Looking to surprise your lady with a sweet dessert? This easy recipe doesn'require any baking and the ingredients can be readily found in supermarkets.
Two-pepper red wine strawberries
Ingredients
150ml good-quality red wine,
preferably Cabernet Sauvignon
4 tbsp castor sugar
1/2 tsp black peppercorns, coarsely
cracked
5cm piece of vanilla pod, seeds removed
1 tsp cornflour
25g unsalted butter
450g strawberries
1/2 tsp green peppercorns, drained
Vanilla ice cream, to serve
Mint leaves, to decorate
How to prepare it?
1. Put the wine in a saucepan, holding
back 2 tbsp of it, and add the
sugar and half the black peppercorns.
Add the vanilla seeds, and the pod and stir over a moderate heat to dissolve the sugar. Bring to the boil.
2. Mix the 2 tbsp of wine with the cornflour and add to the pan. Cook gently for 1-2 minutes, until the mixture has thickened slightly. Remove the sauce from the heat and take out the vanilla pod.
3. Melt the butter in a frying pan over a high heat, add the strawberries and the remaining black peppercorns and
cook for 1 minute. Pour over the wine
sauce and return to the boil.
4. Add the green peppercorns, then pour into a bowl and leave to cool.
Refrigerate overnight to allow the flavours to develop.
5. To serve, put the strawberry mixture in cocktail glasses, top with vanilla ice cream and decorate with mint leaves.
How to remove vanilla seeds?
To remove the seeds from a vanilla pod, make a slit along the length of the pod with a sharp knife, then carefully run the tip of the knife from one end of the slit to the other.