Monday, March 8, 2010

Next-Day Sorbet


Four months into marriage, I'm finding a boatload of advantages. Somewhere between Husband doing the taxes (theoretically? please? because you're the numbers guy?) and honeymoon sex is a kitchen full of fun new gadgets. The slow cooker flexed its muscles during a snowy, dreary winter. The mini-chopper has saved many tears over onions. The mandoline, I still haven't figured out, but Husband is a whiz at it. And I was thrilled when Virginia, Patron Saint of Sunday Suppers, suggested we bring sorbet to her most recent dinner party, giving us a chance to bust out the ice-cream maker.*

The menu was Asian themed, including pot stickers, E's delicious soy-saucy kale (recipe, please?), an insane Swedish-Chinese-American pork tenderloin that I hope Virginia will share with us, and DIY summer rolls. Husband and I put our heads together: I thought of fruit; he one-upped me with chocolate; we both thought of ginger. And thus we went about making a dark chocolate ginger sorbet.

I nearly swooned when I tasted our rich, feisty, fiery concoction—only it was 4:30 pm, the day after the party. Because an hour before we were due at Virginia's, I took the ice cream maker out of the cupboard and realized I needed to freeze the FREEZER BOWL (he-llo) for 6–22 hours. Lesson learned, again: Always read the full recipe, including operating instructions for any new appliance you're using. Luckily, my raging bad mood was cured by a delicious dinner with friends, capped by Häagen-Dazs passion fruit ice cream, a kick-ass accidental discovery. Not that it beats our sorbet, which is for days when you want to just to become one with chocolate.

Dark Chocolate Ginger Sorbet

Makes 7 cups


4 cups water
1 1/2 cups pure cane sugar
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
2 cups unsweetened cocoa powder
2–3 tablespoons crystallized ginger, minced
1 tablespoon vanilla extract.

Combine water and sugars in saucepan and dissolve sugar over medium heat. Whisk in the cocoa. Stir in 2 tablespoons ginger, taste, and add another tablespoon if you like. Bring mixture to a simmer, stirring constantly, and simmer for 2 minutes. Remove from heat, and transfer to a medium bowl. Stir in vanilla extract. Chill for 2 hours.

Stir chilled mixture, and freeze it in the ice-cream maker, following manufacturer's directions (ahem). Mine was ready to eat in 25 minutes and stored well in an air-tight container in the freezer.

*Appropriately given to us by my mom & dad, who eat ice cream every night and have cholesterol levels lower than my bowling score. (No, you're right, not that low.)

Photo via Trisha | The Zest: Cooking Like I Mean It

1 comment:

  1. I'm pretty sad I don't live in DC anymore to take advantage of all the foodie experiments! Sounds delish! Congrats on the new blog!

    ReplyDelete