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!