Wasabi Ice Cream (with roadkill venison steaks)

Just because I’ve been quiet on here recently doesn’t mean I haven’t been cranking. Quite the contrary!

What follows is a surprising treat, part by ingenuity, part by accident.

Jess invited me to make ice cream at her birthday party on a recent weekend and I was of course delighted to take two machines out to Fala and crank. On the bus I met an old man who was very fascinated by the two odd machines I was transporting and his excitement quickly turned to philosophising about the importance of fun.

When I got to Fala, I set to work zesting and squeezing 23 lemons for a fabulously tart sorbet (that ended up more like a granita), but that’s not really what this story is about.

Immediately after the sorbet was frozen I started on Jess’s special request – green tea and wasabi ice cream. However, I soon realised that I had stupidly left my matcha powder back in Edinburgh. Nick had brought a tube of wasabi though, so I made an executive decision and decided to make it anyway. After all, we had an ice shortage and what little ice I had left was quickly melting.

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Wasabi Ice Cream

The recipe went something like this:

Course Dessert, Side Dish

Cuisine Ice Cream, Japanese

Prep Time 5 minutes

Crank Time 15 minutes

Total Time 20 minutes

Servings 2 quarts

Ingredients

• 1 egg
• 1 egg yolk
• 1 cup sugar (225g)
• more than half a tube of wasabi
• 2 cups double cream (472ml)
• a bit more than half a litre of whole milk

Instructions

I went with our standard recipe, but added the wasabi to the eggs and sugar to help it dissolve more easily.

1. Whisk the egg, egg yolk and sugar until well mixed.

2. Squeeze in about half a tube of wasabi paste. Add more or less depending on how spicy you want it. Continue whisking until the wasabi is evenly mixed into the egg and sugar mix.

3. Whisk in the double cream and then the milk, stirring until the sugar is mostly dissolved.

4. Transfer the mix to the freezer and crank until frozen.

I had just barely enough ice to freeze the mix and by the time it was ready, Nick was serving up road-kill venison steaks (we were not responsible for the death of the deer!).

The ice cream was as sweet as normal, but I knew it was quite spicy since I had been very generous with the wasabi, so I could not resist the idea of having the ice cream with the venison. After all, the ice cream probably wasn’t that different from very cold horseradish cream sauce. Luckily, we were among an open-minded crowd and Jess was eager to try the ice cream as a savoury accompaniment.

The birthday girl was delighted, as were most of us around the table. There were one or two who couldn’t get their heads around it, and when the kids heard what we were up to, they were naturally repulsed. In the end, I count the wasabi ice cream as a success, particularly in the savoury context. If I were to make it again, I would reduce the sugar and increase the cream to try for a more savoury ice cream.