Sometimes the best cooking happens when you think something will never work – but you take the leap anyway.
That’s what my husband and I found when we tested Linda Dannenberg’s “True Blueberry: Recipes for Soups, Salads, Desserts and More” (Stewart, Tabori & Chang, 2005, $22.50). Along with the expected tarts, muffins and jam, the 80 recipes include salads, main dishes and drinks that star this pretty, healthful summer fruit.
There are also tips on how to keep blueberries from turning batter blue (toss them with a little flour first) and on how to remove a blueberry stain from washable clothes (dab, pour boiling water over the stain, then treat with stain remover).
But the notion of blueberries in hamburgers was so repellent that we just had to try it.
We couldn’t find freeze-dried blueberries, so we settled for dried – Dannenberg’s suggested substitution. True to Dannenberg’s word, the burgers turned out to be among the best we’d ever had. The blueberries didn’t advertise themselves; they just created a juicier, more flavorful burger with a hint of sweetness. The crowning endorsement came from our picky 4-year-old, who actually pronounced her burger “very good.”
Savory Blueberry Steak Sauce worked similar magic on New York strip steaks. You wouldn’t have known there was blueberry in the sauce. It added zing and looked pretty on the plate.
– Kate Shatzkin, The Baltimore Sun
