The raspberries are coming. And coming. As weird and wild as this spring’s been, it’s been great growing weather for the brambles i.e. cane fruits. And raspberries are one of the most luxurious cane fruits there are. Full-flavored and simultaneously tart and sweet, they offer themselves up to concoctions that range from streusel muffins for breakfast to vinaigrette for a lunch salad, to chicken or fish for supper to desserts like homemade raspberry ice cream and frozen raspberry pie.
Raspberries are delicate and easily crushed so they don’t ship long distances well. We’re lucky here because we not only have local raspberries available in the market, we have u-pick options at Lockbriar’s right around the corner and Godfrey’s outside Sudlersville. If you do go pick, get lots. Pound for pound u-pick raspberries are a bargain for what you end up with. Don’t wash them until the moment before you use them – if you even wash them at all. Most people don’t wash raspberries, which is why it’s important to know where/who you get them from. Never soak them. Use them the day you pick them or the next day. If you’ve gotten really ripe berries, they don’t keep well.
Raspberries are only 64 calories/cup and are filled with vitamin C, B complex, folic acid (critical for healthy in-utero development), and more. While the red varieties — both summer-born and fall-ripening — are the ones we most often see in markets, there are also golden raspberries and purple varieties, which some people swear make the best jam. Black raspberries, aka black caps are sturdier fruits (they will actually stand up to washing if you want), are filled with great stuff nutritionally and make superb jam, syrup, fool, mousse, vinegar and more, but they are also more densely seeded. You find yourself picking black raspberry seeds out of your teeth more often than with the larger, softer red berries. Redman Farms out on Bakers Lane, Rte 20 has plenty of black raspberries for sale right now and they’re gorgeous.
Making raspberry jam is easy and rewarding and you can use it for many more things besides toast or croissants. Additionally, raspberries freeze really well. Pick through the berries to be sure you haven’t inadvertently added a bug or a leaf or two. Pop them in a freezer bag, gently ease out what air you can, seal the bag and stick them in the freezer. You can use frozen raspberries almost s easily as fresh, and can make jam out of them when the weather’s cooler, timing the jam session for a cool day, so there is pleasure in the doing is as much as the having done. Jamming with frozen berries is exactly the same procedure as with fresh; just put them into the pot while still frozen and go from there.
You can also make muffins with frozen raspberries; put the still-frozen berries into the batter at the last minute and fold gently. The baking time will be increased by only a minute or two.
One of the simplest desserts you can make with fresh raspberries is to put a little sugar, honey or agave syrup on them and let them sit in the frig for about an hour, then pour this on a slice of good pound cake and drizzle it all with whipping cream.
Sweet-sour Raspberry Shrub aka raspberry vinegar is terrific, colonial condiment you can make with fresh berries. It’s lovely on cheesecake, added to Prosecco or splashed into soda water for a refreshing non-alcoholic spritzer.
Below is a link to an old New York Times recipe.
Fresh Raspberry Tart is one of the best ways to showcase raspberries when they’re fresh and is something my daughter always called “nature’s almost perfect food.” Since it has milk, wheat, berries and eggs for protein, all you need to make it a meal is a green salad.
The tart consists of a baked pie shell – either store-bought or a shortbread cookie crust pressed into a tart pan or pie tin – a layer of rich pastry cream and fresh berries mounded on top. You can finish the tart as some patisseries do with a glaze of thinned apple or apricot jelly, but it’s always struck our household as gilding the lily.
Raspberry Mustard
This is really nice on grilled chicken or spread on a turkey or ham sandwich. It also makes good salad dressing.
1 cup dry mustard
1 cup fresh or frozen raspberries
2 tsp salt
¾ cup cider or white vinegar
3 tblsp Framboise or raspberry cordial if you have it (this is easy to make by steeping an equal amount of fresh berries and sugar with a pint of good clear vodka in a closed container for a couple of weeks)
¼ cup water
¾ cup brown or white sugar or honey
2 eggs, slightly beaten
Put mustard, salt, vinegar, water, sugar or honey, and raspberry cordial into the top of a double boiler. Combine well and let sit for an hour or more. Then, turn on the heat and bring the water in the double boiler to a boil. Sieve raspberries and discard seeds. Stir the remaining pulp into the mustard. Beat eggs and add them. Stir this for about 10 minutes or until thickened and beginning to steam off the concoction itself instead of off the water below. Pour into jars, cover and refrigerate. This lasts in the frig for weeks.
Black Raspberry Sauce
2 cups black caps/black raspberries
1 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp lemon juice
Put berries and sugar into a pot over low heat and stir until berries are broken down and sugar is completely dissolved. Cool slightly before you mash this through a sieve. Add vanilla and lemon juice and refrigerate. Lasts for weeks. It’s terrific drizzled over a fresh peach and plain yogurt for breakfast or dessert, mixed into morning oatmeal, drizzled overtop the raspberry tart above, or with a ½ teaspoon dropped into champagne for cocktails.
https://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/01/magazine/01food-t-000.html
https://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Old-Fashioned-Raspberry-Jam-230700
The site below offers another very easy jam recipe plus a downloadable e-cookbook
https://www.wikihow.com/Make-Red-Raspberry-Jam
https://www.foodnetwork.com/topics/raspberry/index.html
https://www.cheekykitchen.com/2010/08/raspberry-roasted-garlic-grilled-chicken.html
https://www.food.com/recipe/raspberry-chicken-272424
https://allrecipes.com/Recipe/raspberry-tilapia/Detail.aspx
https://www.oukosher.org/index.php/recipes/single/tequlia_grilled_salmon_with_raspberry_sauce_fish/
https://www.food.com/recipe/pan-seared-fish-with-raspberry-vinaigrette-176078
Ruth Hucks says
RE the raspberry tart: What is pastry cream? The recipe overall sounds delicious and I’ll try it out here in Colorado.
Ruth Hucks
Nancy Taylor Robson says
Pastry cream is a very rich vanilla custard — but don’t use a box mix. Do it from scratch since it’s not particularly difficult and tastes so much better than a box!
Pastry Cream aka Creme Patissiere
2 cups whole milk (1 3/4 cup skim+ 1/4 cup whipping cream)
1/3 cup flour
1/3 cup white sugar
1 tsp your very best real vanilla extract
2 egg yolks or 2 whole eggs, which makes a slightly fluffier version
Scald (i.e. heat until just below boiling) 1 1/2 cups milk in a heavy saucepan. (Some people use a double boiler to keep from burning the mixture on the bottom of the pan.). Meanwhile, whisk flour and sugar together well with in a bowl — one with a spout is useful. Add the 1/2 cup reserved milk and blend until it has no lumps. Pour this mixture into the scalded milk and whisk well to prevent lumps. It should thicken quickly. Whisk the eggs or egg yolks in a bowl ( it can be the same bowl you did the milk and flour and sugar in). When whisked, add a little of the hot, thickened milk-and-flour from the pot to temper the eggs and keep them from curdling when you add them to the hot milk-flou-sugar. Whisk well. Pour back into the saucepan and turn heat on low. Stir continually until the whole is well heated and it’s giving off steam — to cook the eggs — but don’t let it come to a real boil. Take it off the heat and whisk in vanilla. Pour into a container, put a sheet of plastic wrap right overtop so it touches all of the custard and refrigerate until chilled. Spread into the baked, cooled pie crust and top with berries (or whatever fresh fruit you’ve got).
Laura D says
Nancy, you have done it again! A friend has raspberry bushes and your wonderful article and recipes are motivating me to ‘volunteer’ to help him pick the berries in return for a stockpile for me. Love your column!
Nancy Taylor Robson says
Laura, thanks much. Would love to hear what you end up doing with your hoard!