What are sour cherries

A. Sour cherries have an intense flavour, used mainly for cooking. Sour cherries are descended from the wild Prunus cerasus and can be divided into two categories: amerell, a light-coloured, clear-juiced cherry; and griotte, a dark cherry with coloured juice.

Q. Where do they come from

A. For centuries, Kent and East Sussex supplied the London markets with Kentish Red and Morello cherries. These days they are much harder to come by, and the best place to find them is at the Brogdale Horticultural Trust in Kent. The fruit comes into season in July and August, and keen gardeners can actually order a couple of trees from the many different varieties they stock, including sour Kentish morello and Knights Early Black.

Q. How are they used on cooking

A. They are often served as an accompaniement to duck or foie gras. The fruit is usually poached softly to release an intense flavour. They are very versatile as dried fruit or tinned in syrup.

Try them in a savoury dish with chick peas and couscous.

Take:

2 tbps vegetable stock powder

350g couscous

40g dried sour cherries

1/2 tsp cinammon

1/2 tsp ground cumin

60g pine nuts

400g tin chick peas

30g butter

Add 450ml of boiling water to vegetable stock. Place in a pan and bring to the boil. Add salt. Put couscous in a bowl, mix sour cherries, cumin and cinnamon and add to pan of boiling water. When it starts to boil, take it off the heat. Toast pinenuts in a frying pan until golden.

Heat canned chick peas. When the couscous has absorbed the water, add chick peas (drained), stir in butter and the pine nuts, reserving a few for garnish.

Morello cherries, usually found in glass jars in good delis, are a useful way of making an American-style cherry pie. Either make or buy shortcrust pastry and roll out into discs of about 225g each. Drain a 680g jar of morello cherries. Melt 30g of butter, add 90g sugar and a tablespoon of flour. Stir well and add a few tablespoons of juice from the drained cherries. The paste will be quite stiff to prevent the pie getting soggy.

Add cherries and paste to pastry on a pie dish. Top with the other pastry disc and crimp the edges. Make a few cuts in the pastry to allow the steam to escape.

Moisten the edges and top with remaining pastry.

Place in a preheated oven gas mark 6/200C. After 15 minutes, cover with foil and reduce heat to gas mark 4/180C and cook for another 18 minutes.

When cooked, sprinkle with caster sugar. The Americans serve this a la mode, which is with ice cream

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By Katharine MacColl