Green Tea Ice Cream with Chocolate Rice Crisps

This recipe is from The Perfect Scoop by David Lebovitz. I have had very limited success with making green tea ice cream prior to using this recipe. The big reason is brewing the tea. In the past I would stick tea bags into the hot milk and cream and let them steep for a good while. I could never get enough tea flavor into the ice cream which probably was due t the nature of the fat in the liquid clogging the tea bag. Mr. Lebovitz's recipe uses matcha, Japanese green tea powder that eliminates this problem.

The advantage of matcha is that it is powdered. This means you are not steeping anything. Just dump it in and stir it up. The other big deal with matcha is that you are actually eating the tea. This means you get more health benefits from the good stuff within the tea.

The disadvantage of matcha is it is very expensive. How expensive? It can run you anywhere from $18 to $40 USD per ounce. Luckily a little goes a long way. There are cheaper alternatives. Some Korean green teas are powdered and less costly, but I have yet to try them.

Mr. Lebovitz's recipe is great, but I really wanted to make it my own. To that end I added the chocolate rice crisps. If you have ever had genmai-cha, green tea with roasted brown rice, than you know that adding crispy rice cereal to the ice cream will enhance the flavor. I couldn't help but add the chocolate too. Think of this as green tea ice cream with dark chocolate Krackle Bars. I incorporated pieces of the crisps into the ice cream. It works well, but I think that the chocolate becomes the star as opposed to the green tea (Mrs. Fellow likes it this way). Next time I make this, I will serve big pieces of the chocolate rice crisps on the side as garnish. When it comes to the final product, either way will work well, it just depends on your taste.


This is the work sheet for the ice cream:



Green Tea ice Cream:

1 cup whole milk
¾ cup sugar
Pinch of salt
2 cups heavy cream
4 tsp matcha
6 egg yolks

1. Put the milk, sugar, and salt into a small saucepan and heat until a bare simmer.
2. Meanwhile, beat the eggs
3. Put the cream in a large bowl and stir in the matcha. Be careful with this step. Matcha tends to clump and if you beat the cream to much it becomes whipped cream. Your best option is to use a small fine sieve to dust some of the tea into the cream, then mix it in and repeat until all the tea is incoporated. NOTE - it will not be very green at this stage.
4. Add some of the heated milk to the eggs and mix gently. Do this a couple more times to ensure that the eggs are properly warmed.
5. Put the eggs into the saucepan with the milk and heat until 175 degrees F. Stir continuously.
6. Strain the custard into the cream.
7. Beat the custard with a wire wisk until frothy, you should notice that it gets a lot greener.
8. Let custard go to room temperature, chill overnight, then freeze in you ice cream machine. Add in the chocolate rice crisp pieces towards the last minunte of freezing in your ice cream machine.

Chocolate Rice Crisps:

8 ounces semi-sweet or bitter-sweet chocolate (I used a combination of both)
½ cup crispy rice cereal (like Rice Crsipies)

1. Melt the chocolate in a double boiler
2. Add the cereal, stir to fully incoporate
3. Spread in a thin layer on a tray and place in the freezer to harden into a solid block of candy.
4. Once frozen, break the block into small pieces.
5. You can also leave them as big pieces and garnish the ice cream as I did in the photograph.

Ice Cream in the News

In case you are in Europe, particularly the UK, Anne Shooter has written a story about how expensive organic ice cream can be and her experiments with making ice cream at home. She also rates some of the more popular brands available across the pond. You find the article in the UK Daily Mail Online.

I have one comment about her article. She implies that the stabilizers and thickeners added to her store bought organic ice cream are not natural. They probably are natural, but not organic. I can't speak for the UK, but in the USA, if a product is made from at least 95% organic ingredients, then it can claim to be "Organic" on the label with qualifying itself by saying, "made with organic ingredients." It would be different story if the label said 100% Organic. In this case, every ingredient must be organic.

For those of us that believe organic is healthier, 95% organic is better than no organic ingredients. Keep in mind that this is a commercial ice cream product. Unlike homemade ice cream, the commercial stuff has to sit in a couple of different warehouse freezers and freezer trucks before getting to the store. Then it has to ride to your home (frequently in the heat of the summer). If you want 100% organic, you are going to have to make it yourself. Personally, I'll take 5% non-organic for the convenience.

Speaking of convenience, the August issue of Bon Appetit magazine has a story on ways to use store bought ice cream to create some original desserts. The recipes look like a great way to save some time in the kitchen and still get a dessert far more interesting than ice cream sundaes.

The Evils of HFCS

Sorry to report that my idea for an ice cream float has not worked out. I hate that it has been so long without posting a recipe, but this failure gives me a great opportunity to discuss the why you shouldn't use high fructose corn syrup when making ice cream. My recipe idea was for a reverse ice cream float -- cola flavored ice cream in a vanilla cream soda. I did some research and could not find a cola flavored ice cream anywhere. Now I know why.

I've said most of this before, but it always bears repeating. Inexpensive ice cream is filled with short cuts. The cheap stuff in the value tubs at your local supermarket is full of chemicals and high fructose corn syrup (HFCS). I won't get into the danger of HFCS, there are plenty of experts who can tell you about why you should never eat it, but when it comes to ice cream, HFCS is a menace.

HFCS is much cheaper than sugar. It is sweeter and goes a long way. The problem is that since it is not sugar, it does not behave the same way. It bonds to the other molecules differently and will almost always result in an icy texture. Yet the cheap ice cream that uses HFCS does not feel icy. That is due to their use of emulsifiers and the amount of air that is pumped into the mix to change the texture. Whatever you do, avoid HFCS like the plague. Regular corn syrup is different, it has a lot of home uses, but HFCS is a menace.

It should be business as usual by the end of the week. I will resume my weekly recipes. The next one will be my take on green tea ice cream.

Tuesday Update

Last Friday, June 20, was National Ice Cream Soda Day in the USA. I have not forgotten about it. I am actively seeking an ingredient to make my very interesting ice cream float.

I have to apologize about the lack of new posts. I have been out of town on vacation. The family went to Chicago to visit friends and enjoy some time away from the grind. I have to share one of our meals with you. I am not fortunate enough to be Jennifer Zyman or Cliff Bostock when it comes to describing restaurants, but I hope to do this one justice.

One of the best things that we did in Chicago was have the honor of being the first customers at Marcus Samuelson's new restaurant, the C House. For those of you who don't know, Chef Samuelson is the owner of Aquavit in New York City and appeared on Iron Chef a couple of weeks ago.

Our meal was fantastic. As is his style, Chef Samuelson offers a menu filled with seafood, including an extensive raw bar. His flavors were clean, fresh, and inventive. I had the fluke, which was served in a clear sweet and sour broth that was light and had the most unexpected, yet delicious flavor. Mrs. Fellow enjoyed the lobster club sandwich, which may be one of the best reasons to go to Chicago. Lobster with avocado on a bacon brioche served with some outstanding fries and house made spicy ketchup (if memory serves they use half beef fat and half vegetable oil for frying). One last super delicious thing to note, Chef Samuelson offers a version of macaroni and cheese using goat cheese and chorizo.

Our desserts featured ice cream (no surprise there). I had the warm black forest cake with brandied cherry ice cream. Warm chocolate cake is almost always good and this one was no exception. I really enjoyed the cherries on the top. The accompanying brandied cherry ice cream was very tasty, but really did not have a lot of brandy flavor, which is just fine because I don't really like a lot of alcohol in my ice cream. The pastry chef stopped by our table and gave us a taste of her blueberry sour cream ice cream. It was delicious, but suffered from the same problem as my recipe -- a slight icy texture. Our friends loved it and did not notice the iciness. Maybe I'm just too critical. Mrs. Fellow ordered a trio of house made confections consisting of chocolate covered spiced marshmallows, blueberry biscotti, and the best vanilla cupcake ever. Words cannot describe the softness of the cake or intensity of the vanilla flavor. You have to eat one to believe it.

We also found the staff to be exactly what you want in this caliber of restaurant. They were friendly and knowledgeable. The wait staff did not know the menu inside and out, but that is easy to forgive on opening night. I appreciated that they were not afraid to tell you when they were unsure of ingredients and preparations especially where the Baby Fellow's order was concerned (because of her allergies). Chef Samuelson visited us several times. We found him to be a wonderfully warm and gracious host. Especially surprising was his great rapport with the three kids at our table. The wine steward left Napa Valley to come to Chicago for this job. He has put together a great wine list that definitely leaned towards whites which is a perfect compliment to the seafood heavy menu. He had great technical knowledge and was extremely helpful in aiding our wine selection.

With all the good food in Chicago, it is hard to go wrong, but you would be doing yourself a disservice if you skipped the C House.

Want to do a guest column?

This coming Saturday is the Second Annual Ice Cream Social at the Peachtree Farmer's Market in Atlanta. I was looking forward to competing, but I have another commitment that prohibits my involvement.

Is there a volunteer who wants to do a guest column about it?

If you live in Atlanta and like ice cream, you should go. The social will feature flavors by chefs and amateurs. I think it costs $10 to attend. Click this link to visit the Peachtree Farmer's Market website.