With strawberry jelly, sorbet and leather, and vanilla cream

Despite what the weather would have you believe, it really is July - we promise! The Wimbledon final is on Sunday, schools are breaking up for the summer holidays, and pick-your-own farms are bursting with juicy strawberries that are small, sweet and perfect with cream and meringue. This is an unusual take on the classic strawberry Eton Mess by Moyo from Nova Restaurant - the contrasting textures and temperatures of the jelly, leather and sorbet combine with soft meringue to gently make the most of this beautiful fruit.

Serves 6

INGREDIENTS:

3 punnets of strawberries

FOR THE MERINGUE:
90g egg whites (approx 3 eggs)
175g caster sugar

FOR THE CREAM:
250ml whipping
Seeds of 1 vanilla pod

FOR THE JELLY AND THE LEATHER
2 punnets of strawberries
Platinum-grade gelatine
Empty vanilla pod

FOR THE SORBET:
1 litre water
200g granulated sugar

METHOD:

FOR THE SORBET:
1. Firstly, make a 20% stock syrup by adding 200g of granulated sugar to a pan of water. Bring to a gentle boil and stir until the sugar has dissolved. Let it cool.
2. De-hull 1 punnet of strawberries and place them in a blender. Cover with the 20% stock syrup and blitz.
3. You can then either use an ice cream maker to make the sorbet, or place into a container and put into the freezer for a couple of hours.

FOR THE JELLY AND THE LEATHER:
1. De-hull two punnets of strawberries, and place them in a heat-proof bowl with the empty vanilla pod.
2. Cover the bowl with cling film, and then place the bowl above a pan of boiling water (to form a bain-marie). Make sure that the water isn't actually touching the bowl, and that the pan doesn't boil dry.
3. After 1.5 hours, remove the vanilla pod and strain the strawberries, keeping both the juice and the pulp.
4. Weigh the juice, then for every 200g of juice, add 4g of platinum grade gelatine (If it is bronze grade, add 5g per 200g of juice, or 4.5g if it is silver grade).
5. Let the jelly set.
6. For the leather, take the strawberry pulp you have left from making the juice for the jelly and blend it until smooth.
7. Spread it out on piece of greaseproof paper and leave in the open air until dry and nicely chewy - this can take anywhere from 2-24 hours depending on the humidity, as the strawberries need to dehydrate.

FOR THE MERINGUE:
1. Place the egg whites in a bowl and leave them in a cool, dry place for a few hours to let them dry out (too high a moisture content in the egg whites will make the meringues floppy).
2. Using an electric whisk, start whipping the egg whites until they become foamy, then slowly add the sugar whisking all the time until they form stiff peaks.
3. Pipe the mixture onto a baking tray and bake for 45 mins at 120C, then turn oven down to 52C for 1 hour.
4. Let them cool.

FOR THE CREAM:
1. For this dish we do not add any sugar to this cream. It is best to use whipping cream (40% fat content) rather than double cream (48% fat content) as it will give a better texture.
2. Add the seeds of 1 vanilla pod to 250ml of whipping cream and which until thick.

To serve, place all the elements on the plate as above and enjoy!

Nova Restaurant
68 Pensby Road, Heswall CH60 7RE
Tel: 0151 342 9959
www.novarestaurant.co.uk