Baklavesque Ice Cream
Album: Best of Nina Simone (esp. Ne Me Quitte Pas)
Warning: PREP WORK
1/2 cup milk and 1/2 cup cream (or 1 cup half & half)
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup honey
1/8 tsp salt (optional)
2 egg yolks, beaten
1 tsp rose water
2 cups cream
1 cup shelled pistachios (1 1/2 hr PREP WORK, 2hr if not shelled)
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 glass wine (a nice white)
Blanching and Peeling of Pistachios (can be done beforehand):
Preheat oven to 250 fahrenheit. Boil some water and pour it onto meats (doesn't matter how much water, but definitely cover them); let stand for 5-10 minutes. Drain water and let cool enough to pick 'em up. Put meats on a towel and pinch meats between thumb and forefinger to remove skins.
Realize this is a laborious process. Call all Middle Eastern friends to see if there's a shortcut. Find none. Resign self to suffering. Skins will dry out and stick to the meats after about 25 minutes; therefore no breaks. Curse all the time you wasted calling your useless friends. Remain convinced there's a better way to do this but your friends are either descended of a masochistic middle eastern sect or are too assimilated to remember the shortcut of their peoples. Decry the hegemony of western culture. Discard skins and put meats in 250 degree oven for about an hour, shaking occasionally so they don't stick and burn.
Ice Cream Making:
Gently heat half & half (or milk/cream mix) in a small to medium saucepan. Stir in sugar, honey, and salt to make a sweet milk mix. While you're stirring, take two quick breaks to separate the yolks. Put egg yolks in a two-cup sized dish that can take a little heat (i.e., not plastic). So, we've gotta get the yolks into the milk mix but if we drop the cold yolks into the mix they'll curdle from the sudden shock of the high heat. This would be disgusting--imagine fried eggs in your ice cream. So you've got to jack up the heat gradually by tempering them so they stay loosey-goosey. How to temper? Take some of the heated up milk mix (like, to 1/2 or 3/4 a cup of it) and gradually add it to the egg yolks, stirring constantly. Once it's warmed up, pour yolk/milk mixture back into the original half and half saucepan. Cook over medium heat about 5-10 mins, until thickened and creamy. Do not boil. Cool it way down in the fridge (or better, on a ledge in front of a window if it's a wintry night), but stir it occasionally so it doesn't get a skin. Or don't, it's no big deal if it gets a little skin.
Now forget about the mix and focus on the pistachios. You have two pistachio options: either a)chop them and add them to the ice cream 2 minutes before it's done (very tricky) or b) cuisinart them into a fluffy paste, gradually adding one cup of the cream, the rose water, and the cinnamon. BTW, if you have no rose water, but you have rose perfume, you can substitute a couple of drops of rose perfume in the mix (1 spritz if it's an atomizer). Sure, there's a little formaldehyde, but that's life. Just don't tell anyone.
Have glass of wine.
Stir together the paste, cream, and egg/sugar mix. If you've got a kitchenaid, use the whisk, it's fabulous. If you don't have a kitchenaid, you must get one. I've got my mother's old one. The thing is more than 30 years old, and it has suffered through the relentless abuse of a peripaetic 20-something--it was in a frigging basement for two years, which flooded at least twice--and with absolutely no maintenance other than a thorough cleaning when I pulled it out of the basement, it still performs like a well-tuned sports car. You only ever need to buy one!
I have no idea how this company makes a profit.
Put the mix in your ice cream machine. If you've got the chopped pistachios, put them in a minute or two before it's done. If you've done the paste thing, you may want to actually run the machine a second time; the paste is really thick and heavy, and makes it hard for air to get into the ice cream mix, rendering each spoonful really heavy--think gnocci. Because air is wicked cheap, most commercial ice cream makers fluff up their ice cream with lots of air, so people get accustomed to light ice cream. A second run will probably make your ice cream more crowd-pleasing. When the machine is done, put the ice cream in the freezer for at least 8 hours to fully harden.
Voila! Serve with Persian cardamom cookies.
Warning: PREP WORK
1/2 cup milk and 1/2 cup cream (or 1 cup half & half)
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup honey
1/8 tsp salt (optional)
2 egg yolks, beaten
1 tsp rose water
2 cups cream
1 cup shelled pistachios (1 1/2 hr PREP WORK, 2hr if not shelled)
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 glass wine (a nice white)
Blanching and Peeling of Pistachios (can be done beforehand):
Preheat oven to 250 fahrenheit. Boil some water and pour it onto meats (doesn't matter how much water, but definitely cover them); let stand for 5-10 minutes. Drain water and let cool enough to pick 'em up. Put meats on a towel and pinch meats between thumb and forefinger to remove skins.
Realize this is a laborious process. Call all Middle Eastern friends to see if there's a shortcut. Find none. Resign self to suffering. Skins will dry out and stick to the meats after about 25 minutes; therefore no breaks. Curse all the time you wasted calling your useless friends. Remain convinced there's a better way to do this but your friends are either descended of a masochistic middle eastern sect or are too assimilated to remember the shortcut of their peoples. Decry the hegemony of western culture. Discard skins and put meats in 250 degree oven for about an hour, shaking occasionally so they don't stick and burn.
Ice Cream Making:
Gently heat half & half (or milk/cream mix) in a small to medium saucepan. Stir in sugar, honey, and salt to make a sweet milk mix. While you're stirring, take two quick breaks to separate the yolks. Put egg yolks in a two-cup sized dish that can take a little heat (i.e., not plastic). So, we've gotta get the yolks into the milk mix but if we drop the cold yolks into the mix they'll curdle from the sudden shock of the high heat. This would be disgusting--imagine fried eggs in your ice cream. So you've got to jack up the heat gradually by tempering them so they stay loosey-goosey. How to temper? Take some of the heated up milk mix (like, to 1/2 or 3/4 a cup of it) and gradually add it to the egg yolks, stirring constantly. Once it's warmed up, pour yolk/milk mixture back into the original half and half saucepan. Cook over medium heat about 5-10 mins, until thickened and creamy. Do not boil. Cool it way down in the fridge (or better, on a ledge in front of a window if it's a wintry night), but stir it occasionally so it doesn't get a skin. Or don't, it's no big deal if it gets a little skin.
Now forget about the mix and focus on the pistachios. You have two pistachio options: either a)chop them and add them to the ice cream 2 minutes before it's done (very tricky) or b) cuisinart them into a fluffy paste, gradually adding one cup of the cream, the rose water, and the cinnamon. BTW, if you have no rose water, but you have rose perfume, you can substitute a couple of drops of rose perfume in the mix (1 spritz if it's an atomizer). Sure, there's a little formaldehyde, but that's life. Just don't tell anyone.
Have glass of wine.
Stir together the paste, cream, and egg/sugar mix. If you've got a kitchenaid, use the whisk, it's fabulous. If you don't have a kitchenaid, you must get one. I've got my mother's old one. The thing is more than 30 years old, and it has suffered through the relentless abuse of a peripaetic 20-something--it was in a frigging basement for two years, which flooded at least twice--and with absolutely no maintenance other than a thorough cleaning when I pulled it out of the basement, it still performs like a well-tuned sports car. You only ever need to buy one!
I have no idea how this company makes a profit.
Put the mix in your ice cream machine. If you've got the chopped pistachios, put them in a minute or two before it's done. If you've done the paste thing, you may want to actually run the machine a second time; the paste is really thick and heavy, and makes it hard for air to get into the ice cream mix, rendering each spoonful really heavy--think gnocci. Because air is wicked cheap, most commercial ice cream makers fluff up their ice cream with lots of air, so people get accustomed to light ice cream. A second run will probably make your ice cream more crowd-pleasing. When the machine is done, put the ice cream in the freezer for at least 8 hours to fully harden.
Voila! Serve with Persian cardamom cookies.
posted by Kate McKay at 5:53 PM
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