Gastronomy

Torrezno ice cream, in Cerveceria Tapas Machado (Soria)

Present in more and more dishes, and not only sweets, this summer "dessert" improves its flavor and texture with technique and good products

The most original ice cream you can try in Madrid

Summer rigors are conducive to be overcome by the cold and refreshing temptation of bringing ice cream to your mouth . It can be in a cone, served in an overflowing glass or, why not, an imaginative quenelle on a savory plate during lunch. Everyone responds to a passion that is difficult to avoid when the sun attacks above 30 degrees.

Ice cream, as we know it today, is a relatively recent invention, but its origin is lost in time. Many centuries before Christ, the Chinese already mixed snow with honey and fruits. Nor was it unknown in ancient Greece, or in the Roman Empire , although it was the Arabs who refined the quality and variety of these pseudo ice creams, adding honey, chopped or ground fruits, raisins or nuts. They even flavored them with rose and violet water, a preparation called sharbet , a word from which the current name of sorbet is derived, and which can be considered the predecessor of modern ice cream.

Adaptation of Carrot Cake, carrot cake, cream cheese and roasted carrot ice cream, from Bacira. (Madrid)

This primitive way of doing them came to Europe from the hand of Marco Polo , who from his travels in the East brought, in addition to pasta, the way to make them - it is said that the poles bear that name in homage to the Venetian.

Italy was the gateway to ice cream in the Old Continent. The European royal courts adopted it as an element of social distinction thanks to Catalina de Médici (who presented it at her wedding with what would later be French monarch, Henry II). And Procopio, another Italian, popularized them from his famous Parisian coffee in 1660. When these bites under zero crossed the Atlantic in 1770, they spread rapidly. But its true democratization came almost a century later, with the invention of the first automatic ice cream maker, perfected already in the XX. From that moment begins the history of ice cream on a large scale.

The perfect ice cream

Exists? We ask Fernando Sáez, who prepares his creations below zero for the best chefs in the country, from Eneko Atxa (Azurmendi) to Francis Paniego ( El Portal del Echaurren ), without forgetting Andoni Aduritz ( Mugaritz ) or Pedrito Sánchez ( Bagá ) , among many others. " To make an ice cream, sugar is essential, because it works as an anticoagulant. Before we used only the common one, but now we have others that allow us to achieve the textures we want without providing so much sweetness. If an ice cream is very sweet, it is poorly formulated." . And he points out, "the most important thing is the nobility of raw materials and flavors that we want to convey."

Natural oysters on acidified seaweed, fennel slush, sour apple soup and plankton ice cream with iodine foam, in Cobo Vintage (Burgos)

Sáez has a small ice cream shop in the center of Logroño, Della Sera , but it is through its brand, Graté , that it has become known in haute cuisine. His laboratory, the homonymous workshop, is surrounded by a garden of aromatic herbs, some vineyards and a magnificent fig tree. And, with everything that is grown there, macerations, infusions or pulps are made that, together with other raw materials acquired in origin - many of La Rioja - and rare ingredients, obtain unusual and delicious gastronomic ice cream. Of wine lees, duck fat with hazelnut and brandy, tiger's milk , cauliflower in syrup ... In your hands almost anything can be cooked at a negative temperature: a bottom of meat, a vegetable, a sauce. .. "Now we are working with animal fats, with lard, with beef fat or chuleteros, always with a gastronomic profile. There is the criterion, knowing why you do it, what you do it for and who does it will eat, "explains the ice cream maker.

His work is highly specialized, although quite often the world of cooking enters this territory, the creation of ice cream. The question is obvious, are there differences between those who prepare in a restaurant and those in the ice cream parlors? "The technique", responds the expert from La Rioja. "The service temperature in a dining room is different, lower (-18 degrees, in the freezers used in kitchens, and that affects conservation). In addition, to make ice cream you need a machine that generates cold, and The Pacojet [professional device] used by chefs does not, it is an engine with blades that creates textures from a frozen mash. There comes a time that makes it similar to that of an ice cream, and it works if you take it out quickly to the table. In my opinion, it is a mistake, because technically it is not what it claims to be, but just a texture. A good ice cream maker creates a structure to convey a flavor . "

It is clear that the world of creation below zero has a journey to discover. "It's in diapers," said Sáez, "it has to explode. The important thing is that people really bet on it. With those brigades of 25 or 30 people in the kitchens, they could at least dedicate one to be I will train ice cream exclusively. And if not, here we are the professionals. If they buy the wine, why can't they buy ice cream from a specialist? "

Steak Bowl Tartar, from Bowl Bar (Madrid)

With the main

Recommend a few ice cream of the hundreds that are served in the restaurants of Spain is a task (almost) unattainable. Logically, they send in the sweet world ... There is nothing more to look at Madrid's letters. A frozen ice cream of violets with cookie crumble , in Blessed Madness ; of toasted bread to accompany a chocolate churro, in La Cabra ; updating a carrot cake -with ice cream from the roasted vegetable itself-, in Bacira , or the curious salted peanut ice cream escorting a Caraïbe rose, proposed by Zalacain .

Thyme-flavored ice cream does very well for the Manchego cheese cake served at Casa Elena (Cabañas de la Sagra, Toledo); with fried bread it is made in Molino de Alcuneza (Alcuneza, Guadalajara), for a creamy chocolate with praline of pipes , and with pistachio to refresh a suflé of the own dried fruit, in Koma Box Art Hotel (Collado Mediano, Madrid). Susi Díaz ( La Finca , Elche) proposes a delicate grilled mango ice cream , and Josean Alija ( Nerúa , Bilbao) of fenugreek (a strong and somewhat spicy seed, typical of oriental cuisine) with strawberries and apples .

The power of imagination is noticeable with salted ice cream, both with vegetable entrees and with main dishes, whether fish or meat. With the first, several notable. For example, the recipe for avocado, almonds, caviar and green mustard ice cream from El Retiro (Llanes); the very fine frozen white asparagus of Iván Cerdeño ( El Cigarral del Ángel , Toledo) or the etrant based on blood sausage biscuit , his cream and onion ice cream by Miguel Cobo ( Cobo Vintage , Burgos). The Burgos chef seeks to "provide aroma with a different texture, refresh and introduce creaminess". Firm supporter of ice cream, works on very diverse concepts, proof of this is its plankton ice cream with iodine foam that serves with natural oysters.

Violet ice cream with cookie crumble, in Bendida Locura (Madrid)

He is not the only one that matches this product with fish. It is also made in Santa Rita (Madrid), with its tandoori prawns with guacamole and passion fruit ice cream , or in Don Fadrique (Alba de Tormes): seafood cocktail with lettuce, aioli ice cream , king crab and apple. The EVOO works with carapaneer carpaccio ( Rocacho , Madrid) or with anchovies ( Fifteen Nudes , Ribadesella). And surprisingly original is the anchovy in vinegar , a tribute to the Madrid cuisine of chef Aurelio Morales in the capital Cebo .

Meat also participates in this unique marriage . For example, the torrezno ice cream from the Tapas Machado brewery (Soria). A flavor that also rules in the shortening (made with lard, Graté creation) wrapped in barks of the same animal that Francis Paniego serves in Ezcaray (Hotel Maria Cristina, San Sebastián). Mustard marries perfectly with the Galician cow tartare of Bowl Bar (Madrid) and Marba Barrica (Canarian wine) ice cream works in luxury in Donaire's Barberie Duck Magret recipe (GF Victoria Hotel, Adeje. Tenerife). It's hard to choose between so much dish ... coldly calculated!

Keys to recognize a good ice cream

Drop down

According to Fernando Sáez , there are three points that must be taken into account:

1. View. The colors have to be attenuated since the ingredient that adds flavor is diluted in the liquids and sugars that compose it. "It will always be lower than the original of the raw material because in addition, when freezing, the negative temperatures nuances it a lot. There is no need to be afraid of a light tone; there are things that, in my view, do not contribute anything in the ice cream shop ... A dye is always a hoax because it indicates that there is more raw material than we have actually put in. "

2. Temperature "In the mouth it should not provide much cold sensation. The texture must be smooth, not sandy or with ice crystals. This is a technical problem, formulation or inadequate processing temperature." Often the cause is conservation: the ice cream is stored in the freezer at -18 degrees but, if it is opened 30 times, the camera takes much longer to recover the temperature it needs and has been rising with so much open and close. In the end, the ice cream decomposes, the liquid parts become viscous and the solid ones sandy.

3. Palate. "The definition of flavor is very important: if three or four flavors are announced they must be found. It happens as with the colors: if you mix many, the whole turns brown and is not understood." In addition, fat should not remain on the palate or spread in the mouth. And acidity is prohibited (unless the main ingredient is like this, like lemon).

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