Pineapple Sherbet

I was having this conversation with someone the other day about how there’s something wonderful about a good recipe. Published recipes in books go through extensive tests to make sure they’re usa-able and delicious. Then there are online recipes, which can be great, but you may not know, and then there are people who hate cooking with recipes at all. And to those people I say, “Good for you, but you’re going to have a lot more less-than-stellar meals that way.” I have a new recipe book, The New York Times Cookbook, with the best recipes published in the New York Times…ever. That includes a little bit of Bittman, but it also stretches back to the 60’s and long before, to the days when cucumber sandwiches were the bees knees of fine entertaining.

And THIS is a good book. The editor, Amanda Hesser, even talks about how many times she had to try certain recipes. And it’s huge. And every recipe is good, easy to use, and if there’s something peculiar about the recipe it will be described in note. So the only reason to not enjoy a recipe in this book is if YOU mess up or it just wasn’t what you wanted after all. It is generally not the book’s fault.

…which is a beautiful thing. Fewer potential problems.  So when I saw a pineapple sorbet recipe I was initially skeptical, but then reminded myself it was going to be amazing. Especially since the book (editor) has a penchant for high-fat, heavy, cream, and egg yolk-based dishes, and an entire chapter on frozen desserts, and this was about the only one that wasn’t a straight-up sorbet and wasn’t 10 million calories and the sworn enemy of every lactose-intolerant person everywhere. But pineapple sherbet? Could it really be that good?

Well, it was pineapple season (in Costa Rica), so those guys were sweet and cheap up here in Canada. And as much as I love eating locally, I also love tropical fruit. God I love tropical fruit. I wish we had pineapple trees growing wild in Canada. Or in orchards! An orchard of pineapple trees…and mangoes…and peaches. Well, we have those, at least. Why do I live here? Well, my ice cream maker is here. That’s a good reason, I guess. Hard to transport, ice cream makers…I digress.

You can make this recipe with mango, melon, papaya, or anything refreshing I think (though the book doesn’t explicitly say so, so pineapple makes the best version, undoubtedly), but the sharp flavour of pineapple is oh-so-refreshing.

Pineapple Sherbet

Ingredients:

1 large very ripe pineapple, trimmed, peeled, cored, and cut into large chunks (they get processed a little below, so be rough with the chunks)

1 tbsp powdered gelatin (you could probably do a replacement with agar-agar but this recipe is already perfect and I didn’t want to mess with it. Sorry, pigs feet…)

1/4 cup cold water

1 3/4 cups warm water

1 1/4 cups sugar

3 tbsp fresh lime juice (from about 2 juicy limes. OR 4 kaffir lime leaves! I had dried ones sitting in my cupboard and  had no fresh lime juice, so that’s what I used. See note below for instructions)

pinch of salt (yes, salt. I brings it all together)

Directions:

Pulse the pineapple chunks in a food processor until the pineapple’s pretty shredded (you can leave it chunkier if you like, but “coarse bits” help the juice escape and flavour the sherbet)

You’ll need 4 cups of the pineapple, so measure it out and reserve the rest.

Sprinkle the gelatin over the 1 1/4 cup water in a large bowl where it can touch more of the surface of the water. Leave it for 5 minutes to soften, then add the 1 3/4 cups of warm water, the 4 cups of pineapple, and the sugar and stir until the gelatin is incorporated and the sugar is dissolved. Add 1 1/2 tbsp of the lime juice and all the salt. Stir, and place in the fridge for 8 hours (I do overnight for convenience. you could get away with less time if you have a high-powered ice cream maker that cools itself (not the kind you chill in the freezer for a day in preparation for using it).

Pour the pineapple mixture the next day into the ice cream maker and freeze according to the maker’s directions. You can add the rest of the lime juice halfway through if you want. Amazing sherbet.

Note: To use kaffir lime leaves, combine the sugar and water in a saucepan instead of adding it to the gelatin mixture right away. Bring it to a boil, turn off the heat, and let it steep until it’s just warm. This is also better since the sugar dissolves better. Then remove the lime leaves and add the syrup to the mixture as above.