Strawberries Italian Style

Strawberries Italian style is a one-bowl Italian dessert that takes ripe summer fruit and turns it into something far better with nothing but sugar, citrus, and wine. The technique is called maceration: sugar pulls juice out of the strawberries while the wine, port, and citrus juices steep into them. After an hour the berries have softened slightly and absorbed the liquid back as a wine-perfumed syrup.

Use the ripest fruit you can find. Out-of-season berries don’t have enough sugar or aroma to stand up to the wine, and the result tastes thin. The peach option is gorgeous in summer when stone fruit peaks alongside the berries.

A dry white like pinot grigio works best. Sweet wines pile on too much sugar and lose the balance with the port.

Chef Tips

• Hull and halve large strawberries, leave small ones whole. The wine penetrates faster on cut surfaces.
• Macerate at least an hour, but no longer than 4 hours or the berries turn mushy
• Serve in chilled glasses with a small spoon. This is more sippable than scoopable.
• Spoon the boozy fruit over vanilla ice cream or pound cake for a more substantial dessert
• Save the leftover syrup for cocktails or drizzle on yogurt the next morning

Variations

• Add fresh basil or mint leaves to the maceration for an herbal twist
• Sub aged balsamic vinegar for the lemon juice for a savory Italian classic combo
• Use prosecco in place of still white wine for a sparkly fizzy version