Ginger Nutty Butt Squash Arse Cream

My father-in-law’s a proud, cricket loving Yorkshireman. And as everybody knows Yorkshirefolk can’t say “ice cream”, they say “arse cream.” Just thought I’d mention that. I have to admit I’ve never been a huge ice cream fan, preferring the clean tasting freshness of sorbets to the sickly ice creams you can buy. And my first forays into ice cream making were deffo not a huge success – Very Mature Goat’s Cheese Ice Cream is an acquired taste to say the least and my attempt to make a Tom Ka Ice Cream using coconut milk nearly caused our machine to burn itself out. And I really should have known that using a Nigel Slater recipe for Old Fashioned Vanilla Ice Cream was a bad idea as almost everything he makes is a gagging great 10 on the Rich-ter scale. It called for 8 egg yolks for the “custard”. “Ooo” said Mrs B, “it tastes like custard – I love it!” “Ergh” I said, “it tastes like custard – I DON’T love it!” (I hate custard by the way, probably due to the stuff they poisoned me with at school.) So it was with little faith that I embarked on a James Martin recipe for Ginger and Butternut Squash Ice Cream. But it was brilliant, quite bold – it goes nicely with things like melon, strawbs and, especially, pineapple, rather than on its own. And the reason it’s now my recipe and not Mr Martin’s is a slight technicality. I leave the bits of ginger and squash in the ice cream whilst he pulps them through a sieve. In my (obviously far superior) version the ginger and squash become chewy, almost as if you’d used stem ginger.

Ginger and Butternut Ice Cream

4 egg yolks (the more organic the better)
500 ml double or whipping cream
125 g sugar
125 g or thereabouts of butternut squash, cut into cubes
an inch of fresh ginger peeled and chopped fine-ishly (note my rebellious use of both metric and imperial)

Start by roasting the squash in a medium oven (150 degrees celsius) for twenty or so minutes or until it’s tender. Don’t let it brown. When it’s done bung it on a chopping board and cut to smithereens. Well, into very small pieces. Put the ginger into the cream, bring to the boil, remove from the stove and leave it to infuse for 30 minutes whilst you make a nice cup of tea. (This bit is important – tea is good.) Now whisk the sugar into the egg yolks good’n hard (you will be feeling strong and refreshed after that cuppa). Bring the cream back up to simmering point, whisk a little of it into the egg mix then stir it all back into the cream. This back and forth stuff is to stop the eggs from scrambling. Wallop in the squash and simmer very gently for a few minutes, stirring constantly until it thickens slightly. Then leave to cool and it’s ready to either pour into an ice cream maker machine thing or put into a tub and then in the freezer (taking out and forking up every hour or so).

Being a great fan of waste-not-want-not I have been using the leftover egg whites to make chewy merengues. They’re dead easy. Important tip numero uno is your whisking bowl must be spotless, the mere hint of grease or whatever will ruin everything (and the world will end). You need 115 grams of sugar per egg white. Whisk the whites till they form soft peeks then gradually whisk in the sugar. Keep whisking away for three or four minutes and your merengue mix should be shiny, silky, smoothy white. Plop or dollop spoonfuls onto greaseproof paper and bake for 35 or so minutes in a preheated 150 degree c oven or until they’re everso slightly golden brownish. Too long and they won’t be chewy – too little and they’ll be raw in the middle. Many thanks to Gwen, my mother-in-law, for this recipe. (She’s not from Yorkshire and can pronounce ice cream, by the way) Her merengues are world famous in our family and it was her that told me the need for potassium hydrogen tartrate, 5% acetic acid, sodium chloride and god-knows-what which other recipes call for is a total waste of time. And as some long-forgotten bard once wrote; “I’d give you my forever but I do not have the time”. Speaking a which it’s time to bugger off….