Monday, May 26, 2008

Lychee Sorbet
A foodie post for Memorial Day. Why not? Something light and cool and refreshing for the onset of hot weather. The following recipe is my second assay of the project after the first was just not a success. I used Trader Joe's canned lychees (hmm, not finding an image of the can online which means I have to drag out the camera again...). One can drained, one can with syrup into the blender. juice of one lemon, 1/2 cup of sugar and 1/2 cup of triple sec. Blitz until well pureed. Pour into the ice cream maker, process and freeze. Rather nice actually.
After having made my own I did my Google search on "lychee sorbet" to find something somewhat interesting. The few recipes at which I looked used exactly the amount of canned lychee that seemed reasonable to me: one drained, one undrained. No recipe used triple sec but I am a believer in having some alcohol in home-made sorbets for texture. Alcohol helps keep the ice crystals small and keep the sorbet soft.
I tried lime juice in the first batch and it is not recommended. Too harsh. The juice of a lemon is just right. Though I suppose you could up that to one and a half and still be to the good.
Other flavors that I think would work well with this one: ginger (ya think?) and mint. I may cook up a mint simple syrup if I make another batch and see what that does for the crowd. But all that experimentation being as it may, lychee sorbet is rather good. As long as you like the taste of lychee.

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