It’s been a while in between posts and I feel like summer is slipping away. Having come from Melbourne, where the weather is fickle to say the least, I’ve been enjoying the consistently warm weather here in Perth. It’s normally this time where Melburnians start saying goodbye to summer and hello autumn. But my friends here have told me not to worry. There is still more warm weather to come! That’s fine by me.
I don’t know about you, but in summer, I generally prefer my meals to be light and fresh. So salads have been consumed in abundance. Dishes like stews have been banished for the time being. I’ll start thinking about them when the first signs of cool weather eventuate. The light approach applies to desserts too (except maybe for chocolate). I love making desserts that are fruit driven at this time of year.
Minestrone of summer fruits and basil sorbet
serves 6-8
Basil sorbet
1 cup basil leaves, lightly packed
200g caster/white sugar
300ml water
Wash basil leaves if required to remove any soil/grit. Bring water to the boil. Add basil leaves and blanche for 10 seconds, remove and refresh immediately in iced water. Add sugar to retained water in saucepan and stir until dissolved. Set aside syrup to cool. Combine syrup and basil leaves in a food processor/blender and process. I wanted to see pieces of basil in the sorbet so I didn’t process the mixture for too long.
Some people might feel a bit dubious about this sorbet but you’ll be surprised how good it is.
Berry juice
500g very red strawberries
100g raspberries
50g caster sugar
Place all ingredients in a metal bowl. Mix well and leave for a few hours. Strain through a fine sieve and chill.
Well, that’s the hard work out of the way. Now the easy part…
Gather together some summer fruit. The idea is to have a colourful array in the dish. I went for peaches, mangoes, blackberries, blueberries and strawberries. Cut large fruit like peaches and mangoes into fairly small pieces.
To serve, place fruit in serving dish so that they are fairly evenly distributed. Carefully pour berry juice into dish. Place a scoop of sorbet on top. Garnish with julienne of basil. Enjoy.
Technorati Tags: dessert, minestrone, fruit, summer, basil, recipe, sorbet, madchilli
