Cinnamon Kitchen's Lychee Goji Bellini - A Curry For Change recipe (cocktail recipe)

I have recently been sharing with you a number of recipes I have learned from the Indian cooking Masterclass I attended at Vivek Singh's Cinnamon Kitchen restaurant. I was invited by Find Your Feet, a unique and very special charity which has a firm philosophy of offering assistance for the long term rather than aid for the short term. Find Your Feet were holding this Masterclass, with recipe demonstrations by Indian food luminaries Dhruv Baker, Vivek Singh himself and Anjum Anand to launch their "Curry For Change" initiative; a fundraising campaign where we, the great British public can enjoy and indulge our curry obsessions and help people at the same time. Either by eating at one of the Curry For Change partner restaurants, shopping with a partner company or holding your own Indian food dinner party, you could help raise money for Find Your Feet. The money is then spent on giving poor, remote rural communities much needed education and empowerment to help them look after themselves, their community and increase their farming potential to allow them to feed themselves. 

I previously wrote about the Masterclass here: http://snigskitchen.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/curry-for-change-indian-cooking.html

I have also, with the very kind permission of Find Your Feet, featured the three recipes I was taught at the Masterclass. The starter, Dhruv Baker's Prawn Malaba Curry can be found here: http://snigskitchen.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/dhruv-bakers-prawn-malaba-curry-recipe.html

The main course, Vivek Singh's Roast Saddle of Lamb can be found here: http://snigskitchen.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/vivek-singhs-roast-saddle-of-lamb-with.html

Anjum Anand's Pomegranate Souffle can be found here: http://snigskitchen.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/anjum-anands-pomegranate-souffle-with.html

The Masterclass was a delight, not just because I learned so much from Vivek, Anjum and Dhruv, but also because I got to meet so many food enthusiasts and fellow bloggers. We had a fantastic time chatting and swapping notes. This chat was further assisted by some delectable canapes and glasses Vivek Singh's Cinnamon Kitchen Lychee and Goji Bellini. I am a sucker for a sparkling wine cocktail, they really are one of my very favourite things, and perhaps on the evening I had one Bellini too many. But how was I to resist such fruity perfection?

Chef Vivek Singh and his Cinnamon Kitchen team looked after me superbly at the Masterclass, but their kindness did not end there. They have agreed to share the recipe of the Lychee and Goji Bellini with me and my readers. Thanks to everyone at Cinnamon Kitchen - I really appreciate it, and will be making this on balmy Summer nights.

I hope you will give it a try too!

Lychee & Goji Bellini

This is a modern, summery take on the classic Italian Bellini.

Delicately light and floral, lychee pairs perfectly with the Fair Goji Liqueur which is packed with vibrant red fruit flavours and a depth of richer herbal notes. The elegant, crisp Prosecco is dry enough to balance the drink and prevent it being overly sweet.

The Fair Goji Liqueur is made from goji berries which are organically grown and Fair Trade Certified. They are sourced directly from a co-op of 300 farmers in the Tibet region of the Himalayas. The sugar used in Fair Goji Liqueur is also organic and Fair Trade Certified, coming from a co-op of 800 independent farmers in Malawi.

The drink is sold exclusively at Cinnamon Kitchen for £8.95 a pop.

Lychee & Goji Bellini 

(Serves 1)

Ingredients:

20ml fresh lychee juice

10ml sugar syrup

8ml Fair Goji Liqueur

100ml Villa Doral Prosecco

Served in a champagne flute

I would like to thank Cinnamon Kitchen and Chef Vivek Singh for letting me share this recipe with you.

How to make the original Bellini (peach Bellini)

I have already posted on the subject of my experiments with various fruits suitable for making Bellini cocktails. Find my post here:

http://snigskitchen.blogspot.com/2011/07/passionfruit-bellini.html

Having visited our local Majestic Wine Warehouse, we discovered they have a nice selection of Prosecco wines which are of very good quality for a reasonable price of £8-9. Of course, we could choose to enjoy the Prosecco just the way it is, but during a rare last bit of sunshine just before the sun chooses to disappear for 6 months, we thought it was a good time to have a last blast of Bellinis.

So this time, rather than the ready mixed stuff available in bars and grocers in Venice, we thought we’d make them ourselves from scratch. I’d seen Jamie Oliver make Bellinis during his series on Italian food. He found some very light coloured, flat shaped peaches which were so ripe, he was able to squeeze the juice out with his hands (using a chopping board to apply the pressure). Sadly, such peaches are not available in British supermarkets, so we looked for something ripe which we could puree with a juicer.

Here’s what we did....

 First peel and stone your peaches. These peaches didn’t want to give up their stones easily, so I had to chop around the stones, which is the reason they are cut up in small chunks. It is probably not necessary to do this.

 Then put through an electric juicer or liquidiser. My juicer is very powerful and mushed the small quantity of fruit so quickly that it didn’t take all the juice out. So I put the pulp back through the machine to get as much juice as possible.

It would appear that my previous post is incorrect in stating that the Bellini is served in a

‘Collins’ type glass. That is the impression I had from my previous research. It would appear that a Champagne flute (which I had in any event used, since I don’t have any glasses of the ‘Collins’ shape and size) is correct.

We put 3 tablespoons of peach puree in each (small) Champagne glass and then topped up with Prosecco. You need to add the fizzy wine slowly or it will bubble up over the top of the glass.

The result could have been better if we had access to riper, softer peaches. Ours were a little bland. Had we known in advance, we could have added a little peach schnapps or peach nectar to beef up the flavour. Perhaps we could have used peaches which were not ‘white’ peaches (although the traditional recipe calls for them, we are not in Italy with access to sweet, juicy, ultra ripe fruits).

That is not to say they were a failure. We did enjoy them, as a little drop of fizzy and a little bit of decadence is always a good thing!

Passionfruit Bellini

During the Summer, we all feel a little cheerier and are up for having some fun. As a result, you find yourself drinking more cocktails, with their fun, flashy glamour and light deceptive power. Sometimes you hardly notice that you are consuming alcohol, such are the highly enjoyable fruity flavours, an occupational hazard to be anticipated by anyone who has work the following morning!

Legend has it that the Bellini cocktail was invented in 1934 in Harry's Bar in Venice. It was named after 15^th Century artist Giovanni Bellini, whose fame as an artist has now been eclipsed by the drink. The cocktail is made up of pureed peaches and Prosecco. The official recognised recipe calls for 2 parts Prosecco to 1 part peach puree, and ought to be served in a 'Collins' type glass.

In Venice, you can buy ready-mixed bottles of girly-pink Bellini which are light, fruity and easy to drink. Exactly what Him Indoors and I needed way back in July 2010 when we were trying to see as much as we could of that magical city in 33°C heat! Of course, Prosecco has grown steadily in popularity as our love for the fizzy stuff continues unabated.

Prosecco is produced in the 2 regions of Italy closest to Venice and its hot, sunny climate gives rise to a fruity, dry, gently sparking wine that I think is perfect for making cocktails with. Cava is often too aggressively fizzy, and champagne is both too dear and too strong tasting.

So I decided to experiment with fruity flavours suitable for making Bellinis. Raspberries were too tart to compliment the wine, which is just as well; my raspberry shrub is producing wonderful fruits right now which are perfect eaten as they are, rather than being juiced and used in drinks.

Kiwifruits produced a drinkable result, in a light alien green. It was something of a mission trying to get the juice out of them, and it took 2 whole kiwifruits to make 4 glasses of Bellini. Not an endeavour we shall repeat.

However, the runaway winner in our experiments was the passionfruit. Almost too tiddly to be eaten as a fruit, most of us only come across passionfruit via ready-made juice products.

We juiced them by scooping out the pulp from the passionfruit halves into the bowl of a clean tea strainer and pushing the juice through the mesh. 

Labour intensive, but worth it for the intense and pure flavour it gave to the Bellini.

We needed 3 passionfruits to make 4 standard champagne flute sized Bellinis. However, I will own up that Him Indoors and I did not share them with anyone else, choosing to sink the whole lot!