Kahlua Chip Ice Cream and the Gift That Keeps on Giving

About a month ago I bought my friend (who is also my housemate) an ice cream maker for his birthday. In truth, I actually bought the ice cream maker on sale and then spent several days debating whether it was appropriate for me to give this as a gift because I wanted it just as much if not more than he did. This winter he had mentioned that he was thinking about getting one but I told him to wait and I would try to find a used one. As I mentioned in a previous post, ice cream makers are one of those things that ends up on wedding registries, used once (if that), and then sent to the basement for that fateful day of spring cleaning. Spring/early summer is the perfect time to snatch one up from Craiglist.

It was May and I hadn't seen one on craiglist yet....and here was one on sale on Rue La La (See note at bottom of post). I wrapped up the box and gave it to him - feeling a little guilty about the win-win of the situation. If he liked it, I would be eating ice cream all summer, if he didn't, I would still have access to an ice cream maker and could make my own ice cream.

Any doubt about whether he liked the gift was erased the weekend after his birthday. He made 3 batches of ice cream for himself (I was away for the weekend!) - vanilla, strawberry, and coffee. He has pretty much continued with making at least one batch of ice cream per week. And ice cream has a way of getting rid of negative feelings, including my guilt of indirectly giving myself such a wonderful gift for my friend's birthday - a gift that keeps on giving....to me.

A few weeks ago I had my first go at making ice cream - Kahlua Chip Ice Cream. The basic recipe for ice cream calls for whole milk, heavy cream (or half and half if the recipe combines them), and egg yolks. You bring the whole milk and heavy cream to a boil and typically add your base flavor during this process. Then you slowly and gradually add the milk/cream mixture to the egg yolks, making sure you don't "cook" the eggs. Once the eggs are diluted and warmed up, you can add this back to the remainder of the hot milk/cream mixture and heat it back up to a custard state. You cool the mixture in the refrigerator and then add to your ice cream machine. If you are adding any chunks (brownies, cookies and cream, peanut butter chunks, chocolate chips, etc), you mix them into the frozen ice cream, just before you place it in the freezer for the last bit of freezing. From what Kevin has learned in his first 10 or so batches, avoiding cooked eggs and reaching the custard consistency is the hardest part of making ice cream.

My first ice cream attempt was somewhat of a fail, but it looks good in the photo, right? Yeah, it's tough to fully fail on ice cream, but I definitely have room for improvement. The problems I faced:

1) It took forever to freeze up in the ice cream machine. think there were two reasons for this. Too much custard in the ice cream machine which will just take longer. I think the alcohol lowers the freezing temperature of the custard, especially if you have added it after the custard has chilled.

2) Adding "water" in the form of alcohol and coffee/expresso affects the custard consistency and increases your chance of forming more of an icy ice cream.

3) Pouring warm chocolate syrup into your ice cream will melt it even more! This whole process seems problematic. Since I was having trouble getting the ice cream to freeze and already had too much custard in the machine, adding the melted chocolate made everything worse.  Melted ice cream did not hold the chocolate in the custard. Instead all the chocolate fell to the bottom. Sad face.

4) Chocolate daggers? Yes, that is what is created when you pour melted chocolate into ice cream...even if you try to just drip it in. This was concerning at first. Especially with all of the chocolate falling to the bottom.

Fortunately, I rescued a small amount of ice cream that hinted at what this recipe could be. As I was adding the chocolate, I actually removed some of the custard and put it directly in the freezer to make room for more chocolate. Since this was still slightly frozen, it stayed creamier, and not as icy. It also kept the chocolate dispersed in the ice cream. The chocolate daggers were thin enough that they break up with any slight pressure of your spoon or your tongue. Hearing the chocolate breaking as you scoop out the ice cream is a really cool sound.

Anyway, for what it's worth, here is the recipe. I'm sure I've convinced you to try it! I'll try another ice cream recipe soon and let you know what else I learn.

Side note about Rue La La: Rue La La is a website that has three day sales, featuring items from a range of different designers and high end kitchen and houseware companies. If you are interested in joining, send me a note and I will send you an invite and will get a credit for the referral).

Kahlua Chip Ice Cream
Adapted from: Food Network

Ingredients
8 large egg yolks
1 cup sugar
1 quart half-and-half
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
3/4 cup brewed double-strength espresso, cold
1/2 cup Kahlua or other coffee liqueur
8 ounces semisweet chocolate, chopped

Instructions
Place a large mixing bowl in the freezer. In another large bowl, whisk together the egg yolks and sugar until thick and pale yellow. In a saucepan bring the half-and-half to a boil, let it cool down to a warm temperature about 125 F. Gradually add a small amount of half-and-half into the egg mixture, whisking really quickly. When you've added enough half and half into the egg mixture to warm it up and dilute it, you can slowly add that back into the pan of half-and-half. A tedious process, but this helps to prevent the egg from "cooking." Heat the half-and-half mixture up until the sugar dissolves and the mixture becomes a custard consistency, about 145 F. When a custard consistency, the mixture will coat a spoon, as shown in the photo. Let stand 5 minutes. Stir in the vanilla, cold espresso and Kahlua. Place plastic wrap on top of the custard liquid to avoid the formation of a thick film while chilling. Place in the refrigerator to chill. Pass through a fine strainer. I started with a combination of a mesh strainer and a tea ball - but quickly gave up on the tea ball. The idea is to strain out any accidentally cooked egg pieces.

Pour into an ice cream maker and process according to the manufacturer's instructions. (Depending on the size of your machine, you may wish to process in two batches.)

When the ice cream is nearly done, melt the chocolate over simmering water.  Transfer the frozen ice cream into the chilled bowl from the freezer. Pour in the melted chocolate, stirring and mixing vigorously with a wooden spoon. (Perhaps this is one area where I might have gone wrong, I totally skipped this and poured the chocolate into the spinning ice cream maker! Doh!) Transfer to a container and freeze until firm.

Strawberry Rhubarb Crisp and the Bare Kitchen Challenge

My mom used to make rhubarb pie with fresh rhubarb from a patch behind our house. I remember harvesting the rhubarb with my mom. We would have to bushwhack our way through a jungle of overgrown weeds and uneven hillside behind our house. It always felt like we were some kind of expedition. When reached the rhubarb patch the plants reached my 6 year old waist and the leaves were as big as my head.  I remember being really sweaty and fighting bugs, the notorius Maine no-seeums. It seemed such a journey but was probably only 100 yard round trip.

I never liked rhubarb pie - it was too bitter for my taste.  But I always liked the challenge of harvesting it.

Twenty-five years later.....in a more urban location, I drive about 4 miles to pick up my farm share and find 4 stalks for rhubarb and a quart of strawberries in this weeks share. I search google for a recipe, thinking that I'll give rhubarb another go as my taste buds have matured as an adult and I seem to have a more open palate - I hated cheese when I was younger and now love it! For all you people who believe Google is watching you...here is more proof. The first or second "hit" from a search of "strawberry rhubarb recipe" is a recipe for Strawberry Rhubarb Crisp that contains alcohol. Man, Google totally has me profiled and will soon be feeding me audio ads through my phone while I sleep.

Now armed with a great recipe, I check my refrigerator and cabinets and realize I'm missing or low on several staples:

Not enough strawberries - just shy of a quart after snacking on a few when I got home from the farm.

Unknown quantity of rhubarb - yes 4 stalks, but how many cups does that make?

No brown sugar. No big deal since I can make my own brown sugar with molasses and white sugar - Add 2 Tbsp. of dark molasses to 1 cup of white sugar and mix thoroughly. Damn, no molasses. Hmmm, maybe white sugar and some honey?

Low on butter, gasp! I only had 6 tablespoons and the crisp part of the recipe called for 12 tablespoons.

It was late at night and I didn't want to make a trip to the store even though I was missing major crisp ingredients. I decided to use what I had for strawberries and rhubarb - 4 stalks of rhubarb equaled 4 cups and 1 quart of strawberries was about 3 cups. I added a little more sugar to the strawberry rhubarb mixture - I suspected I might be missing some sweetness since the recipe called for 5 cups of strawberries  I decided to halve the crisp recipe to match the amount of butter I had on hand. Finally, I made an amber sugar, substituting honey for molasses in the make your own brown sugar recipe. By the way, I made up the term amber sugar - but it sounds like it should exist...and it does, but has nothing to do with honey.

Wow, I think that is the most experimenting I've ever done with baking and it turned out really wonderful. The strawberry rhubarb mixture was plenty sweet - I could have gotten away without adding the extra sugar. Next time I will only use the extra sugar if I use strawberries from out of season or from California, which tend to be less sweet because they aren't vine ripened. The honey gave the crisp an earthy taste and half as much crisp made for a less heavy dessert. I served it warm with some homemade vanilla ice cream. You can use store bought if you didn't buy your roommate an ice cream maker for his birthday. Topped with whipped cream would be tasty too.

Strawberry Rhubarb Crisp
Adapted From Southern Food from about.com
 Serves 8 to 10

Ingredients
4 cups chopped fresh rhubarb (about good sized stalks)
1 quart (~3 cups) strawberries, hulled, rinsed, sliced
1 cup granulated sugar (plus 1/4 cup if you are using non-locally ripened strawberries)
1 tablespoon grated orange rind
2 tablespoons cornstarch
1/3 cup Grand Marnier liqueur, or use Cointreau or Orange Juice

6 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into pieces
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup old-fashioned rolled oats
1/2 cup brown sugar (or amber sugar - 1/3 cup sugar + 2 tablespoons honey)
3/4 teaspoons cinnamon
1/3 cup chopped pecans, slivered almonds, or other chopped nuts
Pinch salt
1 large egg, slightly beaten (the original recipe called for 1 egg, and I used most of the egg for the halved version. Didn't feel the need to waste half an egg and it turned out fine)

2 cups heavy whipping cream
1 to 2 tbsp. confectioners' sugar
1/2 to 1 teaspoon almond extract, or Amaretto liqueur

Instructions:
Preheat oven to 350°. Lightly butter the bottom of a large (4-quart) baking dish. A 15x10x2-inch pan will hold 4 quarts, or use two smaller pans, such as 11x7x2-inch or 9-inch square. In a large bowl, toss the rhubarb and strawberries with the granulated sugar and orange zest. In a small bowl, dissolve the cornstarch in the Grand Marnier or Cointreau or Orange Juice and toss with the rhubarb mixture until well coated. Spoon the mixture into the prepared dish and set aside.

In a medium-sized mixing bowl, combine the butter, flour, oats, brown sugar, and cinnamon with a pastry blender until crumbly. Stir in the almonds or pecans and salt, then stir in the egg with a fork until well blended. Drop the mixture by spoonfuls evenly over the rhubarb mixture and bake for 45 minutes, or until nicely browned and bubbly. Remove from oven and keep warm while making whipped cream. If desired, serve this crisp with ice cream instead of fresh whipped cream.

In a medium size bowl, whip the cream with the confectioners sugar until soft peaks form. Beat in the almond extract. Cut the warm crisps into squares and serve topped with generous dollops of the whipped cream.

Tequila's Up in Your Grill

Seriously, I should know how to spell Tequila without looking it up.....perhaps I can blame it on my lack of blogging? Wait, no, I should be apologizing for that, not using it as an excuse. Hopefully after this post about 2 Tequila marinades, I will no longer have a spelling problem and I'll be well on my way to a series of new posts and you will have forgotten about my little cooking/blogging hiatus.

These two Tequila marinades are quite similar, the first is a little more citrusy and the second has more of a spicy bite. You can use them with fish, shrimp or chicken. I recently used the Citrus Tequila Marinade with shrimp and accidentally learned a few things about ceviche. Ceviche is citrus marinated seafood, using fish or shellfish. Ceviche's origin is argued to be Spanish, Polynesian, Latin America, or South America. Citric acid, typically from lime, lemon, or orange, causes the proteins in the seafood to become denatured - this pickles or "cooks" the fish without heat. Traditional style ceviche only needs to marinated around 3 hours.

Back to the recipes....I mixed up the marinade, peeled and deveined (eww!) the shrimp, and then let the shrimp marinate while I prepared the rest of the meal (grilled veggies and dessert - Strawberry Tiramisu! Yes, a post for this will follow.). This was about an 1.5 to 2 hours. When the shrimp came out of the marinade they looked white and cooked on the edges - just like ceviche! Not a terrible thing since it was just the edges, but if I had marinated them for much longer, it could have led to toughness. So how does ceviche stay succulent and flakey and not tough? The seafood is chopped into very small pieces and then marinated for up to 3 hours depending on the recipe - because the pieces are small, the consistency of the seafood will remain similar throughout.

So the lesson learned here - shrimp and fish only needs to be marinated for 30 to 60 minutes when cooking with heat. Other useful tips I learned: 1) Marinate poultry 1 to 3 hours, and 2) Any marinade coming in contact with raw meat, seafood or poultry must be boiled for one minute before using it for basting. Or just reserve some of your marinade before adding your meat.


Citrus Tequila Marinade
Adapted from somewhere on the Internet
Makes about 3/4 cup for about 1 and 1/2 pounds of meat

Ingredients
2 tablespoons lime juice (about 2 limes)
3 tablespoons Tequila
2 tablespoons orange juice
1/4 cup olive oil
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1 clove garlic, minced or pressed (check out this debate and decide which you want to do)
2 pinch salt
ground black pepper, too taste

Jump to instructions below.

Tequila Mockingbird Marinade
Source: Bon Appetit

Servings: Makes about generous 3/4 cup. Marinates about 1 and 1/2 pounds of meat

Ingredients:
1/4 cup vegetable oil
3 tablespoons fresh lime juice
3 tablespoons tequila
2 tablespoons triple sec
1 large jalapeño chili, seeded, minced
1 1/2 teaspoons grated lime peel
1 teaspoon chili powder
1 teaspoon sugar
3 tablespoons of cilantro, chopped
1/2 teaspoon coarse salt

Instructions
Mix all ingredients in small bowl or tupperware container big enough for your meat. Let stand 15 minutes (Can be prepared 1 day ahead). Add your meat. Cover and refrigerate.

Marinate poultry 1 to 3 hours and seafood 30 minutes in refrigerator. Drain (do not pat dry) and grill. If you are using wooden skewers, be sure to soak the skewers in water for 15 to 30 minutes to prevent sparkler action.

Optional:

Boil remaining marinade in heavy small saucepan 1 minute or reserve ~1/4 cup of marinade before you add the meat. Drizzle some of marinade over poultry or seafood just before serving.