Ice cream maker - any recipe ideas?

[sundaymorningstaple]

Old wives tale from the Chesapeake Bay, where I still call home, you cannot eat steamed crabs and ice cream. Not good for you. Don't know if the same goes for chilli crab or not. So I don't think I ought to jeopardize anybody digestive system! The only thing I know of that goes with steamed crabs is beer and corn on the cob and the odd bit of extra-sharp cheddar now & again.

Speaking of which I made 8 lump crab meat crab cakes the night before last. (That's all you get using Chesapeake/Old Bay Seasoning style of building crabcakes (one will fit on a hamburger bun just perfectly). We also make them smaller for parties so that one will just sit nicely on the top of a Nabisco Saltine (which I have a hard time finding here). A 454 gram can of lump crabmeat will make 8 crabcakes (Maryland Style) and probably two dozen or more (local style).

[sundaymorningstaple]

Oh, I second lynx' suggestion!

[JR8]

Where do you get the crab in 1lb tins from? I haven't done crab-cakes for many years - since we lived in NYC and 'The Lobster Place' was a bus-ride away.

I like crab-cakes a lot! And you can adapt the recipe for either burger sized ones, or little ones of almost pure crab + a little bit of egg and binder (crackers etc) just enough to hold them together, and serve them up looking 'oh so pretty' with a fancy looking side-salad.

[Jeez.... I'm tormenting my hunger now!]

I might start a topic re: cooking for Xmas, to see what plans people have in mind...

[nakatago]

Nothing's too weird for Japan.

WARNING: Buzzfeed listicle

http://www.buzzfeed.com/alanwhite/24-ut ... m-flavours" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[sundaymorningstaple]

Where do you get the crab in 1lb tins from? I haven't done crab-cakes for many years - since we lived in NYC and 'The Lobster Place' was a bus-ride away.

I like crab-cakes a lot! And you can adapt the recipe for either burger sized ones, or little ones of almost pure crab + a little bit of egg and binder (crackers etc) just enough to hold them together, and serve them up looking 'oh so pretty' with a fancy looking side-salad.

[Jeez.... I'm tormenting my hunger now!]

I might start a topic re: cooking for Xmas, to see what plans people have in mind...

You got it. I use around 20 saltines ground up fine for 1 lb of crabmeat (being very careful not to breaks up the lumps too badly!) around a tablespoon of dijion mustard, table spoon of Old Bay seasoning, 1/2 teaspoon of Tobasco Sauce, 1/3 cup of mayo one triple AAA egg and nothing else. Refridgerate for around 1 hour then loosely pack into patties & frying 'em in a pan of shimmering canola oil about 1/4" deep until golden brown on each side (around 3 minutes on each side). Drain and enjoy either on buns or saltines and as noted, a nice salad. Oh, in addition, a slice of lemon goes very well with crabcakes.

[sundaymorningstaple]

In answer to your question, JR8, You can get 454gm (1 lb) cans of lump crabmeat at NTUC Fairprice. It's not Chesapeake Blue Crabs (the best), but from the local related species Blue Swimmer crabs. Which upon investigation, turns out are a related species to the Atlantic/Chesapeake/GOM Blue crab. I think it was around $26 or $28 for a 1 lb tin.

I haven't been here but you might try it (I'm going to check it out as my daughter now lives in woodlands so I'm over that way quite often now...... http://www.fasslergourmet.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; It doesn't appear to carry any crab products at all - mostly fish products.

[PNGMK]

JR8 - how much was the ice cream machine? Where did you buy it? Do you know where I can get a hand cranked one?

[sundaymorningstaple]

JR8 - how much was the ice cream machine? Where did you buy it? Do you know where I can get a hand cranked one?

http://www.amazon.com/White-Mountain-ND ... ream+maker

They also have a 6 quart version as well

[JR8]

JR8 - how much was the ice cream machine? Where did you buy it? Do you know where I can get a hand cranked one?

Hand cranking it.... I don't know about that. My impression is that these electric machines are not really designed for use almost right on the equator, so they are running close to their capabilities. That seems to mean you have to have everything focused, and go through the prep without hanging about at all. But hand paddling a wooden bucket... good luck with that (IMHO).

There seem a few approaches to home-made ice-cream.
1) pre-frozen bowl. You have a fat heavy mixer bowl that is filled between the double walls with some kind of fluid. You put this in the freezer for 12-18hrs and it freezes solid as a rock. This is now ready to make a single batch.

2) You can buy machines with inbuilt refridgeration (they seem to call them 'Compressor' models), i.e. no advanced planning with pre-frozen bowls. They are larger and significantly more expensive.

3) The hand-cranked bucket 'thing' Lol! I don't know how that would deal with this climate. The picture of it seems to show it (on the Williams Sonoma website) overflowing with ice cubes, but I don't see that adding any water via any means is a net positive.

So. Our thinking was...
- 2) Nice to have, but $, and takes up lots of space = can't justify it
[- 3) Only saw this today, so it didn't figure back then]
- 1) Probably proportionate to our needs. If we discover the concept doesn't work out for us, the outlay is not the end of the world.

Then I was reading customer reviews on the likes of the UKs 'Which' consumer magazine. 'Which' is useful as it's not subjective and 'on fashion', they compare and rate products vs measured 'scientific' metrics.

Anyway, considering our needs everything pointed this way...
http://www.williams-sonoma.com/products ... rc=AutoRel" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Good quality brand, not crazy expensive. The only perceived downside was about the time to freeze the bowl, and 'What if we want to make two batches?'. Well,
a) You can buy extra bowls, and they're not that expensive.
b) Once we have churned a batch, we transfer it to a c8" high cylindrical snaplock container. The mixer bowl gets a quick wash (it's still pretty well frozen), the snaplock then sits neatly into the mixer bowl... > straight to freezer with minimal space wasted there. This is also a practical and tidy way to store the ice cream. Plus if you did a batch in the afternoon, the freezer bowl is ready to be used again the next morning. Note: after our initial purchase we never felt any virtue in getting a 2nd bowl. I.e. one bowl makes 1.6L and we're very unlikely to ever wish to make 3L+ within 24hrs.

So we're very happy with that purchase.
Some of the upsides -
- Well, cheaper ice cream for a start, no more S$20+ pint tubs!
- Complete control over the ingredients, with the virtue that it can easily be 100% 'additive-free' (unlike HD and B+Js, Swensons, and all the rest).
- The spectrum of recipes that are possible. The base ice cream is simple, and there are a zillion possibilities of what to make it into. IIRC my first batch was Mango+vodka
- That it's a *lot* of fun using it, even way more than I might have expected. [You get an ever so slightly strange but warmly satisfying conspiratorial sense of somehow having 'Broken the code'].
- It's surprisingly simple, and satisfying making the stuff yourself, and pondering your next recipe...
Downsides:
- Having ice-cream on tap whereas previously we didn't. This hasn't proved a significant issue as neither of us are really big 'snackers'. Also when you take out the snaplock it benefits from sitting on the counter for 10-15 minutes to warm just a little, otherwise it's solid as a rock. So it's not really something you can just on the spur of the moment go and easily scoop out. The 10-15m 'time-delay' seems to be enough psychological hurdle vs the idea there's ice cream on hand 24/7.
- The freezer bowl occupies quite a lot of freezer space. However, this is minimised by having the decanted ice-cream in a snaplock container that can sit neatly inside the bowl cavity.

Note: There are also websites/blogs out there where some food-writers, in aggregate, have gone through just about every imaginable recipe. So the machine itself might come with a handbook with some basic/generic recipes to get you going, but there are also thousands more out there on the web. Also worth noting that on the lighter side you can make frozen yoghurt and sorbets too.

p.s. Price. We paid $172 at Tangs. It's cheaper abroad, we considered that possibility, but with shipping, import duty etc it would be little cheaper, but it would certainly be added hassle.
You might want to also check out and compare vs Takashimaya (they def have them) and Harvey Norman (I don't recall now if they had any, or maybe they did but not the one we wanted) at Ngee Ann City. I don't recall if we checked Courts @ Funan too, it would seem to make sense...

Good luck!

[PNGMK]

JR8 - thanks for the very well thought out reply.

[JR8]

JR8 - thanks for the very well thought out reply.

Pleasure PNG, and thanks.

I forget now what age your son must be, but I think dishes like this are relatively simple to make, perhaps with a little adult supervision, and the results are almost certain, and impressive.

It would be interesting to consider further what else falls into this category, waffles, pancakes... ? Bread, muffins, scones might be next but they are taking up the level of precision and care required.

My thinking is that giving a youngster a sense of 'Oh yes you can!' in the kitchen can pay off in the longer term, and into adult life. 'If you can make your own ice cream, then why not lasagne, cottage pie, beef stew, or a roast chicken...'.

Confidence in the kitchen (however overly hopeful it might turn out now and again) is a great life-skill. Plus, future girlfriends will be wide-eyed in awe as his skills develop and he knocks out dishes for them to share and enjoy.

[I grew up in a household where just about everything was home-made, down to the bread and breakfast marmalade. Although I wasn't initially involved beyond helping with stirring stuff (and licking spoons lol), it made making meals from scratch seem normal, and fun. I suppose this was the same for my mothers generation; my father by contrast can just about fry an egg.

[QRM]

I think I discovered the secret Royce chocolate recipe!
The ice cream I just made tastes just like that Royce stuff you get in those blue boxes.
Use Lindt 90 cocoa supreme dark chocolate, which is totally gross to eat on its own.
And follow http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/super ... teic_14295" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;,
I chucked in an extra table spoon of caster sugar while it was churning.
And Da dah… no need to fork out a fortune to feed your Royce addiction.

Used a kitchen Aid and its ice cream maker attachment, if you get it from amazon USA you need to do I bit of DIY with a heavy hammer to make it work on the locally supplied Kitchen Aid Machines

[JR8]

Lindt 90. Hmmm, I like it, in small quantities.

It is super 'dry' and flavour packed. You have to let it sit in your mouth as it softens and melts; then the flavour follows. I love it though in small quantities, it's not 'scoffing chocolate'.

It's higher in cocoa solids, and lower in fat, so can be temperamental to cook with. Anecdotally and also in my experience you have to heat that high a grade very gently as there is a real danger it (the solid/fat emulsion) can 'split' leaving a sudden gritty/claggy useless mass*. Probably quite surreal if no one warned you of the risk...

These days for cooking I use say 65/70% cocoa bars, and still treat it with care and respect. It does the job well, and doesn't keep you on tip-toes. In any case it is way better than any 'cooking chocolate' out there which might typically be say 25% cocoa solids and 75% cocoa fat (arguably it's not really chocolate as one might know it at all, and it only barely tastes like it).

... Adding good cocoa powder (Douwe Egberts etc, not 'hot chocolate powder mix') is another low risk way of upping the cocoa quotient...


p.s. My mother refers to Lindt90 and the like as her 'chocolate heroine'. She's a demon for dark chocolate but gave up caffeine long ago. She says such chocolate immediately puts her on the ceiling ... almost stoned


* IIRC there are ways to remediate it, but far better not to get to that position in the first place.

[sundaymorningstaple]

All I eat, chocolate wise, is 70% or higher Cocoa content dark chocolate (as a result of only being allowed maximum of 50 grams of it while I was on the tail end of my diet 7 years ago). I've never really gotten in milk chocolate since. I actually like the stuff.

[PNGMK]

JR8 - thanks for the very well thought out reply.

Pleasure PNG, and thanks.

I forget now what age your son must be, but I think dishes like this are relatively simple to make, perhaps with a little adult supervision, and the results are almost certain, and impressive.

It would be interesting to consider further what else falls into this category, waffles, pancakes... ? Bread, muffins, scones might be next but they are taking up the level of precision and care required.

My thinking is that giving a youngster a sense of 'Oh yes you can!' in the kitchen can pay off in the longer term, and into adult life. 'If you can make your own ice cream, then why not lasagne, cottage pie, beef stew, or a roast chicken...'.

Confidence in the kitchen (however overly hopeful it might turn out now and again) is a great life-skill. Plus, future girlfriends will be wide-eyed in awe as his skills develop and he knocks out dishes for them to share and enjoy.

[I grew up in a household where just about everything was home-made, down to the bread and breakfast marmalade. Although I wasn't initially involved beyond helping with stirring stuff (and licking spoons lol), it made making meals from scratch seem normal, and fun. I suppose this was the same for my mothers generation; my father by contrast can just about fry an egg.

I bought a Cuisinart 1.5L maker last night from Tangs ($159) (It's the "put the bowl in the freezer type") and the maid has instructions to buy the ingredients today.