Gazpacho with Cilantro Lime Ice Cream

As I mentioned the other day, at least one wholesaler of avocados (Grande Produce) has voluntarily recalled their products due to salmonella. When I called Grande today to inquire about the scope of the recall, I was told that there were (or will be) other recalls of avocados that were farmed in the same area. Apparently, there are 15 or so importers/growers in that region with potentially unsafe products. So I had to scramble to find a new recipe for you. I strongly urge you to take great care when selecting avocados from the market.

I had been looking forward to the combination of gazpacho and ice cream. Bruce Weinstein has a recipe for gazpacho with avocado ice cream in his book The Ultimate Ice Cream Book. I really liked the idea of a more savory ice cream as component of a main meal. Who made the rule that ice cream is only a sweet treat?

For those of you who don’t know, Mrs. Fellow is a trained chef with two culinary degrees. Although she is now a Wall Street tycoon, I still get the benefit of having a well trained chef cook my dinner every night. This is great for my mouth and horrible for my belt line. So naturally, upon receiving a great recipe from Mrs. Fellow-in-law, my wife instantly rewrote it to suit her needs. I was given very little direction about how to approach this ice cream other than the instruction that I must be able to compliment cilantro and that it should be savory. Well, as savory as ice cream can get.

Lime and cilantro are great combination. Don’t let the amount of sugar in this recipe fool you. 1/3 of a cup is plenty to keep things in balance and provide a light sweetness. When it is warm, the custard is very sweet and taste of the lime is overwhelming. Once frozen the cilantro flavor is fully exposed and although you can taste the sweetness, it is not even close to the center of attention.

Here is the worksheet for this ice cream:



The soup is rather spicy. It is excellent on its own, but the ice cream tempers the heat nicely and gives a soothing creaminess to the dish. This gazpacho is left fairly chunky. It certainly isn’t as glamorous to look at, but the texture is more satisfying. Serve this with a salad and a nice piece of fish for a great and easy weeknight meal. What do you do with the leftover ice cream? Eat it. Although it works its magic with the soup, it is good on its own. The flavor is surprisingly light and refreshing.


Cilantro – Lime Ice Cream

1 cup packed cilantro (leaves and stems are ok)
¾ cup whole milk
Grated zest from two limes
1/3 cup of sugar
2 egg yolks
¾ cup cream
Up to 2 grams of salt

1. Put 4 cups of water on the stove and bring to a boil. In the meantime, wash the cilantro well (it is a very dirty vegetable). Once the water is at a full boil, toss in the cilantro. After 10 seconds remove the cilantro and soak it in cold water. This will help to preserve the color. Squeeze out as much of the excess water as possible.
2. Put the cilantro, lime zest, and milk in a blender. Blend on high for about 45 seconds to really break down the cilantro. The milk should turn bright green.
3. In a small saucepan, put the cream, cilantro infused milk, and about half of the sugar and heat to a bare simmer.
4. As the saucepan heats, beat the egg yolks with the remaining sugar and salt.
5. Once the saucepan contents come to temperature, remove the pan from the heat and slowly temper the eggs by adding in small quantities of the hot milk/cream to the eggs. Put all the contents back into the saucepan and return the pan to the heat.
6. Cook, stirring constantly until a candy thermometer reads 175 degrees F.
7. Remove the pan from the stove, strain through a fine mesh sieve (optional). Cool, chill, than freeze.

Gazpacho
About 2 pounds fresh tomatoes, rough chopped
3 cloves garlic, peeled
½ small sweet onion, rough chopped
2 red bell peppers, rough chopped
1 pound cucumbers
3 ½ ounces of lime juice
¼ teaspoon ground cayenne pepper
1 cup corn kernels
3 tablespoons, chopped cilantro

1. Place the tomatoes, onion, garlic, 1 pepper, ½ pound of cucumber in a food processor and puree until smooth
2. Stir in the lime juice and cayenne pepper
3. Add the remaining vegetables, season to taste with salt and pepper.
4. Ladle the soup into bowls and top with a scoop of Cilantro-Lime Ice Cream.

Sorbet Trio

Anita Chu who runs the Dessert First blog inspires today’s recipe. She made a strawberry and mango dessert for her parents’ visit. Mrs. Fellow had bought a lot of gorgeous strawberries from the local farmer’s market. I had a few mangos lying around the house for Baby Fellow who was not interested in eating them. After tasting the two together, I though that a third would better round out the flavor so I whipped a batch of lime-mint sorbet. I made the strawberry sorbet sweeter than I would have liked if it were being served on its own. The mango sorbet was left more tart to provide an interesting contrast. The lime-mint sorbet is subtly flavored with the mint to provide a clean flavor that refreshed the mouth after the sweet tart flavors of the other two.

These recipes are very straight forward so just jump right in. You’ll love them.

Strawberry Sorbet:

I am a bit vague with the amount of lemon juice in this recipe. Depending on the ripeness of your berries, you find that you need more (or less) lemon juice to balance the sweetness. In my version, I used the juice of one lemon, which was just a hair more than 2 tablespoons. Still, I left this a little sweeter than I would like if I was serving it on its own.

1 pound fresh strawberries
1 cup of water
1 ¼ cup of sugar
Lemon juice

1. Put the water and sugar in a small pot. Bring to a rapid boil and hold it there for 60 seconds. Turn off the burner and remove the pot from the heat.
2. As the water is coming to temperature wash, stem, and hull the strawberries, place them in a blender.
3. Juice the lemon. You do not have to strain it.
4. Add the liquid to the strawberries in the blender and puree until smooth.
5. Taste the puree and add a tablespoon of the lemon juice, stir, then taste. If it tastes too sweet add another tablespoon of lemon juice. Keep going until the you like the balance. Remember, you are freezing this so leave it a little sweeter than you think it should be because the cold will numb your tongue and make it taste less sweet.
6. Cool to room temperature and chill for at least 4 hours.
7. Freeze in your ice cream machine.


Mango Sorbet:

It doesn’t really matter how many mangos you have or how much they weigh. The general guideline is to add half as much simple syrup as the amount of mango puree. Be sure to make enough syrup to cover the recipe and then some to compensate for less than ripe mangos.

Mangos (I used 1 ½ pounds)
4 tablespoons fresh lime juice (I used the juice of 2 limes)
1 cup of water
1 ¼ cup of sugar
1. Put the water and sugar in a small pot. Bring to a rapid boil and hold it there for 60 seconds. Turn off the burner and remove the pot from the heat.
2. As the water is coming to temperature, peel the mangos, cut the flesh into chunks and place in a blender. Be sure to squeeze as much flesh as possible off of the remaining pit. Puree the mangos and place them in a measuring cup noting the amount of puree.
3. Once the simple syrup is completed, measure half as much as you have of the mango puree. In my case I had 2 cups of mango puree, so measured one cup of syrup.
4. Pu the puree and the syrup back into the blender, add the lime juice. Blend for 10 – 15 seconds to make sure everything is thoroughly mixed.
5. Taste the puree and correct the sweetness if necessary. You may need to add a pinch of salt if the mixture is too sweet.
6. Cool to room temperature and chill for at least 4 hours.
7. Freeze in your ice cream machine.


Lime-Mint Sorbet:

In this recipe lime juice is the star. Using fresh juice as opposed to the bottled stuff will make a tremendous difference. You need the zest of one of the limes, so don’t bother washing all of them. I use a zester that leaves stripes in the rind. It is easy, but only removes half of the zest from the fruit. So I zest two limes to make sure I have enough. Increase the amount of mint and the steeping time if you like yours more minty.

½ cup fresh lime juice (at least 5 limes)
Zest of one lime
15 sprigs of mint
1 cup water
1 ¼ cup sugar

1. Rough chop 5 sprigs of mint.
2. Put the water, sugar, and chopped mint in a small pot. Bring to a rapid boil and hold it there for 60 seconds. Turn off the burner and remove the pot from the heat. Allow the mint to steep for 10 minutes.
3. Juice the limes and place in a bowl big enough to accommodate all of the ingredients.
4. Wash one lime and remove the zest. Mince the zest and add it to the lime juice.
5. Mince the remaining mint and add it to the lime juice.
6. Once the syrup has steeped for 10 minutes, strain out the mint and add the syrup to the lime juice. Stir well to blend.
7. Taste the mixture and correct the flavor if necessary.
8. Cool to room temperature and chill for at least 4 hours.
7. Freeze in your ice cream machine.

Mango-Lime Ice Cream with Gingered Carrots

I know I promised you a recipe for an alternative ice cream base, but circumstances required that I make this one instead to compliment an Asian themed meal.

I happened to go through Daniel Boulud’s Braise. Inside was a recipe for Mangos and Carrots with Honey and Ginger-Lime Whipped Cream. Carrots and Mangos make strange bedfellows, but who is this fellow to question Daniel Boulud? Intrigued by the flavor profile, I set about translating his recipe into an ice cream.

I have made mango-lime ice cream successfully in the past to rave reviews. Mangos have an affinity for lime. Achieving the right balance of the two ingredients leads to a more intense mango flavor than without the lime. The stumbling block was how to handle the carrots. Originally, I thought about making and Indian halwa and serving it as a sauce over the ice cream, but the meal was Chinese Fusion. So I decided to candy the carrots in simple syrup and ginger. After test freezing a few pieces of carrot overnight and finding that they remained soft I opted to incorporate them into the ice cream. The contrast between the yellow base and the orange carrots was striking and made for a more dramatic composition on the plate.

The results were favorable for the dessert, but I will revisit this ice cream again and probably change some of it. For instance, I left out some of Boulud's ingredients such as the star anise and honey. Also, instead of adding almonds to the ice cream I chose to make almond financiers. Perhaps almond extract or some toasted almonds would work well inside the ice cream. Since this blog is about ice cream, I will not post the financiers recipe. You can find it in Susanna Foo Fresh Inspiration: New Approaches to Chinese Cuisine. The financiers were easy to make and yielded a light cake with a subtle almond flavor. I thought they did better after being refrigerated for 24 hours before being reheated and served.


For the base:

2 cups whole milk
2 cups cream
1 cup sugar
4 egg yolks
3-4 ripe mangos
pinch of salt
Zest of 3 limes
1 tablespoon lime juice (about 1 lime)

1. Put the milk, cream, ½ cup of the sugar, and the lime zest into a pot and bring to a slight simmer stirring occasionally.
2. As the milk and cream are heating, place the egg yolks into a bowl with the other ½ cup of sugar and salt and beat until it is a pale, frothy liquid.
3. Once the milk/cream mixture is simmering, remove it from the heat and temper the egg mixture by adding a small amount of the hot milk/cream and stirring thoroughly. Repeat this process a couple of more times to ensure that the eggs have warmed up. You should use about 1/3 of a cup of hot cream mixture in total. Then pour the complete egg mixture into the cream pot.
4. Return the pot to the heat and stir constantly until the custard reaches 175 degrees Fahrenheit.
5. Remove the pot from the heat let sit for 10 minutes or so to steep the lime zest.
6. Cut up the mangos, add the lime juice and puree until smooth.
7. Strain the warm custard through a sieve and add it to the mango puree. Stir with a whisk until thoroughly blended.
8. Cool the custard to room temperature and then refrigerate overnight.

For the carrots:
8 oz carrots
1 cup sugar
1 cup water
1 2” piece of ginger

1. Put the water and sugar into a small sauce pan and bring to a boil.
2. While waiting for the pan to boil, cut the carrots into small dice. Peel the ginger and cut it into 8 pieces.
3. Once the water is boiling, add the carrots and ginger. Bring everything back to a boil then put the temperature to low and let simmer for 30 minutes.
4. Cool and refrigerate overnight.

Finishing the ice cream:
1. Before freezing in your ice cream maker, stir the custard to ensure that the contents are well blended.
2. Freeze in your ice cream machine.
3. About 2 minutes before freezing is complete, pick out the ginger, then using a slotted spoon to avoid adding too much liquid, add the carrots to the ice cream.