Sorbets: Strawberry & Soursop-Passion

I never thought I could made a sorbet at home. It seemed a fancy restaurant item, that washed away flavors between courses, or was served as a light, refreshing end to a long heavy meal. But no, I’ve just started making sorbets at home, and you can make them with no more than a regular fridge, with a freezer :), and a hand held beater – what is some times called a bar mix. Of course, you can upgrade to more sophisticated machines, but no – for some kinds of sorbets at least, you do not have to.

Sorbets don’t have eggs or cream or butter, and as such you can safely say, they are pretty low fat. Which is a nice break if you like them, and have to worry about good fat and bad, I suppose. I’ve just started making sorbets, and in the photo is my third set really – my guide, as is for most desserts is Le Cordon Bleu Dessert Techniques. But I changed things around a bit.

Now, all I’ve tried so far, are fruit puree sorbets, and I think they may be the easiest to do. And they are inexpensive. For the strawberry sorbet, I started with two cups of washed, diced strawberries (Jagro, available from Food City or Keels, any where, I think), 1/3 cup of plain sugar, and little less water. First, boil the sugar and water in a thick bottomed saucepan. Changing the consistency of the sugar, by boiling it, is the first important process that will thicken your sorbet and get the constancy right. Apart from taste, of course, texture is every thing here – the two extremes to avoid, is a popsicle-like ice, and on the other side, a cold syrup. You want a middle ground. So boil the sugar in little less water than its volume. When its boiled for a min or two, not long (boiling sugar syrups is one of the more complicated things in dessert making -- if you keep boiling, many interesting things will happen, but you may go well beyond your sorbet) add the chopped strawberries. Bring to a boil again, and take it off the fire. Puree. Add some lime juice; this should really highlight and intensify the flavor of the fruit you are using. Add more, if the puree is too sweet for you.

Put this in a plastic bowl, or box, just a freezer proof one – regular from anywhere, and set your freezer to max, and pop it in. (To max out your freezer, you may need to set the fridge to min. You may also have a place in your freezer, that is designed for quick freeze. Use that.) In an hour, maybe longer, a crust will form on the top. But it should be still liquid below. Great, take it out and re-puree it, with a hand mixer, if you have one. This is really quite inexpensive, but a huge help. (Otherwise, use the container of your table top blender to begin with.) I always taste it at this point! 
Now, the big secret – add some alcohol. Well, 100 ml would be fine, if you started with two cups. I like vodka because it gives a slightly bitter aftertaste, that leavens the sweetness and tartness of the puree, but not much else of a taste. But of course, I think any thing would do. Process wise, the point here is that alcohol does not freeze at 0˚C. Blending in alcohol will prevent your sorbet from becoming a popsicle. Back in the freezer. It should be all set overnight, and you can puree it one more time. Back in freezer, which you can re-set to normal and it's ready to be eaten at dinner time. This should work with any fruit puree. But it's better to start with a fruit that’s quite tart – strawberries, soursop and passion fruit have all worked well for me. I’ve worked with mango, but you need a not so ripe mango, or it will end up too sweet. Soursop (Annona muricata) is so tart, you can even add store bought passion fruit juice (not cordial!), and it will still be really well balanced at the end.

for another sorbet recipe, see:

Wild Blackberry Sorbet With Garden Mint & Lavender

Passion Fruit Mousse

This is really one of favorite desserts, in Sri Lanka, and i try it every where i go. I've blogged about it before but i never thought i'd be able to make this at home. Don't know why, but i thought it would be too complicated and beyond me. So the good news is, its not! Thar it is, right there, and it was quite good also. Here is what i did.

10 Passions fruits (from Colpetty market) were juiced -- i use a simple manual juicer. Then i stained the pulp, and got about 150 ml juice. I saved the seeds, for garnish. This fresh juice can be sweetened a little, and i added some vodka also, cos i heard its against the law not to drink in this country, i may be wrong about this -- :) -- and poured spiked juice into my small cognac glasses, just letting it sit at the bottom. Then i whipped 500 ml cream, that's a little more than i needed for 5, so it should do for six, if its a medium size serving, as in the photo. I used anchor UHT whipping cream (of course, that's all that really works in SL, no doubt options abound in other places!), mixed in cordial, yes you need loads, and then would take kilos of fruit if you don't use this short cut (but the taste was fine, that's the thing about passion fruit, it such a distinctive tang, its hard to kill it)-- sigh, i hate using any thing premade - to taste, until the color turned a light yellow. I then beat the whole thing again, it was stiff enough so that i did not use any gelatin, just put it in a zip lock bag, slit a corner and squeezed it out, into the glasses. It lasted a day in the fridge too. (Lower your regulator to normal, after giving it a burst on high for two hours or so -- other wise the cream will go brittle.) Garnish with seeds, and pour some hot cordial over the whole thing, when you serve it.
I made this for a big dinner, and there were other desserts too -- but this went down well.

A Visit to Bentota Beach

Bentota Beach Hotel (BBH), now managed by John Keels, is one of Bawa's oldest hotels, designed as the first wave resort hotels were built in Sri Lanka, with international tourism in mind in the mid 1970s. When I visited recently with my mother, and stayed over night, I was reminded of what were to become classic Bawa signature elements, in his later buildings; resorts -- like Lighthouse Hotel and Kandalama, but also, the new Parliament. But not so much of Lunuganga, which is a thing unto itself.
The combination of water, rock (natural and sculptured) and foliage in the buildings and landscape that Bawa works with, draws inspiration from ancient and medieval Sri Lankan royal or pleasure gardens, but retains the undulations of the land, that I can not recall in ancient gardens. Perhaps that's derived from the Italian gardens that the Bawa brothers spent time in during a European sojourn.


(rock fringed pool)-------------------------- (water court yard; foliage islands)

As in the 7th floor pool in Kandalama, the main swimming pool at BBH, blends in with a large natural rock formation, recalling rock pools on the upper surface of Sigiriya. The Water courtyard recalls built stone pools, like the kuttam pokuna, but the foliage islands within are an innovation; at a stretch, one can imagine the parliament complex, as an elaboration of this water courtyard.
Another fascinating element in BBH, which I had not really appreciated before, is its mirroring of the old colonial forts that dot the southwest of Lanka. Lighthouse is of course the most complete elaboration of this; but the interior halls ways and some exterior windows in BBH, are clear echos of battlements.
Then of course I come to the food!
It was, unfortunately buffets all around, and as these things go, there was variety and quantity, but not really top end quality.But the mousses were wonderful; a big hand to the pastry chef, there, who ever he is. The strawberry mousse which I had after dinner the first night, was rich, spicy in a subtle way, with stewed strawberries mixed in. I've dabbled in strawberry desserts myself, and this was a fine one.
The Kiwi mousse was beautiful, but the star of the show was the passion fruit mousse that was tangy but also super creamy and light, topped with a delightful and pretty glaze. It was better than the same dish at Gallery Cafe, which I've blogged about before. It was a fitting highlight to a short trip south.

Passion Fruit Mousse

Passion Fruit Mousse
Originally uploaded by pradeep jeganathan.

When I was a child, we had some thing we called “pashona.”
That’s passion fruit cordial; very sweet and syrupy for sure plain, but just a fruit drink with water and ices as it was served. But passion fruit has such wonderful taste, as any one whoes tried it fresh knows.
Anyways, in those days, fizzy drinks or pop were rare (coke unheard of) and we had limit of one bottle of green lanka lime or orange barley or cream soda or, from elephant house a day in my home. That seems like a little, but the van would bring 30 bottles for the month, and it had to last. so all you got each day was a small, little tumbler of soda pop.
Pashona was as occasional, and it was a treat.
This is why I love the passion fruit mousse at Gallery Café. Light, tangy, and not too sweet at all.
An adult visit to childhood.