I made ice cream! The first time in years and years, since we used to make it at De Los Santos, where the richest chocolate icecream was served with petite little cinnamon churros.
Amazing, the quality and amount of food we prepped in that small kitchen now that I reflect. We made an unctuous cheese dough for cheese balls that were sprinkled with smoked paprika salt when fried, I gutted buckets of squids every second day, pulling whole fish from their bellies sometimes, before skinning and preparing them for calamari, sinks full of spiky shrimp needed veining and shelling, fillets of salmon had their bones delicately tweezered out for curing, an orchard of lemons were preserved in cinnamon and bay leaves, rabbits came delivered whole for boning to be cooked for hours in stews.
We did it all to the sounds of reggae rocking a transistor radio propped on the dishwasher's window. We'd shimmy around and do the work, singing while stirring, pausing here and there on the back alley steps for coffee or a coke on scorching Melbourne summer days. After work on Saturday nights we'd all go out to an underground club run by one of the casual chef's who was also a DJ and dance to ragga and trance and stumble out to the rising dawn and the Victoria Market fruit and vegetable marketers loading their shelves, the fishmongers and florists starting their day as we headed home for bed before another shift began.
Anyway, I was testing a recipe for a video we are doing at Phood and I am gobsmacked at just how good this icecream is. Phoebe is eating it with a slow kind of bovine dedication, using a tiny teaspoon (the only way to eat icecream).
It's raspberry ripple, or raspberry nipple as 5 year old River hears it. Unbelievably good, and although a little bit of standing around holding an electric whisk is required, it is very very easy. I can't wait to show it off to someone. I feel exalted, clever in a culinary way that I haven't experienced since making bread for the first time.
Rasberry ripple icecream
3 eggs
2 egg yolks, extra
1 teaspoon best quality vanilla extract
1 cup castor sugar
2 cups double cream
350g fresh or frozen raspberries, defrosted
2 tbsp icing sugar
Method:
To make the raspberry ripple place the raspberries with the icing sugar in a food processor and blend until smooth. Set aside.
Place the eggs, extra yolks, vanilla and sugar in a heat proof bowl over a pan of simmering water and beat for 5-8 minutes with a hand-held electric mixer until thick and pale.
Remove from the heat and beat again for 5-8 minutes until the mixture has cooled.
Whisk the cream until stiff peaks form.
Fold the cream into the egg and sugar mixture, removing as many lumps as possible while still being gentle. A figure 8 movement works for me.
Pour into a 2 litre capacity tray and spoon over the raspberry puree. using a spatula or butter knife, gently fold it through the cream mixture to create swirls.
Freeze for 6 hours.
A while back I posted about shooting with Darren Hickson from Shoot the Moon for a food photography competition. We did the shots at the lovely Trove in Levenshulme - well, I can now publish these shots because the competition is over (we didn't win - boo hoo). I love these pictures - the light is natural and warm, the wood from Trove's great table and floor makes a great backdrop and, if I do say so, the food looks pretty good too. The first dish is a salad of ricotta and local lettuces with blood orange, fennel and radish, and the second is baked quail eggs with parma ham.
