Instructions: I firmly believe that a well balanced 3 course meal should be composed of either a cold or a warm starter a hot main course and a cold pudding preferably a mixture of fresh fruit and sorbets or fresh fruit and ice cream. My favourite ice creams are vanilla pistachio and caramel. My favourite sorbets are passion fruit cassis and when it is perfect pear. How good the sorbet finally is depends entirely on the quality and ripeness in fact it should be slighdy overripe of the fruit of your choice. The possibilitim are numetous from wild strawberries and melon to pineapple and pink grapefruit. The best sorbet I ever served was in Battersea and was made of lychees. I prefer the classic recipes and have never made tea sage or lavenderflavoured sorbets nor indeed rosemary and thyme ones. The most unforgettable sorbet I ever had was Paul Bocuses raspberry one. I also intensely dislike frozen yoghurt because it is neither one thing nor the other.

The basic recipe is very similar. I usually tend to reduce sugar syrup to lose quite a lot of water when there is a very high acid content in the fruit such as grapefruit. This way you get a much softer sorbet. The length of time the sorbet or ice cream is left in the machine varies for each one. To the professional chef the texture required is registered in the eye. In my opinion it is not worth attempting to make either a sorbet or an ice cream unless you have an ice cream machine.

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