Here's a photo of a branch of one of my cassis bushes, just before I picked them yesterday afternoon. I had to do it now because they are ripe and there were a group of very suspicious looking Golden Orioles hanging out.
I love cassis, it might be my favorite fruit. You never see it for sale, unless you live in the area around Dijon, France where it is a speciality. In Dijon, I had a memorable dessert one evening of merengue shells, cassis sorbet with cassis syrup drizzled over it...
So, I decided to grow it for myself. I have had 2 bushes for the last 4 years planted in a shady location by my swamp. I prune them each year and put wood ashes around the plants in the winter to rpomote the acidity of the soil. Wood ashes seem to be a very good source of nutrients for berry plants. They go on my raspberries as well.
This year, I used berry fertilizer on them and had very good results.
The harvest, perhaps 2 and 1/2 kilos will become a few pots of cassis/framboise jam and the rest, perhaps just under a kilo are now macerating with 2 bottles of Courbieres wine.
Courbieres is a dry red wine, inexpensive for the table, any decent dry red would do.
I crush the berries and pour the wine into a big stainless steel bowl which I will leave over night. Tomorrow, I will strain the liquid, add perhaps 3/4 kilo of sugar and bring the mixture to a boil on the stove. This creates a simple syrup. The liquid will thicken.
This type of a preparation is referred to as a "Creme" and I am making Creme de Cassis.
I did this a few years ago and was very pleased with the results. This time I am using much more cassis. The final touch is to bring the alcohol content back up, because the boiling evaporates the alcohol in the wine. I use commercial clear distilled fruit alcohol which I can buy in supermarkets here. I am very inexact proportionally, I have to taste it to see if it burns right in the mouth....
Then, I put it in bottles and it keeps for quite a long time.
Creme de Cassis is used to make a very nice aperative drink called a Kir. It was named after a famous mayor of Dijon, where the commercial center of Creme de Cassis manufacture is. To make a Kir, first, you put a big dollop of Creme de Cassis in a tall wine glass and then fill the glass with chilled dry white wine.
If you use champagne, or a sparkling white wine, it becomes a Kir Royale....
Chin, Chin.....
5 comments:
What is the difference between cassis and grapes? They must be related, no?
On a tangential note- am I too old to uproot my life in the bland plains of northern Ohio and resettle in the hills of Limousin??
Cassis in english I believe is black currant. They grow on shrubs and have a wild juniperish taste. They are unrelated to grapes and the taste bears no resemblnce. They are a very good source of Vitamin C.
I have also used red currants, groseille, to make a creme syrup. Here, the red variety is clasically made into a clear red jelly which is used to glaze fresh fruit desserts.
The basic Creme recipe, macerating fruit in wine...actually you can use whites with some fruit, can be used to make all sorts of fruit flavored Creme Syrups.
They are a nice topping drizzled over ice cream or sorbet, an intense fruit syrup with a little "kick".
This morning I went to the German discount supermarket near hear...Lidl and was surprised to see that they were featuring a Hungarian Absinthe! I knew that it was legal again, but now it has become mass marketed!
I hear that there are a lot of very cheap properties up in the Creuse.
It is a very rugged area and very sparsely populated, but very beautiful.
Many of the villages began to decline and actually disappear after the first world war...
I would suppose that this is a good time to pick up bargains.
Oh Microdot,
You make me want to sell everything here and up root all and move to Creuse. I have never done Absinthe but I think that I would love nothing better than to kick back, enjoy the weather under an umbrella table at a café with you my friend and spend the afternoon DANCING WITH THE GREEN FAIRY.
Gentlemen: I believe that any psychologist would recommend a proper round of Absinthe after one is exposed to the reading of right-wing political nonsense and/or fundamentalist [c]hristian nonsense.
Ian, Ian, Ian, you're not that Ian? Right? I didn't think so.
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