Fruits
Sour Cherry
Βύσσινο · Vissino
The sour cherry, vissino, is a genuinely different ingredient from the sweet cherry eaten out of hand, sharper, darker and far too tart to enjoy raw. Greek cooking treats it almost entirely as something to preserve, and the trees are grown across northern and central Greece specifically for that purpose rather than for the fruit bowl.
Vissino glyko, whole pitted sour cherries cooked slowly in sugar syrup, is the classic result, and it is really two preserves in one jar. The cherries are eaten by the spoonful as a spoon sweet or over yogurt and ice cream, while the deep red syrup, diluted with cold water and plenty of ice, becomes vissinada, the summer drink found in every Greek kitchen through July and August.
Sweet cherries are not a substitute here. Their sugar has nothing to push against, and the result is cloying and one-note where the whole point is the balance between tartness and syrup. Frozen pitted sour cherries work perfectly well out of season. Toss the pitted fruit with the sugar and leave it a few hours before any heat, which draws out the juice and gives a better set.
Recipes with sour cherry
2 recipes on the site using it.
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