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Video: A cherry-flavored celebration

  1. Closed captioning of: A cherry-flavored celebration

    >> on the menu, and the season is in full bloom in washington, d.c.

    >> you know, actually, this year marks the 100th year anniversary of the cherry blossom festival . there's no better celebrate than with a cherry blossom -inspired menu.

    >> we've got sweet and savory dishes created by joe, the chef at west end bistro in the nation's capital. joe, good morning.

    >> absolutely. thanks for having me.

    >> life's a bowl of cherries, but they're frozen cherries.

    >> while we are celebrating the blossoming, the actual fruit doesn't come till the end of june or july.

    >> you can use frozen.

    >> definitely. which you're more likely to find on supermarket shelves and you eat out of hand. we like to use sour cherries because it gives you more to work with in terms of acidity.

    >> we're making a cherry salsa?

    >> we are. we're going to show you pickled cherries first and then as a sauce and as a dessert. pickled cherries.

    >> start with the pickling.

    >> all righty. pickling is very simple. we've got sugar, red wine vinegar , coriander seed and pickled mustard seed .

    >> okay.

    >> we're going to dump essentially all this stuff in here.

    >> okay.

    >> no more --

    >> sugar.

    >> no more magic than that. put it on the heat, bring it up to a boil. after that, we're going to pour it over the frozen cherries. while this is still hot, we're going to take a little bit of a leaf which you can find in asian market , maybe whole foods depending whether or not they're carrying it at the moment.

    >> if you can't find it?

    >> a little grated lime zest.

    >> make something else.

    >> just make it up.

    >> you can throw anything -- any other sort of thing in there. what we're going to do, to prevent that herb from cooking, to prevent it from losing all the nice fresh floralness that we want, we're going to ice it down. we're going to cool it down while those start to steep.

    >> how long do you let it sit there and pickle?

    >> until it's cool. five minutes, you're good to go.

    >> okay.

    >> we've got that finished product here in the bowl. we have some corn here which you can do this. you can do this in the middle of july. absolutely. we've got the corn here. if you want to throw that in there for me.

    >> thanks. sure.

    >> throw that in there. we've got lime juice , salt and habanero peppers . we've got a little bit of salt as well because salt makes everything good. exactly. anything too sweet and especially with the sweetness of the corn and the richness of the steak that we're going to put this on top of, it's not going to go well for you.

    >> that looks delicious. we've got this ribeye.

    >> i'm observing. waiting for the food.

    >> if you get away with it, good for you. god bless .

    >> so this is a great ribeye here.

    >> a cowboy-cut ribeye, looking at about 18 ounces. we've got our salsa. this is literally the entirety of what we're doing. you've got your salsa on top of your fresh ribeye there. we've got the ones we had cut up earlier. this is obviously a great dish you could do for a group of people.

    >> great.

    >> so easy. that was not hard at all.

    >> not at all.

    >> let's get to dessert. what we've done here is we've taken profiterales. you can buy them in the store. use anything you'd normally use for like a strawberry shortcake .

    >> are these candied cherries?

    >> the same as over here. pickled cherries.

    >> still savory.

    >> sweet components, vanilla ice cream, peach jam.

    >> that begs the question, is it profiteral without chocolate on it?

    >> i would argue it is. absolutely. you can dump whatever you want on to there.

    >> the tartness of the cherries.

    >> absolutely. that's actually a bourbon peach. bourbon and peach.

    >> we like that.

    >> how long are we talking here preparing this meal?

    >> 20 minutes .

    >> 20 minutes .

    >> thank you.

    >>> coming up, "ambush makeovers" for lucky ladies out on the plaza right after your local news and weather.

TODAY recipes
updated 3/28/2012 8:23:52 PM ET 2012-03-29T00:23:52

Recipe: Grilled sirloin steaks

Ingredients
  • 4 8-ounce sirloin steaks
  • Salt
  • Black pepper
  • Salsa with pickled sour cherries (See recipe below)
Preparation

Season the steaks with the salt and pepper, then grill over high heat to medium rare (plus or minus 6 minutes per side).

Plate the steaks, then liberally cover them with the salsa.

Recipe: Pickled sour cherries

Ingredients
  • 2 cup red wine vingear
  • 1.5 cup sugar
  • 2 teaspoon mustard seed
  • 1 teaspoon coriander
  • 3 cups pitted sour cherries
  • 5 leaves shiso, julienne
Preparation

Combine the cherries and shiso leaf in a metal bowl.

Place the vinegar, sugar, coriander and mustard seeds in a pot and bring to a boil.

Remove from the heat and pour over the cherries and shiso.

Place the mixture over an ice bath to chill.

Once cold, transfer to a quart container, cover and refrigerate for 3 days.

Recipe: Salsa with pickled sour cherries

Ingredients
  • Pickled sour cherries (See recipe above)
  • Salted habanero
  • Grilled corn kernels
  • Tarragon
Preparation

Add the salted habanero, grilled corn kernels and tarragon to the cherries. Mix together to taste.

Recipe: Profiteroles with vanilla ice cream, bourbon peach jam and pickled sour cherries

Ingredients
  • Profiteroles (Can be store-bought)
  • French vanilla ice cream
  • Bourbon peach jam (Can be purchased from Farmer's Daughter Brand Pickles & Preserves)
  • Pickled sour cherries (See recipe above)
Preparation

Split 3 of the profiteroles on the horizontal axis and fill with as much ice cream as you wish. Top with the bourbon peach jam, the replace the top of the profiteroles. Scatter the pickled cherries on the plate around the profiteroles.

Discuss: What did you think of this recipe?

How many stars would you give the dish? If you made changes, tell us how you customized it.

Discussion comments

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