Fresh sour cherries are fleeting -- here’s how to make the most of them

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Full of flavour, fragile and fleeting, sour cherries are a treasure worth seeking out.

According to Tyler Butler, general manager and third-generation farmer at Butler’s Orchard in Germantown, Maryland, “they’re underrated.” However, those in the know “are just ecstatic over sour cherries.”

Also known as tart cherries, the fruit is more acidic than the more commonly available sweet cherries. They’re also smaller in size and “they have a thinner, softer skin and the inside is much softer,” according to Anastasia Zolotarev, author of the recently published “Sour Cherries and Sunflowers” cookbook. They’re also juicier. “If you were to cook them, they’re going to produce like five times more juice than a [sweet] cherry,” Zolotarev said.

There are two major classifications of tart cherries: amarelle and morello. The most popular variety is Montmorency, which is under the amarelle umbrella and is the kind Butler grows at his farm. “It’s got a red skin with a yellow flesh,” Butler said. (Morellos have a darker skin with a red flesh and are more commonly found in Europe.)

The balance of sweet and tart can vary among varieties and even time of year, according to Zolotarev. “If it’s late summer, they are a bit sweeter,” she said. “If it’s the beginning, they’re much more tart.”

Part of the verve surrounding fresh sour cherries is their scarcity. “The problem with sour cherries is either you have a lot of cherries or you have no cherries,” Butler said. That’s because the trees need a cold winter and a frost-free spring to keep from killing the blossoms.

Here’s what you need to know about making the most of these seasonal gems.

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Picking, storing and pitting

Since the fruit doesn’t ripen once picked, you want to wait until it’s at its peak. “If you wait too long, the insects will come in and the rot will come in, so you have a short window to really harvest,” Butler said. “What also makes them special is that when it happens, it happens and you’ve got to make it count.”

Whether you’re picking your own or buying fresh tart cherries from a farmers market, Butler suggests “looking for cherries that have stems on. That’s going to keep them a little fresher, because once you pick and just pull, you have an open wound, so now your clock is ticking.”

Once picked, they don’t keep long or ship well, which is why it’s almost impossible to find the fresh fruit in grocery stores. “If they sit overnight in a bucket or anything, they’ll start to lose their juice, so it’s good to either use them as soon as you possibly can or freeze them,” Zolotarev said. (You can also store them in the refrigerator – unwashed until you’re ready to eat them – where they can last for up to five days, according to Butler.)

Before using fresh sour cherries, as with all cherries, it’s important to pit them first lest you risk someone chipping a tooth. Compared to pitting the sweet variety, “they are easier because they’re softer, yet trickier because juice goes everywhere,” Zolotarev said. An easy way to remove the pit is to simply push it out with your finger, but you can use whatever method or tool you like best. (If you’re unable to get your hands on fresh sour cherries, you can also find them frozen, jarred, canned, dried and as juice.)

While their tartness might be pungent to some, others love eating them unadulterated. “We freeze them, and I’ve got a 5- and 8-year-old and they’re just popping them in their mouth like it’s dessert,” Butler said. More often, you’ll find them cooked, to mellow their tartness, or paired with a sweetener of some sort to balance their sour flavor.

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How to cook and bake with sour cherries

You can usually find them in desserts, such as bars or crisps. In North America, the most common use for sour cherries is baked into a pie, which allows for their singular flavor to truly shine. (They’re also referred to as pie cherries.) The dried fruit is a great option, too, when folded into cookies. Another option is to turn the fruit into preserves to spread on toast, spoon on ice cream or serve on a spoon with coffee, as they do in some Eastern European cultures.

When looking for savory inspiration, sour cherries are very popular in many Eastern European and Persian cuisines, but can be found elsewhere, too. One option is halushky, which pairs the Ukrainian dumplings with a sour cherry sauce to serve as a sweet-tart side alongside meat or other vegetable dishes. There’s also albaloo polo, a Persian rice dish with tart cherries that is usually served with some sort of meat. Both sour cherry juice and the dried fruit are used in meatballswith sour cherry sauce (Kabab Karaz), a Syrian dish.

For more inspiration, Zolotarev said the cherries go “really beautifully with poultry and earthy flavors.” She mentioned a recipe for duck stuffed with buckwheat and served with a spiced sour cherry sauce.

The fruit is just as versatile in drink form. Of course, you can simply buy the bottled juice from the grocery store. Another option is to make a kompot, as it’s referred to in Eastern Europe, in which you briefly simmer the fruit, lightly sweeten it, and then strain it into jars to store in the fridge. Or try visinata, a traditional Romanian liqueur made by combing the fruit with sugar and alcohol and letting it macerate for anywhere from several weeks to a few months.

With sour cherries, you can let your creativity run wild. But Zolotarev offered one piece of advice: “They are definitely really tart, so just adjust the sugar to your liking.”