Peppery pink grapefruit pavlovas with sweet rocket drizzle recipe

An elegant dinner-party dessert if ever there was one, this is a true taste revelation. The peppery, mown-grass, herbal flavour of the rocket drizzle offsets the tooth-tingling sweetness of the meringue, and all is smoothed out richly with the cream. It’s my new favourite spring-into-summer show-stopping pud. 

You can of course use shop-bought meringue nests for the base, although they tend to be quite small, so it’s difficult to balance everything on top. Also, shop-bought meringues can have a dustiness  to them, rather than  the lovely chewiness  of homemade. 

Timings

Prep time: 30 minutes, plus cooling time

Cook time: 1 hour

Serves

4  

Ingredients

For the meringue nests

• 3 large egg whites, at room temperature
• 200g caster sugar ½ tsp cornflour
• pink food-colouring paste (optional)

For the filling

• 1 pink grapefruit
• 150ml double cream
• 1 tbsp icing sugar
• 1 tsp pink peppercorns, plus extra to serve
• a few raspberries

For the rocket drizzle

• 30g rocket, plus a few extra leaves to serve
• 1½ tbsp icing sugar

Method

1. First, make the meringue nests. Preheat the oven to 160C/140C fan/gas mark 3 and line a large baking sheet with baking parchment. Draw four 12cm circles on the parchment with a pencil.
2. Put the egg whites in the clean, grease-free bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a balloon whisk (or into a large bowl if you are using an electric hand whisk) and start whisking. Once the eggs are foamy, start adding the caster sugar, a spoonful at a time, making sure each spoonful is incorporated before adding the next. Once all the sugar is added, add the cornflour and keep whisking for a good 5 minutes until the meringue is firm and glossy – when you rub a little of the meringue between your thumb and forefinger, it shouldn’t feel grainy at all.
3. Add a couple of drops of food-colouring paste (if using) and stir it in very roughly with a spatula to create swirls in the mixture. Divide the meringue evenly among the circles drawn on the baking parchment. Once you have an evenly sized pile in the middle of each circle, use a dessertspoon to spread the meringue out to the sides, creating nests with a dip in the middle.
4. Put the meringues in the oven and immediately turn the temperature down to 140C/120C fan/gas mark 1. Cook for 1 hour, then turn the heat off and leave them to cool down in the oven with the door closed.
5. To assemble the pavlovas, remove the top and bottom of the grapefruit, place on a board and slice the skin away by running a knife down the side from top to bottom. Follow the shape of the fruit so you don’t lose any flesh. Slice the segments from the fruit by cutting down each side of the membrane. Squeeze the remaining grapefruit membrane over a bowl to extract any juice left behind.
6. To make the drizzle, put the rocket leaves, icing sugar and 1 tbsp of the reserved grapefruit juice into a mini chopper or small bowl of a food processor and blitz to a smooth paste. You may need to stop and scrape down the sides of the chopper with a spatula to get it all to blend. Add the extra grapefruit juice or a little water if needed to get a smooth, loose paste.
7. Put the cream and icing sugar in a bowl and whisk until it is starting to thicken. Add the pink peppercorns, squashing them between your fingers as you go to break them up a little. Continue whipping the cream; stop as soon as it is holding a peak or it will go too far and look grainy.
8. To assemble the pavlovas, place a meringue nest on each dessert plate. Divide the cream between the nests and top with the grapefruit slices and a few raspberries. Spoon a little of the rocket drizzle over each one and finish with a sprinkling of pink peppercorns and a few rocket leaves.

Recipe from BOLD: Big Flavour Twists to Classic Dishes by Nisha Katona (Nourish Books, £30)