A purist will tell you this is not a true shrub, so it’s a good thing there are no pedants in this family. Ratio is 1:1:1:1, recipe can be multiplied or divided as needed.
- 500g fruit, roughly chopped
- 500g sugar
- 500ml water
- 500ml vinegar
- Aromatics of choice (optional)
Add the fruit, sugar, water and aromatics to a large saucepan, stir and bring to the boil. Once the sugar has dissolved drop the heat down and let it simmer away for about 20 minutes, until the fruit is soft and the liquid has taken on its colour.
Take the pan off the heat and stir in the vinegar. Allow to cool completely then strain the solids out and decant the liquid into bottles (I usually chuck the leftover fruit mix but it probably would be decent spooned over vanilla ice-cream).
This yields about 750ml of shrub, which will keep in the fridge for a while, technically months (but it never lasts that long in this house). Great in cocktails or just with soda water.
Fruit – Use anything that you’d use for jam or chutney, as it needs to stand up to the cooking. Stone fruit or any kind of berry is a great choice, but watermelon is not. Not tried it with citrus or pineapple, possibly too acidic and would throw the balance. Gut feeling with mango is that it would work but not keep well and be kinda gross. Apple is probably a no with this method, but pear might be ok. Frozen berries are absolutely fine to use.
Sugar – Anything goes here. White, brown, raw or honey.
Vinegar – White or red wine vinegar, champagne, apple cider or sherry if you are feeling flush. Not white cleaning vinegar unless you hate your taste buds. Balsamic is ok but needs to be combined with red so its not too overpowering.
Aromatics – go nuts.
Some of my favourite combinations –
- Peach and basil, mix of honey and white sugar. White wine or champagne vinegar.
- Strawberry and pepper, white sugar. Mix of red wine vinegar and balsamic.
- Plum and cardamom, mix of brown and raw sugar. Red wine vinegar.