Photos by LenaThis year, 2010, Valentine’s Day falls on a Sunday and for this reason I am suggesting a menu for a Valentine’s Day Brunch. The brunch begins with Crunchy French Toast. The recipe can be found in my most recent blog [I made a correction in my initial posting: ½ cup, not 1 cup of milk]. The next entrée is Strawberries Romanoff, which looks surprisingly simple to make that one might wonder whether the addition of a liqueur and orange zest could make much of a difference to the taste of plain strawberries; they do!
I’ve looked around at different recipes and settled on a simple version by Pierre Franey from the classic “60-Minute Gourmet” Series in The New York Times. This recipe is from a second cookbook from the series titled, More 60-Minute Gourmet
(page 277 “Fraises Romanoff”), with one exception, I use orange liqueur (Patron Citronge ) and not Grand Marnier (cognac and orange liqueur):
2 pints strawberries, ⅓ cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar (I would cut in half), peel from one small orange, ⅓ cup Grand Ma
riner, ¾ heavy cream (I use whipping cream which is a bit less calories—5!)
Remove the stems from the strawberries. I usually take a knife and hack off the tops but I’ve come to respect the importance of food presentation after writing in this blog. For this reason I now carefully cut the strawberries around the stems then rinse, drain, and thoroughly dry on paper towels. When dry, place strawberries in bowl (flat bottom), sprinkle with sugar, and then pour liqueur over strawberries. Add orange peel and gently mix and refrigerate; no time is specified. You want enough time to allow liqueur to penetrate strawberries, 1 hour preferably. Whip cream with 2 tablespoons of sugar (or less if you desire) just before serving. Put strawberries in separate dessert-style glass bowls. Pour residual liqueur mix over the tops of each serving bowl and serve with whipped cream. Stay tuned for my last Valentine’s Day Brunch entrée.
(page 277 “Fraises Romanoff”), with one exception, I use orange liqueur (Patron Citronge ) and not Grand Marnier (cognac and orange liqueur):2 pints strawberries, ⅓ cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar (I would cut in half), peel from one small orange, ⅓ cup Grand Ma
riner, ¾ heavy cream (I use whipping cream which is a bit less calories—5!)Remove the stems from the strawberries. I usually take a knife and hack off the tops but I’ve come to respect the importance of food presentation after writing in this blog. For this reason I now carefully cut the strawberries around the stems then rinse, drain, and thoroughly dry on paper towels. When dry, place strawberries in bowl (flat bottom), sprinkle with sugar, and then pour liqueur over strawberries. Add orange peel and gently mix and refrigerate; no time is specified. You want enough time to allow liqueur to penetrate strawberries, 1 hour preferably. Whip cream with 2 tablespoons of sugar (or less if you desire) just before serving. Put strawberries in separate dessert-style glass bowls. Pour residual liqueur mix over the tops of each serving bowl and serve with whipped cream. Stay tuned for my last Valentine’s Day Brunch entrée.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI actually had a recipe similar to this in Paris. My Aunt's french mother in-law used red wine and vanilla sugar (which is said to be only found in France? I am unsure how true that is). But I highly suggest you try the recipe with the previously mentioned ingredients as substitutes. She served it with real whipped creme as a desert. It was by far my favorite.
ReplyDelete