Aileen's 'Sangria' jelly with wheaten biscuits

Beetroot jelly ‘Sangria’ with carrot, orange and cardamom jelly ‘slices’, served with wheaten ‘straws’ (and additional wheaten biscuits!)

Beetroot jelly

4 whole beetroot, roughly chopped.

100ml red wine vinegar

25g sugar

Salt and pepper to taste

Agar agar (1g per 100ml of mix)

1. Blend beetroot with vinegar and sugar.
2. Season to taste.
3. You can strain it through muslin at this point if you want a nice clear jelly.  I thought it would just result in too much waste of the lovely beetroot so I skipped this stage
4. Heat the mixture over a steady heat and sprinkle in the agar agar. 
5. Stir to dissolve.
6. Spoon the jelly into moulds or glasses depending on the desired affect and pop in the fridge overnight.

Carrot, orange and cardamom jelly

300g carrots roughly chopped

300ml orange juice

3g agar agar

5x black peppercorns

2x cardamom pods

2 tsp gin

1. Put the chopped carrots in a pan and fill with orange juice.  Add the peppercorns, cardamom and gin and bring to the boil.
2. Leave this mixture to boil until the carrots are mushy.
3. Pop it all in the blender and blitz until smooth.
4. Pour through a sieve to remove any lumps and the spices.
5. Cool down the mixture in the fridge.
6. Put the mixture in a saucepan, sprinkle with agar agar and bring to the boil until dissolved.
7. Pour mixture into moulds to create the desired effect.  I used a muffin tray and halved the set jelly to make them look like orange slices to garnish my ‘sangria’. 

Wheaten biscuits

Makes about 30

155g whole wheat flour

20g sugar

½ teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon paprika

55g unsalted butter, cut into small bits

1. Combine the flour, sugar, salt, paprika and butter in a medium bowl. 
2. Work the buter into the mixture until mixture resembles breadcrumbs.
3. Add 60ml of cold water and stir with a spoon until combined.
4. Knead once or twice on counter.
5. Heat oven to 200ºC.  Lightly grease the baking trays or line with baking paper.
6. Roll out the dough, half at a time to a large very, very, very thing rectangle shape.  Make sure the dough is not sticking, but make sure it is as thin as you can.  Cut a number of strips and curl (for the ‘straws’) and cut the remainder into 4cm squares.  Dot these with cocktail stick.
7. Transfer biscuits to the baking trays.  There is no need to space them, they won’t spread.
8. Bake biscuits until crisp and bronzed. It will only take 5-7 minutes so stay with them!
9. Transfer onto wire rack to cool. 
10. The recipe tells me that the biscuits will last for a week in an airtight tin. From my experience, they normally get eaten the very same evening!