Strawberries, briefly baked with sugar and balsamic vinegar to intensify the flavour

Strawberries with balsamic vinegar

"Don't be put off by the vinegar in this recipe -- once it combnies with a bit of sugar and the heat from the oven, it takes on a wonderfully sweet and complex flavour". From Tobie Puttock's Daily Italian.

This dessert has an elegant simplicity and tastes wonderful.

Serves 2 or 3

(You can bake the strawberries in an ordinary oven-safe container with a lid, or you can make a parcel out of aluminium foil. Tear off about 40 cm of foil. Make the parcel by folding it in half, then sealing up the sides by making a 2cm fold along each side. Later, we'll place the strawberry mix in the parcel then seal up the top edge).

Ingredients

• strawberries, 1 punnet, hulled
  
• castor sugar, 1 tbsp
  
• balsamic vinegar, 1 tbsp
  
• to serve it with: some creme fraiche, masarcapone or custard.

Instructions

• Preheat the oven to 200 celsius.
  If using a container to cook the strawberries in, preheat it as well.

• If the strawberries are on the large size, cut them in half.
  
• Combine strawberries, sugar and vinegar in a bowl.

• Place the strawberry mixture inside your container and put the lid on -- or for the foil parcel, close it up by making a fold along the top.
  
• Place the container in the oven and cook for 5 minutes.
  
• Remove from the oven, and let parcel sit, unopened, for a few minutes.
  

• Serve at the table.
  The aroma that's released when the parcel is opened is really something special.
  
• Arrange the warm strawberries in a martini or wine glasses, accompanied by a generous dollop of creme fraiche, mascapone or custard
  

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Puttock says the dish also goes well with other desserts, such as an Almond Custard, or a chilled Zabaglione, though I haven't tried this myself.