Smoked Bacon and Egg Ice Cream - What!!

[margritte]

I've seen it all now, as you too will see from the recipe below, we are inundated with unusual flavours of ice cream at the moment .... are unusually flavoured ice creams de riguer in your part of the world? A snip from an article in the British newspaper 'The Independent' today, but you can read the whole item here...

http://enjoyment.independent.co.uk/food_and_drink/features/article307409.ece

<<"Nothing says 'We want a Michelin star' more than savoury ice cream." So, we have Claude Bosi at Hibiscus in Ludlow serving ice cream of foie gras with a warm emulsion of brioche and balsamic vinegar. And Massimiliano Alajmo of Padua, who serves Gorgonzola ice cream with prune sauce, which sounds repulsive but is reputedly delicious. And Il Volto's chef Vittorio Fusari, who presents a summer risotto coupled with Parmesan ice cream and saffron jelly. And the Michelin judges seem to approve. Alajmo, Blumenthal and Adria all have three stars, while Claude Bosi has two.>>

SMOKED BACON AND EGG ICE CREAM

From 3* Michelin Chef Heston Blumenthal of 'The Fat Duck' Restaurant in Bray, England

Ingredients:

300g sweet cured bacon
50g Alsace bacon
1 litre full-fat milk
25g milk powder
24 egg yolks
125g liquid glucose

Instructions:

Roast the bacon in an oven at 160C until it is slightly browned. Chop the bacon into small pieces. Add it to the cold milk, add the milk powder and leave to marinate overnight. Tip the milk and bacon into a casserole and add the milk powder. Put the egg yolks and glucose in a mixing bowl and mix at high speed with an electric whisk until they are white and increased in volume. Heat the milk mixture to simmering and pour a little on the eggs, while still mixing. Add this back to the pan with the rest of the milk and cook to 85C. Hold it for 30 seconds then remove from the heat. Cool by stirring it over ice. Pass it through a chinois sieve to remove the bacon. Put it in a blender and liquidise until smooth. Finally, churn it in an ice-cream maker.

[Tepin]

Perhaps they should move up north to Scotland where they eat Deep fried Mars Bars, Deep Fried Pizza etc..
Tepin
I have some serious reservations about eating this without a Cardiologist and a large bucket on hand..

[Fincher]

thanks for the recipe! I put it in my Living Cookbook. I might try this tomorow if I have time!

[garlichead]

Cooking the yolk is the hard part.....if it's not cooked enough it tastes like bacon ice cream,so taste the cream
while its cooking to bring out the eggy flavour.Some of the
egg will coagulate,but that comes out after it's strained,but adds to the eggyness of the ice cream
It's worth the effort IMO.

[ChefJen]

I say add a lil tomato sauce and away we go

[ChefJune]

125g liquid glucose

well, I won't be sampling THAT anytime soon! CORN SYRUP in a 3-star restaurant?????? Even the "big boys" use cheap filler, eh????????

[Limey]

Out of pure curiosity for when I go back to England and get some smoked bacon, I'm going to print that off.

[Fincher]

CORN SYRUP in a 3-star restaurant

pure glucose isn't corn syrup, although often called that in the States. corn syrup is actually primarily dextrin not Glucose. In Europe its generally made from either grapes or honey. Since this recipe is from Europe I'm pretty sure its not corn syrup.

What makes corn syrup bad June? what would you use instead?
I hardly ever use corn syrup so I don't know its negatives, please enlighten me! I'd really like yours or anyone else's opinion

[chefgbs]

June's allergic to corn syrup, Fincher.

[Tepin]

Corn is in everything/ I Feel sorry for June/My wife looked after an Anaphalxic Child for a couple of years in her Child Care Biz (Peanuts) Carried a Adrenalin Epi-Pen Injector..
Had lots of resistance from mothers wanting to give their little johnnie PB sandwiches which coukd have killed her charge..
There was a book I had yrs ago called "What becane of Dinner"? which had a really good section on Corn and what its in ..
Tepin

[ChefJen]

Dont feel Sorry for June She makes WONDERFUL foods that dont contain corn syrup

[ChefJune]

pure glucose isn't corn syrup, although often called that in the States. corn syrup is actually primarily dextrin not Glucose. In Europe its generally made from either grapes or honey. Since this recipe is from Europe I'm pretty sure its not corn syrup.

In the US it is! The Glucose IV's used in US hospitals are pure corn syrup!

[Fincher]

"In the US it is" - thats what I said!

okay, I thought perhaps because it was inferior to something else, I was about to break out my note pad and take notes. Well I still learned something! be careful of corn allergies!

ooh June do you have a bracelet or something that tells doctors you have a allergy to the IV's? Thats a scary thought, never considered someone would be allergic to an IV. Of course unless your a diabetic or something I doubt you would be hooked up to a glucose iv, but what do I know.

[margritte]

June,

Liquid glucose is the same as glucose powder or dextrose. We use it over here to make fondant for icing cakes etc. It is not like corn syrup - that is the same as or similar, to our golden syrup. The recipe below is for a novelty cake for kids at Christmas and is in the shape of a Christmas Cracker - don't know how to post the pic but have put in the url for the page. You will see a section for Fondant icing in the recipe and that is where the glucose syrup is used. I suppose you could say it acts like a binder, holding it together. It is very sweet though and if you are diabetic (like me), then you would stay well away from it.

Margritte

Cracker Cake

[url=http://www.cadbury.co.uk/EN/CTB2003/kitchen_lifestyle/recipes/chocolate_cakes/cracker_cake.htm[/image]]http://www.cadbury.co.uk/EN/CTB2003/kitc...ake.htm[/image][/url]

Children will enjoy this novelty Christmas cake.

Contrasting piping looks spectacular and you could really go to town decorating the cracker with pieces of net and ribbon. Serves 6.

For the cake

2 eggs
50g (2oz) caster sugar
50g (2oz) plain flour
20ml (1 Tbs) Cadbury Bournville cocoa

For the filling

50g bar of Cadbury Bournville chocolate
40g (1 oz) butter
75g (3oz) icing sugar, sieved
2 Cadbury '99' Flakes
40ml (2 Tbs) jam

For the fondant and decoration

350g (12oz) icing sugar
60ml (3 Tbs) Cadbury Bournville cocoa
50g (2oz) liquid glucose
1 egg white
A packet of Cadbury Dairy Milk Buttons
A packet of Cadbury White Buttons

Also, you will require
18 x 28cm (7 x 11 inch) swiss roll tin, greased and lined
Greaseproof paper
Crepe paper and ribbon
A Christmas cake decoration

Whisk the eggs and sugar for the cake in a bowl over a pan of hot water, or use an electric mixer. Whisk hard until thick enough to leave a definite trail, which will take about 10 minutes. Sieve the flour and cocoa together and then carefully fold in with a tablespoon of warm water, ensuring no pockets of flour are left. Turn the mixture into the prepared tin and level the surface by tilting the tin; do not spread. Bake in a fairly hot oven, Gas Mark 6/200 C/400 F, for about 12 minutes.

Dust a large sheet of greaseproof paper with caster sugar. Turn the swiss roll on to this and carefully peel off the lining paper. Trim the cake edges and then roll up with the paper inside. Cool on a wire tray.

Melt the chocolate for the filling. Cream the butter and sieved icing sugar together until soft, and then add the cooled melted chocolate. Carefully unroll the swiss roll and then spread it with chocolate icing. Lay the Flakes end-to-end across the short side, allowing them to protrude at the edges, and then roll up tightly. Brush the cake with warmed jam.

Sieve the icing sugar and cocoa for the fondant into a bowl and make a well in the centre. Add the liquid glucose and egg white, working it with a wooden spoon to bind the fondant together. Dust the surface with sifted cocoa, and then roll the fondant into an oblong large enough to cover the swiss roll, pressing it into place.

Neaten the ends but keep the Flake protruding. Rub the Buttons between your fingers to make them shine and then stick them on at either end, alternating the white and milk chocolate Buttons. Use jam if necessary to secure them.

Make a cracker frill for each end with the crepe paper and tie securely round the Flake. Complete with a Christmas decoration in the centre of the cake. Lift onto a cake board.

[chinois]

This is definately worth trying, and you dont have to follow the recipe to the letter. IMO you may as well do an easy/cheap version first to see if you like it.
I was told the original method (i think) by Joe Cathers, who worked at the fat duck for a while. Anyway, here it is for those who dont want to spend a ton on ingredients:

Make the icecream the same way you usually do, but marinade/infuse a couple of rashers of smoked bacon in the milk for a few hours (until the milk tastes of bacon basically).
Use double the amount of egg yolks and overcook them by a few mins to make the taste of egg more pronounced.
Dont add extra salt! And maybe rinsing/washing the bacon in milk first might be a good idea.