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Unusual ice cream and sorbet flavors


zilla369

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Not so unusual, but I love lavender and honey ice cream.

Killer stuff. There are a number of lavender-based sorbetti and gelati in northern Italy. Maybe better is lavender creme brulee. I have recipes for both from the ristorante Flipot in Italy. Will post them when I get back. I make a lot of ice cream, gelati and sorbetti, and on the domestic side, the all-time favorite (as judged by my eaters) is banana rum raisin, the key being to boil the raisins in the rum to plump and soften them and fill them with the concentrated rum flavor, and also to cook the alcohol out (microwave works great, by the way). The raisins, after being thus softened first, take on a nice light crunch when frozen in the ice cream. Pinch of cinnamon, pinch of nutmeg, vanilla if you like, and you have a tropical delight.

Can we get a recipe or two? I'd be much obliged.

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Chocolate and jalapeno, as they do it at Restaurant Alma in the Mission District in San Francisco

I love Alma - was only there once and they were out of that ice cream that day. Their Cuban bread salad is wonderful.

My vote for weird ice cream flavor - used to be served by Neilson's at their summertime stands in Ontario Canada in the summer (perhaps elsewhere as well?)

It's a hard pack swirl comprised of orange sherbet, vanilla ice cream and black licorice ice cream. It's called "Tiger Tail". Look sreally cool and is remakably tasty despite the odd combination (perhaps because of it).

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Heheh. I can't speak for outside of Ontario, but Tiger Tail is popular all over the place here. In my opinion, Kawartha Dairy makes the best ice cream in Ontario (and yes, they have tiger tail too) :)

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Chocolate and jalapeno, as they do it at Restaurant Alma in the Mission District in San Francisco: intense chocolate with minced jalapeno wandering through it, not hot, but a terrific chile finish.

Sounds similar to the Bittersweet Chocolate/Chipotle ice cream made by a local purveyor. Really quite something.

Every year someone makes a garlic ice cream at the Gilroy Garlic Festival, which I understand is highly overrated (the ice cream -- but the festival isn't all that great, either, IMO). I've not had it the ice cream . . .

Edited by Xanthippe (log)
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At Otto, in NYC, I had a really phenomenal olive oil and blood orange gelato.

Jason Perlow, Co-Founder eGullet Society for Culinary Arts & Letters

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grapefruit-and-tarragon sorbet

I think the first tarragon flavored sorbet I ever had was six or seven years ago at Arzak in San Sebastian. It was a pear sorbet served with some orange confection. That was dessert. Since then I've had any number of unusual flavors used in ice creams and sorbets for both dessert and savorty courses.

Robert Buxbaum

WorldTable

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Someone in the North Bend/Snoqualmie area of Washington is doing Jack Daniels ice cream and are offering Jack and Coke floats as a dessert entree. And I remember TCBY (are they still around anymore?) did a Aloe frozen yogurt.

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I've produced, or at least pondered, many of the flavors some of you have mentioned, and perhaps others that would raise some eyebrows.

Two that stand out for me, are Alain Passard's nearly famous mustard ice cream at Arpege, served atop a gazpacho, and at Petrossian, also in Paris, Philippe Conticini's white salmon sorbet- bright, briny, rich in flavor- which, in context, was amazing. The best cover Pastry Art and Design magazine ever shot was of Philippe, holding a big salmon by the tail, and a caption that simply read, "The Man Who Put Salmon in Sorbet".

Perhaps it is interesting for me, a pastry chef, to mention two examples that were in 'savory' settings. Utilizing the broad palette of herbs, spices, vegetables, alcohols, vinegars, sweeteners... it all has become par for the course. Shock value... I don't have much patience for it. But with the ever increasing complexity of desserts, and the use of pastry techniques, like sorbet, in savory dishes, where context plays a vital role, the boundaries have certainly been expanding for some time.

Michael Laiskonis

Pastry Chef

New York

www.michael-laiskonis.com

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Elyse: I use the recipe for banana ice cream out of Ben & Jerry's ice cream book, using the first "Basic" uncooked recipe for the base (I can post it tomorrow if need be; let me know) and adding nutmeg and cinnamon to taste (remembering that freezing the mixture is going to mute the flavor of the spices some). Then I take a small fistful of raisins, cover them with good rum, and boil them at top power in the microwave until the raisins absorb almost of the liquid (if all of the liquid is allowed to evaporate, it defeats the purpose, as the raisins will dry out and ultimately burn), then cool the raisins. (If you use the macerated raisins hot, the combination of the heat and the residual alcohol in the rum will melt your ice cream.) Freeze the ice cream mixture, and when it is almost done, add the raisins and keep freezing until the ice cram sets again. I will post the lavender stuff sometime in July when I get back from Italy.

Bill Klapp

bklapp@egullet.com

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The most unusual was a Romano cheese flavored ice cream that was served with a pear tart at Metro Gusto in London. It was..........interesting................. The thing is, I really dislike romano cheese but I love pear tart and I was curious about what a cheese flavored ice cream would taste like. It actually kind of grew on me.

One of the best herbal ices I've had is a lavender-thyme sorbet. It was served with lemon tart and a glass of Muscat-Beaumes-de-Venise. One of my all time favorite dessert groupings,

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Cornichon ice cream, served as part of a deconstructed hamburger at L'Astrance: ground roast pork, covered with melted tomme cheese and topped with cornichon ice cream. The ice cream was rather interesting, an extension of the tarrigon sorbet concept. (The rest was peculiar at best.)

re lavender, one of the loveliest flavor combinations occurred when we were making creme brulees in both lavender and meyer lemon flavors. At the end, we combined the last of the lavender custard with the last of the meyer lemon custard and made one combination. It was hands-down the best of the three. We have since used that combination for superb ice cream. Also wonderful is premium (read high fat) yogurt, sweetened (3/4 sugar to a quart of yogurt) and flavored with a FEW (4) drops of true lavender essential oil. Freeze as usual.

eGullet member #80.

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A few years ago I made a white peach sorbet that was liberally flavored with black pepper and nutmeg... made quite an impression upon those to whom it was served...  yum...

That sounds unbelievably wonderful. Makes me want to buy an ice cream make and start experimenting.

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Every year someone makes a garlic ice cream at the Gilroy Garlic Festival, which I understand is highly overrated (the ice cream -- but the festival isn't all that great, either, IMO).  I've not had it the ice cream . . .

About ten years ago, I had roasted garlic-honey ice cream at the Upperline in New Orleans. It was sensational.

Dave Scantland
Executive director
dscantland@eGstaff.org
eG Ethics signatory

Eat more chicken skin.

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I had Apple-Rosemary sorbet as an intermezzo at my wedding feast. Very tasty stuff.

There is a gelateria here in Philadelphia that does some pretty interesting flavors too. Goat cheese-Honey-Thyme, I think was one. Lots of tropical sorbets like kiwi, mango, mamey, etc. Also a really delicious burnt caramel.

Katie M. Loeb
Booze Muse, Spiritual Advisor

Author: Shake, Stir, Pour:Fresh Homegrown Cocktails

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Bartendrix,Intoxicologist, Beverage Consultant, Philadelphia, PA
Captain Liberty of the Good Varietals, Aphrodite of Alcohol

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The most interesting ice creams/sorbets I had have been: Olive oil and Cauliflower, each as a different dessert in 2 successive years in Essigbrätlein, Nuremberg Germany.

I made some baked apple and honey, and also Pitango fruit, (otherwise known as the Surinam Cherry) with chilly sorbet.

I will, eventually, make Gari (sushi's Pickled ginger) sorbet to be eaten before or after a Salmon dish.

"Eat every meal as if it's your first and last on earth" (Conrad Rosenblatt 1935)

http://foodha.blogli.co.il/

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My all time favorite is made by Out of A Flower sorbets, and it's rose geranium blossom.

I've made Sheep's Milk Sorbet, Cassis, Lychee, Brown Sugar Almond, etc. All are fantastic.

What is NOT fantastic is a Tomato Horseradish sorbet. Blech. Maybe Gary just got the recipe wrong.

::Shakes fist at Gary::

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I wasn't even thinking about this thread tonight, when with a few spare moments at hand, I put together a sorbet idea I've been thinking about lately...

A blend of juiced red and yellow peppers and orange juice (A rough 60-40 ratio), with dashes of yuzu and 25 year sherry vinegar, and a subtle infusion of ginger and szechuan peppercorn. Light on the sugar, as I'm intending to run it as an intermezzo course.

I'm running it in the Paco tomorrow, so we will see...

Michael Laiskonis

Pastry Chef

New York

www.michael-laiskonis.com

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I'm running an aged balsmic ice cream on my menu now... with an olive oil financier and strawberry "water"...

Could you please provide some more details about this dish? I apologize for my ignorance, but what is an olive oil financier?

Dean McCord

VarmintBites

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