109: Gooseberries with mascarpone cream, p187

Oooh, a surprise! These gooseberries came from the allotment of another reader - thanks! - and were hand picked by her lovely hubby and biked over to Waterloo just in time for the opening night of The Railway Children at the old Eurostar terminal (actually on the tracks!), to which we'd all been invited. What a sweetheart! I don't think I've ever prepared/cooked with gooseberries before... funny little things, like incredibly full water balloons, looking like for all intents and purposes that they are about to burst rather explosively, their translucent skins bulging ominously, and their veins stretched tight in their perfect little spheres. They looked like more like cartoon gooseberries than what I'd imagined real ones would. But soooo tart they are! Ouch! I wasn't actually looking forward to serving them - not a dish to savour when you've got a mouth ulcer... But gentle stewing with a bit of sugar worked a treat - no water added, the little balloons started to collapse and released plenty for them to bubble away in - and served with the sweet, soft mascarpone cream, they really weren't too sour at all. The mascarpone cream was definitely better than the fromage blanc earlier in the week - the mascarpone, egg yolks and vanilla giving the cream a delicious richness, and the whipped egg whites added in at the end resulting in a little, sweet froth. Lovely jubbly. Made to much of course, really should have halved the recipe again. Silly me... Might take the leftovers into work, wonder if the cream will be completely flat and inedible by tomorrow morning?