The Greasy Spoon

Avocado and Tomato Ice with Horseradish

 

 

Cordon Bleu Cookery Course, 1970

I've always had a thing about late summer. It's fun to try and pin-point the exact time summer changes into autumn. Often, it's around September 10th or so; marked by a whiff of bonfire smoke, a sudden chill in the air, or the blustery gales of the September equinox. Mind you, here in London, it feels like autumn started in June, and I'm writing this looking out onto a grey, damp and slightly foggy street.  

It's also the last chance saloon for summer food, or at least, food with summery pretensions. Here's my recipe for a delicious Tomato Ice. If you think that it reeks of 1970's dinner party food, you would be utterly correct, as I've based it on a recipe from No. 69 of the Cordon Blue Cookery Course, published by Purnell as a part-work in 1970; but with the addition of grated horseradish which I think would work well with it, and the hot flavour of horseradish can be an excellent combination with the intense, sweet taste of the tomato. It's a pretty dish, and I like the colour of the tomato ice. Canadian, apparently.

You tip two tins of plum tomatoes into a pan, and then add two teaspoons of salt, a generous pinch of white pepper, four tablespoons of golden caster sugar, the zest and juice of two lemons, and a generous helping of freshly grated horseradish, and stir until the mixture comes to the boiling point, pushing the tomato pulp against the side of the pan with a wooden spoon to help it break down. Add three sprigs of fresh mint, cover the pan and allow to simmer for five to ten minutes. Rub the contents of the pan through a sieve, making sure that you extract all the juices. Add a few drops of Tabasco to taste. You should now be looking at a bowl full of a lovely red-coloured, very thin juice.

Chill this mixture in a deep freeze, and mash it up with a fork just before it starts to set. Return to the deep freeze, and repeat the process, and again, until you have formed a smooth ice in the sorbet manner. You could, of course, acheive the same effect in an ice-cream machine.

To serve, cut an avocado in half (I like the hass variety with the knobbly green skin; slightly nutty in taste), rub the exposed flesh with lemon juice (to stop it turning brown) and fill the cavity with a generous scoop of the Tomato Ice. To make the avocado stand upright on the plate, turn over the half, and slice off a thin wedge, so that it makes a base.

The important thing to remember is to flavour the tomato ice reasonably well, as the freezing process can often kill off the stronger tastes. Some out there might garnish it with mint, but I'm currently bored of garnishes, and think simplicity is often the best way forward. I like the idea of updating these classic, unfashionable recipes to more modern tastes; simplifying them if necessary, and presenting them cleanly, discarding those outrageous garnishes of yesteryear. That, at least, is the goal.

By the way, a tip: when you're grating a fresh horseradish root, make sure you grate it across the grain (rather than downwards). We keep a horseradish root in the deep freeze, and find that it keeps for ages; providing us with "fresh" horseradish whenever the mood takes us.

 

Melon Sorbet with Iced Bison Vodka

 

 

 

I'm a big fan of sorbets, especially as they're so easy to make; even for those living with tiny kitchens, and without the luxury of expensive ice-cream makers. All you need is a deep freeze (however small), a terrine-shaped metal container, a blender, and lots of patience. Once you've mastered the technique, the sky's the limit, and great fun can be had by one and all inventing interesting new flavour combinations.

Here's an idea for a melon sorbet, seved with Polish bison vodka. The grassy taste of the vodka works well the summery flavours going on in the melon.

Take a cantaloupe melon and remove the skin. Cut it into chunks and take out the seeds and any pith. Put it to one side.  You could of course use any melon you liked the look of; experimentation is the key. In the meantime, dissolve three quarters of a cup of white sugar in three quarters of a cup of water, and heat gently to make a syrup. When it's properly dissolved, pour it into the metal terrine, and stick it into the 'fridge to cool down.

Whizz the melon up in your magimix or blender, until it's smooth. I happen to prefer my sorbets to be very smooth, and I don't like nasty bits floating around in it, so I would then push the blended melon through a sieve. Once that's done, pour the blended, sieved melon into the metal terrine and mix it around with the cooled syrup, adding a squeeze of lemon juice as you go. Stick it into the deep freeze.

Now it's a matter of patience. Wait until the sorbet is almost frozen, and then take it out of the deep freeze and mash it up with a fork. Put it back into the freezer. Wait again until it's almost frozen, take it out and mash it up. To finish it off, wait until it's almost frozen, take it out, but this time whizz it up in a blender, return it to its container and re-freeze.

To serve the sorbet, I pour iced Zubrowka bison vodka over it. Zubrowka vodka is curious stuff, which has a very distinctive grassy taste ( a bit like that evocative summer smell of freshly cut grass and petrol lawn mowers). To quote from the hilarious marketing blurb on the label: "In a remote corner of Poland in the North Podlaise Lowland lies a mysterious place called Bialowieza, the last primeval forest in Europe, home to Europe's last remaining herd of bison and to a distinctively, aromatic plant- Bison grass...since the 14th century, Bison-grass has been used to infuse a unique vodka, Zubrowka, a singular spirit of supreme smoothness..."

I'm not sure I like Zubrowka as a neat vodka, but I think it works brilliantly when used in conjunction with other foods. (Incidentally, there's no point adding vodka directly to the sorbet mix, as the alcohol won't freeze properly).

For the bibliophiles amongst you, it might be worth your while tracking down a copy of Elizabeth David's "Harvest of the Cold Months: The Social History of Ice and Ices", edited by Jill Norman, and published by Michael Joseph in 1994. I've got a feeling that this book was published in a small print run, and several years ago, scarce used copies were scarily expensive. But that was before the internet, and there's now a reasonable selection of copies available on Abebooks.