“she’ll be in the strawberry patch!”

that was the regular response to the question ‘where’s abby?’ when i was growing up in malawi. someone would be dispatched to find me , and more often that not that’s exactly where i would be, enjoying the sweet honeyed flavour of the fruit.

strawberries remain one of my favourite fruits and rarely get beyond being added to my morning smoothie or eaten with a grinding of black pepper over them (it really brings out the flavour, try it if you haven’t already) but this hugh fearnley-whittingstall recipe caught my eye. it tastes lovely, perfect summer food. i expect it will become a regular in my freezer, along with my usual orange and rosewater sorbet.

this is my contribution to alpineberry’s sugar high friday with its tropical theme as, despite being terribly english, strawberries actually send me straight back to my former home which is slap-bang in the tropics!

hugh fearnley-whittingstall’s strawberry granita (serves 6-8)

1kg washed strawberries, slightly overripe

up to 200g icing sugar

the juice of 1-2 lemons

put the strawberries in a sieve and crush them down, rubbing through the sieve so the seeds are kept separate from the pulp. whisk in the sugar and lemon juice to sweeten and sharpen the mixture to taste – it should seem a little too sweet and a little too sharp to allow for the fact that both tastes will be slightly muted when it is frozen.

pour the mixture into a large tub – ideally you want the mixture to be no deeper than about 4cm so it will freeze quickly. freeze until solid.

about 30 minutes before serving remove from the freezer then, just before dishing up, use a strong fork to scrape up the surface. pile the frosty shards into glasses and serve quickly before it has a chance to melt.