Week 20 - Rose Kulfi
30 May, 2011
Week 20 - Rose Kulfi
A couple of years ago, in a moment of poorly-thought-out spontaneity, I bought a bottle of Lebanese rose syrup. It was only later that I realized that I had no idea what I could use it for.
Then I remembered a Middle-Eastern cooking blog I'd been reading. The blogger - the extraordinary Mercedes - had spent a month making a new ice cream each day the previous summer. Since rose is pretty well established as a flavor profile in Middle Eastern cooking, I figured that if anyone could help me come up with a recipe for rose-flavored ice cream, it would be her.
I emailed Mercedes and she was extremely helpful. She hadn't ever made ice cream with rose syrup, but she improvised a recipe for me as a starting point, using a standard custard base and a tiny amount of the rose syrup. (As it turns out, a tiny amount is just about right; it's powerful stuff.)
I made a batch according to her recipe and it was very good, especially for a beta-version prototype. It tasted just a tiny bit flat though and I thought it might benefit from a little bit of acid - lemon juice or maybe balsamic vinegar. I ran it by Mercedes, who agreed that a little citrus juice would probably zip it up.
So - many months later - I tried the recipe again, tweaking it with a little lemon juice. This was even better, though not exactly what I wanted it to be.
About a week ago, in the middle of an early morning walk, I was listening to a food podcast and suddenly realized that I hadn't actually heard anything they had said, because I was - for whatever reason - turning over the Rose Ice Cream recipe in my head.
So, this weekend, I tried out Rose Ice Cream 3.0. Instead of cooking a custard base with cream and egg yolks, I subbed the base out with ricotta cheese. I added a little bit more salt, to tweak the cheesiness of the base, mixed everything with the whisk attachment in my stand mixer, then froze it in my ice cream churn.
Once the ice cream was finished in the churn, I packed it into a container and put it in the freezer to harden up. I had a little bit too much of the mixture to fit in the churn, so I just froze that in plastic popsicle molds.
Results - the ice cream was delicious, but a little too rich. I might sub out half of the ricotta with half&half next time. Basically, though, this we're almost there.
The big surprise though was the non-churned rose popsicles. They were really good. Yes, I know this is not how it is supposed to be made, but somehow, I ended up with really good Rose Kulfi (a dense, rich Indian ice cream).
Grades:
Rose Ice Cream - B+
Rose Kulfi - A
Recipe:
3 cups whole-milk ricotta
1/2 tsp. fine sea salt
1/3 cup sugar
1/4 cup rose syrup
juice of 1/2 a large lime
1) Mix all ingredients together with whisk attachment in stand mixer.
2) Freeze in ice cream churn or pour into popsicle or kulfi molds.
3) Freeze.
Makes approximately 1 quart of ice cream, or some (a couple dozen?) kulfi popsicles.
Week 20 - Rose Kulfi
30 May, 2011
Week 20 - Rose Kulfi
A couple of years ago, in a moment of poorly-thought-out spontaneity, I bought a bottle of Lebanese rose syrup. It was only later that I realized that I had no idea what I could use it for.
Then I remembered a Middle-Eastern cooking blog I'd been reading. The blogger - the extraordinary Mercedes - had spent a month making a new ice cream each day the previous summer. Since rose is pretty well established as a flavor profile in Middle Eastern cooking, I figured that if anyone could help me come up with a recipe for rose-flavored ice cream, it would be her.
I emailed Mercedes and she was extremely helpful. She hadn't ever made ice cream with rose syrup, but she improvised a recipe for me as a starting point, using a standard custard base and a tiny amount of the rose syrup. (As it turns out, a tiny amount is just about right; it's powerful stuff.)
I made a batch according to her recipe and it was very good, especially for a beta-version prototype. It tasted just a tiny bit flat though and I thought it might benefit from a little bit of acid - lemon juice or maybe balsamic vinegar. I ran it by Mercedes, who agreed that a little citrus juice would probably zip it up.
So - many months later - I tried the recipe again, tweaking it with a little lemon juice. This was even better, though not exactly what I wanted it to be.
About a week ago, in the middle of an early morning walk, I was listening to a food podcast and suddenly realized that I hadn't actually heard anything they had said, because I was - for whatever reason - turning over the Rose Ice Cream recipe in my head.
So, this weekend, I tried out Rose Ice Cream 3.0. Instead of cooking a custard base with cream and egg yolks, I subbed the base out with ricotta cheese. I added a little bit more salt, to tweak the cheesiness of the base, mixed everything with the whisk attachment in my stand mixer, then froze it in my ice cream churn.
Once the ice cream was finished in the churn, I packed it into a container and put it in the freezer to harden up. I had a little bit too much of the mixture to fit in the churn, so I just froze that in plastic popsicle molds.
Results - the ice cream was delicious, but a little too rich. I might sub out half of the ricotta with half&half next time. Basically, though, this we're almost there.
The big surprise though was the non-churned rose popsicles. They were really good. Yes, I know this is not how it is supposed to be made, but somehow, I ended up with really good Rose Kulfi (a dense, rich Indian ice cream).
Grades:
Rose Ice Cream - B+
Rose Kulfi - A
Recipe:
3 cups whole-milk ricotta
1/2 tsp. fine sea salt
1/3 cup sugar
1/4 cup rose syrup
juice of 1/2 a large lime
1) Mix all ingredients together with whisk attachment in stand mixer.
2) Freeze in ice cream churn or pour into popsicle or kulfi molds.
3) Freeze.
Makes approximately 1 quart of ice cream, or some (a couple dozen?) kulfi popsicles.