Vinegar on strawberries sounds wrong and tastes extraordinary. The trick that surprises people every time.
Balsamic on strawberries is an old Italian idea and it works because acid does to fruit what salt does to everything else, it makes it taste more like itself. Twenty minutes on the bench and the berries release their juice into the vinegar and turn into their own sauce.
Method
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Put the strawberries in a bowl with the sugar and turn them through it.
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Pour over the balsamic and add the black pepper. Pepper sounds like a mistake and is the thing that makes it work, it lifts the berry flavour and stops it reading as simply sweet.
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Turn gently once, then leave on the bench for 20 to 30 minutes. Do not refrigerate; cold blunts the whole thing.
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Turn once more halfway through. The berries will have softened slightly and released a dark, glossy syrup.
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Spoon the berries and all of the syrup over scoops of vanilla ice cream and finish with mint or basil.
Tips
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Ripe berries only. Under-ripe strawberries stay hard and give up no juice.
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Do not leave them longer than an hour or they collapse.
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The same treatment is very good on peaches, figs or cherries, and excellent spooned over a wedge of cheesecake.