Ice cream -- Japanese style

[milgwimper]

I love the garlic ice cream. In Gilroy, CA you can get the ice cream flavors with vanilla-garlic, and Chocolate garlic. I love both, but loved chocolate and garlic together. I think the chocolate mint garlic ice cream would taste good. The wine ice creams, and sorbets are really tasty. Persimmon ice cream is a dream, but I just have to wonder about the charcoal ice cream. Is it to be taken after alcohol or after poisoning or something?

[Laksa]

I just have to wonder about the charcoal ice cream. Is it to be taken after alcohol or after poisoning or something?

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Maybe it is meant to be paired with a mild seven cigarette?

[Hiroyuki]

Most of these ice creams are sold in places where tourists visist such as souvenir shops. In my city, Koshihikari rice ice cream is sold in souvenir shops.

As for silk ice cream, it contains silk, not larvae.

[Fugu]

The Pastry Chef at our hotel was very creative and he made some really good ones. Curry icecream, olive icecream and cheese icecream were my favorites. Didn't like his version of galic icecream.

[Peter the eater]

I just have to wonder about the charcoal ice cream. Is it to be taken after alcohol or after poisoning or something?

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Maybe it is meant to be paired with a mild seven cigarette?

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. . . or scooped into Nathan's tobacco infused bourbon!

[milgwimper]

Hiroyuki, so these flavors are mainly for tourists? hmmm

Some of the flavors aren't too bad, but some I don't think I will be trying. I wonder if the silk in the icecream supposed to give it texture or health benefits. The comments to the charcoal ice cream made me smile, so thank you all for that.

[Hiroyuki]

Hiroyuki, so these flavors are mainly for tourists? hmmm

Some of the flavors aren't too bad, but some I don't think I will be trying. I wonder if the silk in the icecream supposed to give it texture or health benefits. The comments to the charcoal ice cream made me smile, so thank you all for that.

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I did some googling and here are some facts:

Silk contains glycine, alanine, and other enzymes, and is rich in nutrients. For example, it contains five times as much calcium as milk. It's also rich in amino acids.

Charcoal is rich in minerals and dietary fiber.

[helenjp]

I have seen the sanma and maybe the curry one, but my son (the one who thinks that fish-sausage is fine in nabemono...) has tried the "grilled eel" one, and also wasabi icecream.

The grilled eel one just tasted faintly smoky, sweet, and soy-sauce-y.

The wasabi one was ok, but being cold, there really was no flavor apart from the heat and a faint starchiness.

Charcoal is rich in minerals and dietary fiber.

Exactly. Barbecued tree. Why not have it salad-style and just bite down on a tree or two on your way to the station in the morning?

[milgwimper]

Thanks Hiroyuki for the information, and maybe it is a way to get some nutrients in an interesting way, and maybe tasty? I might try the silk for the calcium, but I wonder how it would tast. I am curious now.

Helen- I can just picture people going to work stopping by their favourite tree for a nibble.

Hmm the grilled eel one sounds somewhat tasty. I have tried curry icecream at an Indian icecream shop in California and it was delicious.

[Hiroyuki]

Found this blog, in which the blogger says that the silk ice cream tasted the same as normal ice cream. She (he?) also says that the charcoal one felt gritty in her mouth, and the natto and sanma (saury) ones weren't smelly at all and tasted good.

Click on a photo and you can view what's inside.

[milgwimper]

Found this blog, in which the blogger says that the silk ice cream tasted the same as normal ice cream.  She (he?) also says that the charcoal one felt gritty in her mouth, and the natto and sanma (saury) ones weren't smelly at all and tasted good.

Click on a photo and you can view what's inside.

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Thank you Hiroyuki for the link. Grittiness I am not found of that in icecream. Blegh. But the silk flavor now, hmmm. I love saury so, it is on my list to try if ever get to Japan.

[_john]

I have been asked to develop some new flavors of sorbet and ice cream for a kappou restaurant. I will be making them in small batches in my ice cream maker. When you think washoku sorbet/ice cream which flavors come to mind? They currently buy black sesame, yuzu, vanilla, tsudachi, and mattcha ice creams. I'm thinking of making my umeboshi sorbet, a shiso sorbet with red shiso syrup, kinako ice cream, adzuki ice cream. I need more ideas for different seasons. Dream washoku sorbet/ice cream?

[nakji]

Mmm, those all sound great. The kinako one, especially.

How about a houjicha flavour - am I spelling that right? I mean, roasted tea. It has a pleasant smoky vanilla taste that would make a fine ice cream, I think.

Other seasonal suggestions - sakura? sweet potato or kabocha? Chestnut? Mikan sorbet?

What about a take on those waffle cakes with red bean - koiyaki? Red bean ice cream with bits of waffle inside? Or ichigo daifuku, with strawberry ice cream and mochi pieces?

[JasonTrue]

At a little French place in Nose valley near (arguably "in", like Mitake-san is "in" Tokyo) Osaka, I got a taste of a fantastic yuzu mascarpone sorbet after the meal. We also had a nice sorbet as part of our course, but it was the yuzu one that I remember.

I often make sweet potato or kabocha ice cream in the winter and late fall, and ideally serve them with kuromitsu.

Hiromi and I made kuromame chocolate with surplus osechi black beans. (We had a lot of leftover beans). Not heavy on the chocolate, but enough to add flavor, it was good with a sweet potato ice cream next to it.

I like edamame ice cream with glace edamame in the final presentation. It took several tries to get the right balance of fat because edamame have a fair amount of their own, but it was rewarding.

I've had "sakura ice cream" in Tokyo but it was actually basically cherry ice cream with salt-cured cherry blossoms for garnish.

Fresh soymilk works pretty well for desserts, and was at least trendy a year or two ago. At Toraya I had a tounyuu pudding served with a matcha creme anglaise.

"Rare cheesecake" might be worth exploring; I've done one motivated by NY-style cheesecake that was basically cream cheese, lemon, milk, and a rolled in graham cracker dust when served, but I think it could be tweaked for a more Japanese style flavor.

I'd suggest playing with the citrus fruits of other regions, including daidai, shikuwaasaa, dekopon, the sudachi you mentioned, etc. You might even be able to pull off a sweet-savory trick with a touch of soy sauce and call it ponzu-ice.

I've not tried this yet, but I wanted to attempt to make an ice cream built on the Korean rice drink shik-hae, which would be a play on Italian style "riso" gelato with a few pine nuts; I suspect that it would be equally interesting to work with amazake.

This is all in Kansai? In Aomori we had a nicely presented apple sorbet last spring.

[JasonTrue]

I haven't seen too many ice creams with mix-ins in Japan, although they're pervasive in the dairy case in the US; a Japanese play on rocky road, with maybe a white chocolate base, some broken sweet senbei and matcha white chocolate chips as mix-ins could be fun. Probably less suitable for high-end cuisine and more in the family restaurant category, or better suited for US-based Japanese restaurants but...

[Hiroyuki]

As someone else has already mentioned, I like houjicha (roasted green tea) ice cream. Other flavors include nihonshu (sake) and koshihikari rice flavors.

[_john]

great ideas so far. amazake sounds like something worth experimenting with. I'm leaning more towards sorbets because they are cheaper to make and the cheaper I can make them the more impressive it will be. Using cream and cheese also seems too fusion for a fairly strictly traditional Japanese restaurant. I like houjicha too, I'll give it a try. Garnish and finishing ideas are also welcome, I'm going to make a soy sauce syrup and the red shiso syrup at least.

[nakji]

For presentation, could you make a tartufo-style ball, using kinako instead of cocoa? Then it would look like a frozen mochi, sort of. You could do an umeboshi layer, surrounded by a sweeter, creamier layer - I'm not sure what, although I'm imagining houjicha or kinako moulded around it, and then dusted in more kinako powder. Something red to garnish.

That might be too fusion for what you had in mind, though.

[helenjp]

I've been fiddling around with rice icecream for a while. The trick is to get it starchy but still soft - it doesn't break up as easily as long-grain rice, so a few turns in a suribachi (mortar) seem to help. The flavor is surprisingly positive and good. Haven't tried things like rice "milk" though.

Ginger - and there's quite a difference in flavor between the new ginger that's available now and the ginger that's available in main fall harvest time. How about a new-ginger icecream with a green-shiso sorbet?

Red shiso - the health drink made with vinegar is actually much more palatable made wtih lemon juice - the faint herbal flavor of the shiso comes through better, and the lemon juice produces a pleasant pink color rather than violent red/magenta. That might make the basis for a nice sorbet.

From snacks that I've made recently, I think that black beans （or other "endou" type beans) cooked with a little salt are excellent with sweet snacks (soak overnight in lightly salted water, then cook and allow to cool in lightly salted water - 1 tsp salt/1 li water). However, they might be better served WITH rather than IN the icecream or sorbet...and maybe a few cubes of unflavored kanten (agar) gel and black-sugar syrup for a minimalist mitsu-mame.

[JasonTrue]

When we used black beans (osechi style) in ice cream, we pureed them before incorporating them in the ice cream... I don't think I'd put whole beans in an ice cream unless I treated them in some way that would keep them soft. But kuromame in the style of mitsumame might be nice.

From snacks that I've made recently, I think that black beans （or other "endou" type beans) cooked with a little salt are excellent with sweet snacks (soak overnight in lightly salted water, then cook and allow to cool in lightly salted water - 1 tsp salt/1 li water). However, they might be better served WITH rather than IN the icecream or sorbet...and maybe a few cubes of unflavored kanten (agar) gel and black-sugar syrup for a minimalist mitsu-mame.

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