Strawberries & Balsamic Vinegar, served with Toasted English Muffins & Peach Sherbet

Vinegar = Piss.
That's what I thought, classic me.
During my first year in Hong Kong, I was so busy trying to avoid vinegar, which is really popular in wonton noodles shop, and naturally, I always mistakenly poured some on my food instead of soy sauce, thanks to my ignorance.

Maybe that's how I got kinda "trained" to appreciate vinegar now.

Balsamic vinegar is a whole other thing.
I bought a bottle out of curiousity.
Blame it on me watching too many Jamie Oliver's shows.
Balsamic here, balsamic there...so I bought a bottle and instantly fell in love with its fragrance.
I use it making salads, roasted potatoes, meat, etc etc etc...but of course, would never use it for something sweet.

But I heard how everyone said that strawberries + balsamic vinegar = top notch!
I heard it, you've heard it, we've all heard it.
Again and again and again and again.
That's it. I gotta give it a try.

One of my main principal is, if everyone likes it, I probably will too.
I'm pretty mainstream really :)
...and not much of a pioneer either :D

So I did.

This is again, an almost non-recipe.

(adapted from here)
- 1 cup of strawberries, cleaned, removed top, halved
- 2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
- 1/4 cup of caster sugar
Mix everything in one bowl and let it be for at least one hour, max 4 hours.

That's it, after one something hour, I gave it a taste and...
I swooned!

This is THE perfect treatment for those mediocre, el-cheapo, not-so-sweet strawberries!

I am not much of a scientist, but all I know is, this combo does amazing things to my blah strawberries. They now taste fan-freaking-tastic! I could've just consumed the whole bowl of sweet, syrupy strawberries myself, but I had a leftover of half an English muffin (that's right, half), so I did this...

Butter (salted) and sprinkle some sugar on English muffin, place it on a hot pan. It will sizzle and you'll get this gorgeously golden, buttery toasted muffin with a hint of sweetness....Now, we're gonna bring it to the next level, and all you need to do is...assembling.

Top toasted muffin with an ice cream of your choice (I only had Dreyer's peach sherbet), place balsamic vinegar strawberries on the side and drizzle with the sweet and sour syrup from the strawberry "marinate".

It looked so glamorous, I almost felt bad I consumed this with bare hands~
Almost ;)