and invert onto plates to serve gelatin as dessert.
5. Dissolve gelatin reserved and cool. Surround gelatin with cream.

Currants sauce

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup of dry white wine
• 5 peppercorns
• 250 grams of currant jam
• 1 tsp. of Worcestershire sauce
• 1 tsp. of mustard
• 1 pinch of salt

Procedure

1. Heat wine with pepper over medium / high level, until a boil. Then, down to minimum, remove the peppercorns and add jam and remaining ingredients.
2. Mix well, remove from stove. Serve hot or warm.

Currant Pie

Ingredients

• Flaky pastry (homemade or purchased)
• 2 or 3 cups of currants
• ½ cup of hazelnuts, grounded
• 1 egg yolk
• 1 dl of heavy cream

Procedure

1. Grease the bottom of a round pie plate (30 cm. diameter). Cover with the dough. To prevent the bottom gets soft, spread a layer of ground hazelnuts, with a thickness of 0.5 cm. Spread generously clean currants without tails over the hazelnuts.
2. Preheat oven to 200 degrees and place the pan in the bottom of the oven. Bake for 30 minutes. At 20 min., add the beaten egg yolk in the cream, spraying it across the surface of the cake. During the last 5 minutes, heat the bottom only. Depending on individual taste, sprinkle with sugar or anything you like.

Currant Ice cream

Ingredients

• 1/4 pint of red currant sauce
• 250 gr. of sugar
• 1 dl. of milk
• 2 dl. of liquid cream

Preparation

1. Heat the milk and dilute sugar, then cool. In a bowl, mix mashed red currants with milk and cream.
2. When it’s well mixed, put in the ice cream maker and let it do its work, if you don’t have this machine you can put it in a container to freeze and when it’s half frozen take it out, stir it well or beat to break the crystals and return to freezer . We can do this once or more and leave until cold.
3. Serve if desired with a red fruit syrup or sauce or vanilla custard.

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