Blackberry Ice Cream without an Ice Cream Machine

It’s autumn and the winter is soon approaching. Days started getting really shorter and colder. That also means cooking and photographing foods are going to more difficult with sun setting soon, and having shady days more often. But I love the season and what the season provides - aubergines, courgettes, pumpkins, figs, blackberries and so on. It’s amazing, shops and malls already started stocking up Halloween and even Christmas goodies!

Blackberries usually grow in the bushes and August - September is the peak season when they are rip and plumb with maximum flavour. They are available in plenty on the streets here. The ones that grow in the wild are usually of smaller size and tarter than the ones we get from shops. But still, I wouldn’t buy them when I can get them plenty from the bushes at no cost and more importantly, organic.  

Last week after dropping my son off to school, I decided to go berry picking and came back with a quite a good amount of them. I always pick them when they are in season, use some and freeze the rest for later use as they don’t stay fresh for long at all. They freeze quite well, so if you are not using them right away, freeze on the same day you pick them. I made this ice-cream on the same day of picking them to add maximum freshness to the ice cream. Even though I don’t enjoy blackberries or any berries as they are, they are really good and tastes superb in desserts and bakes. I have always wanted to make ice creams and crumble with blackberries. They are really delicious in desserts and ice creams, have wonderful flavour and impart a rich deep purple colour. 

There is nothing to beat the rich flavour and creamy texture of home made ice cream. The knack of succesfully making smooth frozen desserts largely involves making sure that no large ice crustals form during freezing. That means it is necessary to periodically whisk the freezing mixture by hand or elecrtic whisk, if you do not own an ice cream machine, which will do the job for you ~ The complete Book of Desserts, Good Housekeeping.

This is my first time hands on making an ice cream and I think it turned out great. I made it without an ice cream maker, so lot of stirring was involved in the making. It’s a tough job stirring the cold and set ice cream using a fork as suggested in many recipes. And I suppose my ice cream could have been a bit softer I would think. I blame the stirring part. I don’t think I stirred well enough. I am thinking of using an electric beater next time and I hope that will make the job a lot easier yielding softer ice cream.

I usually do quite a lot of research on anything when I make it for the first time. I found many recipes online and I own a fabulous book on desserts and it has many great ice cream recipes. This recipe is made using the custard base, which is the base or building block for any icecream. Properly made, custard based ice creams yield rich and creamy ice creams. It is a bit time consuming and needs good attention but always a good way to start with ice creams. You can then modify or flavour the base with your choice later on. I have used quite a lot of blackberries as I wanted intense flavour, but you can reduce the amount to suit your taste; like a cup or so if you want it less intense.

Blackberry Ice cream without an Ice cream machine

serves 8-10

Ingredients:

2 cups, 300g black berries (You can reduce the amount if you want subtly flavour)

300 ml double cream

300 ml whole milk

3 large egg yolks

1 vanilla pod

175g-200g sugar depending on the sweetness of the berries

Preparations:

For making the custard base for ice-cream:

1. In a sauce pan, heat milk and cream. Scrape in a vanilla pod and throw in the vanilla. Simmer it until the mixture is hot and starts steaming and small bubbles. Do not boil. Remove from heat and then pass this through sieve and leave aside for about 10 minutes to cool it down. Discard the vanilla pod.

2. Meanwhile, using an electric whisk, beat together the egg yolks and sugar until it is pale yellow and thick; for about 6-8 minutes. This will make a lighter, creamier ice-cream.

3. Pour the warm milk into the egg mixture in thin stream whisking the egg mixture simultaneously. Whisking so will avoid scrambling the egg from the hot milk.

4. Pour the milk in a heavy base saucepan and heat it on a very low heat stirring constantly for about 20 minutes to avoid cooking and scrambling the egg. Once the custard gets thick and coats the back of the spoon, take off the heat and let it come to room temperature. (I have placed a simmer plate beneath the saucepan to reduce the risk of scrambling the egg else you can cook in bain marie).

5. Pour the mixture into a shallow non metallic freezer container. Cover and freeze for about 45 minutes until it starts setting from the sides.

6. Spoon the mixture into a bowl and mash with a fork or electric whisk to break the ice crystals. You might need to work quickly so that ice cream does not melt completely.

7. Add the blackberry puree into this incorporating it well. Put it back to the freezer and set for another hour, take it out and mash with a fork again. Repeat this process for 4-5 times or until ice cream sets completely. Chill for further 3 hours or until firm.

8. Remove from freezer and leave it in room temperature for 15-20 minutes to soften before serving.

While the custard is setting:

1. Wash and drain the blackberries and place it on a sieve.

2. Puree the blackberries in a food processor. Pass it through a sieve to remove the seeds. Chill it and mix it with the custard based once it starts setting.

Pepper Chicken Bake

This is a recipe that my mother prepares at home quite often. Yesterday, I made it slightly different as I partly don’t remember her recipe and I was in a hurry to call her up to ask her eyeballed measurements. So I prepared the way I remember and it was nice. My mom serves it along with Arabic bread, boiled vegetables or salad and yogurt or hummus. She sometimes strip the chicken into small pieces, lay then on the Arabic bread, throw in some cucumber, carrot, onions and drizzle in some yogurt or hummus and wrap it up to make a delicious wrap. It is a nice comforting dinner and something quite easy to make and requires minimal amount of time. I usually make it as a side dish for chappati when the curry is usually a vegetable or dal based. The leftover chicken is usually cut in to strips, and is made into wraps with tortillas and some salad with some dressing or mayonnaise. Delicious!

I made it with the whole baby chicken, but you can also make it with thighs, chicken breast or anything that you fancy and bake it. And if you dont have an oven, you may fry it as well, turning couple of times until it is cooked through. Yoy may grill them as well.

Ingredients:

1 baby chicken, ~ 850g

2 ½ tsp pepper powder or as per taste

1 ½ + 2 tbsp tbs lime juice plus to squeeze after baking

½ tsp turmeric powder

2 tsp each ginger and garlic minced fresh

2 green chilliesminced *

¾ tsp salt or as required.

2 tbsp oil, vegetable or olive oil

Preparations:

1. Marinate the chicken with all the ingredients except oil. Cover and refrigerate for a minimum of two hours.

2. Line a tray with foil  rubbed with oil.

3. Place chicken on the lined tray, drizzle a tablespoon or two of oil all over and bake at 200 degrees Celsius for about 40 minute turning once or twice halfway until chicken is cooked through. To check the doneness, poke the breast of the thick part of the chicken with a skewer. If it’s done, juice will ooze out through the poked area. Cooking beyond this will over cook the chicken making it dry and rubbery.

4. Squeeze with more lemon juice if needed.

Notes:

* If you want it less spicy, you can scoop out the seeds from the chillies before you mince them.

Bull’s eye in Coconut Gravy/ Bull’s eye Curry

I love the fact that the seasons here can be clearlyly distinguished by changes in the weather and surroundings rather than looking up the calendar. It’s raining cats and dogs today here and the husband is away for a five day course. I had my mind all set up for a healthy regime; I thought I kick will start my walking routine along the beach and have some solitary time for myself. Then it comes, the rain, the wind and the cold weather that toppled up all my plans. I was stuck at home, thought I will sit and do some blogging and share a recipe that I make again and again.

This egg curry is simple by all means. It uses less ingredients and is quite a mild curry. It is also made slightly in an unusual way where raw eggs are added directly to the gravy and slowly cooked, rather than adding boiled eggs. Eggs are poached in the curry until well cooked and smothered in gravy. I normally serve it along with Nool puttu/idi appam/ string hoppers, bread, Ari dosa etc. You can also add boiled eggs instead and add potatoes and cook it before adding eggs too.

Bull’s eye in coconut Gravy/ Bull’s eye curry

Preparation time 10 minutes

Cooking time 20-30 minutes

Ingredients:

5 Eggs

2 Tbsp coconut/vegetable oil

3/4 tsp mustard seeds

2 twigs curry leaves

3-4 green chillies slit lengthwise

2 large onions sliced (2 cups)

1 tsp grated ginger

1 tsp grated garlic (optional)

½ tsp turmeric

1 large tomato

2 ½ cups thick coconut milk

¼ tsp garam masala

Preparations:

1.Place a medium saucepan on medium heat and add oil. When hot, splutter mustard seeds.

2. Add in curry leaves and green chillies and cook them for few seconds.

3. Throw in the sliced onions, cover and cook till golden.

4. Add in grated ginger and garlic, sauté until the raw smell goes off.

5. Add turmeric powder and sauté for a minute.

6. Lower the heat and pour in the coconut milk and add chopped tomato.

7. When small bubbles started appearing on the sides or the curry starts steaming, break eggs,pour gently onto 5 different spots holding the egg very close to the gravy. Do it gently so that the egg yolk doesn’t break. Cover the pan and cook for 5 minutes on low- medium heat. Do not boil and do not stir once the egg is added as it will scramble up the eggs.

8. Once the eggs are cooked, sprinkle on the garam masala and few curry leaves and gently swirl the pan. Serve with plain bread, appams, idi appams etc.

Panineer Petty (Stuffed Pancakes in Flavoured Syrup)

It is a customary thing at my place to make panineer petty during Eid. It would be a very unusual  snack or dessert for someone who never had it before, but sure to surprise. This is quite a popular Malabar dish mostly made in muslim households during special ocassions. The soft pillowy dessert made of layers of pan cakes and sweet egg filling is served with aromatic sugar syrup. Filling is made of eggs and sugar jewelled with cashews nuts and raisins. It is also flavoured with cardamom, one of my favourite spices and you get the whiff of it throughout. This filling is used in many of Malabar snacks including Unnakkaya, pazham nirachathu etc. 

Literally, panineer means rose water and petty means box. Even though rose water is not commonly used in the recipe, that it what it is called. I am not sure why though. A good panineer petty is made of very thin pancakes.  While making these, it is very important to make very thin pancakes. The thinner, the better they are. So the batter should be quite watery. You may add few table spoons of water or egg to make the batter thin and add little flour if the batter goes too thin. Recipe is just straight forward and very easy, doeant really take any time. Sugar syrup can be made in advance.

Panineer Petty

Serves 6-8

Ingredients:

For the egg filling:

6 large eggs

12 tbsp caster/ granulated sugar

¼ cup chopped cashew nuts

¼ cup raisins

6 cardamoms

1 ½ tbsp ghee

For the pancake:

1 cup plain flour

2 eggs

1 ½ cup plus couple of tablespoon more if needed

¼ tsp salt or as requied

For the Syrup:

1 cup caster/granulated sugar

1 cup water

¼ tsp lemon/lime juice

4-5 cardamom pods split open

1 tsp rose water (optional)

Preparations:

For the filling:

1. In a bowl, break in eggs and add in sugar. Using a hand whisk or fork break up the eggs and mix the mixture well.

2. Place a large non stick pan on medium heat, add ghee and add the chopped cashew nuts. Fry them until they start turning golden and then add raisins. Fry them until they puff up.

3. Add in the egg-sugar mixture and keep stirring to scramble the eggs until they are cooked.

4. Pound the cardamom to fine powder and add to the egg mixture. Stir well, take off the heat and keep aside.

For the pancakes:

1. Make a thin batter by mixing flour,egg, water and salt.

2. Place a small frying pan (6 inch or any size) on low-medium heat. Dip a kitchen towel in oil and rub the pan with it to avoid the batter sticking to the pan.

3. Pour a small ladleful (3 tbsp) of batter into the pan, swirl the pan to spread the batter to the edge. Cook the pancake only one side and then fish it out.

4. Place some egg filling in the centre of the pancake, fold two side of the pancake each over lapping the other and covering the filling and then fold the other two side, pressing gently to make a square shape pillow. Keep aside.

5. Pour another ladleful of batter and cook another pancake in the same manner.

6. Spread little of the filling in the centre on the uncooked side. Place the previously made filled pancake on top of the egg filling with folded side facing downwards.

7. Fold the pancake from both sides, pressing down gentle to stick the pancake on to the pancake underneath. Then fold the other two sides making to make a larger box.

8. Make one more pancake and repeat step 6 and 7. So you get a panineer petty made of three pancakes.

9. Make more panineer petty in similar way. You will get around 6 medium ones. The more layers you make, larger the panineer petty will be. I usually make it with 3-4 pancakes, but it is usually larger.

To make syrup:

Add sugar and water into a pan and bring to boil without stirring. Once it reaches boiling stage, reduce the heat, add lemon juice and simmer for about 8-10 minutes until it reaches medium thick syrup. Add crushed cardamom and rose water if using at the end and stir well.

To serve:

Place each panineer petty on individual serving dish. Make a deep cross onto the panineer petty and pour couple of tablespoons of sugar syrup drenching the panineer petty.

Notes:

1. Recipe can be halved to make half the quantity.

2. To powder cardamoms to fine powder, heat a frying pan on low-medium heat and throw in the cardamoms. Heat them until they puff up, stirring occasionally to stop burning. Grind them in a coffee grinder or heavy duty grinder.

3. Lemon/lime juice is added to the syrup to stop the syrup from crystallising. Plus, to avoid the sugar from crystallising, don’t stir sugar syrup until all sugar dissolves.

4. This can also be served without sugar syrup as an evening snack.