Celebrate July 4th!

If you're an Americaphile like me, July 4th is a great occasion to get out the barbecue, have a fiesta with your pals, and of course, it's a chance to experiment with a few cocktails - take a look at Fiona Beckett's feature today on www.matchingfoodandwine.com for some excellent peach cocktail recipes (including one of mine, albeit a non-alcoholic version). In the spirit of stars and stripes, I've decided to feature recipes for a colourful grilled fruit salad and a stellar minty iced green tea crush:  the fruit salad's a refreshing way to end your barbecue, especially if you've had lots of meat and gorged yourself on mezze, and the minty crush should sustain you through the evening...Happy Independence Day folks!

Grilled Fruit Salad (serves 8)

• 2 punnets strawberries
• 2 punnets blueberries
• 3 bananas
• 3 peaches 
• 1/2 pineapple
• handful mint
• zest of 1 orange
• juice of 3 oranges
• 2-3 tsp sugar

Minty Iced Green Tea Crush (serves 8)

• 1 litre Iced Green Tea (recipe below)
• 1 litre chilled soda water/sparkling water
• 8-12 tbsp simple sugar syrup (recipe below)
• zest of 2 limes
• juice of 2 limes
• handful mint
• cucumber slices for garnish
• alcohol of your choice: rum or vodka work well, or just serve it as a virgin cocktail

Prepare the aluminum foil for the salad: take two long sheets and place one on top of the other, then prepare the fruit: simply halve the strawberries, quarter the peaches, cut the banana and pineapple into chunks. Place all this in a bowl, add the orange juice, zest and mint leaves (you can crush the mint leaves beforehand if you wish) and toss the fruit in the juice and mint. Place the fruit on the aluminum foil, create 4 edges by folding up the sides, and add a few tablespoons of the juice, plus the blueberries at this stage. Then sprinkle some sugar on top and seal the parcel very thoroughly. Grill on a low flame for 5-10 minutes and serve immediately

For the crush: steep 6 green tea (preferably the kind with a mint flavour, such as Jackson's) bags in simmering water, not boiling, for 2-3 minutes. Take the teabags out and allow the tea to cool completely. Make the sugar syrup: take 100g sugar and place in a saucepan with 100g water, bring to the boil, making sure that all the sugar has dissolved. Chill the syrup, and what you don't use for the crush keep in a sealed jar/container in the fridge for future cocktails!

Muddle the mint in a bowl, add this to a pitcher and then add your sugar syrup, blend thoroughly, add the juice and zest of the limes. Then add your crushed ice, blend again, and finally your alcohol of choice, minty green tea and soda/sparkling water. Taste for sweetness, and adjust accordingly. Serve immediately, with a sprig of mint and a slice of cucumber...

Strawberry Snow

It's July, it's hot and you're wilting under the summer sun. The perfect midsummer treat, Strawberry Snow is cool, refreshing and as Norwegian as it gets - in fact the Johansen family fruit farm in western Norway is currently awash with plump, crimson strawberries, not to mention delicate wild strawberries. Summers as a child at the farm meant hours spent in the strawberry patch, growing fat due to unrepentant gluttony - admittedly it wasn't the strawberries contributing to an expanding waistline, grandmother Johansen's baking took care of that. Thankfully I grew outwards, and eventually upwards

Every year I have the same thoughts about strawberries - the less adulteration, the better. But it's hard to resist this take on 'strawberries and cream', so give it a go, and start looking forward to the joys of raspberries, sour cherries, peaches and plums...

Serves 4 disciplined people, or 2 greedy Scandinavians...

• 300g ripe strawberries
• 150ml fresh orange juice (ca. juice of 3 small oranges)
• 1-2 tbsp Grand Marnier
• 1-2 tbsp caster sugar
• 2 tbsp icing sugar
• 1 small pot (142ml) whipping cream
• 1 small pot (142ml) sour cream
• 250g mascarpone cheese
• 1 tsp vanilla extract or seeds of 1/2 vanilla pod
• pack of mint (small handful)

Start by dividing the strawberries in two batches. Take one batch, quarter the berries, and place them in a bowl with the fresh orange juice, Grand Marnier and a light sprinkle of sugar - this will macerate the strawberries, and the orange juice really enhances strawberries in a most peculiar way

Set the macerating strawberries aside. Put the mascarpone in a medium bowl, and sift in the icing sugar, and vanilla extract or seeds. Using a spatula, start beating the mascarpone, not too much,  just enough to soften it slightly so there are no major lumps left. Then add your whipping and sour creams. Gently fold these through until the whole mixture looks light and fluffy. If you beat it too much, the cream will start to split and you'll need a lot more Grand Marnier in the strawberries to disguise this error

Finally, taking the second batch of strawberries which you haven't macerated (or gobbled up in the process of making this), whizz them in a blender with the mint, leaving a few sprigs for garnish. This will look like a red, minty mess, and you should fold this through very carefully in the 'snow', creating a swirly effect

Your strawberry snow is ready, so refrigerate in little glasses, or if you're twee like me, in tall martini glasses, for an hour and then when you're ready to serve, put a couple of spoonfuls of the macerated strawberries on the side of the snow, and the sprig of dainty mint - a winning dessert for dinner parties...