Pluot Sorbet

I've been to the land of roadside stalls and back. Almost all of the roadside food I tried, save for those selling fruits, contained coconut in some form. Come to think of it, even their grilled smashed bananas were doused generously in a coconut based caramel sauce, which by the way, was lovely.

My girlfriends and I did not just do lots of shopping and gorging, we also spent some precious time pampering ourselves. However, I refused to go for their 'Traditional Thai Massage'. Once bitten, twice shy. The literally back breaking maneuvers were no joke at all. But Val and Addy had not gotten one before, so they foolishly (despite my warnings) went for it while I got my mane tamed. I watched in great respect as they endured the rubbing, smacking and kneading, and still emerged from the massage rooms alive.

We did spend most of our time shopping till the sun went down, the moon came up and the shops closed. It would have been a perfect trip if not for the bout of food poisoning I got on my last night. That would also explain the public service announcement in my previous entry.

The general rule of thumb is, as I found out through the hard way, to avoid ice and water from anywhere in the Asian region. So even if you are dying of thirst and have to walk a mile to get water, DON'T buy the lemon freeze from that drink store!

Back home and almost fully recovered, I was craving for something refreshing and light. That's when I remembered the Pluot Sorbet I made the day before I left for Bangkok.

Plu-whort?

That, my dear friend, would be this red fleshed beauty that I spotted in Chinatown (of all places!).

Taking my cue from the sticker on the fruit, I googled it and found Pluot in wikipedia. They originated in California as a hybrid between plums and apricots, which explains their name Plu-ot. I must admit that I find this a really corny way of naming a fruit. And get this, those hybrids with 2/3 apricots and 1/3 \plums are called Apriums.

Although the website said that it'd be intensely flavoured and sweet, I didn't find it particularly so. At SGD$1.50 per pluot, it'd be a waste to eat it as an after dinner fruit. It also didn't taste very unique, but the colour was too gorgeous not to make use of. And so I brought out my ice cream maker and put it to work.

After consulting the few cookbooks I have with recipes and tips on making sorbet, I finally settled on something I derived from Damien Pignolet's 'French' and Jill Norman's 'The Cook's Book'. Apparently, professional sorbet-makers would use a tool to measure the sugar concentration of the sorbet (before churning) in Baume. Damien suggests, after adding in the fruit puree to the simple sugar syrup, to adjust the mixture to a sugar concentration level of 14 degrees baumé.

While I wanted to create the perfect sorbet with the perfect texture, I did not have the proper tools. Adding too dilute a sugar syrup would make the sorbet freeze into a block of ice, impossible to scoop. Adding too thick a sugar syrup would result in a sickeningly sweet sorbet.

After some calculation (and mishaps) however, I somehow managed to make a sorbet that rocked. And can I say, THANK GOD for the ice cream maker. Having to fluff it every hour until it achieved the same consistency would have been too much of a pain.

Pluot Sorbet

Ingredients

Pluots

A small squeeze of lemon

Equal parts of sugar and water

Method

Deseed pluots and puree in a blender (since the skins have no fuzz, they can be left on).

Add a squeeze of lemon.

Simmer sugar and water until all the sugar has dissolved, but do not stir.

Remove from heat and cool.

Add 7/10* the volume of puree in sugar syrup to the pluot puree and mix well.

Chill for at least half an hour before churning in ice cream maker, following the manufacturer's instructions.

*This is where my mishap struck. I accidentally added more than the 'half' that Damien's book called for, but could not reverse my mistake without compromising on the taste of the pluots coming through the sorbet, so I stuck with it. In the end, the sorbet was still not overly sweet and was in fact less sweet as compared to other commercial sorbets I've had.

Also, although the sorbet could not be scooped straight out of the freezer, after defrosting in the fridge for a while (as I would do for my other ice creams anyway), it took on a rather interesting texture - less icy than other sorbets, and smoother on the tongue.