Gelato for Taste & Create

For those of you who frequent my blog you know that I try never to miss the Taste & Create event which gets bigger and bigger each and every month. It is the brainchild of Nicole over at For the Love of Food . I love to visit her site for all the delicious recipes and tidbits of very helpful information. She even has an on-line store with wonderful kitchen gadgets and gourmet foods. We are paired with another foodie and prepare a dish from their site for the event. I love this idea so I can showcase someone elses talents and have the pleasure of creating something delicious as well. This month I have been paired with Aparna of My Diverse Kitchen . Aparna lives in Goa, India and is a vegetarian. We have been partnered before and she has many delicious recipes to choose from. She always makes it a tough choice to choose just one dish.... Dalmatian Pudding, Tomato Rasam, or Spiced Baby Potatoes with Sesame Seeds. I finally decided upon a gelato simply because I was looking for a dessert to serve company. With summer just around the corner this creamy concoction seemed perfect!!

Aparna says, "But what is stracciatella? In Italian, “stracciato” means “torn apart” and normally describes a soup into which egg is incorporated such that it forms shreds/ stracciatelle in the soup.It also refers to thin bits of chocolate in gelato which is what this recipe is about. Stracciatella gelato is made by finely drizzling melted chocolate onto frozen ice-cream (usually vanilla). The chocolate solidifies into thin pieces when it hits the cold ice-cream. This is broken up by lightly stirring the ice-cream. The result is a smooth ice-cream/ gelato with the slightest crunch/ crackle of chocolate and a wonderful experience."

Here is her recipe.....

**Strawberry Stracciatella Gelato **

3 cups finely chopped strawberries
½ cup granulated sugar (adjust as required)
¼ cup honey
1 T lemon juice
¼ tsp salt
500ml milk (3% fat)
3 tsp custard powder/ cornstarch
1 tsp vanilla extract

For the stracciatella:

75gm semi-sweet chocolate, chopped
25gm milk chocolate, chopped
2 tsp oil

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Put the chopped strawberries in a bowl and add the sugar, honey, lemon juice and salt. Mix well and refrigerate this for about 30 minutes.In the meanwhile, boil the all the milk except half a cup. Once it starts boiling, turn the heat down to medium. To the half cup of cold milk, add the custard powder/ cornstarch and mix well to dissolve it. Add this to the boiling milk and keep stirring till the milk thickens to a custard consistency. Take off the heat and allow to cool to room temperature, while stirring the custard frequently to prevent a skin from forming.Take the strawberry mixture out and puree it. Add the vanilla extract and the milk custard and blend well. Pour into a plastic or metal bowl, cover it and freeze. Then follow Angela’s advice to me which follows.
“Pour it into a plastic freezer box , cover the surface with clingfilm, put a lid on and freeze. Thereafter re-mix with a fork every 30 minutes until it reaches the right consistency. The ice cream should be eaten within 3 weeks; before serving, remove it to the main body of the refrigerator for 20 minutes to soften.When you think the ice-cream has almost reached the right texture, then melt your chocolate & oil together over hot water. Let it cool slightly and then quickly drizzle a little over the surface of the ice-cream. It should set on contact and then you need to quickly stir the chocolate into the ice-cream, breaking up any long strands of chocolate into small pieces. Keep repeating until the chocolate is used up. You may need to pop the ice-cream back in the freezer during this process if it starts to melt.”It is important to drizzle the chocolate in a thin stream and this can be done using a fork. That would give you the perfect texture.