A life in Ice-Cream Chapter one - Simply rich chocolate · Saturday August 8, 2015 by colin newell
To date, this is my best ice cream creation ever.
Read the instructions carefully because there are ingredients moving hither and thither!
You will need one sauce pan for heating things up. You will need a digital instant read thermometer (if you really want to play it safe and not cook the eggs!)
You will need a variety of bowls and one large bowl with water and ice in it for chilling a medium sized bowl which will contain the ice cream mix (for chilling)
Do yourself a favour and visualize the steps and the process – I needed to and it helped make this the best chocolate ice cream ever.
Chocolate Sauce
2 cups (500 ml) heavy 36% cream
7 oz semi-sweet Bernaud Callebaut cooking chocolate
1 cup (250ml) whole milk
Custard
3/4 cup (150g) white sugar
pinch of salt
5 large egg yolks
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon instant espresso powder (optional)
Warm 1 cup of the cream – bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer for 30s
whisking constantly – remove from the heat and add the coarsely chopped
chocolate stirring until smooth.
Turn in the remaining cup of cream.
Pour the mixture into a large bowl – scraping as much of the goodness out and
set a mesh strainer on top of the large bowl (that also contains the dairy and chocolate mixture…)
Combine (and warm) the whole milk, sugar and salt into the now emptied saucepan. And in a separate medium bowl whisk together the egg yokes.
Slowly pour the warm milk, sugar, salt mixture into the egg yokes whisking constantly – then return this mixture of eggs, milk, sugar and salt into the saucepan.
Stir the mixture constantly over medium heat with a heat proof spatula – monitoring the heat with an instant read digital thermometer – note as you heat this mixture do not under any circumstances exceed 170 degrees or you will cook the eggs.
Scrape the bottom as you stir until the mixture thickens and coats the spatula – again making sure you do not exceed 170 degrees. This is your custard.
Pour this “custard” through the strainer into the chocolate/cream mixture and stir until smooth.
Stir in the vanilla. Add 1/2 instant espresso powder if so inclined.
Stir and cool over an ice bath – that is, your bowl of chocolate custard mixture should be floating on a bigger bowl that is half filled with ice and water.
Chill the mixture thoroughly for 2 – 4 hours in the fridge.
Put the mixture into your ice cream maker following the manufacturers instructions.
I use a KitchenAid commercial mixer with the Ice Cream Cold Core attachment and it works the charm. Ice cream needs to be churned for around 25 minutes or so and there are some manual ice cream makers (like the Donvier but you need strong wrists to churn for 25+ minutes!)
Enjoy!
A life in Ice-Cream Chapter one - Orange and Anise · Thursday August 6, 2015 by colin newell
I bought a Ice cream “Core” for my Kitchen Aid professional mixer – the core is a special bowl with a coolant that can freeze and the kit includes the “dasher” which is the rotating arm that churns the ice cream.
It is a simple process: Put the core in the deep freeze (temperature in my freezer is around 5 degrees (F) and that is plenty cold for setting up the core. You can push the core to a cooler temperature but the “mixture” (the dairy mixture that will soon become ice cream after churning) can freeze on contact with the core bowl causing the dasher to seize up – you do not want that to happen.
Anyway – here is the recipe for my first attempt at a Philadelphia style ice cream (contains no eggs) – In my next blog I will demonstrate my first French style of Ice cream (the good stuff!) with eggs.
Ready your gear This series will be written around the KitchenAid Ice Cream maker core – but the recipes work with any method of churning. I grew up making Ice Cream with the Donvier manual Ice Cream maker – which explains why I have such strong wrists!
Ingredients:
2 cups (500ml) 18% 1/2 and 1/2 cream and 1/2 cup whole milk (125ml)
3/4 cup or 150g sugar
pinch of salt
1/2 cup of orange juice.
1 tablespoon orange zest
3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon anise extract
Instructions – pour 1 cup of the cream into a medium saucepan and add the sugar and salt.
Add extracts and the zest of one orange (around 1 tablespoon)
Warm over medium heat stirring until the sugar is dissolved.
Add 1/2 cup whole milk.
Remove from the heat and add the remaining cream.
Chill mixture thoroughly for around 2 hours – in the fridge.
When ready to “churn” add to your device and follow the device instructions.
Yield is around 1 quart or a litre or so.
This ice cream maintains a pretty white colour and tastes different to different people – some of you will pick up the orange flavour, some the licorice — it is pretty subtle.
Coming up: Some of the richest chocolate ice cream you have ever tasted!
Grilled spicy Lamb burgers on the old Weber · Thursday July 2, 2015 by colin newell
Andrea and I made these from fresh ground Island lamb and fresh herbs from the garden – much like regular beef burgers but with a kick – and they are lamb.
They are around 3/4” thick – I grilled them at around 375 to 425 for 5 minutes on the first side
and 2 minutes on the second side.
PATTIES
1½ pounds ground lamb
2 tablespoons tightly packed finely chopped fresh cilantro leaves
2 tablespoons chopped fresh mint leaves
2 tablespoons chopped fresh oregano
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon moroccan spice mix
½ teaspoon ground coriander
½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2 garlic cloves, minced
¼ teaspoon ground cayenne pepper
4 kaiser rolls, split
Thinly sliced red onion
MAYO
2 tablespoons mayonaise
2 heaping teaspoons fresh mint sauce
Served with lettuce and red onion – and any salad on the side you might desire.
Grill with crumbled feta on top.
Pairs well with a robust Red wine.
Dinner hour - Bucatini All'Amatriciana · Monday June 1, 2015 by colin newell
This is one of my wife’s favourite meals at a local restaurant named Zambri’s – using our own tomatoes from the garden as well as many other fresh ingredients, we created the Marinara (which is basically Tomatoes, onions, finely diced celery, carrots, 1/2 cup of red wine, garlic etc – full recipe to follow). The Marinara is the foundation for many classic Italian recipes and we will give it its own blog entry shortly!
1/8 cup extra virgin olive oil
5 oz. thinly sliced pancetta (or bacon)
1/2 red onion – cut lengthwise in half – and 1/4” half moons
2 teaspoons mince garlic
1 heaping teaspoon red pepper flakes
2 cups home made marinara sauce
freshly grated pecorino romano cheese
2 servings Bucatini pasta
Put water on to boil with salt
Meanwhile in a saute pan combine olive oil, pancetta, onion, garlic and red pepper flakes.
Cook over medium low until the onion is softened and the pancetta has rendered much of its fat – about 12 to 15 minutes.
Drain away all but 1/4 cup of the fat from the pan.
Add the marinara sauce.
Turn up the heat and bring to a boil. Lower the heat to a simmer.
Allow to simmer for 6 – 7 minutes.
While the sauce is simmering, cook the Bucatini in boiling water for about 12 minutes or as directed by pasta cooking instructions – looking for “very firm” – drain.
Add the pasta to the simmering sauce and toss for about 1 minute to coat.
Divide the pasta among the plates (two servings) dress with grated cheese.
