Roasted Rhubarb Ice Cream
What’s the very best thing about a strawberry-rhubarb pie? The ice cream. It’s hardly worth eating without, in my books. In fact, my scoop is, if I have the opportunity, replenished several times as I work my way through a warm slice.
So I thought, as I chopped and bagged for the freezer a load of stalks from Mike’s mom’s back yard, that it might go very nicely indeed directly into a batch of ice cream. It would have to be cooked down though, and sweetened slightly. Roasted, even.
Vegetables should not have exclusivity in the roasting department – the high heat softens fruit and caramelizes their juices, in this case leaving chewy, almost-candied chunks of rhubarb studded throughout the palest of pink ice creams. Even my rhubarb-hating sister liked it.
Again, the simplest recipe: I chopped as many stalks as you see here, scattered the lot with sugar (I wish I had lined the pan with foil or parchment first) and roasted it at 400F for about 20 minutes, until all was soft and the juices were dark and sticky. I scraped it off into a bowl and stuck it in the fridge until it was cold, then stirred it into 2 cups of cream (half heavy, half half & half) and 1/3 cup sugar. (I went by the success of this ultra-easy strawberry ice cream. You could, if you wanted to, combine strawberries and rhubarb – that just might be next on my must-make list.)
I apologize for my apparent inability to photograph ice cream. It could be my photography skills, but is more likely that I’m temporarily blinded by desperation in the presence of such perfectly soft, barely frozen, freshly churned cream. Can you really blame me?
I should mention too how nice it is some days to live next door to a chef. He dropped off this spicy cold gazpacho with a container of roughly chopped chile-spiked and olive-oily shrimp to put on top. I added a chopped avocado, because it was there in the fruit bowl and needed to be eaten. I may try to beg the recipe out of him. It was smoother than most gazpachos, but although there were no chunks, it was thick enough to allow the shrimp and avocado to sit on top without sinking. I forgot how much I love gazpacho, especially when it’s hot outside. Last time I made some was a few years ago, a roasted veg gazpacho from Bon Appétit.
One Year Ago: Strawberry-Rhubarb Cobbler Cake
At the Family Kitchen: Lemon Rhubarb Drop Scones
June 25 2010 | leftovers | 14 Comments »
