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Strawberry & Elderflower Jelly, Lemon Verbena & Elderflower Fritter

These little jellies are made using fresh strawberries. Set using Insta gel which is powdered gelatine means you don’t need to heat any part of the product up, just blitz into the pre-made puree. The elderflower jelly is made from homemade cordial and the flower heads work well fried in tempura and then dusted with icing sugar. The lemon verbena adds a nice lemony summer flavour to finish the dish.

Preparation:
Cooking:
Serves:

Elderflower Cordial

Ingredients

  • 30 elderflower heads
  • 1.7 litres boiling water
  • 900g caster sugar
  • 2oz citric acid
  • 2 unwaxed oranges, sliced
  • 3 unwaxed lemons, sliced

Method

Pour the boiling water over the sugar in a very large mixing bowl. Stir well and leave to cool.
Add the citric acid, the orange and lemon slices, and then the flowers.
Leave in a cool place for 24 hours, stirring occasionally.
Strain through some muslin and transfer to a sterilised bottle

Elderflower Jelly

Ingredients

  • 100ml Elderflower cordial
  • 100ml water
  • 5g gellan gum

Method

Using a hand blender blitz together the cordial, water and Gellan Gum
Bring to the boil & pour into a container and leave to set solid.
Once set, chop fine with a knife and store in a piping bag

Elderflower Fritter

Ingredients

  • 6-8 heads of elderflower washed
  • A bowl of tempura mixed using tempura flour from Oliver Kay
  • Icing sugar

Method

Strawberry Jelly

Ingredients

  • 500ml strawberry puree made from fresh strawberries, I use ½ sugar to fruit & cook, blitz, pass and cool quickly to keep as much freshness as possible.
  • 14g Insta Gel (work on 7g per 1 leaf of gelatine as a ratio)
  • Lemon verbena

Method

Using a hand blender, blitz the insta gel with the puree. Put into a vac-pac machine in a large container and allow to go on a full cycle to extract air bubbles, repeat a couple of times
Pour the jelly into moulds and leave to set.

To assemble

Ingredients

Method

Dip the elderflowers into the tempura, (I like to add a little cordial to the batter to accentuate the flavour) then dust with icing sugar, arrange everything on the plate and garnish with the lemon verbena.