Polish Strawberry Kisiel - AKA Strawberry Fruit Pudding

This is a very simple pudding; it's basically fruit juice thickened with flour.  I will confess right here - mine did not thicken much at all.  Really, you could just about drink it (which apparently is also a thing).  Not sure why?  Not enough flour?; not the right kind of flour?  Who knows?  Still tasty though.  The original recipe calls for potato flour which I didn't have, but I read that you can use other flours like cornflour or arrowroot - so I did :-)  Apparently potato flour has a slightly earthy taste which I didn't fancy here.  

Soft foods are good for me at the moment.  I had a back molar tooth out last week (maybe a wisdom tooth?), and it's giving me a hard time.  The socket (?) is feeling okay, but my jawbone is being a right mongrel.  Drugs are my friend right now :-)  And warm, salty mouth washes every couple of hours.  My dentist should just take over my bank account.  And he reckons I need another crown.  OMG!  

This is a slight adaptation of a recipe from Rose Petal Jam by Beata Zatorska and Simon Target.  Beata was born in Poland, but migrated to Australia and became a family doctor in Sydney.  This book is about her travels back home after twenty years.  Gorgeous photos and interesting tales.  But no nutty bling for her :-)  Nor did she mention divvying up the cold water into two amounts; in fact her recipe just suddenly mentions using another 100 mL of water for the slurry.  As my dessert was a wee bit runny, I decided that next time it would be best to use the 500 mL for both the fruit mixture and the slurry.  

  

Serves 6-7:

ready for the bling

ingredients:

500g./1 lb 2 oz strawberries or fruit of your choice - fresh or frozen

500 mL/17 fl oz water, divided into 400 mL and 100 mL

6 Tbs (85g.) caster sugar

8 tsp (24g.) arrowroot or potato flour or cornflour (see Notes)

a splash (about 1/8 tsp) rosewater - optional

juice of a small lemon - maybe 40-50 mL

2 tsp Chambord or other fruit liqueur - optional

For the topping:

a handful (50g. or so/2 oz) pecans or walnuts or your fave nut, chopped roughly

more strawbs, sliced

chocolate Flake bar, broken up

raspberry or strawberry pearls - optional!

Method:

If using fresh fruit, you will need to rinse, hull and slice up; otherwise just tip the frozen slices (or fruit juice) into a medium saucepan

Then pour the 400 mL water, plus the sugar, in with the fruit

Bring to the boil, then turn down to a simmer and let the fruit soften for about five minutes

Place a sieve over a medium bowl, (don't forget the bowl) and tip the fruity mass into the sieve

Press out all the juice with a large spoon, leaving behind the pulpy bits in the sieve and pour the juice back into your pan

Make a slurry with the arrowroot/potato flour and the other 100 mL of cold water (see photo below)

Then slowly mix it into the fruit juice, stirring constantly till the mixture thickens (or maybe not - tee hee)

Now add the rosewater, lemon juice and liqueur (if using)

Let it simmer gently for another minute, then leave to cool slightly

Spoon/pour into ramekins and let it cool in the fridge

Add the nuts, extra fruit, chocolate shards and fruity pearls on top

Some recipes say it's best hot, some say cold; I liked it cold

Notes:

You can even use bought orange juice from the shop!

Arrowroot is AKA tapioca flour

Flake bar is light and flaky, and breaks up into shards very easily, but you could chop up or grate some regular chocolate

The bling was my idea; the original recipe is just the thickened fruit juice

ingredients gathered

fruit, water and sugar in the pan

strain the fruit and press out the juice

make a slurry with the flour and water

simmer and stir with the slurry

simmer for a few minutes till it thickens

ready for the fridge

bling bling bling!

all blinged up and ready for the eating
(hands courtesy of our English/Aussie friend visiting from the UK)

© Sherry M.

a beautiful book