To-may-to, To-mah-to

No matter what you call it I bet you never expected to see a tomato used in this manner. 

I'm a week behind on my part of the game from last week (it was one of "those" weeks), but, thankfully, I had time Sunday to finally get in the kitchen.  So last week I pulled TV, again, and ended up with Iron Chef America.  As Shorty noted, Food Network was running an Iron Chef-a-thon that weekend so we found ourselves with a challenge within our weekly challenge.  Unfortunately, my secret ingredient ended up being one of my least favorite fruits, the tomato.

So I have to make something interesting from a tomato. Hmmm.  Well I watched the episode, but I didn't really groove on their recipes so I decided to have some fun.  We have a running joke about Iron Chef (Japan and America) and the ice cream machine.  They will turn anything and everything into ice cream.  So I thought to myself "Shorty got an ice cream machine for Christmas so why not?"  Thus it was determined that I would make tomato ice cream.  Yes you heard me correctly: Tomato Ice Cream. 

With my laptop in hand, I actually found a recipe online that only needed a little tweaking to fit my needs.  It even lists out the recipe for tomato paste, which I detailed below.

First, I chopped up a large can of whole tomatoes (Yes, yes I took them out of the can first! You make a mistake one time and....um... forget that last part.) and threw them into a frying pan on medium heat.  The goal is to cook off the liquid until you have a paste consistency.  Congratulations, you just made tomato paste!  Of course, I could just as easily use a can of pre-made tomato paste, but then what kind of super cook would I be then.  (This is code for: "I didn't have that on hand so I was forced to go this extra step.")

With that out of the way lets start our actual ice cream.  In your KitchAid mixer... What you don't have one??  Bless your heart!  Listen to me carefully, "Sell everything you own and purchase one, RIGHT NOW!"  We can wait for you.  Trust me, you will not be sorry.  In fact, a certain supercenter beginning with a W and ending in a T is now selling them for 100 dollars.  Go get it! (Please note:  The previous statement was not paid for and I have no affiliation with either KitchenAid or the Wall of Mart, but seriously, go now.  Your kitchen is this close to having a little piece of Heaven in it.)   So now that you have your new mixer handy, you want to throw in your egg yolks and sugar.  I regret that I am a bad blogger and neglected to photograph this part.

Now grab a thick bottomed sauce pan and chase the cat out of the kitchen!  (Please don't actually do this.  It might ruin your good cookware.)  So put the pan on medium heat and throw in your tomato paste, cream, and milk.  Since we only use 2% milk in our house I opted for a 50/50 ratio of cream and milk to compensate for the lack of milk fat.  Let this mixture begin to boil until it comes to a good boil.  Remember you're trying to integrate the tomato flavor into the milk and cream so it may take several minutes.  I found that mixture took on a slight orange/pinkish color as it really came together. 

Looks....um...yummy?  Right?  Err, yeah not so much, but be patient.  Take a cup of this creamy mixture and pour it slowly into the egg yolk/sugar mixture.  You want this to blend fully.  Now take another cup and do the same thing.  Repeat a third time.  You are tempering, or slowly raising the temperature of, the egg mixture by doing this process.  If you just dump the two concoctions together it will flash scramble your egg yolks and you'll have a lumpy mess.  At this point everything should be equally warm so you can combine them fully over the heat.  Bring the mixture back up to a boil and stir.  You should notice that the custard begins to thicken.  Yup you just made a custard.  Yay, you! 

Place a thin meshed strainer over a bowl and pour that puppy into it.  You're trying to strain out all the big chunks and seeds.  Now chuck the solids (I'm sure they could be used for something, but, ugh, did they look gross), stir in a shot of triple sec, and let the liquid cool. I put mine in the fridge to let it chill out for a bit.

While we wait lets crank up a little music and dance around the kitchen.  Don't look at me like that, I know you all do it.  Personally, I'm listening to a little Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings.  She has such a throwback (1950's) sound.  What??? You haven't heard of her?? Google her now!  We have time.  Anyway, trust me when I say that the music/dancing thing really makes a fun thing, cooking, so much more fun and definitely causes custard to cool faster. (This last statement has not been proven, but I certainly didn't notice the time pass while I was singing loudly off-key and sliding around on the tile floor in my socks.)

Well look at that, our custard is chilled and ready for the Ice Cream maker.  This is Shorty's pride and joy so I had to call him in for assistance while I did this part.  I poured the custard into the machine and waited patiently for it to churn up some cold, creamy wonderfulness.  *Since each machine is different, please follow your manufacturer's specifications for your machine.*

Now since I don't really care for tomatoes I wanted to add something to it, and hopefully help the flavor should I really dislike it.  I batted around several ideas and finally decided to create a Ricotta Cheese swirl.  Yum!  The person who created ricotta is my hero.  I dumped a container of ricotta into the KitchenAid (please clean it first or don't blame me for what you are about to create) and added in some sugar and vanilla.  Now don't put to much of the latter.  You want to accent the flavor of the ricotta not drown it in vanilla.  Turn on your mixer and whip these guys into yumminess.  Once it's good and blended put it into a pastry bag or, in my case, a Ziploc bag with a corner cut off.

Okay, your ice cream should be done so lets have a look. 

At this point it's more soft serve than anything so you'll need to put it in another container and freeze it again. 

I took a freezer safe container and put scooped in enough ice cream to create a nice layer.  Then I took my make-shift pastry bag and squirted out some ricotta.  I wanted to do it this way so that I could spread the ricotta nicely rather than just dropping spoonfuls in and having random lumps of sweet cheese.  Cover the ricotta with another layer of tomato and repeat until all your ice cream is in the tub.  

Put the lid on the container and put it in the freezer. While you wait consider dancing around the kitchen some more or perhaps make a yummy dinner dish to eat before your ice cream.  Shorty posted a great spinach artichoke pie a few weeks ago.  Mmmmm, flashbacks.  So now after a few hours have passed, and you've made and eaten cheesy veggie lusciousness, you can serve up the deliciousness that is Tomato Ice Cream with a Ricotta Cheese Swirl. 

Doesn't that look beautiful??  It's actually a sweet flavor. The only drawback is that the ricotta crystallizes a bit and while this didn't bother me because it's still yum-tastic, you can always use marscarpone or another sweet cream cheese instead.  You will probably have left-over ricotta, but don't fret I have a use for that too. 

Here is the primary recipe I used.  My alterations are as follows:

* 2 cups of 2% milk
* 2 cups of  heavy cream
* Instead of lemon juice and a shot of vodka I poured in a couple of shots of triple sec, which is an orange flavored liquor.
* I used no olive oil or balsamic vinegar.
* I used canned tomatoes instead of fresh.

For the ricotta mixture:

1 15oz container of ricotta
1/2 tsp to 1 tsp of vanilla
1/2 cup sugar

Beat until well blended.  You can add more or less sugar/vanilla based on your personal tastes.