Be it a mid-afternoon or a post-dinner dessert, serve up this unique and delightful ice cream to surprise friends and family, especially during this Chinese New Year! Selected from Wet Market to Table: A Modern Approach to Fruit and Vegetables, this interesting recipe is a blend of peanut butter, tamarind pulp, ginger flowers, cucumbers and chilli padi for authentic rojak flavours.
According to chef and author Pamelia Chia, this ice cream was created “based on the key components of rojak sauce. It is rich and luscious with the fragrance of ginger flower, its sweetness tempered by tamarind. I like infusing a couple of chillies into the ice-cream base for an unsuspecting warmth and spice that sneaks up on you as the ice-cream melts.”
Ingredients
- 180 g smooth peanut butter
- 180 g sugar
- 330 ml milk
- 330 ml whipping cream
- ½ tsp salt
- 125 g tamarind pulp
- 2–3 red chilli padis, stems removed, sliced thinly
- 50 g shrimp paste (hae ko)
- 2 bulbs ginger flowers, petals sliced thinly
Steps
Combine all the ingredients in a pot, and bring to a boil over high heat. Stir constantly with a whisk to incorporate the peanut butter into the mixture. Taste and adjust the seasoning of the ice-cream so that it is well-balanced.
Pass the mixture through a fine sieve into a bowl to get rid of the tamarind seeds, chilli, and ginger flower slices. Cover the bowl with cling wrap and refrigerate overnight or until the ice-cream base is thoroughly chilled.
Churn according to your ice-cream maker’s instructions. If you do not own an ice-cream machine, simply freeze your thoroughly chilled ice-cream base, beating it well every 30 minutes with a hand-held mixer until it is completely frozen.
Wet Market To Table (published by Epigram), $44.90, is available at leading bookstores and shop.epigrambooks.sg.