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Hot, isn’t it? Yes yes. Very hot. At times like these, a sorbet in the house is a life-saver. I’ve been standing in front of the freezer door, the chilly mist spreading over my face, eating this straight from the tub. It’s wonderful.

I am often of the opinion that recipes can be improved, flavour-wise, with a touch of alcohol. In the case of sorbet though, it has the added benefit of smoothing the texture, as it lowers the freezing point making the sorbet easier to scoop. How many times have you made a sorbet, frozen it a while, then removed the tub to find a rock hard block of ice? Yeah. The egg whites make things lighter and the filtered water is as pure as you like. Churn on!

Gin and Pink Grapefruit Sorbet Recipe

Juice of 3 grapefruits
Juice of 1 orange
225g caster sugar
2 egg whites (or just one if your eggs are large, mine were very small)
100ml gin

Put the sugar in a saucepan with 450ml BRITA filtered water. Bring to the boil, cook for 5 minutes, then allow to cool completely.

Juice the grapefruits and orange, then strain through a sieve into the cooled syrup. Stir in the gin. Whip the egg white to stiff peaks in a clean, dry bowl, then mix into the liquid using a metal spoon. Transfer to an ice cream maker and churn. Freeze for a few hours before serving.

I created this recipe for the Better with BRITA campaign. 

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Like most British people of a certain age I have two memories of pickled eggs. The first is the giant jar on the counter in the chippy, ghostly blobs suspended in liquid turned murky from too many spoons dipped inside. I used to be terrified of that jar, until I actually tried one. Then, I was hooked. Fish and chips was no longer acceptable unless I got a face full of egg and vinegar guff when I unwrapped the paper. Not tempting you? Weird.

The other memory of course is of a similar jar behind the counter at a certain type of boozer. A pickled egg, dropped into a pack of crisps, then shaken about, was one of the best beer snacks of all time. People are pussies nowadays with their quail scotch eggs and house made ketchup. Same goes for your delicately puffed pig skin served with apple sauce in ramekins. Give me a proper pork scratching with a layer of soft fat underneath and a tooth-breaking top, possibly sporting a couple of proud bristles.

So this is my recipe for pickled eggs. In the spirit of those memories I’ve kept it fairly traditional but for the addition of a beetroot because it turns the eggs pink inside and who doesn’t want a trippy egg? There’s chilli too, because I just went to Mexico. Okay so it’s quite a modern pickled egg, but I can’t stink of chip fat and stale pints forever.

Pickled Eggs

I wrote this recipe for the Better with BRITA campaign.

Pink Pickled Eggs Recipe

12 excellent eggs (e.g. Clarence Court)
1 litre white or cider vinegar
500ml BRITA filtered water
4 garlic cloves
1 tbsp mustard seeds
1 tbsp black peppercorns
1 tbsp coriander seed
1 tbsp cumin seeds
4 dried puya entero chillies (or other dried chillies of your choice)
1 large beetroot, cooked and quartered
1 red onion, thickly sliced
1 tbsp salt
1 tbsp demerara sugar

Cook the eggs until hard boiled (place them in cold water, bring to the boil and cook for 7 minutes).

Mix the liquids, sugar, salt and spices together and simmer for 10 minutes.

Stack the peeled eggs, beetroot quarters and onion slices in sterilised jars then cover with the pickling liquor. They will be ready to eat after two weeks. Store in the fridge.