Black Roads and Cherry Dreams

Some situations can send you down a dark black road. Tragic love, desperate trauma, and sometimes if you are really lucky, the astringent tannins of a rock hard nut. Juglans nigra to be exact, or more commonly American or Black Walnut. The bad boy of the the nut world. Eaten alone they can almost choke you with the harshness of the tannins, but mixed with other ingredients they take on a whole new dimension of flavor.

The flavor brings back memories of rainy Autumn days sitting in my Pappy's garage with a framing hammer swinging await at the hard little shells, my Pappy using a nut pick to harvest the meat so that my Grandmother could make all manner of sweet treats, the extra stored in Mason jars in the freezer.

This is an ingredient that is kinda hard to come by in this day and age. I found a supplier of the near impossible to harvest nuts in Hendersonville TN. I have had the blasted things in my freezer for at least 2 months wondering when I would break out the rock salt and ice cream churn. Well this post by David Lebovitz about a Cuisinart Ice Cream Maker caught my eye and I ordered one. Can't beat 20 bucks for Cuisinart anything... It arrived while I was on vacation and was one of the first things I unpacked when I got in. No rock salt needed, basically no ice cream maker mess. Sweeeet.

I started with a basic custard, actually the one from the little recipe booklet that comes with the IC maker.

1.5 cups whole milk
1.5 cups heavy cream
3 egg yokes
2 eggs
3/4 cup of sugar
1 vanilla bean

I reduced the amount of sugar to 1/2 cup cause I knew I would be adding honey later. I also omitted the vanilla bean as I was not making vanilla IC.

Bring the milk and cream to a simmer over medium low heat stirring often.
In a separate bowl mix the eggs, yokes and sugar until it turns a little paler and thickens a smidge. I thought I would hand mix it with a balloon whisk... I was wrong. The sugar makes it a very stiff mix. I switched over to my Kitchen Aid.

Once the egg mixture is as thick as you want it, add about a cup of the hot milk/cream. Do it slowly or you will have scrambled eggs. This is called tempering. (In my mind that sounds so condescending, but I figure some of you might not know why I do the things I do) Once the mixture is up to temp, add it back to the rest of the milk/cream and turn up the heat just a little. Still this over medium heat until it starts to steam and it coats the back of a spoon. Another clue that it is ready is when you coat that spoon... the coating holds its shape when you run your finger through it making a little trough. Finger paint on the spoon a little, relaaaax, it's just food. It should be fun.

You can chill this in an ice bath once it has thickened or you can just wait. It needs to be covered or it will develop a skin, which is yummy to eat but not groovy for ice cream makin'. I strained my custard through a wire mesh strainer, into a bowl then covered with parchment paper. Turns out I am out of plastic wrap.

I dry toasted about 1/2 cup of black walnut pieces over medium high heat, until there was a little smoke and I could smell the toasty goodness. Careful not to burn them.

Since the custard was still piping hot I lifted the cover and added the nuts.

A cup of split and pitted red cherries went into a 1 quart saucier with 2 tbsp of sugar... Bring to a boil and reduce the heat to medium and cook for about 10 minutes or until you get a thickened cherry syrup. The fruit will be softened as well. I wanted to use Bing Cherries but couldn't find any fresh.

Seeing as I had a rather thick custard I added the cherries too. Had I been using a thinner base I would have added the cherries and possibly the nuts closer to the end of the freezing process. Why??? So the additives don't all sink to the bottom and bind up the churn.

I chilled the mixture over night and this is what it looked like just before introduction to the IC maker.

Kinda gray ain't it...?

I already had the freezer bowl rock solid frozen, so this morning I added the mixture to the bowl and flipped the switch. I added the honey at this point. About 2 tbsp while the thing is spinning so it will mix well.

25 - 30 minutes later it was like a nice thick soft serve.

I scraped it into a storage container to store in the freezer for a while to firm it up even more.

I could have stuck a mint sprig in this to make it a little brighter but I am not trying to impress anyone with the pictures (riiiiiggghhht and if you believe that I have some land to sell you... I just plain forgot.)
Serve in a bowl with a spoon. Oh and it's very rich so you don't need a huge serving...

I can say without hubris that this is one nummy ice cream.

If you like contrasting flavors, the back of the throat bite of the walnuts really goes well with the sweetness of the cherries.

This is not a flavor for everyone. I grew up with it and I love it. It just might be a southern thang.

And considering the tannins, does anyone have any pairing suggestions?

Cheers

Chris