28 Jun 2023
Elena Hogg, founder of local culinary company FOOD by Elena looks at the diverse dishes you can make using the humble strawberry…
Granted, I may be tampering with the context here, but John Lennon famously said, “Strawberry Fields is anywhere you want to go.” Now, I appreciate he was talking about the Beatles’ excellent 1967 song, Strawberry Fields Forever, but I think he very accurately captured the dreamlike quality of the nation’s favourite
berry. I just made that bit up; maybe it’s the raspberry. Don’t write in.
Having rummaged around a fair old bit online, looking for a suitable quotation with which to elegantly begin my column here, I noticed two things. The first: most quotations reminisced about the taste of ripe strawberries, harking back to carefree childhoods, holidays, picnics and so on. The second: not a single person
who’s been quoted talking about strawberries is remotely famous, except for John Lennon. Decision made as to the start of the article, then.
Not only do strawberries evoke memories, but they hold a certain status here in Britain. We’re proud of our ability to grow these heart-shaped nuggets of sweetness and the beloved institution that is strawberries and cream at Wimbledon proves it. Strawberries appear in the most dignified afternoon teas, but offer equal pleasure crammed surreptitiously into mouths in a pick-your-own field.
The nation buys just shy of 90,000 tonnes of strawberries each year in an industry worth nearly £770 million. With the season truly upon us, now is the time to buy and the market stalls here in St Albans often sell whole crates of strawberries for a bargain price.
You do need to use them quickly, though, and it was with this in mind that I decided to make a strawberry cake for a friend’s birthday last week.
In a bid to use as many strawberries as possible, and with near child-like abandon, I made the sponge, the jam filling AND the icing with strawberries. It’s lucky my friend likes strawberries.
The cake was actually a success. Because I’d used fresh strawberries in all the components rather than any artificial flavour boosters, the taste was delicate and subtle. The colour wasn’t though – who would’ve thought fresh strawberries could produce such a fabulously kitsch and lurid pink icing?
There are myriad strawberry recipes to immerse ourselves in: mousses and jellies, jams and compotes, ice creams and even cobblers, and every single one well worth the time and effort, no doubt. But just sometimes, it’s fun to throw caution to the wind and try something a little left-field, right? In the case of my husband, WRONG.
I concede that what I’m about to recount happened over two decades ago and he was only 20 years old. But there really is no excusing the depths of culinary depravity he reached: he cooked me a stir-fry of sorts made with chicken pieces that he’d marinated in Blue Curacao (that’s right – they were very blue, even after frying), strawberries, mangetout and cashew nuts. And this was in an effort to impress me.
Despite the – I’ll be charitable – unusual combination of ingredients, he hit on a concept that, these days, is seen as pretty de rigueur: fruit in savoury dishes. I’m not referring to duck à l’orange or other such staples, but more exciting, contemporary combinations like mackerel with pickled apple, prawns with a mango salsa or… strawberry salad.
Yes, a handful from my most recent strawberry glut landed in my salad bowl at the weekend and it was a revelation. Really refreshing and it worked especially well drenched in a good balsamic vinegar dressing. You could in fact macerate the strawberries in balsamic beforehand, if you were organised enough.
To my quartered strawberries I added pea shoots (the sweetest of the salad leaves, though I think peppery watercress or rocket would work well too), baby corn, mint leaves and cucumber. My husband wasn’t convinced by the corn, which you could substitute for sugarsnaps or perhaps some alfalfa sprouts. But frankly, just the strawberries, mint and cucumber would have worked gloriously.
Basically, Pimm’s salad. What’s not to love? Go forth and experiment, fair readers; may the strawberry pizza rise up!
There was, by the way, one other famous person I came across who was quoted talking about strawberries. It was Marilyn Monroe and she said: “Dating a new man is like holding a strawberry milkshake. First the taste, then the pleasure.”
Somehow, I felt that would have led down an entirely different narrative route…
