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COLUMNS GASTRONOME AUGUST 2005

Ice cream: It's not just for dessert.
August 2005

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Fresh avocado around tomato sorbetDESSERT FOR DINNER?

BASIL MASCARPONE SORBET

1 cup sugar
1 cup water
1 cup plus
2 T mascarpone
½ T orange juice
½ T lemon juice
3 T chopped, fresh basil

  • Dissolve the sugar in the water over a low heat, boil for one minute.
  • Soften the mascarpone with the juices. Mix in the basil. Add the sugar syrup and blend.
  • Pour the mixture into an ice cream maker and follow the manufacturer’s directions.

Serving suggestions: Serve with a warm tomato tart, grilled asparagus or on its own. Enjoy!



Asparagus, wild mushroom and violet salad with deep-fried burnt orange and thyme ice cream. ©Projects-EtaBlame it on Ferran Adrià. The world-famous chef of Catalan restaurant El Bulli has turned the culinary world upside down with mad-scientist-inspired dishes such as spiced raspberry fruit leather with edible herbs and a polenta of frozen powdered Parmesan cheese. Not surprisingly, some of his outlandish creations have yet to catch on.

But his efforts to move ice cream beyond the realm of dessert have. First, the Europeans jumped on board. In England, Fat Duck chef Heston Blumenthal’s signature dish is bacon and eggs ice cream. Then came the Americans. In Boston, chef Frank McClelland of L’Espalier tops his asparagus, wild mushroom and violet salad with deep-fried burnt orange and thyme ice cream. In Chicago, Adrià disciple Homaro Cantu of Moto makes Kentucky fried ice cream, which tastes remarkably like the skin of—you guessed it—KFC.

At first, I wasn’t sure how I felt about this. Yes, I’ve moved beyond the striped quart of vanilla, choc and strawberry. But it seems almost heretical to mess with the glorious, sweet summer treat of ice cream. Is nothing sacred anymore?

Boston, where I live, is the national ice cream capital. We eat more ice cream per capita than anyone else and boast more than 50 ice cream parlors in the metropolitan area. So I started to seek out savory ice creams. It’s a tough job, I thought, but someone’s got to do it.

My first stop was Grill 23, where chef Jay Murray has moved ice cream to the appetizer list, offering a savory “sundae” of basil and tomato ice creams topped with Marcona almonds. Wow. The sweetness of ripe summer tomato was enhanced by the ice cream’s, well, creaminess. Basil has always tasted cool to me, and I was riveted to find it in an icy concoction. “I’m not a dessert guy,” Murray says. “But I love ice cream, and it’s a great way to deliver pure, seasonal flavors.”

I should have stopped there, but I couldn’t resist when Murray suggested a profiterole of silverqueen ice cream with sweet sake and fois gras reduction, then a port and rosemary ice cream with a carpaccio of black truffle. Already, I was hooked.

Outlandish ice cream experiments can be found nationwide. At Café Atlantico in Washington, DC, Jose Andreas (another Adrià disciple) wraps fresh avocado around tomato sorbet, then sprinkles it with cilantro. At Chicago’s Alinea, 31-year-old wunderkind Grant Achatz deconstructs ice cream altogether, serving a bright sassafras cream encapsulated in mandarin ice. And Homaro Cantu has been universally praised for his version of a Caesar salad, which replaces lettuce with a spoonful of rich, romaine ice cream.

There are, of course, a few rules for making a savory ice cream. A few years back Murray experimented with a lobster ice cream, which was not—to put it mildly—well received. Savory ice cream’s beauty lies in the way it allows professional and home chefs to push boundaries. As Jose Andreas states on his website: “A really good meal is an experience that speaks to your head and your heart as much as it does to your taste buds and stomach. Your brain is the most important organ in eating since that’s where your imagination resides.”

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