Attractive and refreshing, sorbets and iced drinks are delicious in the summer heat. They are easy to prepare and indispensable to cool down in the summer. They can also remind you of the bright summer sun during the dark winter days.
Sorbets and iced Drinks Atractive and refreshing, sorbets and iced drinks are delicious when heat is crushing. They are easy to prepare and indispensable to cool down in the summer. They can also remind you of the bright summer sun during the dark winter days. Anyone can easily prepare home made ice creams as good, or better, as commercial ones; you only need some fresh natural ingredients and a few recipes. The easiest way to learn to make ice creams is to start with the water based ones: sorbets and iced drinks; elegant combinations of syrup, your choice flavor, and, sometimes, egg whites. To prepare these iced treats, you will only need a freezer, metal ice tray, a blender, and some patience. Skip the patience step if you have and ice cream maker: it will churn your sorbet in record time. Without freezing temperature there is no iced drink or sorbet. Freezing compartment in your refrigerator At least an hour in advance, set to the point of maximum cold temperature. Move delicate food to the bottom shelves or out to the fridge. Stand by freezer No need to graduate or change temperature. It is always very low, ideal for freezing food. It can freeze large amounts of sorbet or ice cream. Ice cream maker Specifically design to stir the mixture while it freezes, rendering very smooth creams. No need to count minutes or manual stirring to break ice crystals. Modern machines are usually very fast. Some produce two pints of perfectly smooth ice cream in twenty minutes. Get one if you plan to make sorbets or ice creams often. A metal tray or container for the freezing compartment; a larger plastic or glass container in the case of the stand by freezer –no need to transfer the mixture, stir in the same container if it is deep enough. A hand blender, to stir the mixture, a thick pan to prepare the syrup and a plastic strainer –a metal one will affect the flavor, knives to prepare the fruit, a citrus juicer is sometimes needed, and plastic containers to store the finished product. Just sugar and some liquid –water most times, also coffee, tea, fruit juice- but proportions and timing are essential. Too much sugar and there will be no sorbet, too little and it will be rock hard. Proportions are different for iced drinks and sorbets. Mix sugar with cold liquid, stir until dissolved -add fruit peel flavor now- and take to the boil, stirring; reduce heat and simmer for the allotted time until the desired consistency is achieved. The longer simmering produces thicker syrup. Turn off heat -add tea or coffee at this point, to infuse- and let the syrup cool down in the same pan. Strain -add vegetable pure, fruit pure or juice now- and chill until ready to freeze. Fruit sorbets are attractive and deliciously refreshing in hot days. The chosen fruit flavor is clearly defined in the frozen sorbet. Best fruits for sorbets are those with strong and distinctive flavor: lemons, oranges, grapefruits, tangerines, peaches, strawberries, blackberries, pineapple, bananas, peaches or apricots, to name some. For iced drinks, use only very juicy fruits –strawberries, for instance- and citrus fruits, the traditional ones. Other traditional flavors are coffee and tea. Sorbets can be made from canned fruit, though using canned fruit defeats the purpose of home made ice cream -enjoying the fresh fruit flavor- but frozen fruits are very good. The citrus flavor will be more intense if you add the peel to the syrup; a potato peeler will get the peel minus the white. Juice the fruit with a citrus press and add it to the syrup. Puree other fruits. Use a sieve if there are pips or coarse bits. Boil gooseberries and blackberries –without any sugar- before pureeing. Vegetable sorbets You can serve a vegetable sorbet as an appetizer or a refresher between courses, after a spicy dish or when there is a long wait. There are not many vegetables suitable for a sorbet. The best are ripe tomatoes, cucumber, avocado, watercress, carrots or celery. Puree cucumber with some of the skin. Add lemon juice to avocados, to prevent darkening. Wash water cress well and discard yellowish leaves; it is usually combined with lemon or orange juice. Tomatoes, carrots and celery should be boiled and pureed -no skin bits, please, use a sieve or food mill when necessary. Transfer the syrup to the selected container –covering with foil will help to produce uniform ice crystals- and freeze for about 30 to 45 minutes, until it looks like semi-liquid snow. Get the sorbet out, transfer to another bowl if needed, scrapping well the sides to get all the iced syrup, and stir or use your blender -2 o3 minutes longer for iced drinks- to break the ice crystals. The syrup will be almost liquid again. Transfer back to the former container and back to the freezer. For iced drinks, repeat this procedure other two times, every 30 to 45 minutes. And serve straight way, other way they will freeze, loosing their consistency. For sorbets, mix the egg white –beaten to snow peak consistency- the first time you break the ice. You will need to repeat the procedure only once more, after 1½ hours in the freezer. Any flavoring liquor is added this second time. Sorbets can be kept in the freezer, in a plastic container with lid, for six months. Sorbets kept this way will need softening before serving, just allow them to rest a few minutes at room temperature. Ice cream maker The machine will do all the ice breaking for you. Most of them have means to add other ingredients while they work –the machine will do all the mixing and stirring- so you only need to add the egg white and liquor, if used, at the right time. Follow the manufacturer instructions, as times vary with models. Your sorbet will be finished in record time, usually well under an hour. Serve iced drinks in tall glasses with a long spoon. Sorbets are treated as ice cream and served in scoops. Garnish with chopped nuts, citrus peel or some sweet aromatic herb like mint, fennel or basil. Scoop the pulp from a whole lemon and fill it with lemon sorbet. You can do the same with oranges, pineapples or melons. Use the scooped fruit to make the sorbet. Shape the sorbet into a ring and fill the center with fruit, or with salad for a vegetable sorbet. Scoop the sorbet into a ring mold, freeze for about half an hour, submerge the bottom of the mold in hot water for a minute, and turn down onto a tray to get your ring. |
