roasted strawberries

[reesek]

i've been blown away by roasted strawberries in restaurants - tender, sweet flesh -intense pure berry flavor - it's elevated mediocre brulee to memorable.

not in my oven. i'm prepping for a dinner party tomorrow night and my dessert (thanks to some excellent advice) is buttermilk panna cotta (more on that in a sec) having loved roasted strawberries, i looked up a couple of recipes and did a test run with some good looking (though tart) california imports. i dusted with superfine, and roasted in a 400 degree oven. 6 minutes. 8 minutes. 11 minutes.

yuck. they were wet, squishy - decomposing even, sweet but overripe feeling, ...and with acidic undertones. should i have macerated first?

is it me or is it the strawberries? and what's the fix?

incidentally - the individual ramekins i have are larger than i wanted to use, so i chilled the panna cottas in small round bowls. when i unmolded the test case last night i had to laugh...it looked like a vanilla speckled breast implant. can i hide that? (should i even want to?) i'm torn between wanting to crown each one with a single macerated strawberry and wanting to start over...

[chefpeon]

Did you try a recipe for the strawberries that was similar to this?

Gale Gand's Vanilla Roasted Strawberries

4 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

1 vanilla bean, split lengthwise

24 strawberries, tops cut off

2 tablespoons light brown sugar

2 tablespoons cherry or plain balsamic vinegar

3 tablespoons red wine

1 tablespoon cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces

Equipment:

A baking dish, about 9-inches square

Heat the oven to 400 degrees F. Pour the melted butter into the baking dish (or melt it right in the dish). Use the tip of a sharp knife to scrape the insides of the vanilla bean into the pan. Place the strawberries (cut side down) in the pan. Sprinkle the berries with brown sugar and lay the vanilla pod over the berries. Bake until they are slumped and feel soft, about 10 to 12 minutes. Let cool 20 minutes, then remove the berries from the pan and pour the pan juices into a small skillet.

Add the vinegar and red wine to the skillet and heat the mixture to a simmer. Turn off the heat and whisk in the cold butter. When ready to serve, place 6 strawberries on each serving plate. Drizzle the warm sauce over and serve immediately.

My thoughts:

Were your strawberries on the verge of being overripe to begin with? You'd definitely end up with mush if that were the case.

Is your oven temp accurate? Do you use an oven thermometer?

I believe if you macerated them before roasting you'd end up with mush too.

Regarding the shape of your panna cottas.....

Uh I think if you topped your little boobies with a strawberry....it would look an awful lot

like a......nipple

Is your panna cotta firm enough that you could maybe cut them in half and arrange the halves

so they they don't resemble implants so much? Or maybe you can slice the tops off so that there is a larger surface for your strawberries......

Annie

[reesek]

Uh I think if you topped your little boobies with a strawberry....it would look an awful lot

like a......nipple 

chefpeon - that was my point...hard to resist the temptation to do just that.

thank you for your input, by the way!

i think the acidic flavor was because the strawberries were red, and not cottony - but not sweet to begin with. gale gand's recipe sounds wonderful...i may use it. i didn't have any butter (insert blank uncomprehending stare) so i just sprinkled them with sugar...i don't have a thermometer, though the oven is new. maybe i'm actually getting what i'm going for - they weren't falling apart. do i need to let them rest after coming out of the oven? i kind of squeezed them a bit, straight from the oven and they just seemed very...wet. maybe i'm trying to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear...if the strawberries aren't good to begin with - will any roasting technique help them? ironically - i'm going to pick some fresh ones on saturday. i'll have to re-experiment then...i have some lovely tart cherries - maybe i'll pit and stew them with a little wine. what, after all could be a more appropriate nipple?

[chefpeon]

Hmmmm.....

Next, on Food Network, it's reesek's ButtermilkBoobie Panna Cotta with Nip de'Fraise and

Cherry-ola Sauce!!!

I crack myself up.

Actually, in my experience, if you start with bad fruit, you end with bad fruit (with the exception of mashing overripe bananas for banana bread or something like that). There are so many varieties of strawberries......I bet they all have different moisture contents too. It probably depends on the variety, and the degree of ripeness you hit when you roast them.

Regarding letting them set out of the oven, I noticed Gale Gand's recipe specifies that you let them rest 20 minutes.....probably something to that! Take them out of the oven....(no squeezing, Mrs. Whipple!), and make the sauce from the juices......then stick your nip on the implant, drizzle with your cherry-ola sauce, and voila! I hope.

Cheers! Annie

[chefette]

Reesek - are you roasting your berries then including them in the chilled panna cotta? I think you might want to serve them hot from the oven alongside your panna cotta. To the frequently referenced Jacques Torres Dessert Circus, on pg 172 Roasted strawberries.

Here he roasts them in a 400 oven for about 10 min brushed with melted butter and sprinkled with vanilla sugar served immediately on a round of strawberry vodka soaked genoise.

[reesek]

chefette - the plan was to serve alongside the cool panna cotta. i think chefpeon is right when she says that bad fruit can't be roasted good. (sounds like a country song)

i'm going to the market this afternoon and i'll see what they've got there. my new thought is to get a couple of little chubby bananas, slice them on the bias and brulee them.

i'll update...many thanks to both chefs - ette and peon.

rk

[sugarhill]

the strawberries at river cafe (where i'm currently externing) are made by roasting them with a couple of vanilla beans split lengthwise, some honey drizzled over and then roasted for 2 hours at about 250.

[reesek]

2 hours!

what do they taste like when they're done? what do they look like?

thanks sugarhill

[sugarhill]

it's a slow oven... the strawberries are pink, soft and glazed with the honey etc. they smell good. and it's two or three hotel pans full of them. to be honest i haven't tasted them but i'm not a fan of cooked strawberries in any form.