Mark Hix recipe: Asian summer fruit salad

Serves 4

Fragrant: Asian summer fruit salad (Jason Lowe)

This is a great fragrant fruit salad: if you can't get all of the fresh ingredients for the syrup don't worry too much, as you can buy dried lime leaves and lemongrass which will work fine for the salad.

300-400g mixed berries
A handful of Thai basil leaves (or ordinary basil)

For the syrup

2 sticks of lemongrass, chopped
8 lime leaves
50g root ginger, scraped and thinly sliced
1 star anise
150g caster sugar
150g water

Bring all of the ingredients for the syrup to the boil and simmer for 5 minutes; leave to infuse for an hour or so.

Strain through a fine-meshed sieve and either chill or use at room temperature. Put the berries into a serving bowl and pour the syrup over.

Serve with thick cream, yogurt or crème fraîche and scatter the basil leaves over the top.