Nick and his colleagues, or maybe just one colleague in particular, have been getting into the Negronis lately. It could be the fact that Costco sell Campari by the litre.
I’m not a fan of Campari, but having just obtained Heston’s new book and never one to resist the opportunity to use my cream whipper – I couldn’t wait to try his recipe.
You’ll probably have leftover foam, so use it to top anything and everything from champagne to sloe gin fizzes. Or just put in a glass and eat it with a spoon.
Negroni with Orange and Prosecco Foam
Prep time
Cook time
Total time
Source: adapted from 'Heston Blumenthal at home'
Serves: 6
Ingredients
for the orange and prosecco foam
- 300g orange juice
- 20g fructose, or using normal sugar is fine
- 5g pectin powder (you can usually find it in the baking aisle as Jamsetta)
- Zest and juice of 2 oranges
- 80g egg whites
- 70g prosecco, or substitute soda water
for the Negroni
- 250g Campari
- 250g dry white vermouth
- 250g gin
- 200g soda water
- ice cubes
Instructions
- For the foam, bring 300g orange juice to the boil over medium heat. Mix the fructose and pectin together in a small bowl, then add to the orange juice. Whisk continuously until the liquid comes back to the boil. Remove from the heat and allow to cool completely.
- When cold, add the orange zest and allow to infuse for two hours (you can skip this step if you're in a hurry - personally, I don't plan my drinking enough in advance to do this).
- Strain the syrup and mix with fresh orange juice, egg whites and prosecco. Blitz with a hand blender for approx 10 seconds, then pour into a cream whipper.
- Charge with two N20 cartridges, making sure to shake vigorously in between each one. Place in the fridge to chill.
- To make the Negroni, mix the alcohols together in a big jug. Fill 6 tumblers with ice cubes and divide the alcohol between the glasses, top up each glass with approx 30g of soda water.
- Using the cream whipper, dispense a thick layer of foam on top of each drink.
Beautiful. Not a huge Negroni fan, but this version may change my mind…
Me neither, so I just have it on top of champagne or any other cocktail really. Makes for an impressive dinner party trick too!
I love Negronis, but making it with dry vermouth is kind of an unusual choice. Sweet vermouth makes a much more balanced drink, I think. Also, I’m really jealous of your whipped cream dispenser. I have been wanting to get one for a while.
I’m not a huge fan of them, so I haven’t tested it with different vermouths. The recipe is copied from Heston’s book.
Have a look for a second hand whipped cream dispenser – it’s how I got mine (plus it does make some good pancakes.) I’ll be using it to infuse alcohol down the line too – will keep you posted on results.
I know a lot of people who don’t care for vermouth, and I think it owes mostly to two factors. The first is that commonly available vermouth is swill. If you are drinking noilly prat, martini and rossi, or anything like that, it really is just bad. In order to enjoy sweet vermouth, you have to go a little more expensive, such as Carpano Antica or Cocchi Vermouth di Torino.Otherwise, it’s like drinking bottom shelf gin and saying, based on that, that you don’t like gin.
The other thing is most people don’t realize that vermouth is a wine, and it needs to be refrigerated once it is opened, and preferably sealed with a vacuum wine sealer. Even if you do all that, it’s only good for a couple of months, at most.