Green House Martini
This recipe brings delicious nasturtiums to centre stage, their pretty flowers and bright leaves bursting with a remarkably peppery taste. Nasturtiums are a brilliant plant to have in the garden, being a natural bug repellant, drawing in bees for their nectar, and are full of vitamin C, iron and antioxidants.
Nasturtiums are perfect to scatter on salads, enjoy alongside cheeses or to garnish cocktails. We'd recommend buying a growing a plant in a bed or pot, to harvest as you need, but you can also buy the leaves and flowers from food specialists too.
In this recipe, we make a nasturtium vodka first, before combining it with lillet blanc for a botanical take on this classic.
Ingredients
For the Nasturtium vodka
20g of nasturtium leaves and flowers
700ml of vodka
For the Cocktail
60ml Nasturtium vodka
10ml Lillet Blanc
Garnish: Nasturtium
notes: Spiced, fruity, herbal
Method For the homemade Nasturtium vodka
Combine the nasturtium leaves and flowers with 700ml of vodka, (we use Sapling). Leave and allow to macerate for at least three days.
Once infused, take a sieve and filter in a jug before rebottling.
Method For the Cocktail
Chill your martini glasses in the fridge. In a mixing glass or a tin shaker, combine the vodka and lillet blanc together over cubed ice. Stir for 15/17 seconds until suitably crisp and diluted.
Pour through a strainer in to your chilled glass and garnish with a nasturtium leaf.
