Gooseberry Sorbet

A few years ago we had the most amazing gooseberry ice cream on a cliff top in Cornwall. I can't remember exactly where we were, or what company made it, just that it was after a blazing hot morning of walking with full packs along the coastal path, and that it was the best thing I'd ever tasted (it might have been the heat, but it was pretty darn tasty). So when an allotment friend gave us a bagful of super-ripe gooseberries the other day, we decided that was what we wanted to make with them. As we're trying to eat less dairy products, we went with sorbet rather than ice cream. This takes a while to make without an ice cream maker - several hours of stirring and freezing - but it's got such an intense flavour it's definitely worth it. It's super refreshing on its own, but it would go really well with some plain yoghurt for a creamier pudding, vegan or otherwise, whatever's your bag!

                                                                                                                                                          (c) Becca Thorne 2018

Gooseberry Sorbet

Ingredients
1kg ripe gooseberries, blossom and stalk removed
400g caster sugar (golden's best, but white will do)
400ml water

Find a saucepan big enough to fit everything in and, over a low-medium heat, gently stir the sugar and water together until the sugar's dissolved. Add the gooseberries, bring to a boil and then turn down to a simmer for around 5 mins, or until the gooseberries are squishy and broken apart. It won't take long.

Using a blender, blitz up the gooseberry mixture until it's super smooth. Place a sieve over a good-size bowl and pour in the mixture, a bit at a time, gently pushing it through the sieve with a wooden spoon until you have just seeds and bits of skin left in the sieve. Discard these bits, and continue until it's all sieved through. If you taste it now, you'll probably find it's a little too sweet - this is because freezing dulls sweet flavours slightly, but the sugar also stops it turning into a solid block of ice in the freezer. Cover (to keep the fruit flies away - they go nuts for this stuff) and set aside to cool to room temperature.

Once cooled, tip the puree into a freezer-proof tub with a lid, and place in the freezer - or, if you've got an ice cream maker, tip it in there, follow the machine's instructions and walk away, you lucky bugger. But if, like me, it's just you and your freezer, you'll need to check on it after about an hour, when you should find it's becoming icy around the edges of the mixture. Use a fork to stir and mash these bits into the mix. Do this approx once an hour until it's more solid than not, and then let it freeze completely. If you don't do all the mashing you'll still have a tasty sorbet, but it will be full of hard, jagged ice crystals, rather than the nice, smooth texture you want. So give it a go!

Scoff.

Tree of Life Salad

An American friend recently suggested we have a two woman International Cook-Off - she sent me some salad recipes from The New American Cooking by Joan Nathan and asked me to pick one for us both to make. I chose Tree of Life Salad, a recipe inspired by a spicy dressing made at Tree of Life wellness centre in Arizona, which uses red pepper, tahini, garlic and oranges.  

I ended up changing things quite a lot - the original recipe had raisins, which I didn't fancy, and as the dressing sounded a lot like harissa I decided to use that instead, adding ginger to keep it close to the Tree of Life version. I stupidly forgot to buy oranges, so I used white wine vinegar instead and it works well, but I'll have to try the orangey version someday! I also changed the ingredients of the salad itself to include things we had: I used rocket from the garden in place of red cabbage, a yellow instead of green pepper (because green peppers are just gross unripe other peppers) and I replaced the suggested endive with fennel - completely different flavours, but I had fennel and fennel be good. In the end I was enjoying the harissa too much to add tahini, so I omitted that too. Basically this is a completely different recipe, but I think it still counts!

(sort of) Tree Of Life Salad - UK edition

Serves 2 as a side
For the harissa dressing
1 whole red pepper
2-3 long red chillies, medium heat, stalks and seeds discarded
1 large clove garlic, peeled


1 tsp caster sugar
1 heaped tsp smoked paprika
1 thumb-size piece root ginger, peeled and very finely grated
1 tbs olive oil
1tbs white wine vinegar 

If you've got a gas hob, set the smallest burner on a medium heat and sit the whole pepper directly into the flames. Turn the pepper as the skin blisters and pops, keeping it in the flames until the skin is blackened and the flesh is softened all over (alternatively, turn the oven up high, put the pepper directly on the top shelf and bake for 10-15 minutes, turning half way through, until the skin is charred and the flesh is soft). Leave to cool then remove the stalk and seeds and cut into quarters.

Put the pepper, chillies, garlic, sugar and smoked paprika into a bowl  or food processor, with a small amount of olive oil, and blitz up til smooth. This is the harissa.

Put 3tsp harissa in a small bowl with the grated ginger, white wine vinegar and olive oil and beat together well with a fork. Set aside.

For the salad
Half a red pepper
Half a yellow pepper
1 bulb fennel
Handful rocket leaves
1 small head little gem or similar lettuce
8 cherry tomatoes

Put the rocket and lettuce leaves in a salad bowl. Slice the pepper halves into long, thin strips and place in a salad bowl. Cut the fennel in half vertically, cut off the solid bottom end and remove the outer layer and the top stalks. Slice thinly and add to the bowl. Halve the cherry tomatoes and add them too.

Add a tablespoon of the dressing to the salad and stir it up to ensure everything is well coated. Add a little at a time until it's dressed to your liking, but don't over do it, you want to still be able to taste the veg.

I served my Tree of Life salad with a polenta pizza. More on that another time.