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Dark chocolate gelato

22 Wednesday Aug 2012

Posted by Sophie James in Recipe

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Chocolate, Food, Gelato, Ingredients, Marcella Hazan, Nonfiction, Recipes, Stories

Apparently, green tea smells of old cars. Anything red is a no. No also to green and crunchy, to onions, to fruit. But this chocolate gelato was a winner. “Really nice,” said Oscar, my nephew, who had come to stay along with his two brothers. Homemade is always a bit suspicious to children, I’ve noticed. Because you’ve had some input and this is scary to them. And this is grown-up stuff; it has a dark, strong caffeine hit, almost –  but not quite –  bitter. It is salty, why I don’t know, but it makes you head straight for the tap afterwards and glug water like a person found wandering for days in the desert. It is rich, velvety, it has a tinge of red, like dried blood; it glistens, it drips from the spoon and forms dark, chocolatey pools. I thought it would get lost in all the fast food, the junk, the Twinkies and Oreos, the ice cream sandwiches. But it did not go unnoticed. They nodded wisely in between mouthfuls, the spoon tinkling like a bell and growing more insistent as the bowl emptied. There was silence, focus.

“I had a banana three months ago. It was in a smoothie. That was so I didn’t have to taste it,” said Oscar, in defense of fruit. I never realized food could hold such trepidation. I ate snails as a child, picked them out of their shells and dipped them in garlic butter. I ate earth – whole mouthfuls – and peeled chewing gum off the floor. I peeled it off the pavement and popped it in my mouth. I ate ratatouille and sweetbreads. I ate chalk. I was fearless, verging on deranged. And I lived. The only thing I wouldn’t eat was cheesecake and that was because of the name.

Dark chocolate gelato doesn’t seem like much of a stretch, but I think it was a surprise. Perhaps it went with all the other new things: the road signs, the accents, the crazy heat, the big waves, the seals, cars, loud women and lady boys. And they ate other stuff too – homemade tacos with spicy beef and sour cream, Mexican cheese, Orangina, chillies. They were brave in the sea and came back with bashed knees and bloodied feet. Being in a strange new land on another continent makes you more inclined to try new things perhaps; you are not quite yourself.

We ended up in a Thai restaurant, which was where the green tea debate began.

“It smells like a reptile enclosure,” said Ben.

It did in fact smell quite nasty. Dank, musty, old. Also, it was hot, and we were hot, overheated you could say, sweating and limp with fans not quite disguising the wet walls, the presence of steam. Why drink hot green tea and not water? But I have developed  a taste for it; I like the weirdness, the way it heats my throat as it goes down, makes me wince. Maybe it’s the daredevil in me. It helps me remember when I was invincible.

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I will try to shed some light on the difference between gelato and ice cream. In Southern Italy, gelato is traditionally made without eggs, using mainly milk rather than cream. As I wrote about in the Fior di Latte recipe, the base of many Sicilian ices consists of a milk pudding thickened with cornstarch (I used a little cream, because I wanted some richness). The homogenized fats in milk are what creates a lighter texture, with that lovely melting quality. Ices made with more cream and less milk or equal amounts, though luxuriously buttery, can coat the mouth in a way that gelato never does. It can also mask flavours. In Northern Italy, eggs are used, but the principle of milk over cream remains. If you go to a gelateria, you’ll find the gelato light yet dense. This is due to the speed at which it is churned, keeping a lot of the air out.

Dark chocolate gelato

Adapted from Marcella Hazan, Marcella’s Kitchen

Makes 2 ½ cups (600ml)

4 large egg yolks

½ cup (100g) plus 2 tbs extra-fine sugar

2 ¼ cups (500ml) whole milk

3 ½ oz (100g) dark chocolate (70% cocoa solids) broken into pieces

½ cup (50g) unsweetened cocoa powder

In a heatproof bowl, beat (using an electric whisk) the egg yolks with ½ cup (100g) of sugar until thick and creamy. Heat the milk gently in a saucepan until it looks as if it’s starting to rise to a boil. Remove from the heat and add only a little milk to the egg mixture, to temper the eggs, then gradually add the rest. Beat well.

Melt the chocolate in a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of barely simmering water. Resist the temptation to stir. When no lumps remain, beat the melted chocolate into the egg mixture, followed by the cocoa powder. Place the bowl over the pan of barely simmering water again, and stir with a wooden spoon until the mixture coats the back of  it. Remove from the heat. Meanwhile, in a small saucepan, make a caramel by combining 2 tablespoons of sugar with 2 tablespoons of water. Boil the mixture until it turns a dark amber, but isn’t burnt. Swirl the pan as it darkens and watch it like a hawk.

Whisk the caramel into the chocolate until fully incorporated. It will sizzle. Leave to cool, then cover the surface of the bowl with plastic wrap/cling film and chill in the fridge for at least 1 hour, then churn in an ice cream maker, according to the manufacturer’s instructions. At this point you can serve it as it is – it will be soft and slightly sloppy. Alternatively, transfer to a freezer container, cover the surface with plastic wrap and freeze.

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Fior di Latte

02 Thursday Aug 2012

Posted by Sophie James in Recipe

≈ 10 Comments

Tags

Dessert, Exmoor, Food, Gelato, Ices, Ingredients, Italy, Recipes, Stories, Summer

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“August is a wicked month,” said Edna O’Brien, and how right she was.
Here in LA, nothing moves or grows. Plants sit and wilt under the warping heat. The cicadas begin their nightly throb. The trees just stand there as if embalmed. I dream of water, the sea, wet, swishing grass and cooling breezes, chlorophyl.

And ice cream. I first tasted fior di latte – (literally “flower of milk”) as a child in London and spent the next twenty years explaining to people what it was like. “White ice cream,” I called it. I mean, it was white to look at. It tasted white. People were confused, as was I, and for a long time I believed I had misremembered it. And then I found it again quite by chance in Venice.

Strictly speaking, fior di latte is a gelato, with no eggs and very little or no cream – in fact, there is a cream version called fior di panna. Originally a Sicilian invention, the base, known as crema rinforzata, is a sweet pudding of milk thickened with cornstarch. In its gelato form, it is soft, but dense, almost chewy, cold but melting.

Here is the recipe. It’s monastically simple. For this reason, it showcases herbs beautifully, particularly the woody variety – the dryness and astringency of thyme, bay or rosemary is offset by the soothing balm of milk. Citrus peel is also a winner. You still get the endless, uninterrupted whiteness – all evidence is strained out before freezing. You can experiment with different ‘milks’ too. Sheep’s milk is exceptional here, though I have given up trying to find it in LA. It is rich and sweet and highly nutritious and reminds me of the softness of Exmoor, those green hills washed by the sea.

If I were a millionaire, I would board a plane today and go to Minehead in West Somerset, position myself at the front of the queue at the Styles ice cream van and buy every single tub of their sheep’s milk ice cream. I would then eat it standing on the beach looking out over the Bristol channel, and watch the sun sink slowly into the choppy waves. That would be a good August.

Fior di latte

Adapted from David Lebovitz, The Perfect Scoop

Serves 6

500 ml (2 cups) whole milk

250 ml (1 cup) cream*

150 gr (¾ cup) sugar

pinch of sea salt

2 heaped tablespoons of cornstarch

*I have used cream here, but you can forgo it and up the milk quota if you prefer more of a ‘milk ice.’

Method

Warm the milk, sugar and sea salt in a non-stick saucepan. Bring to a slow simmer and make sure everything has dissolved. Turn off the heat. If you are introducing herbs, spices or citrus rind, add them here. Fill the sink about 3cms full with cold water – add some ice cubes to get it extra cold. Whisk the cornstarch with the cream until it has dissolved completely – the best way of doing this is to gradually introduce the cream into the cornstarch to prevent lumps. Stir the cream mixture into the milk and then slowly reheat, stirring frequently until it begins to bubble and froth up. Transfer to a heat-proof bowl and plunge into the cold water, stirring to prevent a skin from forming. Stir every now and then for about 20 minutes, or until it has reached room temperature. Cover with plastic wrap and chill in the fridge.

Leaving it overnight will really encourage the herbal, citrus additions to give up their flavour. If you are keeping it plain, simply chill for about 2-3 hours. In either case, strain the very cold liquid into the ice cream maker and then follow the instructions. Transfer to an airtight container, place plastic wrap directly on the gelato and freeze. This will keep for a few days, but it’s at its best eaten fairly quickly (on the day, really).

A word about herbs and spices and that

With some of the woody herbs – notably rosemary – a little goes a long way, so you’ll have to do some detective work to discover the right balance. A couple of sprigs of rosemary would be enough to impart quite a strong taste. Thyme can be used more flagrantly (up to 10 sprigs). Bay, sage and lavender also work well. Other herbs are worth investigating too: basil (and other members of the basil family such as cinnamon basil, anise basil etc), mint and also scented geranium (such as chocolate, nutmeg and rose geranium).

Citrus peel – a couple of thick-ish pieces of lemon, lime or orange rind infuse well. You could also try any of these spices – a cinnamon stick, some grated, fresh nutmeg, a clove, a few cardamom pods, some saffron threads, blanched fresh ginger, or a vanilla bean.

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