Coconut Corn Ice Cream with Brown Sugar Syrup & Peanuts

I know that since I first mentioned it, you have all been waiting for the results of this dessert.  Well, the pain of making it is worth the result.  Actually it is only the ice cream itself that is kind of a pain and that is the grating of the corn off the husk.  What makes it great is that it is not super sweet.  It was very pleasant.  Mine could have been greater than most as I had the great Indiana corn that I made it with, thank you Bud.  I will preference the dessert with our dinner was very simple.  We had Jim’s brother and his wife here, and they wanted to tour Studio B, see the quilts at the Frist Museum and the art that is leaving Nashville for a two year stint in Arkansas from Fist University.  I wanted to see all that also, so dinner had to be easy to make upon return from touring.  Jim also wanted to have steak to go with the wine he was serving so we had steak, sweet potato fries (frozen) and asparagus.  I did my usual, Chicago steak seasoning from Penzeys, on the steak and the lemon EVOO on the asparagus.  Jim grilled the steaks, I cooked the asparagus in the Advantium oven and the fries went in first in the oven as they took the longest.

Jim served an Amarone Marano by Boscaini, 1994, Italian red.  We also had a Catena Alta Malbec, 1997, from Argentina.  Not that we hadn’t enough, but Jim was still eating, we had Four Vines Zinfandel, 2009, from CA.

But here is the recipe for a spectacular ending to any meal.  This recipe appeared in the August issue of Bon Appétit.

Ingredients:

Syrup

2 t coriander seeds

1C packed dark brown sugar

½ t whole black peppercorns

Kosher salt

Ice Cream

6 ears of corn, husked

2- 14oz. cans unsweetened coconut milk

2/3 C sweetened condensed milk

1t kosher salt

Garnishes

1 C salted, roasted peanuts, coarsely chopped

Finely grated lime zest

Special Equipment: ice cream maker

Directions:

Brown Sugar Syrup

1.      Toast coriander seeds in a small dry skillet over medium heat, stirring often, until fragrant, 1-2 minutes. 

2.      Transfer to a mortar and pestle and crush. 

3.      Stir sugar and 1/3 C water in a small saucepan over medium low heat until sugar dissolves. 

4.      Add coriander and peppercorns; season with salt. 

5.      Bring to a simmer over medium heat. Simmer, swirling pan occasionally and brushing down sides with a wet pastry brush, until slightly thickened, about 5 minutes. 

6.      Let cool.  Strain; cover and chill for up to a month. 

I made the syrup just the day before, and did not refrigerate it.  The left over syrup is now in the refrigerator. 

Ice Cream 

Using the large holes on a box grater, coarsely grate corn kernels for cobs into a large bowl; reserve cobs.  (This was not fun and very messy.  My new large deep sink was a saver as I could grate down in the sink; otherwise corn juice would have been everywhere.) 

1.      Heat the coconut milk in a large saucepan over medium heat until almost simmering. 

2.      Add grated corn, corn cobs, and condensed milk; cook, stirring occasionally, until mixture barely begins to simmer, about 5 minutes. 

3.      Remove from heat, cover, and let steep for 1 hour.  Discard cobs. 

4.      Strain corn mixture through a fine-mesh sieve into a medium bowl, pressing on solids to extract as much liquid as possible. 

5.      Discard solids.  Whisk in salt.  Cover corn ice cream base; chill for at least 4 hours or overnight. 

6.      Process ice cream base in an ice cream maker according to manufacturer’s instructions.  This was 25 minutes in mine.  Remember it will not be solid as your next step is to transfer to an airtight container, cover, and freeze for at least 3 hours or up to 1 week. 

Garnishes

1.      Scoop ice cream into bowls. 

2.      Drizzle some brown-sugar syrup over.

3.      Garnish with peanuts and lime zest. 

Last night we went out to dinner at Tayst in Nashville.  I was disappointed.  We did the chefs 4 course tasting menu.  The wines were wonderful, but I was disappointed that none of our courses include a fish.  The first course was an oxtail dumpling, very good.  We next had a pork belly lollypop.  I did not like this at all.  The main or next course was a beef dish.  We will try it again, but I will pick my courses off the menu or be more specific as to what I am expecting.

During our day today we had lunch in the white table cloth area of the Country Music Hall of Fame.  They do a very good lunch.  I highly recommend it and members get a discount. 

Right after dinner last night we had a horrendous storm.  We lost power and this AM we discovered why.  A large tree tore down the power line to the house and was across the driveway.  Cousin Dave saved the day.  He is retired from the electric company in Lebanon and came out and determined that the lines under the tree were dead.  He brought his chain saw and he, Vince, and Jim cleared the driveway.  We had called the electric company last night and told them the power was out, but felt that as we were a one house outage we would be last on the list.  Comcast was working the area and called the electric company, as whatever got turned back on somewhere, was causing another pole on the property to burn and smoke.  So there was a brief time when I felt my new house in the forest may burn to the ground.  All was restored while we were away and I did not lose the contents of 2 freezers full of food.

But what can we do about breakfast?  Luckily I have maintained my CA earthquake survival mode and have never let Jim hook our grille to the gas line.  I know that refilling tanks is a pain, but we had gas in the grille and cooked our bacon and eggs on the side burners and Jim toasted the muffins on the grille.  Our only problem is that I gave all our French press coffeemakers away as Jim would never use them.  So I had my tea, burner number 2, but the coffee drinkers suffered.