Summer is the best time to enjoy soft fruits at their best, writes Hugo Arnold
We have been eating soft fruit for breakfast for at least a month now and we have pots of yoghurt on the table to eat with granola. Now we are flush with strawberries and raspberries and soon will move on to white-fleshed peaches. These get a brief dunking in boiling water to remove the skin, before being sliced and served with lemon juice and sugar for a morning outing, maybe with a slug of kirsch or eau-de-vie in the evening.
Most soft fruit has an aroma. Some, such as melons, need a scratch or two before releasing their secrets, but, on the whole, what you smell is what you get. This makes supermarket fruit buying difficult as it's hard to smell anything in those caverns.
Fruit varieties are something we seem to miss out on. This is another conceit of modern food production. Varieties are key - some fruit earlier, some later, some are resistent to rain, others to dry soils - all taste different. Certainly, some are sweeter than others, but the key, for me, is how full flavoured they are. Too much fruit now seems to taste of too little. I want sunshine with my breakfast, both the taste and the feel.
I've never been a fan of using fruit with savoury ingredients (duck à l'orange is the worst offender). But a few combinations make their way into our lunches - watermelon and feta is a favourite, and I have a sneaking liking for melon and Parma ham, provided the melon is meaty.
Some people like to end the day with fruit, but for me it has to be a breakfast dish. Maybe it is the colours, maybe the smell, but the experience seems so designed as a wake-up call rather than a dozy number.
All recipes serve 4
GRANOLA
Makes sufficient for a number of weeks
4 tbsp vegetable oil
2 cups rolled oats
2 cups wheat flakes
half cup whole almonds
1 tbsp pumpkin seeds
1 tbsp sunflower seeds
1 cup wheatgerm
1 tbsp maple syrup
2 tbsp honey
1 tsp ground cinnamon
half cup roughly chopped dried figs
half cup roughly chopped dried apricots
half cup raisins
half cup sultanas
2 tbsp dried milk powder
Combine the first three ingredients in bowl, stir thoroughly to combine and then spread out on a roasting tray. Bake in a preheated oven, 140 degrees/gas one for for 20 minutes. Stir well and add the next four ingredients and return to the oven for a further 20 minutes.
Heat the maple syrup and honey with the cinnamon. Pour into the roasting tray and mix well. Return to the oven for a further 10 minutes. Remove and allow to cool. Stir in the remaining ingredients. Store in air-tight containers.
GRANOLA MARK II
The following version is from Healthy Gluten-Free Eating by Darina Allen and Rosemary Kearney (Kyle Cathie €20) which shows that a gluten-free diet is far from dull. Other recipes that tempted included Vietnamese rice paper rolls with shirmps and fresh herbs, as well as the rather unfortunately titled bubbly cheddar cheese and cauliflower gratin, brownies, and Yorkshire pudding made with tapioca.
175g honey
125g sunflower oil
425g rice flakes
110g roasted buckwheat
110g hazelnuts, split and roasted
75g seedless raisins
40g rice bran
40g millet flakes
25g ready-to-eat dried apricots or dates, chopped
Preheat the oven to 180 degrees/gas four. Heat the honey and oil together in a saucepan. Heat just enough to melt the honey. Mix well into the rice flakes. Spread thinly on a baking sheet and bake in the oven for 20-30 minutes, turning frequently and making sure the edges do not burn . The mixture should be golden and toasted, not roasted. Allow to cool, then mix in the buckwheat, hazelnuts, raisins, rice bran, millet flakes and apricots or dates. Serve with slices of banana.
FRUIT LASSI
This can be made with any fruit, but bananas are one of the better choices at the moment, although stewed berries or peaches are good too.
3 cardamom pods
2 tbsp flaked almonds
500ml full fat organic Greek-style yoghurt
400ml full-fat organic milk
1 tbsp honey
1 banana
Split the cardamom pods, remove the seeds and grind them finely in a pestle and mortar. Toast the almonds under a hot grill until golden. Take care as they burn in moments. Combine the cardamom seeds with the yoghurt, milk, honey and banana in a blender. Pour into iced glasses and serve with a sprinkling of toasted almonds, which should be added just before serving.
RHUBARB AND GINGER FOOL
1kg rhubarb
50g caster sugar
4 thin slices fresh ginger
250ml whipping cream
finely diced preserved ginger for serving
Cut the rhubarb into four-centimetre lengths and rinse well in plenty of cold water. Place in a saucepan along with the sugar and ginger, cover and simmer gently over a low heat for 10-15 minutes, or until just tender. Allow to cool and test for sweetness, you may need to add more sugar. Whip the cream and when the rhubarb is cold, fold it in, having extracted the ginger. Spoon into wine glasses and chill. Scatter the preserved ginger on top before serving.
BLUEBERRIES, CREAM AND SMASHED MERINGUES
This more often appears as Eton Mess, that concoction only differentiated by the use of strawberries. The blue streak simply makes for a change.
200ml whipping cream
4 meringues, roughly broken
300g blueberries
light brown sugar
Whip the cream and spoon over the meringues. Scatter over the blueberries and dust with sugar. Smash and enjoy.