Viva Lewes Issue #107 August 2015

food
Summer fruits in a rosé wine jelly served
with strawberry jus and clotted cream
Peter Bayless’s culinary career was kick-started when he won MasterChef 2006. Now based in Heathfield,
he works as an independent chef in France and the UK and is a regular contributor to food
magazines, TV and radio. He also teaches at food fairs and culinary schools throughout the southeast.
On 22 and 23 August, he’ll be taking part in cookery demonstrations at the Wealden Food and
Wine Festival at Bentley Wildfowl Trust.
This jelly terrine is Peter’s own invention. “Nothing heralds summer like the arrival of summer berries,”
he tells us. “This dish really makes the most of their freshness, colour, flavours and beauty. It
takes a few hours to prepare, but it’s well worth the effort.”
For the jelly (makes 12-14 portions):
Large punnet strawberries (400g)
150g raspberries
150g blueberries
150g blackberries
100g redcurrants
1 bottle rosé wine
12 leaves of gelatine
1 ½ tbsp caster sugar
For the jus:
Juice of one lemon
1 tbsp caster sugar
Clotted cream to serve
Wash the fruits under running water and drain
thoroughly. Cut the tops off the strawberries and
halve from top to bottom. Strip the redcurrants
from their stems using the tines of a fork. Set
250g strawberries aside and gently mix the remainder
with the other washed fruits. Place the
gelatine leaves in a bowl and cover with cold water.
Place the sugar into a saucepan with a splash of
the rosé. Heat until the sugar has dissolved, then
add the rest of the wine and warm through. Remove
the saucepan from the heat. Squeeze out
the now-soft gelatine and add to the wine, stirring
to dissolve completely. If there are some
stubborn sticky bits of gelatine, carefully re-heat
the pan while stirring, but don’t allow the mixture
to boil − the jelly won’t set if it does. Put the
saucepan to one side until the jelly has cooled.
Lightly oil a 12-inch terrine dish and scatter a little
of the fruit into the base. Cover with liquid
jelly and refrigerate until set. Repeat this process
four times. Once the final layer is set, add another
layer of liquid jelly to completely cover the fruits
and put back in the fridge. Not only will the jelly
preserve the fruits, but the solid layer of jelly will
prevent the terrine from collapsing when cut.
While the jelly is setting, make the strawberry jus.
Put the sugar and lemon juice into a metal bowl
with the 250g saved trimmed strawberries. Cover
the bowl with cling film, place over a saucepan
of gently simmering water, and leave for three
hours. While still hot, remove the cling film from
the top of the bowl and pour the contents through
a colander into another bowl. Don’t squeeze the
pulp − this will make your jus go cloudy. Discard
the pulp and decant the jus into a container or
squeezy bottle. The jus will keep in the fridge for
over a week.
Once the jelly is fully set, turn it out onto cling
film, wrap up completely, and put in the fridge.
It should spend as little time as possible out of
the fridge before serving. Once it’s time to serve,
remove the cling film from the jelly and cut into
slices with a serrated knife. Serve on a plate with
a couple of circles of jus, topped with a spoon of
clotted cream. As told to Moya Crockett
wealdenfestivals.co.uk
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