Summer Salad with Strawberries, Prosciutto and Cacioricotta

With local strawberries finally here, I've tried to use them on as many occasions as possible. Remember my strawberries with elderflower zabaglione recipe? Well, this is the starter we served during that dinner. Pretty and seasonal, and delicious as well.

I used an Italian Cacioricotta cheese, made from sheep and goat milk. It's a young and crumbly cheese, similar to pecorino. Use this, if you can find some, or replace with a semi-soft goat cheese of your choice.

Summer Salad with Strawberries, Prosciutto and Cacioricotta
(Suvine salat maasikate ning singiga)
Serves 6

large handful of salad leaves per person (I used lamb's lettuce)
200 g (about half a pound) of strawberries
6 slices of Prosciutto/Parma ham
75 g Cacioricotta cheese

Salad dressing:
1 Tbsp balsamic vinegar (I used Belazu)
3 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
sea salt
freshly ground black pepper

Rinse and dry the salad leaves, divide onto plates.
Clean strawberries, halve or quarter them. Rip Prosciutto into smaller pieces. Crumble the cheese. Divide between plates.
Whisk olive oil and balsamico together, season with salt and pepper and drizzle over the salad portions.
Serve.

Rye bread with hazelnuts, raisins and dried cranberries

I've been baking my own naturally leavened (aka no-yeast) rye bread again, using just rye flour, and I'm very pleased with the results. I always make two large loafs - one plain (well, I do add caraway seeds and linseeds to the dough), the other flavoured. Last weekend I added some hazelnuts, dried cranberries and raisins to the mixture. Absolutely delicious!

Let me know if you're interested in the recipe.

EDIT 8 July 2009: Well, looks like I'll need to post the recipe indeed :) It's a longer post, but I'll do it a.s.a.p.!

Strawberries with Elderflower Zabaglione

We've got some friends living nearby, who love good food as much as we do (their 7-year old daughter's favourite pizza is with arugula and Prosciutto!). We get together pretty much on a weekly basis at each other's place, cooking and eating together. Last Friday we - K,. me and Nora - walked over to their house. The weather was hot and sunny, as it has been for over a week now, and we decided to have an al fresco dinner in the backyard. They were in charge of the main course (excellent grilled Teriyaki salmon with new potatoes and a salad, with additional nibbles), we prepared a quick starter (Strawberry and Prosciutto salad with Cacioricotta cheese), and this strawberry dessert. Estonian strawberries have finally appeared on the market stalls, so we were keen to use as many of them as possible..

This is a great summer recipe. I usually make zabaglione (or sabayon, if you prefer the French name) with Marsala or Madeira or some other dessert wine. However, I have recently come across many recipes combining strawberries with elderflower, so I decided to try elderflower cordial instead. It worked like a dream - the resulting zabaglione was light and sweet with strong floral undertone, which complemented the strawberries well. We gave a quick treatment with the torch, but you could just dip the berries into this zabaglione.

I used a Swedish Brunneby Fläderblomst cordial, available in various health food shops here in Estonia.

Strawberries with Elderflower Zabaglione
(Gratineeritud maasikad leedrikreemiga)
Serves six



500 g strawberries, cleaned and halved, if necessary
4 large egg yolks
3-4 Tbsp caster sugar
4 Tbsp elderflower cordial

If you're planning to bruleé the desserts, place the strawberries in small ramekins. Otherwise just divide the berries between six glasses.
Place egg yolks and sugar in a heatproof bowl and whisk until foamy. Whisk in the elderflower cordial.
Place the bowl on top of a small saucepan, where you've brought about an inch of water into simmering boil. Continue whisking the egg mixture over the double-boiler, until it thickens (should take about 7-10 minutes). DO NOT BOIL, as the egg yolks will curdle if they get too hot.
When the mixture is thick and foamy, spoon over the strawberries. Either serve at once or, using the gas torch, grill until golden brown marks appear.