Strawberries are sweet and a very good buy in the markets at the moment. I always think of strawberries as a spring fruit but, when living in Queensland, I realised that their northern season goes from May until November which is when the Melbourne season starts. Last month in Queensland I bought some new season strawberries at the local Yandina market – they were delicious, bright red and sweet. To me Queensland is ‘local’….and so last Friday I bought a few punnets at the South Melbourne market – they hailed from Caboolture, just down from the road from my On the Ridge! They were a lovely addition to the crème brûlée we made in class on the weekend .
Today I am making a strawberry sorbet….so simple, especially with my new ice cream churn.
Strawberry Sorbet
Makes 1 litre of sorbet
250g castor sugar
250ml water
500g strawberries
1 tbsp lime juice
1 small egg white, lightly beaten
To make the sugar syrup base for the sorbet, combine the sugar and water in a saucepan over low heat. Cook the syrup, stirring to dissolve the sugar, then increase the heat and simmer for 2 minutes. Remove from the heat and allow to cool. Refrigerate until needed.
Wash and remove the green stalk from the strawberries and process in the food processor until smooth. If you wish, you may push the mixture through a fine sieve to remove the seeds.
Pour the strawberry purée, lime juice and sugar syrup into the chilled bowl of the ice cream churn and churn according to the machine’s instructions. Transfer to a freezer safe container and freeze for up to one week.
