Sour Cherry Salsa

Summer's here and for a very short time it's very easy to get your hands on fresh cherries. This simple salsa is the perfect combination of sweet, salty and tangy and it's impossible to keep around. You can use any kind of cherries for this, even sour or nanking cherries, all you need to do is mix up the ingredients and serve.

Ingredients (note the amounts are relative - use as a general guide)

• 3-4 Cups Cherries
• 1/2 White Onion
• 1 Jalapeno Pepper
• Limes
• Cilantro
• Salt
• Honey

Pit the cherries and put them in a non reactive (i.e. glass/plastic/ceramic) bowl. Depending on the size of the cherries you may have to rough chop them a little, the idea is to have all of the elements in the salsa be roughly the same size.

I have to point out the DIY cherry picker was incredibly easy to use once you got the technique down. The idea came from a video from the the guys at Homemade Gourmet and is made from an old fork have a look at the video here: DIY Cherry Pitter

To use it all you do is poke the two little fangs into the cherry, and then using your thumb, roll the cherry until the fangs are positioned behind the pit and then pull it straight back and out of the cherry. Once you get going, you can easily out a cherry per second, takes no time at all.

Chop up the onion, jalapeño and cilantro and add to the cherries. Slice up the lime and add the juice to the mixture. If you are feeling particularly ambitious, you can even zest the rind of the lime and add it in. Give everything a good stir.

Finally, add a good pinch of salt to the mix and taste. Depending on the type of cherries you are using you may have to add some sweetness to balance the flavours - you can use honey or sugar, whichever you prefer.

Serve it up and enjoy. Store in a sealed container in the fridge.