Macerated Berries

If you’re located on Tortola and you love strawberries, I suggest you hightail it down to Riteway immediately.  Fresh strawberries are down to $2.99 a pound!  Go on, you can come back and finish reading this post later.

For those of you not in the BVI, it may help to explain that we usually pay somewhere between $10 and $12 for a one-pound punnet of strawberries.  Everything is expensive here and strawberries are especially dear.  But the price of strawberries has been falling steadily until they were down to their new love of $2.99 per pound on Saturday.  Not exactly giving them away…but almost.  It doesn’t take much to make us island shoppers feel a little bit giddy.

I doubt we’ll see strawberries at this price for a long time to come (if ever again) so you may want to stock up.  You don’t have to buy a ton and then watch them rot in the fridge (I can’t be the only one who does that), strawberries freeze beautifully.  Just lop off the stem and leaves with a paring knife.  Leave them whole if they’re large, lovely specimens or cut them into halves or quarters if you’d prefer.  Put the strawberries on a baking sheet and place them in the freezer.  After the berries are frozen, transfer them to plastic bags or freezer containers for storage.  They should keep well for about six months.

So far I’ve made several pints of strawberry jam and have a good supply of strawberries frozen down.  I haven’t served any dessert other than fresh berries for weeks.  I think I see strawberry ice cream in my future.  And perhaps a real Southern-style strawberry shortcake or two.

Macerated Berries with Prosecco

All the fresh berries have been particularly well-priced lately so I’ve been using a mix.  You can use any combination you like or just those juicy red strawberries.  The amount of sugar you need will depend on how sweet your berries are and the only way to tell how sweet they are is to taste them, both before and after sugaring them.  A dry rosè Prosecco pairs particularly well with the berries but a white Prosecco works its magic also.

1 pound strawberries

1/2 pint blueberries

1/2 pint blackberries

1/2 pint raspberries

1/4 cup sugar (or more)

1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh mint

Prosecco, either white or rosè

Hull the strawberries and cut them in half (or quarter them if they’re large).  Put all the fruit except the raspberries into a bowl and toss gently with the sugar.  Don’t be stingy with the sugar; add a little more if your berries are not very sweet to begin with.  The sugar serves not only to sweeten the berries but also to draw out their juices and create a light berry syrup.

Gently stir in the chopped mint and pour in enough Prosecco so that you’ve got about an inch of liquid in the bottom of the bowl.  Gently fold in the raspberries.  Let the berries macerate for at least an hour before serving.  You can serve the berries over ice cream, atop a slice of pound cake or with a dollop of mascarpone, crème fraîche or whipped cream.  But they’re really kind of perfect just as they are.  Serves 8.