Category: food

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food ice cream wine

red wine ice cream with dark chocolate sauce and cherries

My brother in law came round, with a rather triffic New Zealand Pinot Noir. There was a bit left in the bottle so what should I do with it rather than drink it? I thought about red wine ice cream.

It’s a bit off the wall but we’re not a million miles from a red berry or grape ice cream are we? I’m no stranger to experimenting with ice cream. I played with what was left in the bottle, then popped out to get some more to continue the testing! And after a bit of tweaking, the addition of cherries and a dark chocolate sauce helps nudge your palate in the right direction, accentuating the sweetness and the bitterness to help you on your way.

What wine varieties would work well in ice cream?

  1. Port: sweeter varieties like Ruby or Tawny Port can add a rich and fruity flavour.
  2. Cabernet Sauvignon: This full-bodied red wine with blackcurrant, blackberry, and hints of oak can bring depth and complexity to ice cream.
  3. Merlot: With its softer tannins and flavours of ripe red berries, plum, and chocolate, Merlot can lend a smooth and sweet character to ice cream.
  4. Zinfandel: Known for its bold and jammy fruit flavours, Zinfandel can add a vibrant and fruity punch.
  5. Malbec: This medium to full-bodied red wine offers flavours of black cherry, plum, and hints of spice.

The Marlborough variety that I’m using offers a vibrant and aromatic style. The region is usually known for sauvignon blanc but this pinot is just how I like it: fruity, not heavy with a really clean taste.

With rich, fruity flavours we’re not a million miles away from a black forest gateau? Suddenly the cherries make sense.

Here’s some of my other ice cream recipes:

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red wine ice cream

Course Dessert
Keyword booze, cherries, custard, pudding
Prep Time 30 minutes
Cook Time 10 minutes
Freezing time 1 hour
Total Time 1 hour 40 minutes
Servings 500 ml

Equipment

  • Ice cream machine

Ingredients

For the ice cream:

  • 400 ml red wine
  • 250 ml double cream
  • 75 ml whole milk
  • 4 egg yolks
  • 100 g sugar
  • 8-10 frozen cherries fresh will work but add them just before serving instead

For the chocolate sauce:

  • 50 g dark chocolate
  • 20 g butter
  • 100 ml double cream
  • 1 tablespoon sugar

Instructions

  • Put the red wine in a wide saucepan and put on a high heat. Boil until it has reduced by half - this can take 20-40 mins depending on the conductivity of your pan and water content of your wine. Once reduced pour into a jug or bowl to cool.
  • While it cools, put your cream and milk into another saucepan and bring to a simmer. While you wait beat the egg yolks and sugar together until light and foamy, about 3-4 minutes.
  • Add the wine reduction to the cream and then very gradually drizzle this into the egg yolks, beating all the time. This will help prevent the eggs cooking and scrambling. Return to a low heat and add a pinch of salt. Continue cooking until the mixture coats the back of a spoon, and leaves a trail when you draw a finger across - this will be about 80°C. Pour off to another container.
  • If you have an ice cream machine, churn until just set - a gelato kinda texture (I mean, you do what you want but I prefer the silky smoothness with the wine) and add the frozen cherries when prompted to mix in by your machine. If you don't have one pop the container in the freezer and churn up with a fork every 30 minutes until set, adding the cherries.
  • When ready to serve make the chocolate sauce. Combine all the ingredients in a saucepan and heat gently, stirring occasionally. Once melted together serve with the ice cream.

Notes

This pairs really well with a dense, rich chocolate cake or even as an affogato with a sweetened espresso.
Categories
food

what’s new?

I’ve been busy lately so here’s a quick round-up of some my favourite food things I’ve been enjoying.

Testing the cheapest blender on the market

I’ve been using this dirt cheap blender for a while now, so I thought I’d record my thoughts on what you get for your money. Watch below.

Exclusively show

I haven’t attended a proper food event since before the pandemic and I have to say I miss catching up with other food people. Exclusively 2023 was a trade show and my head was spinning from looking at all the different brands and products on show. Two trends stood out to me: everyone was keen to promote their green credentials, and every single brand seemed to be flogging a water bottle. Highlights for me included Denby’s beautiful crockery:

Henckels latest knife set:

and Vego cookware helmed by the charming Ankur.

BigFoodieGeek

I love finding a new YouTuber to watch, and Matt’s videos are a trove of fun, good recipes and silliness. Go check out his channel.

Bacon & egg ice cream

I was amazed with this Heston recipe. Part breakfast, part dessert, this wacky ice cream recipe is everything brilliant about my favourite chef. Click the pic to read:

Gordon Ramsay’s Future Food Star

Yes, it’s Apprentice with food. I mean, barely any changes to the format. But there is actual food and food business at the heart of all the challenges. Now if they can just lose all the silly jumping off cliffs team building rubbish it’ll be even better, but Gordon loves that stuff. Series 2 has finished now so have a binge on iPlayer.

Beef dripping sauce

I love a steak dinner. And I quite like the chain Miller & Carter – and the beef dripping sauce they do is knockout, so I had to have a go at making it myself. I’m really chuffed with the result, give it a go and let me know what you think.

Categories
bacon egg food ice cream milk

heston blumenthal’s egg and bacon ice cream

Heston Blumenthal was born in West London in 1966. His childhood fed many of his culinary fantasies he was to later draw upon and revisit: from fish and chips at Norman’s Plaice, to ice cream at the Regent Snack Bar. Breakfast and ice cream recur throughout his career, and the confluence of those is one I’m going to look at and cook today: egg and bacon ice cream.

This recipe, like so many of Heston’s, was born out of obsession and one of the first foods he investigated in depth at The Fat Duck restaurant. He wanted to find the perfect creamy mixture, with bold flavours, and yet not tasting too eggy. Not every ice cream recipe needs eggs but egg is an emulsifier that suspends butterfat particles and creates richer, creamier ice cream that stores really well. Searching for the perfect ice cream he began to experiment with all the variables, tweaking egg volume, freezing time, sugar content. After pushing received wisdom that custard bases should be cooked no higher than 85°c, his pastry chef Jocky Petrie commented that the overheated result “looked just like scrambled egg”. This eureka moment sent Heston off in a breakfast direction, remembering how much egg and bacon was a special treat growing up. After some refinement the dish first appeared on the menu at the Fat Duck restaurant in 2000.

The original plating in 2000

It might surprise you that this recipe uses milk powder. Heston has long favoured ice cream recipes with a low sugar content. Not for dietary reasons, but to create a denser texture and heightened flavours. Because of reduced fat and sugar, this recipe is high in egg yolks. The skimmed milk powder stops the ice cream from crystallising to create richness yet light and clean.

There are two published versions of the recipe: the uber-recipe from The Fat Duck Cookbook is an unsurprisingly complex and multi-layered affair, with tea jellies and tomato compotes. But there’s also the comparatively laid back version in Heston at Home, which is what I’ve emulated here: with the ice cream served with an egg-soaked bread and candied bacon. Much more approachable and likely more crowd pleasing.

The original recipe requires dry ice. I wasn’t willing to stretch to this – I can’t find it for under £37 – but instead used my ice cream maker for the final step. It may not be truly authentic but at least it’s Heston’s own endorsed model?

The result is a surprising and playful dessert that combines sweet, creamy ice cream with the savoury and smoky flavours of bacon. The Egg and Bacon Ice Cream reflects Blumenthal’s signature style of molecular gastronomy, where he combines unexpected ingredients and techniques to create unconventional but delicious dishes.

It is terrific. Really, super tasty. If you like dishes that combine sweet and salty flavours this is the one for you. The ice cream has a sweet but smoky flavour with a slightly ‘chunky’ texture and is a real winner. But the pain perdu / french toast / eggy bread is stunning. With a glass-like finish and sweet, chewy middle it’s sensational and worth having with other desserts.

Here’s a variation on the recipe served in egg shells.

And here’s Aldo’s version from BigFatUndertaking.

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egg and bacon ice cream

Heston Blumenthal's ice cream inspired dessert is french toast with a twist of sweet / savoury ice cream.
Course Dessert
Cuisine British
Keyword savoury, sweet
Servings 2 people
Calories 609kcal

Equipment

  • Ice cream machine

Ingredients

For the ice cream base:

  • 66 g sweet-cured smoked back bacon
  • 166 g full-cream milk
  • 5 g semi-skimmed milk powder
  • 4 large egg yolks
  • 20 g caster sugar

For the pain perdu:

  • clarified butter
  • 2 slices brioche stale (refrigerate overnight in a container to speed this up)
  • 100 g milk
  • 1 egg
  • 10 g golden caster sugar
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste

For the caramelised bacon:

  • 2 slices smoked bacon
  • 1 tablespoon maple syrup
  • ¼ teaspoon salt
  • 1 teaspoon sugar

Instructions

For the ice cream base and caramelised bacon:

  • To start the ice-cream base, preheat the grill to high. Lay the bacon slices on a baking tray lined with baking paper and place under the grill for 5-7 minutes or until crisp.
  • At the same time mix the syrup, salt and sugar together and then brush on two more bacon slices and grill with the other bacon. When this is cooked refrigerate until needed.
  • When the initial bacon is cooked, drain on kitchen paper and cut it into strips. Place in a bowl, pour over the milk then refrigerate to infuse overnight.
  • The next day, put the milk and bacon into a saucepan and add the milk powder. Place over a medium-low heat and bring to a gentle simmer. Remove from the heat and strain off the bacon.
  • In the meantime, blitz the egg yolks and sugar together using a hand blender. Combine the egg mixture with the warm milk and return the pan to the heat. Warm the liquid until it just reaches 90ºC.
  • Once this temperature has been reached, remove the pan from the heat and pass the ice-cream base through a fine sieve into a clean container over iced water, pushing the custard through with the back of a spoon. Transfer to an ice cream machine and churn until done. Freeze until needed.

For the pain perdu:

  • Mix the egg, milk, vanilla and sugar together. Dunk the bread in to soak for 20 minutes. After this time remove the bread to a rack to drain for a couple of minutes.
  • Melt a tablespoon of clarified butter in a non-stick frying pan over a medium heat. Add the bread and fry on all sides, remove and place on paper towel to absorb any excess fat.
  • Wipe the pan out then place it over a medium-high heat. Add enough sugar to cover the bottom of the pan and allow to melt.
  • Once the sugar has completely melted and caramelised, add the bread and cover every side. Once coated on all sides, remove the bread from the pan, place on a silicone mat and allow to cool.
  • To serve, scoop the ice cream into a serving bowl (I used an egg cup). Place a slice of crystallised bacon on top and serve with pain perdu on the side.

Video

Notes

If you don't have an ice cream machine, you probably don't have dry ice either. This can be also made by placing into a freezer, and breaking up every 30 minutes but the results won't be a smooth.
Categories
food potatoes salt

brined baked potato

If someone comes at me telling me they’ve found the perfect potato recipe, I am all ears. So when I read that America’s Test Kitchen have defined the perfect jacket “baked” potato I will definitely give it a try. Their solution? Well it’s a… brine solution.

I love brining meat – there is no better way to treat poultry – but on a potato? Turns out it’s not true brining but giving it a little bath in salt water.

You know how potatoes can get ‘leathery’ when you bake them too long? And the skin is really thick? Baking them in a really hot  oven prevents this ‘pellicle’ from forming underneath the peel. The salty water helps form a tasty layer and all of it makes the skin super tasty.

A pellicle is a thin, tacky layer that forms on the surface of certain foods when they are exposed to air. In the context of cooking, a pellicle is most commonly associated with smoking fish or meat, where it is desirable to develop a pellicle on the surface of the food before smoking it.

When it comes to baked potatoes, a pellicle can form on the surface of the potato skin as it bakes. This can happen when the potato is left uncovered or not wrapped tightly in foil, allowing the surface of the potato to dry out slightly and form a thin, dry layer. Some people believe that developing a pellicle on the potato skin can help make it crispier, while others prefer to keep the potato moist by wrapping it in foil or covering it with a lid while it bakes.

The formation of a pellicle is not a necessary or essential step in baking a potato. Whether or not a pellicle forms on the potato skin is largely a matter of personal preference, and there are many different ways to bake a potato to achieve different textures and flavours.

Original recipe here

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brined baked potatoes

An easy but tasty way to cook jacket potatoes.
Course Main Course
Servings 2 people

Equipment

  • probe thermometer

Ingredients

  • Salt and pepper
  • 2 standard baking potatoes about 10cm in diameter
  • 1 tablespoon melted butter

Instructions

  • Preheat oven to 230°C. Dissolve 2 tablespoons salt in 100ml water in a large bowl. Toss the potatoes for about 30 seconds to coat in the brine. Put onto a rack over a baking tray lined with foil and bake in the middle of the oven. Bake until the centre of the largest potato registers 100°C. This will take 45 minutes to 1 hour.
  • Remove potatoes from oven and brush with butter. Return the potatoes to oven and continue to bake for a further 10 minutes to develop a shiny crust.
  • Remove potatoes from oven and serve immediately.
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