Vanilla ice cream with a sieved raspberry coulis
Red against white, and nothing else in the glass
Multiplies easily. Make a larger batch of coulis and keep it in the fridge for up to five days, or freeze it in an ice cube tray for single servings later.
Raspberries are exactly the kind of fruit this diet is built to exclude, and a coulis is how you keep the flavour while losing every seed that makes them a problem. Simmer them briefly with sugar, blend until completely broken down, then push the pulp hard through a fine sieve with the back of a spoon until only a smooth, glossy, deep red sauce is left in the bowl below and a dry mass of seed and skin sits in the mesh above. That dry mass left behind is not waste. It is the point of the exercise. Poured cold over vanilla ice cream, the colour does the work a garnish never could, a bright red running into white before it even reaches the spoon.
Ingredients
Contains: Milk
- 150 graspberries, fresh, or frozen and fully defrosted
- 2 tbspcaster sugar
- 100 gvanilla ice cream, two generous scoops, to serve
Method
Put the raspberries and sugar in a small pan with a tablespoon of water. Simmer gently for 2 to 3 minutes, stirring, until the raspberries have completely collapsed and the sugar has dissolved.
Blend the mixture until smooth, using a stick blender in the pan or tipping it into a jug blender.
Push the purée through a fine sieve into a bowl, pressing hard with the back of a spoon and scraping the underside of the sieve now and then, until only dry seed and skin are left behind and the sauce runs completely clear of them, a deep glossy red.
Do not rush this step. A minute of firm pressing gets far more sauce through than a quick stir, and every seed left behind is one less in the bowl.
Leave the coulis to cool completely, or chill it if you are not using it straight away.
Scoop the ice cream into a glass or bowl and pour the cold coulis generously over the top, letting it run down into the white.
Watch-points
- Push the raspberries hard through a fine sieve once blended and discard everything left in the mesh. Every seed has to stay behind, not just most of them.
- Cool any coulis you are not using, keep it covered in the fridge and use it within five days. Make that two days if you are having chemotherapy.
Some hospitals leave all berries off the list because of their seeds; the leaflet this book follows allows a purée pushed completely smooth through a sieve, since what is left behind is smooth juice rather than whole fruit. Leave it out if you have been told to.
Make it more nourishing
- Use 150 g of ice cream instead of 100 g, or pour 2 tablespoons of double cream around the edge of the bowl before the coulis goes on.
- Stir a tablespoon of skimmed milk powder into a scoop of the ice cream as it softens, for about 3 g more protein and no change in flavour.
- Serve with a plain shortbread biscuit alongside for extra energy.
Swaps
- Instead of raspberries, use strawberries, hulled and prepared the same way
- a slightly sweeter, less sharp sauce in a similar red
- Instead of vanilla ice cream, use custard, warm or cold
- a softer contrast if a very cold pudding is not appealing