"sorbet" news and stories

You've seen that sliced-up green apple sitting up top aside the Slashfood logo. Perhaps you've pondered its culinary potential -- the crisp snap of that bright green skin, the half-sweet/half-tart flavor that is the special domain of the Granny Smith apple.

Voila. Slashfood sorbet!

In sorbet, a single element is distilled into an intense burst of flavor. It should be so vivid that only a bite is necessary. Perhaps you're most familiar with it as an intermezzo to cleanse the palate, in a fluted paper cone to hold while walking alongside your companion and his gelato or in scoops piled high in a frosty parfait glass almost too cold to touch.

After the jump, an original recipe for a gorgeous green apple Slashfood Sorbet. We challenge you to only eat one bite.

Last summer, a reader took the opportunity to excoriate me for my perceived show-offery when a sorbet recipe I posted mentioned the use of an ice cream maker. Well, for one, a goodly percentage of ice cream, sherbet and sorbet recipes conclude with the mandate to "freeze according to ice cream maker's directions" and for another, it was a goshdarned wedding gift!

Perhaps some small accord could be struck, or perhaps even kicked with the use of the UCO Play & Freeze Ice Cream Maker. Ice and rock salt are added to one chamber and edible ingredients to another. The whole unit is then hand-tightened together and the merrymaking/ice cream churning commences. The ball can be tossed, shaken, passed and generally frolicked about with, then opened and stirred, resealed and agitated again until the mixture reaches a pleasing consistency, and co-churners have worn out all "Have a ball!" related puns.

Still, should the $16.50 expenditure (via Amazon) still seem a tad schmancy, I included a coffee can agitation method in a post on Soul-Saving Sweet Tea Sherbet a while back.

UCO's Play & Freeze Ice Cream Maker

Fresh papayas are in season, and I keep finding myself in the grocery store, picking up various specimens and thinking "what are the chances I could eat all this before it went bad?"

I used to not like fresh papaya. I found them sickly sweet, tasting of cheap perfume with undertones of dirt. But that was before I learned to toss the fresh cubed fruit in copious amounts of lemon or lime juice, to cut the sweetness and bring out the intense floral notes. Cubes of coral-colored papaya make a beautiful addition to fruit salad (and they're a heck of a lot easier to cut than mango!); they're also terrific in smoothies or in sweet-tart salsa, served over salmon or Mahi-Mahi. But my favorite use is probably papaya sorbet. This Martha Stewart recipe, with lime juice and honey, is healthy enough to eat for breakfast. I bet it would be absolutely amazing in a parfait with granola and creamy, tart yogurt gelato.

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For me, the presentation of a dish is critically important. Here's a trick for turning orange peels into beautiful serving bowls for almost anything you can create.

Del Monte's brand new Fruit Chillers line is sure to be a hit with both kids (and adults) this summer, even though it is a little on the cold side right now in most parts of the country. The Chillers are individual sorbet cups, but there are a couple of things that set them apart from the average individually portioned kids dessert. The first, and most important, thing is that they are made with real fruit purees, rather than concentrated juices that have artificial colorings and flavors added to them. In fact, there are no artificial flavors in them at all and they contain 100% of the recommended daily value of vitamin C (150% in the mango flavor) and 3/4 serving of fruit, based on the nutrition pyramid. The other interesting thing about these is that they are not found in the frozen foods section of the grocery store. They are packed sealed and unfrozen, so you can simply pop them in the freezer before you are ready to eat them. The Chillers are fat free and contain about 190 calories per 4.5-ounce serving.