Fig leaf ice cream chez Huang

I’ve always been fascinated by two things in this recipe: the startlingly seductive flavor of fig leaves (which is Italian) and the use of cornstarch (which is Chinese, as well as from other parts of the world too, if we’re being honest).

Ok, three things: This can be a totally vegan ice cream and still be incredibly delicious.

Cornstarch here acts like egg yolks usually do in an ice cream: it makes the texture smoother, it miniaturizes the ice crystals, and it provides a satisfyingly creamy texture. 

My husband grew up on a series of military compounds in Taiwan, as his father was a colonel in the air force. J.H. has always had a pronounced sweet tooth, just like his father, and so ice cream of sorts was a more or less regular treat when he was a kid. 

The thing is, you couldn’t find ice cream in a store, and no one had ice cream trucks or, of course, ice cream makers, but what they did have was stores that would freeze your ice cream. You just had to provide the mix.

My husband remembers riding on a bicycle with his father and carrying two large tins filled with whatever Mom had whipped up. It sometimes was a mixture of powdered dry milk (a gift of the Americans then stationed on the island) boiled up with cornstarch and sugar to make a simple ice cream base, very similar to what we have here today. At other times soymilk or fruit juice took the place of milk, but cornstarch was always involved because that’s what gave the frozen dessert heft and texture. 

We're talking about amazing fragrance

Sometimes it was nothing more than sugar water cooked with cornstarch when the cupboards were empty. But with four little kids always craving something cold and sweet hanging around the house, his mother really couldn’t go wrong, no matter what she made. 

Freezing the ice cream was another thing altogether. It depended upon pure brawn and lots of experience. The liquid was poured into large pans set over ice (and probably salt, like an old-fashioned ice cream maker), and then this was stirred constantly with big spatulas until it froze up. Then the ice cream was packed back into the tins and rushed home by bicycle to feed the hungry hordes.

I have to point out that I have no idea why people don’t use cornstarch in their ice creams. Take one taste and you’ll agree. This is like silk, and it is less heavy, so you can eat more. Yay.

I’ve been entranced with the idea of fig leaves in ice cream for decades, ever since I first read about it in an old cookbook. I mean, fig leaves under a hot sun smell amazing. There are notes of vanilla, coconut, even nuts in there. You can toast them first, if you like, to get a (duh) toastier flavor, but it’s not necessary. 

I was visiting my friend Cynthia in Santa Rosa yesterday, and she shared some of her Brown Turkish figs topped with Humboldt Fog cheese, which pretty much sent me over the moon. And then I stepped out into her yard, checked out the tree, and went gaga over their bounty. 

Brown Turkish fig leaves

I took some cuttings, which I hope will eventually turn into little trees of my own. But what happened - my story does have a point, I promise - was that I trimmed off the leaves and left them on the kitchen counter. And it was like I had opened a spice drawer... their aromas became more insistent and seductive the longer they dried. And so I had to do something wonderful with them, and of course that involved dessert.

The milk and the sweetener in this recipe are open to interpretation. Today I used cashew milk and nut cream to emphasize the lightness of this figgy aroma and also to play off of its inherent nuttiness. Dairy works perfectly, as does pretty much anything reasonable. 

For the sugar I like agave syrup, again because it has a lighter flavor than honey, but also doesn’t make my mouth sour like sugar tends to do, and I do love the slight caramel tone that it gives the ice cream. I’ve toned down the sweetness, naturally, but you can amp it up. 

Add toasted coconut or nuts, if you like, or sprinkle the ice cream with something like reduced balsamic vinegar, saba, or even melted fig jam. Serve it with fresh or broiled or grilled figs. The possibilities are endless, really. Just be sure to do this before the first cold winds turn the fig leaves yellow. And get yourself a friend with a fig tree or two.

You can even make this vegan!

Fig leaf ice cream chez Huang

Huángjiā wúhuāguŏyè bīngqílín 黃家無花果葉冰淇淋

Taiwan Military Families cuisine crossed with Italian traditions

Makes about 1 quart | 1 liter

8 fresh or dried fig leaves, washed and stems removed

2 cups | 500 ml milk of any kind (dairy, nut, or coconut)

3 heaping tablespoons | 30 g cornstarch

2 cups | 500 ml cream of any kind (dairy, nut, or coconut)

Good pinch of sea salt

½ cup | 125 ml agave syrup, or other sweetener to taste

1. Place the fig leaves in a heavy saucepan and add the milk. Bring the milk almost to a boil over medium heat. When bubbles form along the edge, remove the pan from the heat and cover it for at least 15 minutes. Taste the milk, and if you want a stronger flavor, let the leaves steep longer. Strain out the leaves and discard them.

2. Put the cornstarch in a pitcher or bowl and slowly stir in the cream with a whisk so that you don’t have any lumps. Whisk in the infused milk, salt, and agave syrup into the cream, and then return this to the pan. 

Heat the leaves in your milk

3. Set the pan over medium heat and stir the bottom constantly with a whisk to prevent lumps from forming and the bottom from burning. When the mixture is almost ready to boil, it will have thickened up and have the texture of sour cream. Taste and adjust the seasoning with more sugar or salt or whatever else you want at this point.

4. Pour the thickened mixture through a sieve into a heatproof bowl or pitcher and let it cool down completely, and then refrigerate until cold. It will form a skin on top, but that’s all right – this will disappear when it’s churned.

5. Freeze the mixture in an ice cream maker. Remove it to a freezer-safe container and freeze it for a day or two to develop its flavor. Serve with whatever sounds good. 

Peanut and red date ice milk

I love ice cream. No, that’s a lie. I adore ice cream. And my husband is even crazier for the stuff. But sometimes I crave a frozen dessert that is a little bit less sweet and a lot more refreshing, and that’s when I long for ice milk.

For some strange reason, though, ice milk has fallen out of fashion. Perhaps this is because ice cream is just so popular. Plus, ice milk sounds like it would be the cheaper cousin of ice cream, some sort of lesser being hiding in the back of a discount frozen food aisle. And yet, because there are so few fats and often much less sugar in ice milk, its flavors explode easily on the tongue. No barriers stand in the way between you and utter delight.

And that’s why I came up with this recipe. And just for the record, no milk is involved. This is vegan heaven, for peanuts and Chinese red dates are the main ingredients, along with a sprinkle of rice to smooth out the texture and a touch of sugar or sugar substitute, if you really want to make this totally guilt free.

This is pretty much the same recipe as the one for peanut milk in All Under Heaven, but I upped the amount of red dates to give it more of a natural sweetness. You don't really taste the dates except as a sort of suggestion floating around the back of your mind, telling you that a bit of magic is at work here. This combination ends up being subtle and delicious. 

Two simple ingredients

Peanut milk is one of those Chinese ideas that really should be adopted with glee all over the world. It’s just that delicious and just that much of a no-brainer. 

Instead of the vibrant nutty flavor of toasted peanuts, though, what you end up with is something smooth and delicately flavored. This is comfort food of the first order. When I lived in Taiwan, people almost invariably drank this in winter as a hot pick-me-up or a nourishing breakfast. But I could see other possibilities on the horizon as it gradually turned into a cool summer refresher, and that's when I came up with the idea of turning this into ice milk.

In the interest of full disclosure, one bit of work required here, and that has to do with the straining. It honestly is just a tiny pain in the butt to strain the liquid out of the ground peanuts. To combat this, I use two conical sieves: one with holes on the inside to trap the larger particles and one with a fine screen on the outside to ensure that the milk is as smooth as satin; two regular sieves would also work as well, as long as you have a fine-meshed one on the outside. 

In the blender

You might think that it would be just fine to dump everything into the saucepan and do away with the straining, but be assured that this extra step is totally worth it because the texture becomes absolutely remarkable. A high-speed blender helps things immeasurably, too, for it pulverizes the peanuts like nothing else and so allows you to extract every last mote of flavor.

The key to success here is to simmer the milk for a few minutes, as this not only cooks the nut and date milk, but also thickens it and gives it a custardy texture that translates well into a tongue-cosseting ice milk.

I like to make the peanut mixture a day or two ahead of when I plan to serve it so that that little bit of hard work is behind me and the milk gets to chill thoroughly, which speeds up the freezing process. Then, a couple of hours before serving time, I freeze the milk in two batches in my ice cream maker before popping the results in the freezer. My guests are always happy with this surprisingly delicious end to the meal.

Peanut and red date ice milk chez Huang

Huángjiā huāshēngnái hóngzăo bīngshā 黃家花生奶紅棗冰沙

Makes about 6 cups | 1.5 liters

12 ounces | 340 g raw peanuts, preferably skinned and definitely very fresh

1 cup | 100 g pitted Chinese red dates of any size

Water and boiling water, as needed

2 tablespoons raw rice of any kind

The peanut & date solids

6 cups | 1.5 l boiling water

½ teaspoon sea salt

¼ cup sweetener (sugar, sugar substitute, agave, whatever you like), or to taste

1. The night before you plan to make this, place the peanuts in a medium work bowl and cover them by at least 1 inch | 2 cm of cool tap water. Place the pitted dates in a heatproof bowl and cover with boiling water by at least 2 inches | 4 cm, as these will absorb much more of the water. The next morning, drain and rinse the peanuts, but do not drain the dates, as that soaking water will taste fantastic.

2. Set a coarse sieve or colander chinois inside a similarly shaped sieve (see headnotes), and place this over a heavy 2 quart | 2 liter saucepan. Add the nuts, the dates, date water, and rice to your blender. Add 4 cups | 1 liter of boiling water to the blender, cover the blender, and gradually increase the speed to high. Pulverize the peanuts for at least a couple of minutes to extract as much flavor as possible. Scrape the solids and milk into your prepared sieves. Use a large silicone spatula to squeeze as much of the liquid out as possible, and then return the solids to the blender. Add the rest of the boiling water, whiz them together for a couple of minutes, and repeat the straining step. Discard the solids.

3. Add the salt and sweetener to the liquid and set the pan over medium-high heat. Stir the milk and scrape the bottom often to keep it from burning. As soon as it comes to a full boil, reduce the heat and continue to cook and stir the milk for a few minutes until it has thickened. Taste the milk to ensure that there is no raw peanut flavor, and add more sweetener if you think it needs it. Remove the pan from the heat, allow it to come to room temperature, and chill in a closed container or jar.

Simmer until thickened & creamy

4. A few hours before serving, pour half of the milk into your ice cream maker. (I’m assuming it holds around 1 quart | 1 liter; if not, adjust the amount as needed.) You don’t want to overfill the ice cream maker because the liquid will expand considerably as it freezes. Freeze the peanut milk, scrape out the ice milk into a resealable container, cover, and store in the freezer. Repeat with the second half of the milk. (Most ice cream makers require a rest period between sessions, so check your manual.)

5. Remove the ice milk from the freezer about 15 minutes before serving if it is freshly made. If the ice milk has frozen solid, it will take longer to soften, so adjust your time accordingly. Serve with black sesame candy wafers or cookies, or scoop it into cones, or make it into as great ice milk soda. This is an incredibly satisfying dessert, especially after a heavy or spicy meal.