Ice Cream That's a Stretch

WHY do we always try to make ice creams smooth? When we add egg yolks (or cornstarch, as Mark Bittman does this week in The Minimalist) to an ice cream mix, and then stir it constantly while it freezes, we do it to block the growth of hard-edged ice crystals. But smooth ice cream doesn't give the mouth much to do. Just for a change, how about ice cream that is coarse and crunchy? Or chewy?

There's nothing that unusual about cold crunchiness. Coarse granitas made from fruit or coffee are delicious. But for some reason we've come to expect ice creams to be smooth. As far as I can tell, this didn't happen until early in the 20th century. That's when American manufacturers started adding concentrated milk solids, a cheap byproduct of butter and cheese production, and when advances in refrigeration made it possible to freeze the mix quickly to lower temperatures with vigorous agitation. The combination of additives and processing produced extremely fine ice crystals and very smooth ice creams.

Smoothness then became the hallmark that distinguished commercial ice cream from homemade. In a 1938 treatise, Hugo Sommer, a Wisconsin professor of ''dairy industry'' mocked ''sentimental enthusiasts'' who were suspicious of commercial ice cream's texture. He maintained that commercial ice cream was vastly superior to the version made by hand from cream and milk and eggs, not only smoother but richer and more nutritious.

Happily, the sentimental enthusiasts prevailed. Today's premium ice creams are manufactured from the basic ingredients only, because they taste better that way. They're also very smooth.

But coarseness can be refreshing. In ice creams, I learned that lesson from a French recipe published in 1768 for fromage aux épingles, or cheese with pins. The author, identified only as M. Emy, used ''cheese'' to mean ice cream frozen in a decorative mold. Emy also offers an ice cream made with Parmesan and Gruyère, which might pair well with his rye-bread ice cream.

By ''pins,'' Emy meant to suggest the icy prickle of large ice crystals. To make the prickly cheese, Emy simply calls for slightly sweetened cream to be frozen unstirred. In a modern freezer this gives a dense, hard result, so I added a few steps, essentially a delicate version of granita making. I started with a 50-50 mix of heavy cream and milk, one tablespoon of sugar per cup of liquid, and some vanilla extract. I put a shallow pan with the mix and a fork in the freezer, kept an eye on it, and as mica-like ice flakes formed on the surface and around the edge, used the cold fork to lift and scrape them gently to one side. While there was still some liquid left, I folded it into the crystal collection. A spoonful of this flaky ice cream produces a cold granita-like crunch that quickly melts into light creaminess. It's simultaneously rich and refreshing.

Flaky ice cream requires delicate attention. Chewy ice cream requires hard work. The traditional Turkish salep dondurma is milk sweetened and flavored with mastic, an aromatic resin, and thickened with salep, the powdered bulbs of several wild orchids. The bulbs contain a mucilaginous carbohydrate called glucomannan, which the orchids use to retain water during dry periods. When dissolved in milk, the long coiled glucomannan chains bind up and block the movement of water molecules, and thicken the milk. Hot salep milk is a drink long esteemed in Turkey and Europe for boosting virility (''salep'' comes from the Arabic for ''fox testicle'').

Salep ice cream was probably discovered when someone accidentally let the salep drink freeze. As the water forms ice crystals and the glucomannan chains become more crowded in the remaining liquid, their coils overlap and bond to form an interconnected network. The dondurma-maker, or a machine built for the purpose, pounds and stretches the ice cream for 20 minutes to organize the network into a dense, elastic mass, just as a breadmaker kneads dough to develop its gluten. Portions of the firm, chewy ice cream are cut with a knife.

Genuine salep is expensive and hard to find. But it turns out that the commercial stabilizer guar gum (from the tropical cluster bean) and Japanese konjac flour (from tubers of a taro relative) contain closely related carbohydrates that behave in much the same way as salep glucomannan. Guar gum is sold on specialty-ingredient Web sites, konjac in Japanese groceries.

I made an ice cream that flaunts its additive content by putting one tablespoon of guar gum in a quart of sweetened milk and cream, blending the mix until it thickened, and freezing it in a bowl along with a large wooden spoon. When the spoon was almost immobilized, I used it to work the mix until it developed some elasticity -- and until my arm gave out, well short of 20 minutes. The ice cream was substantial and chewy, a cross between an extremely dense custard and a fine-grained pudding.

Ten years ago I served the flaky ice cream to a visiting food writer, who called it ''challenging.'' In today's food world, where I've seen anchovy ice cream dress a deconstructed Caesar salad, and where Emy's cheese and rye ice creams would fit right in, it seems pretty tame. The chewy ice cream is challenging, but mainly for the maker. If the guar gum gives you pause, be advised that it's a form of soluble fiber. A cup of my dondurma gives me half my recommended daily intake. Think of it as a prototype for indulgences of the future, carefully engineered to be cholesterol-neutral.

August 1, 2007

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