Let me start by apologizing for not posting in a while. I finally let the summer heat drive me out of the kitchen and distraction keep me away from the replenishing my grocery supply. That combination means that I've been scrounging minimalistic meals from my ever-depleting pantry. I've had a bit of help. Just about a year ago the New York Times ran Mark Bittman's article: Summer Express: 101 Simple Meals Ready in 10 Minutes or Less. (He just did 101 Picnic Dishes as a follow-up. That's interesting reading, too.)
I had big plans last summer to work my way through the most interesting entries but I never quite got around to it. I managed a few this year with what I had on hand and as I've put together a shopping list with the ingredients that pop up regularly in the recipes so I might have better luck this year. However, there's not much about that worth posting about so we'll see how it goes.
I do have to keep cooking dishes to freeze in batches for work-lunches (which is why my repetoir is so full of stews, stir-fries and such) so maybe I'll find something worth sharing there. And I'm still working on ice cream. Still, you should probably expect a posting slowdown for a bit.
Saturday, July 19, 2008
Sunday, July 13, 2008
My visit to the Mango Brunch
For those who didn't read my previous post, the Ninth Annual Mango Brunch was held today (see this post's header for the date) at the Sixteenth Annual International Mango Festival. The menu included dishes featuring mangoes from seven prominent local chefs. I'll go over exactly who made what as I talk about each plate but I'll just say up top that there was a lot of tasty and interesting food and I had a pretty good time. 
The brunch was held in the Fairchild's Garden House. It looked like it held about 150 people at around 20 round banquet tables. The guests were mainly members of the Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden where the festival and brunch were held. A lot of people knew each other and folks seemed to be enjoying themselves. There was also a stage piled high with 200 varieties of mango taken from Fairchild's collections. Later that afternoon they were all auctioned off, but without samples to taste I presume everyone was just donating money and getting some random mangoes as a thank you gift.
Before heading in we all had to check in with the organizers at a table outside to find out which
table we were assigned to. As is entirely typical for me, mine was the one name that got left off the list. So while everyone else was inside the air conditioned room mingling and sipping mango Bellinis, I was outside in the muggy heat waiting for them to set up a card table in the corner. The Bellinis weren't that good anyway.
Actually, I didn't mind. When they found my seat half way through the pre-dinner speeches it turned out to be uncomfortably cramped and I would have bothered people with my note-taking and photography so I went right back. The card table was roomy and they sat a couple guests of the festival there so I wasn't a spectacle all by myself. One of the guests was a fellow from India who, as a hobby, worked to overturn the ban on exporting Indian mangoes to the U.S. That consisted of finding a viable method of eliminating Indian fruit flies from their mango shipments. He traveled to the festival at his own expense to introduce Indian mangoes to the American market. I guess that means there's a more professional element to the festival that we gawping tourists don't get to see. (...OK, I read in the schedule that that was Friday's Grower's Summit, Field Tour and Reception.) We talked a bit about the U.S. public's perception of mangoes and where other varieties than the two standard supermarket types could make in-roads. He hadn't heard of Slow Food so I may have been helpful by recommending he look into working with them.
The meal itself began with an amuse bouche trio. There were a couple slices of mango: one of the
tied winners of the previous day's taste test, Nam Doc Mai (described in the brochure's Curator's Choice section as having "a smooth, silky texture and extreme sweetness and bouquet") and the first runner up, Champagne, which didn't make it into Curator's Choice at all. I preferred the Champagne mango myself as I thought it had a deeper, more complex flavor. And there was also a small piece of brie with a mango chutney (out of a bottle from Whole Foods according to the menu). Not a terribly successful pairing I thought. That took us through the speechifying, the contents of which I included in the previous post, and it was time to line up at the various chefs' stations and see what they've got on offer.
First up was the Florida crab salad with mango vinaigrette, citrus mint salad and crispy potato
by Chef John Suley from Joley. That's what it says on the menu, anyway. No citrus mint salad was in evidence and the little cubes of mango were unadvertised. It could have used some mint salad; the sweetness of the mango paired nicely with the sweetness of the crab, but the mango's flavor faded fast and then you were just eating crab. Pretty good crab, though. The potato crisp wasn't crisp but it was plenty potato which gave the straightforward pairing some needed complexity. I'm curious if fried potato and mango would work together without the crab. I might give that a try.
Next was a selection of appetizers and desserts from Chef Phillipe Ruiz from Palme D'or. I saved
the desserts for the end, but the appetizers included a baby shrimp salad with tropical fruit and fresh coriander, a foie gras terrine with brioche toast and mango chutney (not pictured as I missed it and went back for it later) and a slice of banana in a spiced mango sauce. I didn't much like the baby shrimp dish mainly because these are the same mushy baby shrimp you can buy frozen in the 99 cent store. The flavor combination was nice enough--I've made ceviche with similar ingredients--but the texture was unpleasant. I didn't care for the foie gras dish either. For me, foie gras and mango just aren't going to work together and an over-sweet crumbly brioche toast doesn't help. On the other hand, the banana was very nice, mostly due to the coriander and citrus rounding out and blunting the sweetness of the mango sauce. Maybe that was supposed to be a dessert, but it was savory enough to work at the beginning of the meal. That's Ruiz's version of a mango Bellini in the background there. I liked his flavors better than the one I had earlier, but his mango caviar gave me the creeps the same way bubble tea does. The mango ice in the one that opened the brunch was a better presentation.
The next course was an alligator sausage with white bean ragout, mango chutney and an herbal
confetti garnish by Chef Allen Susser from Chef Allen's. I think this is the first time I've had alligator. They say it tastes like chicken and, in this case, it pretty much did. But I like chicken sausage with white beans so that's fine by me. When I cook something like that I'll usually compliment the flavors with cumin and chili, but the cilantro, marjoram, thyme and mango pushed it into a different direction I wouldn't have thought of but makes sense in retrospect. The earthy flavors of the beans and alligator make a base that a variety of bright flavors can work on top of including sweet and herbal. So, not my favorite of the day, but nice.
Next up, a spicy bigeye tuna and mango taco by Chef Sean Bernal from Oceanaire Seafood Room. Despite spicy being there in the name (and a bottle of Tabasco at the chef's table), the taco was more of a fine balance of savory and sweet with a good use of finishing salt to brighten up the
flavors and give a little bit of extra texture. The tuna itself was chopped very nearly into a paste so it was a creamy contrast to the crisp shell and crunchy salt.
On the other side of the plate was my favorite dish of the day: coconut encrusted pineapple with smoked duck bacon, mango sauce and tangy mango chutney by Chef Sean Brasel from Touch. I had a very hard time getting my impressions down on paper for this dish because each of the components was multifaceted on its own so the combination had a great deal going on. The pineapple by itself was crisp then chewy, savory then sweet and shocking with the unexpectedness of hot pineapple. The mango chutney is entirely unrecognizable as mango and barely seems like fruit with its deep spice and firm bite. I've had pickled watermelon rind that was similar but that's about it. The mild smokiness of the duck and the sweet mango sauce are more familiar. Despite the complexity, it all came together harmoniously. I was very impressed and I'm definitely going out to Miami Beach for dinner at Touch. [Note from a year later: I didn't.]
And that leaves dessert. Chef Erick Jones from Talulah made Belgian waffles with fresh mango
and mango butter. This didn't really work out well, probably because it sat out too long. A good Belgian waffle should be crispy on the outside and airy on the inside, but this was spongy all the way through. Combine that with the almost slimy texture of the mango butter (not mango infused butter, but mango butter in the apple butter sense) that you probably can't see in the back of picture and the experience was rather unpleasant.
But there were still Chef Ruiz's pastry chef's mango profiterole and trifle which were both straightforwardly yummy and beautifully presented. A very nice finish with a cup of Rwanda Karaba fair trade coffee.
And I nearly forgot the basket of mango breads and pastries by Chef Frank Randazzo from
Creative Tastes Catering. In fact, I did forget about them during the meal so I wrapped a couple up in napkins and took them home. There's a mango cream cheese strudel. It's interestingly light on the sugar--nearly savory. I wonder if the mango was supposed to sweeten the pastry, but this particular mango turned out to be rather tart. Well, I like it the way it is; a little sugar in the tea compensates nicely. And there's a scone which I thought got the texture just right--bordering on shortbread but slightly more moist. That's incredibly rare in scones which are nearly always either dense, dry and crumbly or far too moist and cakey. Not very mango-y, though.
And that's everything! A lovely meal with a good progression of dishes (completely by happenstance, actually) and serving sizes that weren't so large to leave me stuffed. I learned something about mangoes, too, including some recipe ideas which is a nice plus. And maybe if I write up enough of these sorts of things I'll get some Miami-food-blogger cred and I'll start getting some respect around here. Well, maybe not, but it was still fun. It seemed like half the other diners were taking pictures of their plates; I wonder where else this will get written up. [Note from a year later: nowhere.]
The brunch was held in the Fairchild's Garden House. It looked like it held about 150 people at around 20 round banquet tables. The guests were mainly members of the Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden where the festival and brunch were held. A lot of people knew each other and folks seemed to be enjoying themselves. There was also a stage piled high with 200 varieties of mango taken from Fairchild's collections. Later that afternoon they were all auctioned off, but without samples to taste I presume everyone was just donating money and getting some random mangoes as a thank you gift.
Before heading in we all had to check in with the organizers at a table outside to find out which
table we were assigned to. As is entirely typical for me, mine was the one name that got left off the list. So while everyone else was inside the air conditioned room mingling and sipping mango Bellinis, I was outside in the muggy heat waiting for them to set up a card table in the corner. The Bellinis weren't that good anyway.Actually, I didn't mind. When they found my seat half way through the pre-dinner speeches it turned out to be uncomfortably cramped and I would have bothered people with my note-taking and photography so I went right back. The card table was roomy and they sat a couple guests of the festival there so I wasn't a spectacle all by myself. One of the guests was a fellow from India who, as a hobby, worked to overturn the ban on exporting Indian mangoes to the U.S. That consisted of finding a viable method of eliminating Indian fruit flies from their mango shipments. He traveled to the festival at his own expense to introduce Indian mangoes to the American market. I guess that means there's a more professional element to the festival that we gawping tourists don't get to see. (...OK, I read in the schedule that that was Friday's Grower's Summit, Field Tour and Reception.) We talked a bit about the U.S. public's perception of mangoes and where other varieties than the two standard supermarket types could make in-roads. He hadn't heard of Slow Food so I may have been helpful by recommending he look into working with them.
The meal itself began with an amuse bouche trio. There were a couple slices of mango: one of the
tied winners of the previous day's taste test, Nam Doc Mai (described in the brochure's Curator's Choice section as having "a smooth, silky texture and extreme sweetness and bouquet") and the first runner up, Champagne, which didn't make it into Curator's Choice at all. I preferred the Champagne mango myself as I thought it had a deeper, more complex flavor. And there was also a small piece of brie with a mango chutney (out of a bottle from Whole Foods according to the menu). Not a terribly successful pairing I thought. That took us through the speechifying, the contents of which I included in the previous post, and it was time to line up at the various chefs' stations and see what they've got on offer.First up was the Florida crab salad with mango vinaigrette, citrus mint salad and crispy potato
by Chef John Suley from Joley. That's what it says on the menu, anyway. No citrus mint salad was in evidence and the little cubes of mango were unadvertised. It could have used some mint salad; the sweetness of the mango paired nicely with the sweetness of the crab, but the mango's flavor faded fast and then you were just eating crab. Pretty good crab, though. The potato crisp wasn't crisp but it was plenty potato which gave the straightforward pairing some needed complexity. I'm curious if fried potato and mango would work together without the crab. I might give that a try.Next was a selection of appetizers and desserts from Chef Phillipe Ruiz from Palme D'or. I saved
the desserts for the end, but the appetizers included a baby shrimp salad with tropical fruit and fresh coriander, a foie gras terrine with brioche toast and mango chutney (not pictured as I missed it and went back for it later) and a slice of banana in a spiced mango sauce. I didn't much like the baby shrimp dish mainly because these are the same mushy baby shrimp you can buy frozen in the 99 cent store. The flavor combination was nice enough--I've made ceviche with similar ingredients--but the texture was unpleasant. I didn't care for the foie gras dish either. For me, foie gras and mango just aren't going to work together and an over-sweet crumbly brioche toast doesn't help. On the other hand, the banana was very nice, mostly due to the coriander and citrus rounding out and blunting the sweetness of the mango sauce. Maybe that was supposed to be a dessert, but it was savory enough to work at the beginning of the meal. That's Ruiz's version of a mango Bellini in the background there. I liked his flavors better than the one I had earlier, but his mango caviar gave me the creeps the same way bubble tea does. The mango ice in the one that opened the brunch was a better presentation.The next course was an alligator sausage with white bean ragout, mango chutney and an herbal
confetti garnish by Chef Allen Susser from Chef Allen's. I think this is the first time I've had alligator. They say it tastes like chicken and, in this case, it pretty much did. But I like chicken sausage with white beans so that's fine by me. When I cook something like that I'll usually compliment the flavors with cumin and chili, but the cilantro, marjoram, thyme and mango pushed it into a different direction I wouldn't have thought of but makes sense in retrospect. The earthy flavors of the beans and alligator make a base that a variety of bright flavors can work on top of including sweet and herbal. So, not my favorite of the day, but nice.Next up, a spicy bigeye tuna and mango taco by Chef Sean Bernal from Oceanaire Seafood Room. Despite spicy being there in the name (and a bottle of Tabasco at the chef's table), the taco was more of a fine balance of savory and sweet with a good use of finishing salt to brighten up the
flavors and give a little bit of extra texture. The tuna itself was chopped very nearly into a paste so it was a creamy contrast to the crisp shell and crunchy salt.On the other side of the plate was my favorite dish of the day: coconut encrusted pineapple with smoked duck bacon, mango sauce and tangy mango chutney by Chef Sean Brasel from Touch. I had a very hard time getting my impressions down on paper for this dish because each of the components was multifaceted on its own so the combination had a great deal going on. The pineapple by itself was crisp then chewy, savory then sweet and shocking with the unexpectedness of hot pineapple. The mango chutney is entirely unrecognizable as mango and barely seems like fruit with its deep spice and firm bite. I've had pickled watermelon rind that was similar but that's about it. The mild smokiness of the duck and the sweet mango sauce are more familiar. Despite the complexity, it all came together harmoniously. I was very impressed and I'm definitely going out to Miami Beach for dinner at Touch. [Note from a year later: I didn't.]
And that leaves dessert. Chef Erick Jones from Talulah made Belgian waffles with fresh mango
and mango butter. This didn't really work out well, probably because it sat out too long. A good Belgian waffle should be crispy on the outside and airy on the inside, but this was spongy all the way through. Combine that with the almost slimy texture of the mango butter (not mango infused butter, but mango butter in the apple butter sense) that you probably can't see in the back of picture and the experience was rather unpleasant.But there were still Chef Ruiz's pastry chef's mango profiterole and trifle which were both straightforwardly yummy and beautifully presented. A very nice finish with a cup of Rwanda Karaba fair trade coffee.
And I nearly forgot the basket of mango breads and pastries by Chef Frank Randazzo from
Creative Tastes Catering. In fact, I did forget about them during the meal so I wrapped a couple up in napkins and took them home. There's a mango cream cheese strudel. It's interestingly light on the sugar--nearly savory. I wonder if the mango was supposed to sweeten the pastry, but this particular mango turned out to be rather tart. Well, I like it the way it is; a little sugar in the tea compensates nicely. And there's a scone which I thought got the texture just right--bordering on shortbread but slightly more moist. That's incredibly rare in scones which are nearly always either dense, dry and crumbly or far too moist and cakey. Not very mango-y, though.And that's everything! A lovely meal with a good progression of dishes (completely by happenstance, actually) and serving sizes that weren't so large to leave me stuffed. I learned something about mangoes, too, including some recipe ideas which is a nice plus. And maybe if I write up enough of these sorts of things I'll get some Miami-food-blogger cred and I'll start getting some respect around here. Well, maybe not, but it was still fun. It seemed like half the other diners were taking pictures of their plates; I wonder where else this will get written up. [Note from a year later: nowhere.]
My visit to the Mango Festival
The 16th annual International Mango Festival was held this weekend at Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden. I went on Sunday so I could attend the 9th annual Mango Brunch which offered dishes from seven local chefs all featuring mangoes. I kind of regret not going to the taste test on Saturday, too, but I didn't realize until I got there the sheer number of different types of mangoes available. I only got to taste a few at the tasting tent and another one at the brunch. The chefs didn't specify what sorts they used in their dishes; I think that would be a good touch they could add--have the chefs come by to try different varieties and create a dish that brings out the best of one they pick. Probably too much extra trouble for everyone involved, though.
That's not to say what they had this year was bad. I was pleased with most of the dishes on offer and, as far as I could tell, a good time was had by all.
Beyond the brunch, the festival consisted of a small ring of food vendors with mango dishes. There were Caribbean, Ethiopian, French crepes along with ice cream, cupcake and smoothie vendors. I would have liked to have tried a meal at one; another reason to go on two days next year.
There were also a couple of sauce and marinade vendors. I'm a
sucker for that sort of thing; after going through the tasting I always feel obliged to buy something even if I know I never end up using these things and I'm perfectly capable of making my own sauces. I'm marinating a pork chop in a tamarind molasses ginger sauce as I type. And somehow once I've bought one it's a much lower hurdle to buy a few more that I liked. You probably can't make out the labels in the picture, but those are a hot pepper sauce, a jerk sauce and a curry spice mix from Hey Mon Caribbean Cooking Magic and two hot mango sauces and a tamarind chili sauce from Chef Allen's. I can't recall why one's in a Ball canning jar and the other in a bottle. I'll go into any details when and if I ever actually use them. One of things I want to try this next CSA go-around is stir fries using non-Chinese spice profiles. These should work well for that sort of thing.
Another booth at the festival was from Schnebly Redland's Winery. They claim to be the southernmost winery in the U.S. and they make wine from carambolas, mangoes, lychees and the like completely grapelessly. For seven bucks I got to taste everything they brought (and keep the glass. I didn't have a champagne flute so that was nice). They had three sparkling wines, one sangria-esque wine and a couple dessert wines. The sparkling wines lacked real distinctiveness, I thought; they're not going to be great wines so they should at least try to bring out the unusual fruits they're made out of and go for unique. The dessert wines succeeded more at that, but they could have been fruit syrup with a shot of vodka. Of the lot, The lychee dessert
wine the best as the flavors strayed into brandy territory; I liked it, but I certainly didn't thirty-five dollars worth of like it so I didn't buy any.
There was also a mango market with a large amount of four varieties (two of which were the usual supermarket mangoes) and a few of maybe a dozen more varieties. Alongside was a tasting tent with samples of three non-supermarket sorts. There was a banana mango, one I don't recall, and a champagne mango. The
banana mango had an interestingly banana-esque elongated shape and color and maybe some banana in the flavor, but that could just have been suggestion. The one I don't recall apparently wasn't interesting enough to make a note of. The champagne mangoes were particularly small and had an intense not-too-sweet flavor and a smooth creamy texture. It had the flavor I'm looking for for mango ice cream, but the mango-smoothie-booth-lady happened to be stocking up nearby and she explained that mangoes with no fiber would completely fall apart during cooking so they wouldn't 
work. I took her advice and I shopped around when went over to the market. I settled on a Ford mango which I'm told has an interestingly complex flavor and should be firm enough to hold together during the candying process. We'll see once it's ripe.
Finally, there was a mango tree booth selling a couple of varieties specifically bred by the horticulturists at Fairchild to be suitable for Florida gardens: the Angie and the Jean Ellen. (Jean Ellen herself was at the brunch and was presented with a plaque and an armful of her namesake mangos. Most of the crowd there were Fairchild members so they knew who she was and why she deserved a fruit named after her and the outburst of applause was no doubt genuine and heartfelt. I was there as a foodie not a plantie so I just applauded politely.) I was tempted to buy a tree but a) I don't think my landlord would appreciate it and b) I don't know if I'll be living here in when it's ready to give fruit and c) one of my co-workers brought in a bunch of mangos last year and she may well do so again.
Well, that went on a bit long. I'll put the brunch stuff in a separate post.
That's not to say what they had this year was bad. I was pleased with most of the dishes on offer and, as far as I could tell, a good time was had by all.
Beyond the brunch, the festival consisted of a small ring of food vendors with mango dishes. There were Caribbean, Ethiopian, French crepes along with ice cream, cupcake and smoothie vendors. I would have liked to have tried a meal at one; another reason to go on two days next year.
There were also a couple of sauce and marinade vendors. I'm a
sucker for that sort of thing; after going through the tasting I always feel obliged to buy something even if I know I never end up using these things and I'm perfectly capable of making my own sauces. I'm marinating a pork chop in a tamarind molasses ginger sauce as I type. And somehow once I've bought one it's a much lower hurdle to buy a few more that I liked. You probably can't make out the labels in the picture, but those are a hot pepper sauce, a jerk sauce and a curry spice mix from Hey Mon Caribbean Cooking Magic and two hot mango sauces and a tamarind chili sauce from Chef Allen's. I can't recall why one's in a Ball canning jar and the other in a bottle. I'll go into any details when and if I ever actually use them. One of things I want to try this next CSA go-around is stir fries using non-Chinese spice profiles. These should work well for that sort of thing.Another booth at the festival was from Schnebly Redland's Winery. They claim to be the southernmost winery in the U.S. and they make wine from carambolas, mangoes, lychees and the like completely grapelessly. For seven bucks I got to taste everything they brought (and keep the glass. I didn't have a champagne flute so that was nice). They had three sparkling wines, one sangria-esque wine and a couple dessert wines. The sparkling wines lacked real distinctiveness, I thought; they're not going to be great wines so they should at least try to bring out the unusual fruits they're made out of and go for unique. The dessert wines succeeded more at that, but they could have been fruit syrup with a shot of vodka. Of the lot, The lychee dessert
wine the best as the flavors strayed into brandy territory; I liked it, but I certainly didn't thirty-five dollars worth of like it so I didn't buy any.There was also a mango market with a large amount of four varieties (two of which were the usual supermarket mangoes) and a few of maybe a dozen more varieties. Alongside was a tasting tent with samples of three non-supermarket sorts. There was a banana mango, one I don't recall, and a champagne mango. The
banana mango had an interestingly banana-esque elongated shape and color and maybe some banana in the flavor, but that could just have been suggestion. The one I don't recall apparently wasn't interesting enough to make a note of. The champagne mangoes were particularly small and had an intense not-too-sweet flavor and a smooth creamy texture. It had the flavor I'm looking for for mango ice cream, but the mango-smoothie-booth-lady happened to be stocking up nearby and she explained that mangoes with no fiber would completely fall apart during cooking so they wouldn't 
work. I took her advice and I shopped around when went over to the market. I settled on a Ford mango which I'm told has an interestingly complex flavor and should be firm enough to hold together during the candying process. We'll see once it's ripe.Finally, there was a mango tree booth selling a couple of varieties specifically bred by the horticulturists at Fairchild to be suitable for Florida gardens: the Angie and the Jean Ellen. (Jean Ellen herself was at the brunch and was presented with a plaque and an armful of her namesake mangos. Most of the crowd there were Fairchild members so they knew who she was and why she deserved a fruit named after her and the outburst of applause was no doubt genuine and heartfelt. I was there as a foodie not a plantie so I just applauded politely.) I was tempted to buy a tree but a) I don't think my landlord would appreciate it and b) I don't know if I'll be living here in when it's ready to give fruit and c) one of my co-workers brought in a bunch of mangos last year and she may well do so again.
Well, that went on a bit long. I'll put the brunch stuff in a separate post.
Thursday, July 10, 2008
White chocolate banana cherry ice cream
Cherries are finally in season and Publix is carrying some surprisingly fine examples at a pretty good price these days. I was tempted to just eat the whole bag straight, but the blog has its demands so an ice cream application it's going to be. My first thought was make a straight cherry ice cream using a Philadelphia style base--that's ice cream that doesn't use an egg-based custard, just milk, cream, sugar and flavoring, something I've been meaning to try for a while. But I've thought of another, more interesting, context for a Philadelphia-style ice cream (which I may not get around to doing unless I find a better ice cream audience, but I live in hope) so I set that aside.
My second thought was to use the chunk of white chocolate I've had sitting in my pantry for some time. I've made a couple white chocolate ice creams before both of which had very smooth creamy and light textures, but both of those also had a custard base and I was curious if I could melt some white chocolate into an eggless cream mixture and get good results. White chocolate and cherry is not an exceptionally unusual flavor combination, but I came up with it independently on my own so I'm going to give myself some credit on this one.
My third thought was that I should try to lighten up my recipe so my co-workers might actually eat it. To that end I cut the amount of white chocolate I was going to use from eight ounces down to four and added half a banana instead. So that makes my base:
2 cups heavy cream
1 cup whole milk
4 ounces white chocolate
1/2 banana (frozen and defrosted)
1/3 cup Splenda blend (or 2/3 cup sugar)
1 pinch salt
1. Chop chocolate finely.
2. Add chocolate, Splenda blend and salt to cream and milk in medium saucepan. Heat over medium low heat stirring frequently until everything is dissolved.
3. Place banana and cream mixture into blender. Blend until smooth.
4. Cool on counter for 1/2 hour then refrigerate to 40 degrees.
As for the cherries, I wanted some syrup but I didn't want to cook them. I pitted and roughly chopped 1 1/2 to 2 cups of cherries, sprinkled them with a Tablespoon or so of sugar, added a dash of vanilla, a squeeze of lemon juice and a couple Tablespoons water, stirred well and let sit in the refrigerator for a day. And then, once the ice cream base was in the churn I put it in the freezer for 15-20 minutes to get good and cold.
As for the churning I'm disappointed to say that my fancy Cuisinart churn has been no real improvement over the bargain Sears brand one it replaced. I've noticed that the bucket wobbles back and forth on top of the motor. I think it fits securely when it's warm, but it shrinks a little when frozen so it doesn't sit on the base correctly. You'd think it would be designed better than that. The wobbling means that the dasher can't stay firmly against the side of the bucket and scrape the frozen bits out into the mix for even freezing. In my old churn, there was a large enough hole in the top that I could get in there with a spatula and scrape down the sides while the bucket spun. Not with the Cuisinart. Instead I shut the machine down every five minutes, grab the dasher, manually scrape the sides, replace the lid and start it back up again. The weak motor in the Sears churn wouldn't be able to get going with a half frozen mix in place, but the Cuisinart doesn't have any trouble. On the other hand, the motor is strong enough that a fully frozen mix doesn't stall it out so I can't judge readiness by the pitch of the struggling motor's
whine any more. No big deal either way, really, but for the extra expense I was hoping for better.
Anyway, I made slightly larger batch than usual so I had to shut the churn down before it overflowed while the ice cream was still a little softer than I would have liked. But it'll probably work out fine. I alternated scoops of ice cream with spoonfuls of cherries, Folded everything together a few times to distribute the syrup and stuck it in the freezer for ripening.
So how did it turn out? Pretty well. The texture is about the same as a light custard, say made
with just two egg yolks: smooth and creamy, but a bit chewy and quick to melt. I'll call it a success. As for the flavor, it's interesting. In the sherbet I made last week the pineapple, coconut and banana flavors merged synergistically. That's not happening with the banana and white chocolate. The two flavors aren't really very far apart, but the flavor of a spoonful of this ice cream keeps switching back and forth as my attention shifts like the optical illusion that can be a vase or two faces. It's kind of weird, really. Both flavors are surprisingly strong given how little of either ingredient is in such a large batch of ice cream. The combined flavor is on the mellow side and the sharp berry tang of the cherries cuts through and clears it away until the next bite. So, the full effect if you're paying close attention is of at least three flavors (with hints of vanilla and citrus) shifting around with each bite. If you're not paying close attention then it's just really really good.
My second thought was to use the chunk of white chocolate I've had sitting in my pantry for some time. I've made a couple white chocolate ice creams before both of which had very smooth creamy and light textures, but both of those also had a custard base and I was curious if I could melt some white chocolate into an eggless cream mixture and get good results. White chocolate and cherry is not an exceptionally unusual flavor combination, but I came up with it independently on my own so I'm going to give myself some credit on this one.
My third thought was that I should try to lighten up my recipe so my co-workers might actually eat it. To that end I cut the amount of white chocolate I was going to use from eight ounces down to four and added half a banana instead. So that makes my base:
2 cups heavy cream
1 cup whole milk
4 ounces white chocolate
1/2 banana (frozen and defrosted)
1/3 cup Splenda blend (or 2/3 cup sugar)
1 pinch salt
1. Chop chocolate finely.
2. Add chocolate, Splenda blend and salt to cream and milk in medium saucepan. Heat over medium low heat stirring frequently until everything is dissolved.
3. Place banana and cream mixture into blender. Blend until smooth.
4. Cool on counter for 1/2 hour then refrigerate to 40 degrees.
As for the cherries, I wanted some syrup but I didn't want to cook them. I pitted and roughly chopped 1 1/2 to 2 cups of cherries, sprinkled them with a Tablespoon or so of sugar, added a dash of vanilla, a squeeze of lemon juice and a couple Tablespoons water, stirred well and let sit in the refrigerator for a day. And then, once the ice cream base was in the churn I put it in the freezer for 15-20 minutes to get good and cold.
As for the churning I'm disappointed to say that my fancy Cuisinart churn has been no real improvement over the bargain Sears brand one it replaced. I've noticed that the bucket wobbles back and forth on top of the motor. I think it fits securely when it's warm, but it shrinks a little when frozen so it doesn't sit on the base correctly. You'd think it would be designed better than that. The wobbling means that the dasher can't stay firmly against the side of the bucket and scrape the frozen bits out into the mix for even freezing. In my old churn, there was a large enough hole in the top that I could get in there with a spatula and scrape down the sides while the bucket spun. Not with the Cuisinart. Instead I shut the machine down every five minutes, grab the dasher, manually scrape the sides, replace the lid and start it back up again. The weak motor in the Sears churn wouldn't be able to get going with a half frozen mix in place, but the Cuisinart doesn't have any trouble. On the other hand, the motor is strong enough that a fully frozen mix doesn't stall it out so I can't judge readiness by the pitch of the struggling motor's
whine any more. No big deal either way, really, but for the extra expense I was hoping for better.Anyway, I made slightly larger batch than usual so I had to shut the churn down before it overflowed while the ice cream was still a little softer than I would have liked. But it'll probably work out fine. I alternated scoops of ice cream with spoonfuls of cherries, Folded everything together a few times to distribute the syrup and stuck it in the freezer for ripening.
So how did it turn out? Pretty well. The texture is about the same as a light custard, say made
with just two egg yolks: smooth and creamy, but a bit chewy and quick to melt. I'll call it a success. As for the flavor, it's interesting. In the sherbet I made last week the pineapple, coconut and banana flavors merged synergistically. That's not happening with the banana and white chocolate. The two flavors aren't really very far apart, but the flavor of a spoonful of this ice cream keeps switching back and forth as my attention shifts like the optical illusion that can be a vase or two faces. It's kind of weird, really. Both flavors are surprisingly strong given how little of either ingredient is in such a large batch of ice cream. The combined flavor is on the mellow side and the sharp berry tang of the cherries cuts through and clears it away until the next bite. So, the full effect if you're paying close attention is of at least three flavors (with hints of vanilla and citrus) shifting around with each bite. If you're not paying close attention then it's just really really good.
Monday, July 7, 2008
Pantry-clearing chili
Long long ago I bought a chunk of tasajo--Cuban-style dried beef--intending to use it for a dish of oil down. I had no luck finding the breadfruit I needed for the recipe and I'm sick of looking at it so I researched alternate uses. Other than just snacking on it, as it is beef jerky essentially, most applications are stews, either simple or with a long list of what I assume are vegetables that I've never heard of.
The seasoning on those stews are the standard minimalistic Cuban set, but I"ve been thinking about chili since my southwestern hominy stew got out of control and turned into something not quite close enough to chili to satisfy (although it's fine if you're not holding it to that standard). I've still got some black beans and chilies left from that, plus a sack full of CSA onions starting to go past their prime. Add a can of tomatoes, the right spices and maybe some corn meal to thicken and that's chili. It's not the traditional bowl of red, but by using dried beef it's closer to cowboy chili than most recipes come. I've never tried that before so I was curious how it would go.
The first step is an overnight soak for the tasajo, the beans and the peppers (in individual bowls). That yellow on the beef is colored beef fat, part of the preservation process. I scraped off a good bit so the water could get through.
The peppers seemed to be done soaking in the morning so I poured their liquid onto the beans and put them in the fridge for later. The other two soaked until I got home from work.
At this point the tasajo was nicely rehydrated and hard to distinguish from an oversalted, slightly
overcooked piece of fresh beef. I scraped off some more of the fat and chopped it up into pieces and inch or two on the side. I figured they'd either hold together at that bite-sized size or fall apart into strands as they cooked. I also added a pound of fresh beef (the "for stew" scraps you get at the supermarket). To make sure it would have a different texture than either of the dried beef possibilities I ran it through the food processor. During an episode of Good Eats on ground beef Alton Brown recommended ten pulses for burgers and seven for chili. When he actually did a chili episode he just cut the beef into cubes, but I wanted to try this. The results are a bit uneven, but I figured the big 
pieces would fall apart once the connective tissue melted during cooking.
I also chopped up two and a half onions (one red, the rest yellow), a few cloves of garlic, and a couple fresh small hot chilies.
And now to cook. I preheated the over to 300 degrees and heated some oil (and some of that yellow beef fat. Why waste it?) in a dutch oven. First order of business was to brown the ground beef
in a few batches. Then I tossed in the dried beef just to melt off the rest of the fat. Both those out, I added a bit more oil and tossed in chili powder, cumin, ground chilies and some Mexican oregano. Once they got fragrant I added the vegetables, turned down the heat, and gave them a bit of a sweat until they softened. Once they were ready I returned the beef, added a 14 ounce can of chopped tomatoes in juice and my rehydrated peppers and into the oven it went for two hours.
The black beans I decided to cook separately for a couple reasons. First, you want to salt a stew
early, but if you salt beans they take forever to get soft. Second, you need to simmer beans to cook them, but you want to keep a stew under a boil to keep the meat tender. So I cooked the beans on the countertop in the bean and chili soaking liquid with a bay leaf and some bits of hot Mexican carrots, onion and jalapenos I pickled last month. They never got hot enough to be great on their own, but they make a good ingredient. The beans took about an hour to cook and I added them to the stew when it had 45 minutes left to go.
At the same time I added a few handfuls of corn meal to thicken the dish. I didn't have any masa
so I ran some polenta through the food processor (before I did the beef) to try to get a finer grind. It didn't really work.
Forty-five minutes later and the dish was done. The tasajo didn't fall apart so it's in chewy chunks. It's pretty much the dried-out texture you get if you actually boil a stew for a couple hours. Not jerky-esque at all. It's still a bit saltier than fresh beef, but palatably so. Hardly worth the bother unless it's the only meat you can get your hands on after you've at sea for a month.
I really like the texture of the fresh beef, though. It didn't fall apart like fully ground beef would in a stew so there's something there to chew on, but it's tender enough that you don't have to really work at it. I think that's the takeaway from this experiment: seven pulses in the food processor. I'll have to see how it works in a beef bourguignon when the weather cools off a bit.
I used too much polenta so the chili clotted right up. I'm trying to think of it as cornbread pre-crumbled in for your convenience. I had to thin it out with some chicken stock which I'm hoping the polenta doesn't suck up too.
As for the the flavors, it's pretty much kid's chili. Kind of sweet, from the corn and peppers I think, and only a little heat in the aftertaste. A bit of lime, a shot or two of hot sauce and a few garnishes perks it up, though. Not bad, but nothing special. I've been too timid with the peppers lately; next time I'm going to take my chances and toss a bunch in.
The seasoning on those stews are the standard minimalistic Cuban set, but I"ve been thinking about chili since my southwestern hominy stew got out of control and turned into something not quite close enough to chili to satisfy (although it's fine if you're not holding it to that standard). I've still got some black beans and chilies left from that, plus a sack full of CSA onions starting to go past their prime. Add a can of tomatoes, the right spices and maybe some corn meal to thicken and that's chili. It's not the traditional bowl of red, but by using dried beef it's closer to cowboy chili than most recipes come. I've never tried that before so I was curious how it would go.
The first step is an overnight soak for the tasajo, the beans and the peppers (in individual bowls). That yellow on the beef is colored beef fat, part of the preservation process. I scraped off a good bit so the water could get through.
The peppers seemed to be done soaking in the morning so I poured their liquid onto the beans and put them in the fridge for later. The other two soaked until I got home from work.
At this point the tasajo was nicely rehydrated and hard to distinguish from an oversalted, slightly
overcooked piece of fresh beef. I scraped off some more of the fat and chopped it up into pieces and inch or two on the side. I figured they'd either hold together at that bite-sized size or fall apart into strands as they cooked. I also added a pound of fresh beef (the "for stew" scraps you get at the supermarket). To make sure it would have a different texture than either of the dried beef possibilities I ran it through the food processor. During an episode of Good Eats on ground beef Alton Brown recommended ten pulses for burgers and seven for chili. When he actually did a chili episode he just cut the beef into cubes, but I wanted to try this. The results are a bit uneven, but I figured the big 
pieces would fall apart once the connective tissue melted during cooking.I also chopped up two and a half onions (one red, the rest yellow), a few cloves of garlic, and a couple fresh small hot chilies.
And now to cook. I preheated the over to 300 degrees and heated some oil (and some of that yellow beef fat. Why waste it?) in a dutch oven. First order of business was to brown the ground beef
in a few batches. Then I tossed in the dried beef just to melt off the rest of the fat. Both those out, I added a bit more oil and tossed in chili powder, cumin, ground chilies and some Mexican oregano. Once they got fragrant I added the vegetables, turned down the heat, and gave them a bit of a sweat until they softened. Once they were ready I returned the beef, added a 14 ounce can of chopped tomatoes in juice and my rehydrated peppers and into the oven it went for two hours.The black beans I decided to cook separately for a couple reasons. First, you want to salt a stew
early, but if you salt beans they take forever to get soft. Second, you need to simmer beans to cook them, but you want to keep a stew under a boil to keep the meat tender. So I cooked the beans on the countertop in the bean and chili soaking liquid with a bay leaf and some bits of hot Mexican carrots, onion and jalapenos I pickled last month. They never got hot enough to be great on their own, but they make a good ingredient. The beans took about an hour to cook and I added them to the stew when it had 45 minutes left to go.At the same time I added a few handfuls of corn meal to thicken the dish. I didn't have any masa
so I ran some polenta through the food processor (before I did the beef) to try to get a finer grind. It didn't really work.Forty-five minutes later and the dish was done. The tasajo didn't fall apart so it's in chewy chunks. It's pretty much the dried-out texture you get if you actually boil a stew for a couple hours. Not jerky-esque at all. It's still a bit saltier than fresh beef, but palatably so. Hardly worth the bother unless it's the only meat you can get your hands on after you've at sea for a month.
I really like the texture of the fresh beef, though. It didn't fall apart like fully ground beef would in a stew so there's something there to chew on, but it's tender enough that you don't have to really work at it. I think that's the takeaway from this experiment: seven pulses in the food processor. I'll have to see how it works in a beef bourguignon when the weather cools off a bit.
I used too much polenta so the chili clotted right up. I'm trying to think of it as cornbread pre-crumbled in for your convenience. I had to thin it out with some chicken stock which I'm hoping the polenta doesn't suck up too.
As for the the flavors, it's pretty much kid's chili. Kind of sweet, from the corn and peppers I think, and only a little heat in the aftertaste. A bit of lime, a shot or two of hot sauce and a few garnishes perks it up, though. Not bad, but nothing special. I've been too timid with the peppers lately; next time I'm going to take my chances and toss a bunch in.
Friday, July 4, 2008
Fried chicken with basil leaves
After coming back from my trip I was disappointed at how poorly my curry leaves fared. I stored some in a sealed plastic bag with a strip of paper towel to absorb any stray moisture and some in one of those perforated greens storing bags. The batch in the sealed bag had begun to rot. I think they would have done fine for a couple weeks, but it's now around four weeks since I got them in my summer CSA a la carte. The second batch was well on its way to drying out, but the leaves had lost all of their aroma and without that they're hardly worth calling curry leaves.
I'll admit that this is something I should have checked somewhat earlier than halfway through preparing a recipe called Fried Chicken with Curry Leaves. However, I had a back-up plan. I've been needing to prune the basil in my garden (Last year I didn't and my basil plant grew like I was under attack by Plantman but died just as quickly.) so I can move this recipe from Malaysian to Thai. Luckily I had already switched out the soy sauce in the marinade for fish sauce so I was on my way. I don't actually know what variety of basil I've got, but it doesn't have the peppery bite of real Thai basil so I'll have to toss in some peppers to compensate.
So here's how it went:
Ingredients:
oil for deep frying
2 chicken thighs, boned, skinned and cut into largish bite-sized pieces
1 large handful basil leaves
1 small onion, chopped into largish bite-sized pieces
1 small green pepper, chopped into largish bite-sized pieces
1 bird's eye or similar hot pepper, sliced (and seeded if you're a wimp)
Marinade:
1 teaspoon fish sauce
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon white pepper (black pepper is fine, but I got tired of grinding. I need a new more efficient pepper mill.)
1/2 teaspoon sesame oil
1 Tablespoon corn starch
Glaze:
1/2 Tablespoon oyster sauce, I used Chinese-style which worked fine although I've just learned that Thai-style is different
1 Tablespoon fish sauce
1 Tablespoon sugar
80 ml chicken broth
20 ml rice wine
1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
juice of 1/4 lime
Directions:
1. Combine marinade ingredients, add chicken, marinate in refrigerator for one hour.
2. Heat oil for deep frying in a wok. Add chicken in batches without draining. Deep fry until golden brown. Don't worry about under-cooking as they'll be going back into the pan for a significant
amount of time.
3. Drain all but 2 Tablespoons of oil (or heat 2 Tablespoons of oil in a wok at high heat if you used an actual deep fryer).
4. Add onion, peppers and small handful of basil leaves. Stir fry until onion and pepper begin to soften and become translucent.
5. Add chicken and glaze. Stir fry until almost, but not quite dry.
6. Add remaining basil leaves, toss and immediately remove from pan and serve over rice.
No offense to ponikuta whose original recipe this is based off of, but this turned out much better
than when I followed her recipe to the letter. The switch from curry to basil leaves was, I think, a lateral one, but boosting the amount made the results much more aromatic. Adding the onion and pepper gave a better solids to glaze ratio so the sauce didn't over-reduce as it did on my first try. Instead of those overly salty and simple results, the flavors this time are a lovely blend of the savory chicken boosted by the oyster and fish sauces and the sweet of the lime and sugar with the basil wafting up behind and the pepper burning beneath. This would actually be a fine not-quite-vegetarian dish as the sauce brings out and supports the flavors of the onions and peppers. You could deep fry tofu and it would work really well, but don't use those frozen pre-fried tofu puffs. They'd absorb too much of the glaze and it wouldn't reduce right.
It's when I unexpectedly get these sorts of spectacular results that I regret that I'm only cooking for myself. Well, that's why I have this blog; If I can't feed you, at least I can record and pass on the recipe. Please make this; I promise you won't regret it.
I'll admit that this is something I should have checked somewhat earlier than halfway through preparing a recipe called Fried Chicken with Curry Leaves. However, I had a back-up plan. I've been needing to prune the basil in my garden (Last year I didn't and my basil plant grew like I was under attack by Plantman but died just as quickly.) so I can move this recipe from Malaysian to Thai. Luckily I had already switched out the soy sauce in the marinade for fish sauce so I was on my way. I don't actually know what variety of basil I've got, but it doesn't have the peppery bite of real Thai basil so I'll have to toss in some peppers to compensate.
So here's how it went:
Ingredients:
oil for deep frying
2 chicken thighs, boned, skinned and cut into largish bite-sized pieces
1 large handful basil leaves
1 small onion, chopped into largish bite-sized pieces
1 small green pepper, chopped into largish bite-sized pieces
1 bird's eye or similar hot pepper, sliced (and seeded if you're a wimp)
Marinade:
1 teaspoon fish sauce
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon white pepper (black pepper is fine, but I got tired of grinding. I need a new more efficient pepper mill.)
1/2 teaspoon sesame oil
1 Tablespoon corn starch
Glaze:
1/2 Tablespoon oyster sauce, I used Chinese-style which worked fine although I've just learned that Thai-style is different
1 Tablespoon fish sauce
1 Tablespoon sugar
80 ml chicken broth
20 ml rice wine
1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
juice of 1/4 lime
Directions:
1. Combine marinade ingredients, add chicken, marinate in refrigerator for one hour.
2. Heat oil for deep frying in a wok. Add chicken in batches without draining. Deep fry until golden brown. Don't worry about under-cooking as they'll be going back into the pan for a significant
amount of time.3. Drain all but 2 Tablespoons of oil (or heat 2 Tablespoons of oil in a wok at high heat if you used an actual deep fryer).
4. Add onion, peppers and small handful of basil leaves. Stir fry until onion and pepper begin to soften and become translucent.
5. Add chicken and glaze. Stir fry until almost, but not quite dry.
6. Add remaining basil leaves, toss and immediately remove from pan and serve over rice.
No offense to ponikuta whose original recipe this is based off of, but this turned out much better
than when I followed her recipe to the letter. The switch from curry to basil leaves was, I think, a lateral one, but boosting the amount made the results much more aromatic. Adding the onion and pepper gave a better solids to glaze ratio so the sauce didn't over-reduce as it did on my first try. Instead of those overly salty and simple results, the flavors this time are a lovely blend of the savory chicken boosted by the oyster and fish sauces and the sweet of the lime and sugar with the basil wafting up behind and the pepper burning beneath. This would actually be a fine not-quite-vegetarian dish as the sauce brings out and supports the flavors of the onions and peppers. You could deep fry tofu and it would work really well, but don't use those frozen pre-fried tofu puffs. They'd absorb too much of the glaze and it wouldn't reduce right.It's when I unexpectedly get these sorts of spectacular results that I regret that I'm only cooking for myself. Well, that's why I have this blog; If I can't feed you, at least I can record and pass on the recipe. Please make this; I promise you won't regret it.
Thursday, July 3, 2008
Piña Colada Sherbet
or possibly sorbet. Whether coconut milk counts is a point on which reasonable men can disagree.
This recipe was inspired by a poor freezer packing job that popped the door open while I was at work a few days ago. Nothing got above refrigerator temperature so no bacterial bonanza, but the impromptu defrosting did no good for the texture of some of my freezer's contents, most notably the bananas (awaiting their turn as smoothie components) which turned into mush.
Well, that's perfect for making ice cream so off I went. Also on hand was a pineapple that I wanted to do something with beyond just eating in chunks so a tropical flavor was in order. In Lebovitz's Perfect Scoop I found a tropical sorbet that used bananas and pineapple, but also tangerines and passion fruit which I didn't have. There was also a Piña Colada sherbet that didn't use banana (as the traditional drink recipe doesn't) but did have the intriguing inclusion of coconut milk. So I decided to improvise something somewhere in between with a few touches of my own.
Ingredients:
2 bananas, frozen and defrosted so they get all glorpy
1 1/2 cups pineapple, cut in chunks [fresh is best and the Golden Sweet variety is a good choice.]
1 cup canned coconut milk [not Coco Lopez which is sweetened. I should look into fresh. If I'm going to live in a town where I risk getting conked on the head by falling coconuts I should at least reap the benefits.]
juice of 1/2 lime
1/3 cup Splenda blend or 2/3 cup sugar
1 Tablespoon dark rum [I'm still using up the bottle of light rum I bought last year so I used that]
1 teaspoon kosher salt
6 shots vinegar-based hot sauce [for this application I chose Dat'l Do-it Devil Drops which have a bright fruity flavor and lots of heat.] or a little mint extract or just a shot of vanilla if you're not feeling adventurous
Just put everything in a blender, blend until smooth, chill to 40 degrees F, churn as per your machines instructions and ripen overnight.
And here's the end result. The texture is impeccably soft, creamy
and smooth with not a hint of ice crystals or fruit fiber and the flavor is that lovely tropical synergy of banana, pineapple and coconut with a just noticeable note of pepper and a trace of burn to round it out. Neither the rum nor the off chemical taste Splenda can have are at all noticeable. If you want to taste the rum, I'd suggest making a rum float instead of adding more to the mix. And it's low fat and relatively low calorie. A big hit in my Weight Watching office.
This recipe was inspired by a poor freezer packing job that popped the door open while I was at work a few days ago. Nothing got above refrigerator temperature so no bacterial bonanza, but the impromptu defrosting did no good for the texture of some of my freezer's contents, most notably the bananas (awaiting their turn as smoothie components) which turned into mush.
Well, that's perfect for making ice cream so off I went. Also on hand was a pineapple that I wanted to do something with beyond just eating in chunks so a tropical flavor was in order. In Lebovitz's Perfect Scoop I found a tropical sorbet that used bananas and pineapple, but also tangerines and passion fruit which I didn't have. There was also a Piña Colada sherbet that didn't use banana (as the traditional drink recipe doesn't) but did have the intriguing inclusion of coconut milk. So I decided to improvise something somewhere in between with a few touches of my own.
Ingredients:
2 bananas, frozen and defrosted so they get all glorpy
1 1/2 cups pineapple, cut in chunks [fresh is best and the Golden Sweet variety is a good choice.]
1 cup canned coconut milk [not Coco Lopez which is sweetened. I should look into fresh. If I'm going to live in a town where I risk getting conked on the head by falling coconuts I should at least reap the benefits.]
juice of 1/2 lime
1/3 cup Splenda blend or 2/3 cup sugar
1 Tablespoon dark rum [I'm still using up the bottle of light rum I bought last year so I used that]
1 teaspoon kosher salt
6 shots vinegar-based hot sauce [for this application I chose Dat'l Do-it Devil Drops which have a bright fruity flavor and lots of heat.] or a little mint extract or just a shot of vanilla if you're not feeling adventurous
Just put everything in a blender, blend until smooth, chill to 40 degrees F, churn as per your machines instructions and ripen overnight.
And here's the end result. The texture is impeccably soft, creamy
and smooth with not a hint of ice crystals or fruit fiber and the flavor is that lovely tropical synergy of banana, pineapple and coconut with a just noticeable note of pepper and a trace of burn to round it out. Neither the rum nor the off chemical taste Splenda can have are at all noticeable. If you want to taste the rum, I'd suggest making a rum float instead of adding more to the mix. And it's low fat and relatively low calorie. A big hit in my Weight Watching office.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)