Friday, July 18, 2008

A Kir for What Ails You

Our last CSA share included a lovely basket of red currants. We were pretty excited... but we didn't quite know what to do with them.
Most of my memories of currants have everything to do with red currant jelly, and we didn't have enough of the berries to quite do that sort of plan much justice. So, we began the search for new and exciting recipes for our little red tarts.
Fortunately for us, a friend of mine came to the rescue with a recipe for Creme de Cassis/Kir.

Now, what is Kir? Well, here's what I know.
Canon Kir was the Rabelaisian mayor of Dijon from 1945 to 1968. Apparently, he loved to drink his (often acidic) local white wine mixed with a blackcurrant liqueur to sweeten it. The concept caught on around Dijon -- and people still drink the mixture today.

Those of you familiar with Kir know that, technically, it's a recipe for black currants, but we decided to try it out with the red ones and see how we fared. The concept is uber simple -- just wash your currants and place them in a jar with cloves, a piece of cinnamon stick, and some vodka. After about two months, we'll mix the brew with sugar and it will be ready to use. Seems like the hard part will be waiting while the mixture steeps for two months!
We'll be sure to tell you how it turns out.

Red Currant Kir


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8 comments:

  1. Cool! I hope it works. I'm so jealous that you found currents!

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  2. Tag! See my blog. :-)

    Just don't serve this to your best friend and accidentally get her drunk because you thought you were serving her something else. :-D

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  3. Oh, I am jealous! My sister's favorite drink is a Kir Royale and she's gotten me hooked too. Can't wait to hear the results of the experiment!

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  4. I'm definitely going to try this.

    BTW, I was just given a quart of red currants -- I took a cup of fruit, 1/2 cup of sugar, 1/4 cup of water, 1/8 tsp. of cinnamon, cooked and strained and used it to deglaze a pan used to saute pork chops; it made a great sauce.

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  5. the bottle looks so pretty and the currents so jewel-like. fun!

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