Sour cherries roasted with black peppercorns and tarragon are addictively delicious. I ate them over Greek yogurt, and they would be great with last week's Pot Cheese, or with roast duck. I ate half of this recipe as is, and pureed the other half, peppercorns, tarragon and all, to use in cocktails or poured over ice cream and/or a berry Pavlova.
Pink peppercorns would work here instead of the black. Basil instead of tarragon would taste quite nice. It also occurred to me this morning that Szechuan peppercorns would be a great alternative to black peppercorns so I am going to give that a try next time. I think their floral spiciness would be really interesting, in a good way.
6 cups sour cherries, pitted
1 Tbsp whole black peppercorns
2 Tbsps chopped tarragon leaves
3/4 cup of granulated sugar (you may want more, I like a bit of tartness)
Preheat the oven to 400.
While the oven is preheating, measure all of the ingredients except the tarragon into an oven safe dish and stir to combine. Bu the time the oven is hot, the cherries should have started to release some of their liquid and the sugar should be getting syrupy.
Stir again to combine and roast in the oven for ten minutes. Stir well and roast an additional ten.
Remove from the oven and stir in the chopped tarragon.
Allow to come to room temperature and eat as described above and illustrated below.
