Strawberry Soup & Mosto Cotto

Francesco Mazzei's strawberry soup recipe produces a wonderful Summer dessert, infused with thai basil and Szechuan pepper and served with heavenly vanilla mascarpone. Mosto cotto is used in a similar way to balsamic vinegar, and is made from syrupy grape juice.

You want to start by emulsifying the mosto cotto. Add it to a bowl with the olive oil and salt, whisk vigorously until it all comes together. Place to the side until needed.

For the strawberry soup; wash and hull the strawberries and cut into halves. Add to a bowl along with the pepper, sugar, lemon zest and Thai basil. Mix so the strawberries are well covered and leave to marinade in the fridge for 2 hours.

Once the 2 hours are up, remove the basil leaves. Add the remaining mixture to a blender and blitz until it is extremely smooth. Leave this in the fridge.

For the mascarpone; combine the mascarpone with the vanilla seeds and icing sugar.

To serve; pour the refrigerated strawberry soup into 4 bowls, add quenelles of mascarpone and a drizzle of the mosto cotto emulsion. Garnish with strawberry slices and edible flower petals. Serve.

 Serves: 4
Prep time: 20 min
Cook time: 45 min

Ingredients

For the strawberry soup

  • 500g of strawberries, plus extra for garnish
  • 1 pinch of Szechuan pepper
  • 1 tbsp of sugar
  • ½ lemon, Amalfi, zest only
  • 5g of fresh Thai basil, leaves only

For the mosto cotto

  • 10ml of mosto cotto
  • 10ml of extra virgin olive oil
  • 1 pinch of salt

For the marscapone

  • 100g of mascarpone
  • ¾ vanilla pod, seeds scraped
  • 1 tsp of icing sugar

To serve

  • Edible flowers

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