I found a Basil Ice Cream recipe on the BBC website a couple months ago and decided I would hold on to it a) in case I bought an ice cream maker and b) I love ice cream. A few weeks ago I ran across Harold McGee's article on how to make ice cream without a machine combining ice and salt in a bucket. Why not? The week I decided to make it, there was going to be a citrus festival in the valle de lecrin, an area close to where I live, where they grow lots of oranges and lemons, and they had a cooking competition. I decided I would enter altering the Basil ice cream recipe and turning it into an orange basil ice cream which, flavor wise seemed to make sense. However I didn't enter the competition because the prize was a ceramic plate, no thanks, and I had family over the day before, which meant I would have to ignore my sister, nephew, and niece to try and win a plate.... uh huh...
The recipe called for making a basil syrup by first boiling water and sugar and then after about 10 minutes adding diced basil, I added the basil, juice from one orange, and the zest/peel of one orange. After about another 5 minutes, I passed it through a china cap. While I was making the syrup I whipped up some cream, which I then added the syrup too and gently folded it in. To that, I added a mixture of condensed milk, vodka, and a little more cream, which I folded in and whipped up again. The reasoning for adding the vodka, is that alcohol is supposed to help prevent cream/water from forming large crystals and gaining an undesirable texture during the freezing process. I poured the mixture into a freezer ziploc bag, and here comes the experiment with ice. McGee says that by adding salt, it lowers the freezing point of the ice therefore making it possible to freeze the mixture in a shorter amount of time. I didn't have great results. I added the ice and salt into a bucket, put the ziploc bag in the middle and after about 4 hours, during which I moved and shaked the bucket and bag, it hadn't frozen. I decided it had gotten cold enough and it was midnight so I popped it into the freezer. The result was really good, the ice cream had a a great flavor, but I think it could definitely have been smoother if done by machine. It kind of came out in the shape of large notebook, and I had to let the ice cream melt a little bit before serving. For the photos, I accompanied the ice cream with some caviar I made combining orange syrup with sodium alginate and releasing into a calcium chloride bath, and a leaf of basil.
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