Thursday, August 19, 2010
SOME SIMPLE SUMMER MEALS, KITCHEN MISHAPS, AND PERUVIAN LUCUMA ICE CREAM FROM CHILDHOOD MEMORIES
I can't believe this week has gone by so fast! Sheesh! And here it is Thursday again! We did have a fun few days with DH's stepdaughter from Montreal and her two lovely 12-year-old twin daughters. We had a picnic the beach with some friends and 2 of my granddaughters, the girls having a great time swimming, canoeing, going out on my stepson's motor boat, and getting to know each other. We went to Salt Spring Island for a night, with the "gang" (as DH calls them) to visit more family-- driving in style in a friend's immaculate white 1972 Chevy Caprice. We would have been squished in our little car, with no air conditioning on the hottest weekend of the year, so our friend offered his ride. Very fun, and a big surprise for the Salt Spring relatives when we drove up!
But, along with company, cooking, the ordinary daily running of a house and job, family, and, of course, the Book-- hours of editing-- it's been mostly work and very little serious cooking, I'm afraid!
I did make an interesting recipe yesterday-- Lucuma ice cream (vegan, of course!). Lucuma is a Peruvian fruit and, as many of you may know, my father was Peruvian. I remember lucuma ice cream from my three months in Peru as a six-year-old. Lucuma is a fruit with a quite dry texture, so it isn't eaten as a fruit, per se. Mostly it is used for a delectable, rich ice cream. Lucuma is rather sweet and has a butterscotch-y sort of flavor. When I was in Vancouver last, I found a store with Peruvian foods and bought some frozen lucuma puree-- what a coup, I thought!
Yesterday I worked out a recipe based on my vanilla gelato recipe made with Instant Clearjel®, with the help of a (non-vegan) recipe from the internet. After splattering the kitchen with soy cream after a little accident (Mercury is in retrograde-- what can I say?), I made the mix and tasted it-- WAY too sweet!! I couldn't figure it out! My gelato is not as sweet as most, and I had used less sweetener than the non-vegan recipe called for (in relation to the volume of liquid, etc.). So, I got out my (new, under-used) reading glasses and read the small print on the bag of lucuma puree-- sugar! I had been assuming that it was unsweetened, since the label did not say "sweetened" and the recipes I found online all called for unsweetened puree. My mistake!
I tried diluting it with more soymilk-- still overpoweringly sweet! (I now have about 2 quarts of very sweet milky liquid in the fridge that I have to think of some ways to use! Any ideas?) So, I started over and used no sweetener at all. It still tasted too sweet to me, but I know that when food is frozen, the sweetness is not as apparent, so there was hope. I stuck it in the freezer and hoped for the best, as I was hoping to take it to a family dinner with my sister and my mother on Friday-- they will remember this treat, too!
Last night I looked for unsweetened lucuma puree in Canada online-- no luck. But I did find lucuma powder
. It seems that lucuma is all the rage in the raw foods community and is even used as a natural sweetener. I found some at a good price from this Canadian vendor, and ordered 2 lbs for future experiments!BTW, lucuma is being called a "superfood", but I think this is somewhat of an exaggeration. It's true that it has lots of fiber and beta carotene, but, then, so do carrots! It is high in natural carbohydrates, so it was used by the Incas to provide energy, and evidently the trees are very prolific-- no wonder it was a popular food. Tasting sweet and butterscotch-y didn't hurt! I just feel that we should not go hog wild over exotic foods that are supposed to provide miraculous nutrients, when, in fact, we have foods at home that are just as good, more available, and much cheaper! For me, his is an exotic treat to relive some childhood memories.
Anyway, that said, we tried a bit of the ice cream when I was photographing it and re-packing it, and it is delicious! Here is the recipe I used with the sweetened puree, but I plan to try it again with the lucuma powder
and will report back!
Printable Recipe
Update Aug. 2012: See a recipe for Vegan Lucuma Ice Cream using lucuma powder here. And stay tuned for Take 3!
BRYANNA'S VEGAN LUCUMA ICE CREAM (PERUVIAN), TAKE 1 (WITH SWEETENED LUCUMA PUREE)
Servings: 10
Yield: 5 cups
1 1/2 cups soy creamer (plain)
1 1/2 cups nondairy milk
1 1/2 cups lucuma puree (with sugar)
3/4 cup raw cashews or cashew pieces, soaked in boiling water for 10 minutes and drained
(if allergic to nuts, use 1/2 cup more nondairy milk, or soy creamer, and 2 tablespoons oil)
1/2 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
or vanilla paste
3/8 teaspoon salt
2 1/4 teaspoons Instant Clearjel®
(see info below recipe)OR 3/8 tsp. guar gum or xanthan gumPlace the creamer, milk, and lucuma puree into a blender along with the soaked, drained cashews, and blend until VERY smooth and frothy (make sure that it is not grainy at all).
Mix all of the remaining ingredients, into this mixture and blend again until it is VERY smooth.
Chill the gelato mixture thoroughly, and then freeze according to directions for your ice cream machine. Scoop into a quart plastic container, cover and freeze for several hours (preferably 24 hours) before serving.
Cooking
Tips
A
while ago, I started playing with my gelato recipe from my book
"Nonna's Italian Kitchen
".
I wanted to make it richer-tasting, easier to make, and with more
servings. One of the things I did was to use Instant Clearjel®
instead of the cooked tapioca flour mixture that I generally use
(tapioca thickens the mixture instead of eggs, and it has better
mouth feel than cornstarch). This eliminates cooking the starch
mixture, which means the whole thing takes less time and it doesn't
take so long to chill the gelato mixture before freezing. Another
option is xanthan gum or guar gum, and I have given the amounts in
the recipe.
".
I wanted to make it richer-tasting, easier to make, and with more
servings. One of the things I did was to use Instant Clearjel®
instead of the cooked tapioca flour mixture that I generally use
(tapioca thickens the mixture instead of eggs, and it has better
mouth feel than cornstarch). This eliminates cooking the starch
mixture, which means the whole thing takes less time and it doesn't
take so long to chill the gelato mixture before freezing. Another
option is xanthan gum or guar gum, and I have given the amounts in
the recipe.
INSTANT CLEARJEL® NOTES AND SUPPLIERS (July 2017)
In this recipe, DO NOT use the regular Clearjel® meant for making jam and pies and needs to be cooked. Instant Clearjel® does NOT need to be cooked. It is carried on amazon.com, hoosierhillfarm.com, barryfarm.comand King Arthur Flour for US customers. It has been available in Canada primarily from baking supply wholesalers, but, good news for Canadians--amazon.ca finally carries Instant Clearjel®! (Make sure you add a note to your order specifying that you want INSTANT Clearjel®.) According to their website, Gourmet Warehouse in Vancouver, BC carries it, too, but I'm not sure if they do mail order (their website is under construction right now).
For information about these thickeners, see
http://sharealikecooking.blogspot.ca/p/clearjel-page-clearly-best-thickeners.html (According to this source and others, Instant Clearjel® and Ultra Gel® are both NON-GMO.)
In this recipe, DO NOT use the regular Clearjel® meant for making jam and pies and needs to be cooked. Instant Clearjel® does NOT need to be cooked. It is carried on amazon.com, hoosierhillfarm.com, barryfarm.comand King Arthur Flour for US customers. It has been available in Canada primarily from baking supply wholesalers, but, good news for Canadians--amazon.ca finally carries Instant Clearjel®! (Make sure you add a note to your order specifying that you want INSTANT Clearjel®.) According to their website, Gourmet Warehouse in Vancouver, BC carries it, too, but I'm not sure if they do mail order (their website is under construction right now).
For information about these thickeners, see
http://sharealikecooking.blogspot.ca/p/clearjel-page-clearly-best-thickeners.html (According to this source and others, Instant Clearjel® and Ultra Gel® are both NON-GMO.)
Keep cool!
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5 comments:
I recently discovered Lucuma powder and have been hooked. I agree with you. I wouldn't go so far as to say it's a superfood (they love that word, don't they?), but it's certainly a healthier alternative to sugar. Thanks for sharing your ice cream recipe. I'll have to give it a try.
My lucuma powder is on its way, so I'll re-do the recipe when I get it
I haven't heard of lucuma before, I wonder if we can get it here in New Zealand. BTW, I sell Instant Clear Jel through my website: www.angelfood.co.nz
It's not a crucial pantry item, but once you've got it you keep finding uses for it!
Bryanna, how about using that excess lucuma in a sweet bread? Or maybe pudding, popsicles,slaw, or tossing it with fruit salad?
It's funny - being vegan all these years, and I, too, still fail to read the ingredients lists once in a while!
I will definitely have to go on a hunt for lucuma in any form I can find it. My husband's biggest food loss is butterscotch. I've been on a quest to make it up to him. Since lucuma tastes like it somewhat, I'll have to give it a try. Thank you!
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