Blinky the Shark wrote:

> As food prices go up, I was surprised to find strawberries at a buck a
> pint/pound, yesterday. What nice damn-near-free-by-today's-standards bit
> of snackage. (Ralphs, if anyone's got one in their 'hood.)
>
>

That time of year for a repost of the Escoffier 'Fraises Bernhardt' recipe?


Fraises Sarah Bernhardt.

(for 8 - 10 people)

Using about 3 - 4 pounds of fresh strawberries, remove the stems and put
2/3 of the nicest ones in a bowl, lightly sprinkle with powdered sugar,
add 5 - 6 wine glasses of white wine (or sweet wine of choice) and
chill. Puree the rest of the strawberries and mix with about a cup of
sugar (depending on sweetness of strawberries and taste) and add to the
whole wine and strawberry mixture, reserving a few tbs. for the whipped
cream.

Take a whole small ripe* pineapple and peel and core and then slice, then
prepare a pulp of pineapple by roughly chopping or using a fork to pull
apart or shred, canned pineapple in water can be used. Sprinkle this
shredded pineapple with about a cup of sugar and reserve in the
refrigerator.

Prepare about 3 cups of cream chantilly or ordinary whipped cream and
have on hand (if not making fresh) 8 - 10 cups of a good vanilla ice
cream.

to serve;

Place a serving of vanilla ice cream in a bowl, flatten the ice cream
then, using a slotted spoon, place over this some of the whole
strawberries. Cover this with a few tbs. of the shredded pineapple. Top
with the whipped cream that has had a few tbs. of the strawberry puree
lightly folded
in, the strawberry puree should be folded into the whipped cream in such
a way as to produce an obvious mix of whipped cream and strawberry.

Originally this dish had a lace of spun sugar over it and the original
recipe suggests the whipped cream and strawberry puree should resemble,
or "give the illusion of a beautiful sunset."

*To pick a ripe pineapple pull on a leaf, if it comes off the pineapple
with just a minimal effort it is ripe, if it come off too easily it is
over ripe, if hard to pull off it is not ripe, pineapple do not ripen
after picking.
--
Joseph Littleshoes