Sherry Shake Herb Ice Cream

Many online herb cooking sites either ignore ice cream as a venue or offer recipes that do not take full advantage of heavy cream's ability to capture the essential oils, flavor points, and other key characteristic of fresh and dried herbs. As I was doing research for this recipe, I ended up turning back to a book that I purchased three summers ago: The Perfect Scoop, by David Lebovitz.

The book includes a number of excellent recipes for ice creams made from mint, basil, parsley (yes! parsley ice cream!), lavender, as well as other exotics, such as black pepper, ginger root, hot chili peppers, and Japanese green tea. The basic method he uses to claim flavor from herbs and spices is to heat up the cream (and, sometimes, part of the milk) to a very low simmer, then adding LOTS of the fresh or dried herb, simmering for a few minutes, then turning off the heat and letting the essential oils from whatever herb he's using to leach into the cream. After an hour or so, the pot of herb-infused cream is cool enough to handle, and you can squeeze or strain out the used herb (sending it posthaste to your compost pile).

Here's my adapted generic recipe, which makes about 1 1/2 quarts:

• 1 1/2 cups of heavy cream
• Up to 1.5 oz. fresh or dried herb (1 to 2 well-packed cups of fresh leaves, for example, if you are using something like mint or basil)
• 1 large (or 2 small) vanilla beans, split lengthwise (or substitute with 2 tsp. high-quality vanilla extract)
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• big pinch of salt
• 4 cups of half-and-half (Lebovitz uses more cream in most of his recipes)
• 1/3 cup good quality dry sherry
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

In a heavy-bottomed pan, heat the cream plus one cup of the half-and-half, the vanilla beans and whatever herb you are using. Simmer for three to four minutes. Put a tight lid on the pan and turn off the heat. Allow the mixture to sit on the stove untouched for 1 hour.

Strain the cream into a bowl, squeezing out the herb to collect as much of the infused cream as possible. Discard the used herb. Add sugar and salt to the infused cream and stir until they are fully dissolved. Cool the cream to room temperature in the fridge (or freezer, but don't forget about it because you don't want to to freeze quite yet).

When the infused cream has cooled, put it, the remain half-and-half, and dry sherry into the freezing container of your ice-cream maker. Freeze the ice cream following your ice cream maker's directions.

Homemade Sherry Shake h'Ice Cream with Fresh Blueberries.