I probably should have said that while I am a prolific reader
and collector of recipes books, and an internet follower of chefs and cooks and
all things cookery, I am a rubbish follower of a recipe. I seem to be
completely incapable of following an instruction. I am better with the dash of
this, pinch of that, school of cookery. So my sorbet making is led by the
smells, tastes and colours of my imagination, heavily influenced I am sure by
dishes I have eaten or read about. I am discovering the hard way how to get the
perfect texture and as I haven't weighed or measured very much it is difficult
to know whether to add or detract ingredients except by tasting, I am good at
that.
The second sorbet I made was a pale delicate green, I am so
in love with the colours that a bit of freezing produces. I wanted something
very clean tasting and refreshing so I confidently boiled up a sugar syrup and
added verveine and mint tea a spoonful of green verveine jam that I had bought
from a bio (organic) stall and when it was cold a good slug of gin and a little
pinch of salt. It was already quite delicious but a bit too sweet so I made
some more verveine tea and doubled the quantity thereby reducing the sweetness.
I also added a bit more gin, but too much alcohol is not good for sorbets, what
I really should have done was infused some juniper berries. Next time.
When it was all chilled I popped half the mixture in the ice
cream maker and in half an hour I had a soft green slush to decant into boxes
in the freezer. I immediately did the second half and although it worked, it
took a long time. I suspect this was because I didn't refreeze the bowl. The
end result was a lovely lot of verveine sorbet. Cool, clean and palette
cleansing.
Photo courtesy of www.studiolefort.com
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