Cool and minty

 

I may have surpassed myself this time, I was weeding and had to cut back some mint that was taking over. It smelt so good I was determined not to waste it so I stuck it in a jug of water until later. This morning I googled mint sorbets and  found www.crumbsonthetable.co.uk a wonderful foodie read.

I have pretty much followed her recipe but of course changed it a little bit. 

40 gms of mint leaves 300gm sugar 300 mls boiling water. I stirred it vigorously to bruise the  mint and to release the flavour, let it steep, and let it cool. When it had reached room temperature, I added half a cucumber whizzed up with a pinch of salt  and 200mls of water  and about 2 tablespoons of  a spanish apple liquor.  The mixture needed to be strained as bits of mint aren't very appetising, rather dark khaki green is fine in a mint sauce but not in my pretty sorbets. I added ice cubes to bring it up to 1litre.  The resulting liquid is a delicate pale green courtesy of the cucumber I think. The taste is amazing, I can't wait to try it once it's frozen.

 More Strawberries

Here you can see how small my strawberry plot is, only 20 plants surrounded by coriander and poppies. The fallen red petals from the poppies often confuse me but picking strawberries means careful searching deep under the leaves. I found another 750gms of strawberries today.  

This time I decided to make a boozy strawberry and rubarb sorbet. I used two sticks of rubarb from the garden and sliced it thinly into a pan with half a cup of water an inch of fresh ginger sliced finely, 2 slices of candied orange, 700 grams of hulled strawberries and about 200gms of sugar and plenty of freshly ground black pepper. I cooked it all together for about 5 minutes until the rubarb was very soft and puréed it.  It has to cool down in the fridge but I am planning to adda. large slug of rubarb and ginger gin. Adding alcohol helps prevent large ice crystals forming as well as being delicious. I want this sorbet to have quite a kick to it.

I churned it in the ice cream maker and it made a wonderfully strong and spicy but creamy sorbet The ginger and black pepper bring a wonderful heat which contrasts well with the sweet fruit.  I can't wait to serve it up as a delicious interval for the adults during  a long relaxed sunday afternoon lunch with friends and family.I. 

 2024 and the return to sorbet making and blogging.

It has been very wet and not particularly warm this year but after last years drought I think my garden is grateful and doing its best.

The strawberries have been prolific, nearly a kilo a day which is impressive for just 20 plants. We ate a lot and gave some away but now it is time for some serious sorbet making. 

The first bowl full of strawberries had to be halved and hulled, then I added white sugar, black pepper and about a tablespoon of balsamic vinegar. and a bit of star anise. The proportions for fruit sorbet are about 4:1 according to icecreamnation.org. A super site for technical information and delicious recipe ideas.  I had 700gms of fruit  so I used about 175 gms of sugar. I let it all macerate for several hours and then whizzed it into a purée. Because I didn't cook up the fruit or a sugar syrup it was all quite cool. I let it sit in the fridge while I made some sugar syrup and  macerated a bowl of scented rose petals. (Coming shortly.)

The next step was to prepare some containers for the finished sorbets I have some plastic pots with lids but I also decided to try some paper /cardboard coffee cups  which would be perfect for individual servings. When everything was ready I poured my fruit purée into the ice-cream maker, added half glass of rosé and left it to churn. I felt fairly confident but also apprehensive as I hadnt made a sorbet since 2022.

A few days later we had to try out the coffee cup moulds. I remembered buying Kulfi in India from a street vendor and how he had briskly rolled the paper cone between the palms of his hands before peeling it away, so I rolled the little cardboard cups in my hands, feeling very streetwise, while my husband looked on in anticipation and sure enough a beautiful little strawberry pink cone of sorbet popped out into his waiting bowl. It worked!

  

                            

Back to sorbets and delicious summer tastes all year round.

After a wet spring my beautiful scented roses are flourishing so I am ready to start sorbeting again.
I read through my blog to remind myself how I do it and then I wandered out with my big yellow bowl and started gathering roses. Definitely not rose buds but rather damp open flowers. My feet are soaking and so are a bowl full of perfumed petals. About 150 gms.

The sugar syrup, made with 500ml of water and half that volume of sugar , also contains two crushed cardomum pods, some lemon zest from half a bio lemon that was waiting to be used, a shake of sumac and a cup of earlgrey tea. The sumac was a suggestion from my blog  that I had forgotten about; it will be interesting to see whether it is a good addition.
It is all in the fridge waiting for the next step.

I have put it in the machine for about 20mins and it has made a lovely pale pink sorbet but I am surprised the colour is so pale as the roses were a deep pink. Looking forward to testing it later when the sun is out .

Thyme for Sorbets 2016

Q)What is a Sorbet ? Ans) A bit like ice cream but you wont like the taste...

My grandsons explanation to his brother when he asked, "what is a sorbet?"  made me realise sorbets really aren't kid's food especially the bright red scoop I was offering around. Sour yet sweet with a bit of a kick. Perfect between courses.

I had been given a great big bag of red currants which I had quickly cooked with a bit of sugar and then sieved. The next step was to add a sugar syrup, about the same weight of sugar to water, infused with fresh thyme and a good wine glass of chianti.I am going to try to use many more herbs in my sorbets this year.

Us grown ups liked it alright  and I realised that the sorbet season was back and my scented roses were coming back into flower after almost rotting away during the dreadful weather in May. I am imagining earl grey tea and a hint of sumac with my roses this year.

I think I treat sorbet making as a bit of a chemistry experiment as well as a culinary exploration. I certainly dont want to make lemon sorbet though I am sure I would if I grew lemons. What I want to do is capture the scents of my summer garden and the colours too.

Fancy glasses

One of the great pleasures of making sorbets is that I now have an excuse to buy fancy glasses in vide greniers and in Emmaus. I have been collecting  funny little glasses with a thick bottom to the bowl, they are quite old but not very fine glass. There is one in the photograph between the pink glass and the polish bowls. The glasses with the thick base are not  really for serving sorbets although they work very well for palette cleansing, intense flavours, between courses. Someone once told me they were designed for toast-masters so that they wouldn't over do the drinking while looking as if they had a normal glass. It sounds plausible but I have no idea if it is true.

 My friend Sarah gave me some very delicate fine glass dishes that are perfect for dinner parties, she found them in our local brocante in Maurs and they are etched with little bunches of grapes. The rims are so fine and delicate that I am rather precious about using them.

My everyday sorbet glasses are the robust green ones, and my most favourite are the clouded pink ones. Both of which hold a good two scoops and go in the dish washer, what more could one want.

I did think this would probably be my last blog as it is autumn now and sorbet love is fading, but I realised I never put in the recipe for lavender sorbet. This was the reason for buying my ice cream maker. Also blackberries are now plentiful and rose hips and my scented rose has had another burst of blossom following a good soaking of rain so I will be back.

A Handful of Blackberries

We planted a runner of a thornless blackberry from a friends garden and this year it has begun to fruit. The blackberries are much bigger than the wild brambles and seemingly much earlier.

I picked the first handful a few days ago and sat them in a pan with a spoonful of sugar just to encourage the juice to run. The next day I simmered the blackberries in their own juice and strained the syrup through a fine stainless steel sieve.  The amount of juice was tiny but very intense. I put it in the fridge and wondered how to make the best of such a tiny amount of juice. I wanted to celebrate these first fruit but realistically I should have waited for a larger crop.

I am trying to reduce the amount of added sugar as I feel it would be healthier and also a lot of sugar tends to reduce the flavour to a general sweetness. Then I had a brilliant idea, blackberry and cabernet sauvignon. I added a large wine glass of some Cabernet Sauvignon wine and another spoonful of sugar and a little applejuice and some water. It tasted like blackberry wine and I put it in the icecream machine. After half an hour it was still not set but beginning to be slushy so I transferred it to the freezer. Two hours later we had it at the end of a lovely summer lunch.

It all went, not surprisingly as there wasn't a lot but it was firm enough to spoon out into balls and although it melted quickly in the hot sun it was a definite success. Not too sweet and with a bit of a boozy buzz.