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It's always great when circumstance and ingredients to hand meet in a perfect way. My brother-in-law and I had ordered at the beginning of the summer a whole short loin (tenderloin + New York - it looks like a really long T-bone piece) from our local, organic beef farmer, Skagit River Ranch.
We get the word it'll be available some time in August. Well, we waited through the month. Just when I was expecting nothing, this Saturday comes the call from the BIL - the meat's in! I rush on up there, only semi- prepared.
In the meantime, my birthday has come just a few days before, on August
28th. So I've made my traditional cake, Chocolate Death, and as usual there
That'll be the dessert one night. But if we're doing the tenderloin side as a roast one night, the New York as a steak the other, I need (or want) another dessert for Night 2.
OK, well, IMHO (and in my sister's opinion as well), with roast beef,
Yorkshire Pudding is mandatory. That'll use up some milk, leaving some left that I should use up pretty quick (expiration date is September 3).
Meanwhile, from making the Chocolate Death, I have a cup of cream left as well.
The BIL, me, and their young son LOVE chocolate. My sister and their young daughter aren't wild about chocolate. What do they love in dessert more than anything else? The family of rosewater-flavoured desserts from the
Middle East. Great! I have a plan. I have rosewater and cardamom in the house (commodities I always have on hand). With the other ingredients above, I have the makings for rose ice cream, in the Middle Eastern style.
The result was a smash success. Really, it was a very successful couple of days. The roast beef tenderloin (on Day 1) was the best I've ever had, which pretty much makes it the best *food* I've ever had. The table concurred heartily. The Chocolate Death I already knew to be one of my best efforts, and of course my BIL and nephew loved it. It's an indication of how good the New York was that on Day 2 we ate it all - a WHOLE New York - about 10 lbs of meat between 5 people, 2 of them kids. Everyone wanted seconds. That's 16 lbs of meat eaten in total, in 2 days. Finally, the ice cream. As I said, a smash success. My niece wants me to make the ice cream for her birthday now. So finally, the point of this post: the recipe.
Rose Ice Cream
4 cups whole milk
1 cup heavy cream
3 tbsp rosewater
3 tbsp sugar
9 cardamom pods
Remove the cardamom seeds from the pods and put into a spice grinder. Put the milk in a heavy stockpot. Set over medium heat and condense, stirring constantly, until it is noticeably thicker than when you started. Grind the cardamom in and continue stirring and condensing until it attains the thickness of heavy cream. Stir in the rosewater, briefly cook (about 1 minute), then stir in the sugar and remove from heat, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Pour into your ice cream maker, then pour in the cream and either start churning (if by hand - produces the best results) or turn on the machine (if motorized. Not quite as fine control over the texture but acceptable). Generally, churn until the mixture stiffens to the point of being unchurnable (you should of course follow directions of any ice cream maker you happen to have). Set in the freezer and allow to sit for 2 hours minimum. It's best if it's a freezer kept only slightly below freezing, not a real deep-freeze, long-term storage freezer. Serve. Makes approximately 1
1/2 pints.
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