This week’s recipe was Rote Grütze. I had trouble figuring out how to translate this, the closest I could come up with was red fruit jelly, but I’m sure there’s a better way to describe it. And it seems I have bad timing. This recipe requires sour cherries, red currants (rote Johannisbeeren) and raspberries. When I got to the fruit stand downtown on Saturday, I found out that sour cherries aren’t ripe yet. I remembered seeing sour cherries at the supermarket the week before, so I grabbed 300 g of sweet cherries, just in case, and we headed to the market.
It was a good thing I bought the sweet cherries because the packaged sour cherries at the market all had moldy bits that I could see down near the bottom of the packs (actually, it wouldn’t have mattered because there were sweet cherries there as well, but the ones I got from the fruit stand looked better).
I still don’t have a cherry pitter, so I did these by hand. I tossed everything into a pot and boiled it with water. In another pot, I made the vanilla sauce that we’ve made a couple times previously.
I thought I’d be cutting down on the sugar (from 4 to 3 tablespoons), since I was using sweet cherries instead of sour, but in the end, I used 5 tablespoons of sugar. The vanilla sauce turned out a little lumpy, like before, but I didn’t bother sieving it this time, I just wasn’t in the mood to do anything more in the kitchen, especially after sieving the fruit.
Oliver and Rainer devoured their Rote Grütze. Actually, at first, Rainer found the cinnamon overwhelming and thought it was way too much, but then decided it was really good and went back for a second bowl. I thought the dish was still a little sour. I could have gone back and poured a little more vanilla sauce on it, but I was feeling lazy so just ate it as it was.
I ‘d say this recipe was just okay. Rainer says it’s near the median for the recipes we’ve tried (most of which have been excellent, so that’s not saying this is a bad dish). When I’ve had Rote Grütze in the past, it was more chunky and I found the smooth consistency of this version a little disappointing. I think if I made it again (Rainer has suggested that I do), I would add some more whole fruit in to make it chunkier, whether that’s more cherries or another fruit. I also had a handful of Heidelbeeren (bilberries) leftover and tossed those into the pot with the rest of the fruit.
This dish is very flexible, and you can use whatever red berries you have available. You can also add boisenberries and black currants. I’ve even seen other colors of Grütze on offer, so you can do a yellow Grütze too (that version had peaches along with some light colored berries).
Other participants:
- Stephanie at A Greenville Life
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Here is my entry: http://agreenvillelife.blogspot.com/2009/06/rote-grutze-red-fruit-jelly.html
I accidently doubled the sugar needed – but it turned out fine- maybe slightly sweeter than needed, but it was still delicious.
Maybe not putting the fruit through the sieve would leave it chunkier – but since we used mostly raspberries, it helped to have alot of the seeds out of it.
My DH was the one that refused to try it – the word “jelly” stopped him from being able to try it with cream – he couldn’t get over the mental image of what jelly typically used for!
Stephanies last blog post..Rote Grütze (Red Fruit Jelly)
I think you need to sieve the fruit to get the seeds out, but if there were a higher proportion of cherries, it would be chunkier. And I can’t believe your DH wouldn’t even try it – his loss is your gain though!
Thank you Christine for testing all these wonderful German recipes. Makes my mouth water just reading and seeing your pictures of Rote Gruetze (BTW, I think Gruetze literally translates to “grits” which is really a size measurement, most usually applied to grains). I do love how German dishes have interesting names, like “Scheiterhaufen” — I nearly typed it reversing the ei — made me laugh!
Have you thought of doing Frankfurter Gruene Sosse sometime? — I’ve tried finding the traditional herbs here, and that’s a challenge — so I make lots of substitutions! I see that you’re planning to do Sorrel soup — luckily we have a wild sorrel/dock that grow like a weed here in many places (just make sure it’s not right along a polluted highway), and that’s my only chance! Here’s an article about sorrel you may find of interest: http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-sorrel.htm
borealkrauts last blog post..Best and Worse Part of the Day
‘I had trouble figuring out how to translate this, the closest I could come up with was red fruit jelly, but I’m sure there’s a better way to describe it. ‘
– just stick with the default british approach: when in doubt, call it ‘pudding’.
I am still wanting to do this, but I am bogged down with my research newsletter that I have to get out this week. The farmer’s market is tomorrow though and will get my berries then!
We always used to call this stuff fruit soup, maybe that will come over better to the jelly-haters?
@borealkraut: Nice article. Thanks for the link. I hope you’ll join in on the Sauerampfelsupple! We are going to be doing Grüne Sosse soon, the recipe says to use the herbs available to you, so I think it’s pretty flexible.
@rita and sam: Good suggestions, but I kind of like compote. Or maybe I’ll just stick with Grütze
@ claire: Hey, I know how busy you must be, whenever you have time is fine. Would love to hear your thoughts on the recipe.
This sounds so good! I have a sour pie cherry tree, and so far have only found one thing to make with its fruit: cherry-limeade cobbler. If I can find some red currants and red raspberries, I think this recipe would work.
Also, I like tapioca powder for thickening fruit recipes.
Elizabeth Barrettes last blog post..Life in the Raspberry Patch
@elizabeth: I think the berries in the recipe are flexible. If you have raspberries, cherries and strawberries, that’ll work fine too. You just need to adjust the sugar. I looked at a jar in the supermarket and it had sour cherries, strawberries, raspberries, red currants, black currants and boisenberries on the ingredients list.
I just came back to this today to comment about cherry prep. Cherries are just coming into season here, and prices are so good on the Bio (organic) ones that I wanted to freeze some. I asked my MIL if she had a cherry pitter, and she gave me a homemade device made from an old hairpin (the *really* old u-shaped ones) stuck in a wine cork, which then acts as a handle. You stick the loop of wire into the stem end of the cherry and scoop out the pit. My MIL said that basically all mechanical cherry-pitters are more trouble than they are worth, and this would be faster. I was skeptical, but I pitted 2 kg of cherries in about 40 minutes in front of the TV. I’ll post pics soon, but thought I’d share, as the cherries are still coming in. My next project will be sour cherry jam from the cherries on the tree in our yard. Maybe even some Rote Grütze…hmmm…
Ah, and I can spell the URL for my own blog, I swear. Sorry for any misdirected traffic, especially since I promised pics soon.
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