Interesting savory ice creams

[rlibkind]

Please don't limit yourself to ice creams. Sorbets are particularly suitable for non-traditional flavors. Celery sorbet makes an excellent intermezzo. And with the nearness of the tomato season, a sorbet out of tomato water would be exceptionally good, perhaps herbed up with cilantro (essentially, a frozen salsa!). Which makes me think of trying to make a frozen gazpacho later this summer; can't imagine it'd be bad, just leave out the bread and go easy on the alliums, which somehow I don't think would lend themselves to a frozen presentation. But tomato, sweet bell pepper, cucumber and the traditional herb seasonings should work, though I'd still add sugar syrup to insure good texture.

In doing any savory or unusually flavored ice cream/sorbet, trying to do it without sugar, corn syrup, invert sugar or other appropriate sweetener may be asking for trouble, unless you want a crystallized texture, in which case using the granite technique rather than an ice cream maker would work well. But I'll leave the definitive answer on this aspect to the food scientists among us. (Harold McgGee, are you reading this?)

[PaulDWeiss]

I've had frozen mousse of foie gras at two different restaurants in France, and both times I'd call them successful. Neither was sweetened (as well as I can remember), and I remember both of them as smooth and unctuous, with no crystalline aspect. I think one was served as an amuse, and the other came in the middle of the meal somewhere.