one filipino dish a week

In the spirit of the holidays and holiday parties, I bring to you an easy party dessert that’s not going to stress you out and a guaranteed crowd pleaser This is something that The Girl and I randomly made one evening about a year ago and it turned out to be an excellent combination. We have since named it Golden Sunrise. I have made this from scratch and it was excellent. But in a pinch the prepared mango sorbet and lychee tastes great. The slight sourness from the mango sorbet and the sweetness of the preserved lychee is an excellent match. It’s a perfect palate cleanser. It’s very refereshing even on a cold day.

To make it:
Haagen Daz Mango Sorbet
1 can lychee (I like the Arroy-D brand)
mint for garnish

To assmble, take two scoops of mango sorbet, 2-3 lychees, pour the lychee syrup, garnish with mint. Serve.

Eat Filipino Food!

It’s been a little while since I’ve made some ice cream. The ice cream maker has just been sitting there. The Girl came back from the store with some strawberries. I’m not quite sure that it’s really strawberry season yet but apparently these were from California. But they tasted sweet and good. So these must be the early season ones. I know strawberry ice cream isn’t quite a Filipino flavor but it’s one of my favorites so that’s that :).

Making homemade ice cream isn’t hard at all and you can make some pretty nice ice cream that tastes really good without all the other preservatives that the store bought ones have. The ice cream maker that I have is a Cuisinart that’s not a lot of frills but does it’s job. Decently priced at around $50 and probably cheaper if there is a sale.

Here’s how I made mine (yields about a quart):

1lb strawberries
3 cups half and half
1 cup heavy cream
6 egg yolks
2.5 cups of sugar
2 tsps vanilla extract
1 tsp kalamansi juice (or lime juice)

I first mixed the strawberries, 1/2 cup sugar, and kalamansi juice in a small bowl and let it macerate in the fridge for about 1 hour. I then pureed most of the strawberries and reserved some to put in as fruit in the ice cream.

For the “custard” part I did a variation of Alton Brown’s Vanilla Ice Cream. It’s really helpful having a thermometer so you can accurately tell when it’s done. I’ve done this before and ended up with an egg omelet. Once this part was done I mixed this with the pureed strawberries and let it cool in the fridge for about 3 hours.

I poured the mixture into the ice cream maker and let it do its thing. When it was about done I put in the rest of the strawberries. I refrigerated for another few hours and ate this as dessert after the lechon manok meal. Great way to end it! The only thing that wasn’t perfect about the ice cream was the strawberries pieces that I put in. They froze up and were hard as rocks. I wonder what process I need to do so that they won’t completely freeze. Anyone know?

Eat Filipino Food!