Berry-ed treasure

Alejandro Cancino and Matt Golinski share their strawberry secrets

FROM salads to smoothies, cheesecake to chilli jam, strawberries are the little ruby gems adding brightness to almost any dish.

And there is no better time to eat them than now, say two of Queensland’s leading chefs.

As the Australian strawberry industry tries to recover from the devastating needle contamination incident in September, acclaimed vegan chef Alejandro Cancino and celebrity culinary whiz Matt Golinski want us to get behind our local growers as the Stanthorpe strawberry season prepares to ramp up.

“I think more than ever we should buy strawberries and support farmers,” Cancino said.

“The prices dropped massively after that incident and farmers would only get a few cents per kilo, so the best thing we can do now is to buy more and more and more.”

BUY RIGHT

Golinski’s biggest tip when buying the jewel-hued fruit is to make sure they’re red all the way to the stem.

“If they’re not, they’re not going to get any riper when you take them home so buy the reddest, ripest-looking ones you can buy,” he said.

He recommended trying to buy them from farmers’ markets or direct from farms so you can be guaranteed they were only just picked.

“It’s a good experience for kids to go to a pick-your-own strawberry farm so they can experience what strawberries really taste like,” he said.

VARIETY

Think strawberries only come in one variety, well think again.

There are more than a dozen different types grown in Australia, from the conical and firm gaviota to the round ruby gems with a high sugar content.

“They’ve all got different sweetnesses, textures, flavour profiles – it’s working out what you like and going after those,” Golinski said.

“Ruby gem are a good standard one – they’re lovely and sweet and they have a long shelf life. The fortunas are my favourite. They’re bright red to the end, but they don’t have a huge shelf life so you have to eat them straight away.”

Golinski recommends asking at the farmers’ market what you’re buying so you know for next time.

SHELF LIFE

Strawberries should be kept in the crisper of the fridge, but both our chefs recommend devouring strawberries as soon as you buy them when they’re at their best. However, if they start to turn, that’s when it’s time to pop them in the freezer.

“If one of them starts turning bad then it’s going to turn the rest of them bad,” Golinski said. “Get that one out of the pack and then hull the rest and put them in a container in the freezer for smoothies.”

ON ICE

Leading into summer, strawberry sorbet is always a winner.

For the easiest sorbet without the need for an ice-cream maker, Golinski recommends boiling sugar and strawberries together until the strawberries have collapsed, then pushing the mix through a sieve. The fine sauce is then set in ice cube trays and frozen.

Once just frozen, pop the cubes into a blender and blend to a smooth texture, then freeze again.

Or for a cheat’s strawberry ice-cream, simply buy a good quality vanilla ice-cream and swirl Golinski’s strawberry sauce through it.

SAUCY ENCOUNTER

Similar to a jam, Golinski loves making a sauce from strawberries, which can then be used to drizzle over all kinds of desserts, pancakes or as the base for fruity cocktails.

To make the sauce he adds equal quantities of strawberries and sugar to a pan with the seeds from a vanilla bean and heats gently for about 10 minutes until the fruit collapses. The mixture is then passed through a sieve to get a rich, syrupy sauce.

JELLY BELLY

Another oldie but a goodie is strawberry jelly. To Golinski’s basic strawberry sauce recipe, he adds 2.5-3 sheets of gelatine (three for a firm set or 2.5 for more wobble). For a visual wow factor, try setting sliced strawberries into the jelly.