Rhubarb Ripple Ice Cream - Rhubarb Trilogy 2011 - Part II

Encouraged by David Lebovitz and his The Perfect Scoop, I have been making ice cream recently. I don’t love ice cream but I do have an ice cream maker which caused no small amount of post purchase depression. Consequently, I have fits and spurts of determination to use said machine.

Turning the pages and looking at perfectly scooped bowls of creamy indulgence, some beautifully swirled with bright fruit purées, I got to thinking about how uncommercial rhubarb is. Why is there no rhubarb ice cream next to the Black Raspberry Cheesecake and the Rum Raisin? I would stand up for the humble rhubarb and create the next ice cream sensation, Rhubarb Ripple.  

Instead of using the same recipe I have used for years for vanilla ice cream, I thought, since I was already reading it, I would use one from The Perfect Scoop. I followed the ingredient list perfectly and then forgot or didn’t bother to read the recipe instructions and carried on my way, happily ignoring the published directions and making it the way I would have made it anyhow. Regardless, it is perfect and delicious and not crazy sweet and the perfect foil for the rhubarb compote I was going to swirl through.

I would recommend, if you are really caught up in appearances, or taking pictures of your work for your blog, that while you split your vanilla bean, you watch what you are doing. Don’t watch your toddler scaling the kitchen cupboards or you will wind up with something like this.

Or, better yet, put down your knife and rescue your toddler from her tenuous toe hold on the edge of the drawer. In hindsight, you and your kitchen units will be happy you did.

Rhubarb Ripple Ice Cream (with some help from David Lebovitz and The Perfect Scoop)

Vanilla Ice Cream Base

1 cup (250 mL) whole milk

2 cups (500 mL) whipping cream

3/4 cup sugar

1 vanilla bean, split lengthwise

6 large egg yolks

Pinch of salt

Rhubarb Ripple

4 cups chopped rhubarb

1 cup granulated sugar

4 tablespoons (1/4 cup) lemon juice

Scrape out the seeds of the vanilla bean and add to a large saucepan with the milk, cream and sugar. Gently bring to a boil. Immediately remove from heat.

Beat egg yolks and pinch of salt in a bowl and slowly pour about a third of the hot cream mixture into the yolks, whisking all the time. 

Slowly pour the yolk mixture back into the pan with the remaining cream whisking all the time.

Return to the stove and over a low heat, stirring constantly, cook until the mixture coats the back of a spoon. You can test by running a finger through the mixture on the back of the spoon. It should hold the path left by your finger.

Pour the mixture into a bowl and chill.

Put the rhubarb, sugar and lemon juice in another medium saucepan and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer, stirring occasionally, until the mixture is thick enough to hold a track in the bottom of the pan when you run a spoon through it. As the mixture thickens, you will need to stir it more frequently to prevent burning. It will be thick and syrupy and will measure just shy of 1 1/2 cups when it is properly cooked down.

Pour into a bowl and chill.

Freeze the ice cream base in an ice cream maker according to manufacturer’s instructions. If you don’t have an ice cream maker you can try it the way I explained here.

Put a large metal mixing bowl in the freezer to chill while the ice cream is freezing.

When the ice cream is frozen, transfer it to chilled bowl and quickly fold/swirl/gently stir about 1 cup of the rhubarb mixture in. You don’t want to fully incorporate it it, you want to keep the rhubarb in swirl or ripples. You also want to do this as quickly as possible to prevent as much melting as you can.

Immediately transfer to the freezer to set up again.

Commercial, it may not be but delicious, there is no question.

Roasted Rhubarb - Rhubarb Trilogy 2011 Part I

As I mentioned here, what seems like only a few days ago but in reality is nearly a month, rhubarb and strawberry season was underway on a recent visit to England.

It was on this trip that Poppy re-discovered Eton Mess and labelled it as the best thing in the world. So good, it was, and is still, requested at the faintest whiff of a strawberry.  

After our first Cornish lane experience in a good two years, following signs promising the first fresh strawberries of the year, I was a little shaky. We unbuckled and made our way up the path. I was worried the berries would be sold out or, even worse, Spanish. Poppy was worried the farmer would be in the fields, unable to be found to sell his or her goods. Tilly was just happy to be unbuckled from the sick making journey to get there.

Lucky day, the farmer was in her shop and had flats of huge, juicy strawberries just in from their very own tunnels, flanked by stalks and stalks of ruby red rhubarb, begging to join our berries.

Normally, without the prospect of Eton Mess, Poppy would be all over a nice bunch of rhubarb. The berries and thoughts of cream and meringue were too much though and she made me promise, promise, promise that if we got rhubarb too, I could not mix it in thereby destroying everything an Eton Mess is supposed to be.

I didn’t mix it in, but I did put it on top. And, then I put it on top of muesli and yogurt in the morning and then on top of ice cream and then, I thought some pork, roast or chops, would benefit hugely from a few bits of this on top and a sprinkling of sea salt. Or, I thought, maybe a nice wedge of camembert or a bit of goat cheese and some oat cakes would be a nice medium. What I am trying to say is that there isn’t a whole lot that I don’t think this would be really good with. 

When you roast these, you’ll find they start to look a ‘little splody’, meaning they have almost burst their skins. That is fine. As the rhubarb cools, it will firm up and then you can move it around gently.

Roasted Rhubarb

7 big stalks of rhubarb washed and cut into 3-inch pieces

3/4 cups sugar

Preheat oven to 375ºF. If you have a convection oven, or fan in your oven, I would use it. If not, you may need to increase the cooking time. 

Line a baking sheet with parchment.

Toss the pieces of rhubarb in the sugar and arrange them on the baking sheet. Sprinkle the sugar that is left behind over them.

Bake for about 20 minutes, checking often, until they look like they are bursting and the edges have started to brown.

Remove from oven and cool. Transfer to a container or plate, reserving any juices for drizzling.

Use them to top Eton Mess, or muesli or yogurt or cheese or meat. You get the idea.

Chocolate Paté - Happy Birthday Pops!

My dad’s birthday is today. He is turning 60. 60 years young, he would say. My dad has taught me some pretty valuable lessons in the past few years.

He has taught me the value of being unconditional with those you love. I missed that for a long while. Along with that came learning the value of being loved unconditionally. He has taught me that sometimes it is okay to give in and to admit that you can’t do it all. He has taught me that it is okay to receive and that sometimes just being thankful is enough. He taught me that we don’t always have to agree to have a relationship. He has taught me that even when we haven’t seen each other or spoken in an age, that there is always someone who will listen and enjoy or talk and disagree or just say, ‘thanks for sharing that.’ He has taught me that I am stronger than I think I am.

He has taught my daughters a few things too. They have learned that he is a little crazy sometimes but that he loves them, even when they don’t want a bar of him and that that in itself is okay. He has taught Poppy how to drive, the windshield wiper controls and horn being an integral part of those lessons. His alter-ego, Stewart Martha, has taught them how clean a floor should be to eat off of. Most importantly so far, for them, he has taught them that chocolate is a food group on its own and that, when part of a meal, one should always eat it first so as not to spoil it by the lingering flavours of anything else or, heaven forbid, by not having enough room at the end of a meal. 

With that in mind, the girls and I set out to make what is potentially my dad’s favourite food, chocolate paté. I have made it for him before, in various guises. I once put some dried sour cherries in it which were eaten, but to his mind were definitely not proper, interfering with what was meant to be a chocolate experience. The nuts were greeted in much the same way. White chocolate would be unthinkable and milk chocolate is just about tolerable. 

Finding the recipe we would use became a challenge but I eventually happened upon a Bernard Callebaut recipe which, with a few tweaks was going to be just fine. I omitted the white chocolate layer. I kept the milk chocolate layer because the dark chocolate I was using needed a sweet lift for this to really be perfect, and so that my children would eat it. I normally make a baked, in a water bath, chocolate paté which uses eggs but it also uses 1 1/2 pounds of chocolate and makes a ton. It was not an eating challenge I felt the girls and I could, or should, take on. A big plus was the simplicity of this recipe. Sometimes you just can’t be worrying about temperatures and timing and with this, in three hours you have something amazing.

What came out was a little lighter than a usual paté but no less chocolatey for it. The Just Us chocolate I used was perfect. The dark gave a smoky depth and the milk chocolate had a caramel note that was the perfect foil for the barely sweet dark. I macerated some raspberries, which means I added some sugar and let them sit for a bit, and served it with that and some white chocolate sauce. You could do that or purée the berries and pass them through a sieve to remove the seeds for a finer presentation. With white chocolate or not is up to you as well. Some like it served with a dollop of whipped cream. In Cornwall, it would have a blob of the ubiquitous clotted cream. Really, I think, anything goes.

The only note on the method I would like to add is that of you stop to take photos, distribute evenly sized spoon licks to onlookers or otherwise faff about during the folding in of the cream, you too will likely end up with some tiny little chips of chocolate in your paté. They taste great but don’t help in the achieving of a silky smooth texture.

With all that, Happy Birthday Dad/Papa! 

Chocolate Paté (adapted from Bernard Callebaut)

200 grams good quality milk chocolate chopped

200 grams good quality dark chocolate chopped (try for at least 70%)

3/4 cup unsalted butter 

2 cups (500 ml) heavy (whipping) cream

Line a 22 x 11 cm loaf pan with cling film.

Melt each of the chocolates separately in a double boiler. When melted add 1/4 + 1/8 cup butter (1/2 of what the recipe calls for) in each, stir until butter is melted. Remove from double boiler and heat and let cool to room temperature.

When chocolate mixtures are cooled, whip cream to soft peaks. Divide evenly between the two chocolates and gently fold the cream into each chocolate.

Spoon the milk chocolate mixture into the pan, tap gently to, hopefully, get rid of any big bubbles and smooth top. The do the same with the dark chocolate layer.

Cover it with cling film and refrigerate for at least two hours.

Carefully unmold by gently tugging on the cling film lining the tin and invert it onto a plate.

With a hot knife (put the knife in a container of hot water for a few seconds), slice the paté.

Put slices on a plate and serve with some macerated raspberries or raspberry coulis and/or some white chocolate sauce.