Tomato Ice Cream
A refreshing and unusual starter or light lunch and should be eaten ideally al fresco on a hot Summer's day (we can but dream). Admittedly though you will have to put all thoughts of conventional ice cream out of your mind, because this is certainly different. It's icy and refreshing with the cool clean taste of fresh tomato, goes perfectly with prawns and disposes of the need for mayonnaise.
It does freeze rather hard, so you will have to allow some time for it to soften up before eating.
Ingredients
4 large tomatoes (best straight from the greenhouse!)
1 tbsp. freshly squeezed lemon juice
2 tbsps. tomato ketchup
1 tsp. caster sugar
Good pinch of seasalt
Generous shake of tabasco
125ml double cream, whisked to soft peaks
Method
Peel the tomatoes by dropping into boiling water for 20 seconds and then immediately into cold water. Slide off the skins.
Suspend a sieve over a bowl. Cut the tomatoes into quarters, remove any stalk and, holding the tomato over the sieve, use your thumb to push the seeds into the sieve
Put the tomato flesh into a food processor or blender together with the juice which has dripped out of the seeds (throw away the seeds).
Whizz to a purée then pass it through the sieve into the bowl
Add the lemon juice, ketchup, salt and tabasco. and then add the lightly whipped cream.
Taste and adjust the seasonings to your liking. Remember the flavour will be less pronounced when frozen
Pour into a tub and freeze for about an hour, maybe longer, until the ice cream is lightly frozen all the way through.
Tip the ice cream back into the food processor and whizz back to a puree (or use a whisk)
Return the puree to the freezer, either in its tub, in small serving pots or in a bowl ready to be unmoulded and topped with prawns. Freeze.
Helpful Hints
The business of breaking the ice cream down and whisking again after the first freeze is tiresome but
necessary to stop the ice cream being too icy.
The ice cream will un-mold from its pots extremely easily and is pretty topped with prawns.
