Blood orange and Verbena sorbet

I love blood oranges..It’s a winter fruit that has such a warm colour that it seems to bring the summer back..and as they appear in the markets after Christmas and they are around until the end of January it’s like they bring a whiff of spring with them…

Meanwhile you can never tell exactly what colour they will have until you cut them. Of course if you see some red colouration on the outside peel you get an idea but again you cannot be totally sure.

I photographed some the other day and was left with about ten that I had cut in two and was wondering what to do with them..So I thought I would squeeze the juice out of them and make something with that..I had about 500ml of juice in the end but was at loss of what to do with it.

I went out into the backyard to bring Farah back inside and I spotted the Verbena in the herb garden which was a bit battered by the recent cold spell we have had.

So I cut about 20 leaves and went back inside the house. I had decided what I was going to make…

I don’t have an usual recipe to offer you as I was working with what was available but I will try to make you understand the thought process..

OK with the juice you can do various things.. you could put it in a cake or biscuits or make a jelly or freeze it and make a granita let’s say. Or make a sorbet which is what I wanted to make.

Generally a sorbet is juice our pulped fruit with ice and usually has some sugar added and often a little alcohol..

You can make it more aromatic by adding various herbs but as we are not making ice cream where you can boil the herbs and spices with the cream we have to find an alternative way.

The easiest way is to place the juice in a blender and throw the herbs in and blend together and then sieve the blended mixture. That way the pulp of the orange is broken down as well as the herbs and the whole mixture is much more aromatic.

You need some type of syrup to sweeten the mixture- I used the syrup left over from my Bergamot cake and I added a little sweet dessert wine I had left over.

Let’s take a closer look..

Diffuculty: 1 of 3

Duration:10 minutes and time for freezing

Serves:5

Ingredients

500g Blood orange juice (depending on the colour of the fruit the juice will be that colour)

20-30 leaves of Verbena (less in spring when it is fresher)

150g Syrup 1:1 water and sugar (with whatever flavour you wish)

30g sweet dessert wine of your choice

A little lemon juice (optional)

Method

Put the juice and the Verbena in the blender and blend for 2 mins.

Strain through a sieve and keep only the juice discard the rest.

If necessary use a piece of muslin to sieve out the smaller pieces of herb.

Put the syrup and the sweet wine into the mixture.

If the mixture is too sweet add some lemon juice.

Stir the mixture well and leave in the fridge for a few hours to become colder and then place in an ice cream maker .

The result should be something between a granita and a sorbet..it should taste great!!