black currants

[redbird]

One of the things cattitude and adrian_turtle got at the farmers market on Friday was black currants, which Cattitude wanted to try because he likes black currant candy, and Ribena, and other black-currant-flavored things.

We rinsed the raspberries and some of the black currants Friday, for dessert. I tried one first, and said "I don't think I like this." Adrian and then Cattitude also tried them, one currant each, after which we agreed that we didn't like them. There was some discussion of ways to cook with them, but Cattitude was the only one who was at all enthusiastic about trying them instead of cranberries in apple crisp, or using them to make a sauce for duck, and we may abandon the project. Ah, well, now I know.

Comments

[pameladean]

Do you like raw unsweetened cranberries? Black currants similarly benefit from being sweetened. They make really good jam, but I wouldn't blame anybody who didn't plan to make jam to start with and preferred not to do it in hot weather, or really any weather.

P.

[adrian_turtle]

I do, in fact, like plain cranberries. And I like sour cherries a LOT. But when I had the taste of it in my mouth, all the arguments about cooking the black currants like cranberries made me want to whine, "so why don't we just buy a bag of frozen cranberries and cook something we know we like!"

[pameladean]

There's definitely a kind of musty undertone; it's transformed but not eliminated in jam, and I don't expect it would go away just from being baked, alas.

P.

[otter]

Black currants definitely need to be properly prepared before I consider them edible. They are good for making syrups and the like.

[thistleingrey]

Apple crisp sounds plausible and good if there's support for making it otherwise. I appreciate unsweetened blackcurrant juice, but I grew up on the idea--Ribena is too sweet for me. Plus, I think the juice-making process decreases the percentage consumed of fruit skin and seeds, i.e. unsweetened juice is somewhat less acerbic than whole raw fruit. (I can't handle unsweetened red currants at all, FWIW; to me they're more acidic, comparable to the difference between blackberries and raspberries.) Currants also become sweeter when dried, which may or may not be practical to attempt.

[kareina]

I lived 10+ years in a house with LOTS and LOTS of black currant bushes, so I ate lots of free food. They are a tart berry, which means they work really well in rich deserts--pies made with berries egg and ricotta cheese, for example, or in a crumble with apple or pear.

I dry them and add them to my muesli (they are sweeter dried, but they are so big they take forever to dry).

I boil them in a tiny amount of water to make a thick, tart black currant jam (I don't add sugar) which is really tart, and works well on anything that americans eat with ketchup. I especially love it on lasagne.

and they are an AMAZING addition in spaghetti sauce.

As I recall, I didn't much care for them fresh when I first met them either, but after using them in everything for so many years, now I actually do like them fresh, too.

[redbird]

Boiling them with a tiny amount of water to make a thick, tart jam/condiment seems plausible, and as though it might go well in yogurt, either by itself or with a little maple syrup. Plain whole milk yogurt is inherently sweet, enough so that one of the ways I have it for breakfast is with a little lime juice, or vanilla extract; I don't buy vanilla-flavored yogurt because it always has added sugar, making it too sweet.

[cmcmck]

They do tend to be better cooked in some fashion.

[ofearthandstars]

Having never tried them, this seems like a fair warning!

[hrj]

I put in some black currant bushes last year (different species than the European black currant, though) and am getting enough this year to try a few experiments. They definitely do better with cooking, and while I generally prefer my fruit unsweetened, I find that currants do better with a bit of sugar in the mix. Yesterday I had a handful collected up and made a single-serving pudding by cooking them in a small amount of apple juice, passing them through a sieve, then mixing in a pinch of sugar and two egg yolks and steaming it in a ramekin. If I'd had milk in the house, I would have extended it with some milk, but ever since I've stopped having milk in my coffee, I often don't have any in the house. I still have about half the (small) crop in the process of ripening, so more experiments to come.