Mi sangría especial

My special sangría

I’m sure many of you have come across sangría before but, trust me – you won’t have tried my special recipe! The idea behind this recipe is to make the fruit release more flavour into the sangria without wasting any fruit. It takes a little longer to prepare but I think you’ll agree the effort is worth it.

You can make a batch of the syrup and preserve the fruit in advance – it should keep for 3 weeks in the fridge.

Serves 6

Ingredients  

1 orange

1 lemon

1 peach or 3 plums, stoned and roughly chopped

1 pear or apple, cored and roughly chopped

200g caster sugar

1/4 cinnamon stick

200ml water

200ml brandy

200ml Triple Sec

1 punnet (200g) strawberries, halved

ice

1 x 750-ml bottle Spanish red wine

500ml sparkling lemonade

Method  

1 First wash the orange and lemon and then peel off strips of the zest and cut into thin strips. Use a sharp knife to peel away the rest of the skin and pith and discard. Cut both fruits into segments. Place the orange and lemon segments and zest strips in a pan.

2 Add the remaining fruit (except the strawberries) to the pan along with the sugar, cinnamon stick, water, brandy and Triple Sec and bring to the boil. Allow to simmer for 1 minute, then remove from the heat and add the strawberries. Leave to cool and then chill in the fridge. All the essential oils and aromas of the fruit will infuse the syrup – this is the secret of this sangria.

3 Fill a large jug one-third with ice cubes and pour in enough of the fruit and syrup mix to come halfway up the jug. Add wine until the jug is nearly full and then add the lemonade to finish off. Stir with a long-handled spoon.

Now sit back and enjoy!

Toast the arrival of summer with my special sangría!