Lemon sherbet

08 Wednesday Aug 2012

Tags

Brittany, Dessert, Food, France, Ices, Ingredients, Lemons, Recipes, Sorbet, Stories

Remember these? Frozen lemons volcanically erupting with white, sugary snow. Except I never tasted one. I saw them, ogled them from afar; they nested indolently – hard, little yellow bricks stacked in carts outside French bistros. I could never get up the courage to ask for one. Perhaps I secretly knew it was too adult for my taste. One bite and it would all be over and then I’d feel bad.

But at every port we sailed into in Brittany, I would go through the same internal dialogue, the slow build, the beginning of bravery, starting with, “Dad, can I ask you a question?” To which he would answer “Yes.” “Actually, it doesn’t matter.” Silence. “You’ll probably say no.” “I won’t know what it is until you ask me.” “It’s fine.” What I wanted was for it to be dragged out of me. My mind to be read. Perhaps if I just looked lingeringly in the direction of the ice creams he’d get the idea. But I was taken at my word, and remained lemonless.

Each port town we sailed away from – Paimpol, Tréguier, Lezardrieux – I would imagine finding the courage for the next place, and then the next. But suddenly – or gradually, tortuously – we were sailing back home, where there were no frozen lemons.

So it remains a foreign food, a still life. And actually making it myself, though it looks gorgeous with its lemon hat and sticky, oozing syrup, it remains something I long to see for sale. There would need to be barriers to acquiring it – a foreign language, a shaky grasp of the currency perhaps. Some pointing would be necessary. My own frozen lemon, paid for in cash.

Strictly speaking, I was talking about sorbet, but sherbet has more fizz, more of a creamy wave to it, so I have opted for that. To clarify, sorbet is the ‘mother ice’ from which many others have issued. It is made from a sugar syrup with the juice of fruit added. Originally, sorbet was snow infused with flowers.

Sherbert, on the other hand, is really the first ever recorded ice cream. The name is most likely an attempt at the Arabic word sharbat. It has a small amount of cream added to a sorbet base. It is light and soft, cold as hell, with a wonderful citrus tang. I know we shouldn’t think of those lemon sherbets – lozenges that melt into a sweetly-sour plateau on the tongue, the kernel of which contains an explosion of fizzing sugar – but I can’t help myself.

Lemon Sherbet

Adapted from Jamie Oliver, Jamie’s Italy

Makes enough for 6

200g/7oz sugar

200ml/7fl oz water

200ml/7fl oz lemon juice

zest of 1 lemon

1 heaped tablespoon mascarpone or crème fraîche

Pre-freeze a shallow 20-25cm/8-10 inch container (if you don’t have an ice cream maker), or the shells of the lemons, if you like the look.

Put the sugar and water in a pan and bring to the boil, then turn the heat down and continue to simmer for 5 minutes. Once the liquid is clear and syrupy, remove it from the heat and allow it to cool for 15 minutes, then add the lemon juice and zest. Taste it and see if you find it palatable – it needs to be sour, but not horribly so. Add more sugar if you think it needs it. Next, add the mascarpone or crème fraîche and stir until completely combined.

Chill in the fridge. If you don’t have an ice cream maker, pour the mixture into your pre-frozen dish and return it to the freezer – leave it for at least an hour before you check it. If it has started to freeze, fork it up a bit. Do this every hour for the next 3 hours, after which it’ll be ready to eat. It can be kept for a couple of days in the freezer, but it will start to get ice crystals soon after. If you have an ice cream maker, follow the instructions, and decant into the lemon shells if you want to be a bit French about it.

Juice: Instead of lemon you can experiment with grapefruit, blood orange, clementine, or mandarin juice. A couple of tablespoons of sweet sherry (Pedro Ximénez has a strong taste of raisins and molasses) would also be a warming component, if the spirit takes you. Chilling dulls flavour, so taste before freezing and be bold.

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

“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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