Straight from the Farm

Ooo-la-la!  This is going to be a very pretty post.  The color of this Spiced Green Tea and White Chocolate Ice Cream was shockingly vivid and kicked in my photographer’s spidey sense big time.   I could fill a book with all the colorful photos I took. But, we’re not here just to look at pictures (okay, I admit, sometimes that’s all I do on the blogs I visit).  No sir, we’re here to talk about making green tea (or matcha) ice cream. 

This is no sissy recipe.  It’s got a lot of ingredients, and there’s some time investment too with all the constant stirring required.  But, please, trust me…trust me when I say it’s so very worth the effort!  I’ve been eyeballing green tea ice cream recipes for years now… yes, years. This recipe is the first I’ve undertaken for a couple reasons.  For one, matcha powder can be a little tricky to find.  I got mine recently at a great Asian supermarket in North Wales, PA. 

Second, anything fun that I make these days, I’m always looking for a way to make it “blog eligible” by incorporating an ingredient straight from the farm.  With my matcha powder in hand, I then acquired a gallon of fresh whole cow’s milk from my parents’ Holstein herd on a recent trip home.  Unpasteurized milk straight from the udder is so rich and creamy that I actually skipped the heavy cream called for in the recipe and just used all whole milk.  I kept the cream in the recipe below though as I doubt many of you have access to unpasteurized milk, given all the federal regulations on it. 

Third, and most importantly, I abstained from making my own green tea ice cream for so long because I have such a fond taste memory associated with it.  When I first moved to Philadelphia several years back, I worked for a great company with a great set of coworkers who took long group lunches, often ending with a trip to the ice cream shop, Alaska, which used to be at the corner of 18th and Sansom Streets.  Besides having the most hysterical giant moose on their exterior sign, we loved going to this old-fashioned scoop shop for the unique flavors they carried, one of which was the most delicate and creamy green tea ice cream you can possibly imagine.  I always got it, even when I swore I wouldn’t.  Its sirens song and pale green hue always lured me in.  Since Alaska’s closing, I’ve had such a hankering for that ice cream.  But I was, frankly, a little intimidated that the green tea ice cream I would make myself just wouldn’t be right. 

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Port Wine and Pastries:  Yes, my dear readers, I am currently away from my desk/computer, hiking around the steep hills of Lisbon and rural sections of the northern Minho region of pint-sized Portugal.  I can’t wait to get back and tell you all about the rich old-world culture of this unique little country oft forgotten by European travelers intent on getting to Italy and Spain.  In the meantime, enjoy this post for Citrus and Green Tea Poached Apples, and please have patience with my delay in responding to comments. 

Obrigada e adeus (thank you and farewell)!

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Green Tea and Citrus Poached Apples
Adaptation of a recipe clipped from Martha Stewart Living Magazine

4 bags of jasmine green tea
2 ½ c. boiling water
2/3 c. sugar
Juice of half a large pink grapefruit
½ t. finely grated grapefruit zest
2 firm sweet eating apples, such as Nittany or Honeycrisp

Place tea bags in boiling water and steep for 3-4 minutes.  Do not steep for any longer or the tea will turn bitter.  In a medium saucepan, combine tea with sugar and stir to dissolve.  Add the grapefruit juice and zest and simmer very gently for 2 minutes.

Peel, halve, core and cut the apples into ¼ inch thick slices.  Add immediately to the saucepan with the tea mixture to avoid apples turning brown.  Cook over low heat so that steam rises from the pot but it does not bubble.  When apples turn translucent and soft, about 10 minutes, remove with a slotted spoon and place in a serving bowl. 

Gently boil the liquid in the saucepan until it reduces by about half, 6-8 minutes.  Pour over apples and serve either warm or chilled.  Apples can be refrigerated in syrup for up to two days. 

(serves 3-4)

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Remember that homemade dulce de leche from back in December?  It’s definitely been one of the most popular posts to date on this blog and for good reason.  I believe my exact description of it was “sweet-but-not-sugary-creamy-like-the-best-fudge-you’ve-ever-had-deep-richness-of-caramel-with-a-hint-of-vanilla-goodness.”   I’ve since truncated that to just two words: disturbingly delicious.   There was only one thing that could make it better.  C.h.o.c.o.l.a.t.e.

The other week I was in Cake, a local bakery in Chestnut Hill well known for their creative confections that has recently expanded to a beautiful atrium space and a breakfast/lunch menu, and couldn’t help but notice the Dulce de Leche Tarts in their display case.  I was so torn.  I wanted to try it, but I’d been salivating over the memory of the coconut cream tart I’d had the last time I was there and couldn’t quite bring myself to give up what I’d been anticipating.  The sight of those creamy caramel chocolate treats did get the wheels in my head turning though.  A recreation of those tarts, when made in the little heart pans I had at home, would be perfect for Valentine’s Day dessert.  A sweet heart for my sweetheart!  I’m such a cheesy romantic sometimes…

As happens so many times when I have a culinary inspiration, I had trouble finding an existing recipe that matched my specifications.  I wanted to chocolate crust for sure.  That wasn’t so hard to find other than I needed to decide if I was baking the tarts or not.  And since I already had the homemade dulce de leche prepared, I didn’t want a recipe that started with “1 can sweetened condensed milk” and went on from there with directions for boiling all the ingredients together to make what I consider to be an inferior dulce de leche tart filling.  I’ll spare you all the details of the hunt and skip to the end: I flew by the seat of my pants. 

Those must have been some very lucky pants!  The tarts are luscious, bordering on obscenely rich in the best of ways.  Mini tarts are the ticket to enjoyment here as any more than one would be too much.  Well, at least at the first sitting.  After an hour, it’s quite possible you’ll be having another. 

The final list of ingredients, as you’ll see after the jump, was really rather short, assuming you already have dulce de leche on hand.  I realize the special day is less than 24 hours away so making your own dulce de leche from scratch could be tricky.  Here’s my two cents about dulce de leche shortcuts (you can feel at liberty to disagree with me).  It can be made by boiling the contents of a can of sweetened condense milk in the microwave, on the stovetop, or in the oven.  All of these methods are much less labor intensive and somewhat less time consuming (the microwave is shockingly fast) than getting fresh whole milk, sugar and vanilla beans to cook down into a thick, rich, gooey caramel.  Shoot me for saying this if you will, but I contend that you shouldn’t even bother with these boiled-can methods. 

Instead, when in a pinch, head to a specialty food or kitchen store and buy a jar of it.   It pains me to say that since it goes against every fiber in my “make it yourself” body, but the stuff you buy will be of better quality than the boiled can since it started with fresh whole cow’s milk, the right proportion of sugar, and vanilla beans.  If you can’t find a jar of good quality dulce de leche for sale on short notice, use the condensed milk method, but promise me you’ll give the from-scratch method a try next time to see what you’re missing. Pretty please?? 

Time to get off the soapbox; the pictures alone should be more than enough to convey how divine this tart is.  If you don’t have a sweetheart to share it with, make it as a treat for yourself.  I spent many a year avoiding cupid cut-outs and the onslaught of rose deliveries that seemed to go to every door but mine.  Making the day sweet for myself was extremely gratifying once I realized I didn’t have to wait for somebody else to give me chocolate and flowers.  Livin’  la vida dulce! 

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I’d like to think I’m a fairly dedicated soul when it comes to leading a healthy lifestyle.  I eat lots of vegetables, snack mostly on nuts and pretzels instead of junk, and ride my bike a lot.  I also try to go to the gym over my lunch break every day. I’m not a fan of the corporate culture, but I do have to say I love having a company gym that makes winter workouts convenient.  But even with the treadmill a mere 15 steps from my cozy cube space, the “convenience” just wasn’t making an impression on me yesterday.  Fridays are always a tough day for discipline, aren’t they?  Instead of hitting the gym, I found myself daydreaming about dessert.  Woops. 

  

I couldn’t dispel the daydream all afternoon and found my feet shuffling towards the grocery store (instead of the gym) after work in search of ingredients for a recipe I’ve been concocting in my head all week.  Little did I know I wouldn’t need the gym to get my workout in the end… 

Ever since my parsnip soup post’s discussion about this underrated vegetable’s sweetness, I’ve been thinking about how to use them in a dessert.  I was thinking maybe scones or a quick bread.  But then I was struck by the idea of carrot-turned-parsnip cake.  I mean, it seemed so obvious that these two root vegetables could be used interchangeably.  So that was my plan.  Until Friday night’s cold walk to the grocery store, during which I decided I wasn’t in the mood for a carrot cake knock-off, at least not entirely. 

Wandering the aisles, narrowly missing first a baby stroller and then another shopper’s cart, I mulled over my options.  I definitely liked the idea of cake.  But gym-shirker that I was, I didn’t want anything too guilt-inducing.  I saw some ginger and the idea ball started rolling from there.  I decided to put together a relatively airy and warmly spiced batter to transport my parsnip into cupcakes (portion control, my friends, is what it’s all about) that I’d then top with a lighter version of cream cheese frosting accented by fresh ginger.  I think I had just uttered “eureka” in my head when literally I tripped over the shelf holding the raw sugar, which turned out to be the perfect decoration for these homespun treats. 

Wondering yet how it is that I got my workout?  It wasn’t terribly long, but it was demanding.  I’d never grated a parsnip before and if these cupcakes hadn’t turned out so darn delicious, I never would again.  Those things are tough!!  But the cupcakes are amazing, so it was worth the grueling upper body workout to get the couple cups of grated parsnip that I needed.  If you have that glorious luxury called a food processor, I’d advise using it. 

   

So that’s the story about how I got my workout and felt justified in satisfying my Friday night sweet tooth with a cupcake. 

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Finally! 

Today I get to tell you all about my homemade dulce de leche.  I’ve been absolutely bursting at the seams with anticipation, chucking the last of the cranberry recipes at you.  That’s not to say those weren’t worthwhile.  Oh no no.  It’s just that this recipe for the creamy dreamy caramely treat from South America can’t be kept under wraps for long. 

So do you have a minute for me to tell you a little story about how I came to be on a quest for the perfect dulce de leche recipe?  I really hope so because it’s worth telling.

It all started in April of this past year when I went to Argentina and Uruguay to celebrate my birthday.  I read my copy of the Lonely Planet guidebook from cover to cover and then read Kiss and Tango: Dairy of a Dancehall Seductress just to get a sense of the culture I was about to soak up.  In both the LP and Kiss and Tango, there were whole pages devoted to this sweet treat called dulce de leche, or “milk jam” in translation.  I had some seriously high expectations for the stuff and looked for it the moment I got off the plane in Buenos Aires.  Just at the airport convenience shop alone I found nearly fifty different types of prepackaged cookies and candies boasting a dulce de leche filling of some kind!  I bought two or three and drooled in anticipation as I unwrapped the first one…

It was terrible!  Well, okay, maybe not terrible since it was a candy bar.  But it certainly wasn’t worth pages of prose or even a mention in a postcard home.  And so it was everywhere I went as I journeyed alone through Argentina and Uruguay for a few days.  Then my friend Fred flew in from the States to join me for a week and we hopped on a plane to Iguazu Falls.  Same story there – nothing but prepackaged disappointment.  Okay, maybe there was some of the most amazing scenery I’d ever seen, but the dulce de leche was still nothing to write home about.  After a few days in the tropical heat, we came back to Buenos Aires and split up for the afternoon, he to La Recoleta Cemetery and me to the San Telmo neighborhood in search of dog walkers and street artists. 

And then it happened.  On a rundown little side street far away from any tourist traps, I found heaven.  In the tiniest of mom-and-pop bakeries, rows and rows of alfajores (cookies), big and small, all bursting with dark, thick dulce de leche, promised to make amends for all the inferior prepackaged milk jam that had come before them.  Of course no English was spoken, but I didn’t let it stop me as I pointed and cooed until I had what I wanted.  That first bite…oh that first bite…it was worth an entire novel.  The biscuit cookies sandwiching the dulce de leche were merely a vehicle for the sweet-but-not-sugary-creamy-like-the-best-fudge-you’ve-ever-had-deep-richness-of-caramel-with-a-hint-of-vanilla-goodness.  Sigh….so good, in fact, that basic sentence structure fails me even now.

Unfortunately I didn’t stock up on enough and when we jetted off to Mendoza early the next morning, I was all out of alfajores and my beloved homemade dulce de leche.  I didn’t even bother to try and find any during our time in Mendoza.  I didn’t want to risk contaminating that one beautiful and pure moment.  (I’m sure you’re rolling your eyes by now at my lavish descriptions, but I swear it really was that good.)  But it was time for Fred to have his own dulce de leche epiphany.  He’d been enamored with the massive steaks all along our route so sweets hadn’t been a priority.  An early morning trip to see the Andes had Fred on the hunt for breakfast in the bustling Mendoza bus station, where he found a bakery selling freshly made rolls, cut in half and spread with a thick layer of dulce de leche, put back together and rolled in powdered sugar.  The huge grin on his face after the first bite said it all. 

    

My three weeks tromping around Argentina eventually came to an end, as did my small stash of alfajores I got from the Buenos Aires bakery just before my flight home.  But my determination to find good dulce de leche here in the States was just getting started.  As you can probably guess, the packaged stuff here just doesn’t cut it.  Nor did the recipes that called for a can of condensed milk that yielded a caramel flavor but lacked the intense creaminess I knew was possible.  As Christmas rolled around and I thought about what I should give Fred for a gift, I just knew I had to figure out the dulce de leche “problem”.   Scouring the internet for websites from Argentina, I finally found what seemed to be an authentic recipe that called for whole milk and no shortcuts. 

It worked beautifully.  I couldn’t be happier.  I almost cried when I took my first bite.  Sigh…. There it was again, that same sweet-but-not-sugary-creamy-like-the-best-fudge-you’ve-ever-had-deep-richness-of-caramel-with-a-hint-of-vanilla-goodness.  I made some homemade rolls, slathered them with it, and rolled them in powdered sugar for Fred. 

He confirms it’s “unbelievable!”  

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