Strawberries love so much more than cream. Here are our top 10 ways with the luscious red berry.
Around 60% of the British strawberries sold in supermarkets are of the Elsanta variety, but some have dismissed this strawberry as somewhat tasteless and lacking in natural sweetness. Instead, look out for other varieties such as Ava Rosa (juicy, very red, flavoursome), Driscoll Jubilee (heart-shaped and naturally sweet), Sweet Eve (widely considered the best flavoured strawberry), and Dream, a large Scottish berry launched in 2013 with a very sweet flavour.
And remember, you can do so much more with strawberries than eating them straight from the punnet or with a bit of cream. Take a look at our top 10 recipes below for some inspiration.
A token savoury before we get to the sweet: strawberries work extremely well with spinach and ham as part of this salad. The black pepper dressing offsets the sweetness with a crisp tang, and the Bayonne ham adds a dose of umami salted meat. An excellently balanced plateful of flavour.
Power through with strawberries! Chock-a-block with antioxidants, vitamins C, D3 and manganese, they are a nutritional powerhouse. Tina Leigh mixes hers with avocado, Medjool dates, coconut milk and mint to create a really creamy smoothie, gorgeous on a sunny morning.
Ooh la la Raymond Blanc, what a fancy strawberry crumble! But don’t be deceived; it’s super simple to make this French take on an English classic, which layers macerated strawberries with a crumbly biscuit-esque topping. Finish with a scoop of raspberry sorbet.
Who says Yorkshire puddings are best served with roast beef? Gary Kingshott likes his sweet Yorkshire puddings – made the same way as the savoury kind – with a scoop of ice cream and a generous blob of strawberry jam (homemade is best!). Go on, try something new today…
This striking dessert draws the tea-time favourites of cream and strawberries together into an elegant whole. There are a fair few steps involved in this recipe, but the delicate end result is worth the effort – and you'll probably have left over sable biscuits to snack on for the rest of the week.
Who can resist a ice cream cone in the summer? Whip up a batch of your own with this recipe, which utilises double cream, yoghurt, liqueur and the best quality strawberry conserve you can obtain. Whip up your cream, layer it with the conserve and freeze for about 3 hours.
James Martin’s mixed berry gratin is one of those desserts which looks deceptively difficult to make. Fool dinner party guests by chucking together a bunch of berries with fresh basil, then topping the mix with a simple sabayon and some syrupy pomegranate juice.
Homemade scotch pancakes, scattered with warm sliced strawberries, stacked with mascarpone and drizzled with melted cinnamon butter... we’d like this for breakfast in bed, please, with a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice. Alternatively, served up for pudding after a barbecue with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.
An extremely rich and creamy panna cotta – made with double cream, fresh vanilla and a sprinkle of golden sugar – needs something sweet to cut through it. Enter humble English berries (strawberries and blueberries?) in the summer time, or poached pears in winter.
Nothing says English summertime like Eton mess… with a jug of Pimm’s… in the rain. We can’t help with the weather, but we do know a cracking mess recipe. Keep it simple: crushed meringue, lashings of double cream, and plenty of strawberries – Eric Lanlard's recipe calls for raspberries, but a mix of both plus some blackberries is best.
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