CHIAVARI, Italy - Here’s a bit of midsummer madness I
picked up the other day. The word sorbet comes from the Arab word sharbet,
which means sweet snow, which in turn comes from the Arabic verb sherber,
meaning to sip. This interest in sorbet stems from a super easy recipe I found
for lemon sorbet, my favorite, which I'd like to share with you today.
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| Cooling Off With a Lemon Sorbet on a Lazy Afternoon in Rome |
Sorbet, is made with just two ingredients, fruit and
sugar, and has been around longer than ice cream. In the days of the Roman
Empire, it’s said that the Roman Emperor Nero had a passion for sorbet. He
would position his slaves along Rome's Appian Way, from the city to the
mountains where snow was collected by the bucketful. The buckets of snow were
then passed hand over hand from the mountains to his banquet hall where it was
mixed with honey and wine, creating a sweet sorbet.
It sounds a little farfetched to me as it’s a long
way from the mountains to the center of Rome, which is very hot in the summer,
and unless they could pass those buckets faster than lightening it's highly
unlikely the snow would have arrived in any condition to be used for anything
edible. But there is mention of putting snow and ice in underground storage
rooms so it could be used in the warmer months of the year, so I may be
underestimating the creativity, and determination of the Roman Emperors.
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| Strawberry Sorbet |
Even after the fall of the Roman Empire, sorbet and
milk based ice cream were only found in Italy. It wasn’t until after Maria de’
Medici married the future King of France, Henry II, that the French, and the
rest of Europe were introduced to sorbet and ice cream.
The Italians also came up with granita, which is sort
of like sorbet but different. The difference is in how it is frozen and in the
texture you end up with. In the recipe below it says to stir the sorbet with a
hand whisk every 10 minutes or so if you are not using an ice cream machine, in
order to avoid ice crystals from forming. If you want to make granita
instead of sorbet, stir the same mixture with a fork in order to get a more
coarse texture – which for granita is the desired consistency.
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| Mmmm, Lemon Sorbet |
And then there is water ice or Italian ice which is
basically the same thing but with a higher water content which results in a
texture somewhere between sorbet and granita. If Italians spoke English instead
of Italian this dessert would be called snow cones or shaved ices, which are
basically cups of crushed ice topped with a flavored syrup, but since they
don’t, every little change, in the texture of frozen water with added
flavoring, no matter how inconsequential, gets its own name.
Lemon Sorbet
Ingredients
Serves 8
• 2 lb lemons (1 kilo)
• 2 cups water (1/2 liter)
• ½ lb sugar (250 grams)
• 2 egg whites (optional)
Prepare a simple syrup with the water, sugar and
thinly-sliced lemon peel, taking care to avoid the white part of the peel as it
is very bitter. Boil the water, sugar and lemon peel for 5-6 minutes,
then cool completely. Strain the syrup into a bowl, using a thin mesh strainer.
Squeeze the lemons, strain the juice and add the strained juice to the simple
syrup.
If you have a ice cream maker, add the sorbet base to
the machine and run the machine until the sorbet has reached the desired
consistency.
If not, put the mixture into a bowl and place it in
the freezer for 10 minutes. Then remove the bowl, and use a whisk to break
apart the ice crystals. Return to the freezer for 10 minutes and repeat the
whisking process every ten minutes to avoid ice crystals forming, until you
reach the desired consistency.
If you want a fluffier sorbet, you can add two egg
whites, whipped to form stiff peaks, when the mixture begins to solidify. Fold
in the egg whites carefully using the whisk from the bottom up.
p.s. This a week of milestones for This Italian Life. The This Italian Life Facebook page reached 500 Likes this week, and this post marks the 500th post for the blog.
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