In today’s post, a few words about what ended up being dessert to our six-month anniversary meal the other night. I got my hands on an ice cream maker more than a year ago, and quickly went a bit mad with attempting new flavour concoctions: sour cream-brown sugar, rose-strawberry-cinnamon, lavender-blueberry, zabaglione. Those were ones that worked. Alas, I’ve been less successful a few times, too (parmesan or avocado ice cream, anyone?)
One flavour I tackled early on, and continue to go back to time and time again, is olive oil. I first heard about the idea of olive oil ice cream from a recipe I read online that originated in David Lebovitz’s The Perfect Scoop book. I then heard that Mario Batali was serving a version of olive oil gelato in his NYC pizza resto, Otto. So, I tracked down his recipe, too, and after playing around a bit with the ingredients, came up with my own version. Mine’s a bit lighter (3 egg yolks vs. 6 in Lebovitz and Batali’s recipes… or sometimes I don’t use any at all) and less sweet (1/3 cup sugar in mine, vs. 1/2 cup in Lebovitz’s and a whole cup in Batali’s, who, granted, uses double the milk and cream). And it’s stood the test of time, in my kitchen at least. In fact, after trying Batali’s version at Otto, my wife declared my version better. And who am I to argue with my wife?
The eggless version of my recipe follows. I honestly make this and most of my ice creams without eggs most of the time, for several reasons. Eliminating the custard-making process makes the whole thing much, much quicker. And of course, removing the eggs makes the finished product healthier (realize I wrote healthiER, not healthy!). Finally, with several flavours – particularly with this one where the taste and the mouth feel of the olive oil is so intense – I just don’t think the extra creaminess added by the custard is neccessary. Still, if you’d rather make a version with eggs, the custard-making steps are outlined in the recipes I linked to above.
Communal Table 