Friday, December 17, 2010

CSA week three - grapefruit-passionfruit sorbet

No story here, just an idea I had.

Ingredients:
1 1/4 cups grapefruit, fruit extracted from various membranes
1/4 cup passionfruit pulp and seeds
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup sugar
1 Tablespoon honey
1 sizable squeeze lime
1 Tablespoon vodka
2 pinches salt
1/4 teaspoon tandori spice (coriander, ginger and cardamom mostly. Some garlic, cumin and paprika in there too)

1. Extract the grapefruit meat, removing the membranes and seeds.

2. Heat the water and sugar until the sugar dissolves. Add to the grapefruit and blend.

3. Add the passionfruit and everything else. Mix well, chill, churn and freeze.

You'll have noticed one unusual item in the ingredient list. I knew I wanted something to cut the grapefruit's bitterness beyond just more sugar and, while I was looking through the spice cabinet, the tandori spice mix presented itself.


In the final flavor mix it comes off less tandori and more spice cake and acts as a rich undertone to the sweet, sour and bitter notes of the fruit. It's distinctly separate so it doesn't temper the bitterness quite as I had hoped (the flavors blended better when the mixture was warm). The passionfruit does tone the grapefruit down a bit, though, rounding out the fruit flavors. It adds some really interesting mottling in color, texture and even flavor as the two fruits never quite fully broke up or blended together.

It's an unusual mixture of flavors that, I think, works. It isn't synergistic into some crowd-pleasing form, though; nobody's going to eat a big bowlful and come back for seconds, but I think folks will finish that first bowl. I'll add an addendum once I've found someone else to try it.

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