Blueberry & Chocolate Ice Cream

The New Year begins with detox. The Christmas excess and the couple of extra pounds your girth is showing implies that the resolutions of the New Year should be of healthier eating and more exercise. The promises to eat more certain types of food and the promises to cut down on the things that are worse for you; I had made a similar resolution to do that, but I got a new toy for christmas, a new ice cream machine, and was itching to have a play with it. So I lasted three days.

Two of my favourite ingredients are Cacao and Blueberries. Cacao is basically raw chocolate – or more specifically cocoa solids without any cocoa butter, and has gained increasingly popularity in the UK not least as a result of the efforts by Willie Harcourt Cooze, who launched his own series of Cacao products and ‘delectable’ chocolate range. It is amazingly versatile and can be used in a variety of ways (see my earlier post for Venison Stew as an example). The thing I like about it the most is that you can determine how ‘chocolately’ you want to make it, by reducing or adding more sugar, cream or butter. I’ve made this previously by using very little sugar, it is very bitter and a little sour, but a fantastic flavour. Blueberries too, are a very sweet fruit, and very refreshing, and the sweetness of the blueberries compliments, and contrasts, the bitterness of the cacao.

I decided to make this as a chocolate ice cream with a blueberry purée through it. If you wish, you may prefer to simply make a chocolate ice cream, and serve with fresh blueberries.

Blueberry & Chocolate Ice Cream
For the Chocolate (for a Ganache)
100g Cacao
100g Cream
30g Sugar (or to taste)

Grate the cacao and melt over a ban-marie. Add the sugar and cream and mix together until the sugar has dissolved. Leave to cool and thicken.

For the Ice Cream
700 ml Milk (I used Jersey Cow’s Milk in this instance)
6 egg yolks
75g sugar

Separate the egg yolks and whisk together in a large bowl. In a pan hit the milk and sugar over a low heat until the sugar has dissolved (do not let it boil). Slowly, and ensuring you are whisking all the time, gradually add the milk and sugar mixture to the egg yolks. Whisk until the mixture has combined. Return to the heat to allow the mixture to thicken slightly, until it coats the back of a spoon. Mix the ice cream and ganache together and chill for about 6 hours.

Meanwhile, blend 400g of blueberries in a food processor. Pass through a sieve to form a purée.

Once the custard has chilled, churn in your ice cream machine (per your manufactures instructions), normally about 30 minutes. You can either add the purée five minutes before it has finished churning or simply mix together before hand. Serve immediately or freeze for up to a week.

Given how cold Scotland has been recently, and even though we have just had Christmas, this did not feel out-of-place in the depths of winter. It is was a welcome change to some of the food we’ve had recently, and certainly made me start thinking about the summer and not about VAT increase.

Stories from the City

To badly paraphrase a P.J. Harvey record, and whilst walking the dog one evening, I wondered about the food history of Edinburgh and the food that has been made famous here. There are a significant number of Scottish dishes that we all know and love, from haggis to deep-fried Mars bars, and the outstanding quality of the produce you can find is second to none but what is Auld Reckie famous for?

My mind almost instantly turned to a couple of things: chippie sauce on your fish supper and Cock-o-Leekie soup. Even then I only really know Cock-o-Leekie soup as an Edinburgh dish because it has local twist to it: adding whisky. There is also a variant on oatcakes, that get called ‘Midlothian Oatcakes’, which are not as heavy on the oats, and use flour in the recipe producing a crisper texture. Of course, lest we forget that you can get Edinburgh Rock, but for the most part that’s all I could find. Chippie Sauce doesn’t really count as a ‘recipe’, although it is a strange Edinburgh custom. It’s a mixture of Brown Sauce and Malt Vinegar, and a fish supper would be poorer without it. I once mistakenly asked for it in London and got Kebab sauce. You live and learn.

Even consulting the bible of Scottish Cooking – The Scots Kitchen: Its Traditions and Lore with Old-time Recipes – Florence Marian McNeill, first published in 1929 and probably the Scottish equivalent to the Silver Spoon, did not really yield any more results. There is also another book, Edinburgh ‘A La Carte’ – The history of food in Edinburgh – but I think I will need to root round the second-hand bookshops to have any luck in finding. I did eventually find one other dish, something which I have not heard of before and certainly not tried – Edinburgh Fog. It sounds like a play on cranachan, but I hope that it might be tasty with the almonds.

Edinburgh ‘Fog’

300ml double cream
30g castor (fine granulated) sugar
50g small almond ratafia biscuits (macaroon biscuits are a normally substituted for these)
Almond essence
Drambuie / Whisky to taste
30g flaked almonds

Whip the cream until it is stiff and fold in the sugar, almond essence and whisky.  Crush the macaroon biscuits,  and mix well with the cream.  Serve well chilled as a luxury dessert. Sprinkle the almonds over the desert before serving.

What other dishes do you know that originate in Edinburgh? What other dishes should I try? Do you like Edinburgh Fog? Do you have a copy of Edinburgh ‘A La Carte’?