“Strawberries are the masterpiece of summer,” says Ravinder Bhogal, Guardian columnist and chef/owner of Jikoni in London. At their peak, you’d be hard pushed to better eating them straight from the punnet (cream optional, but encouraged), but, Bhogal adds, pairing strawberries with floral waters such as rose or elderflower comes a very close second. “I love a strawberry and rose sorbet, or a traditional Victoria sponge made with strawberry and rose jam, cream and fresh strawberries macerated in rosewater,” she says.
Strawberries appreciate simplicity, so macerating them is a no-brainer at the best of times. Chef Lorcan Spiteri, of Caravel, a restaurant on a converted barge in north London, slices his fruit thinly, then adds icing sugar and lemon juice and leaves for 20 minutes or so. “We then use them as a topping for various things,” he says, of which there are numerous options: “Puff pastry and frangipane with a bit of crème diplomat [creme patissière mixed with chantilly cream] and the macerated strawberries on top. Or make a kind of Eton mess with macerated strawberries and meringue. Or blitz the strawberries into a coulis and use that to top vanilla ice-cream with some nuts.”
