Balsamic Dewberry Ice Cream

Here is an easy recipe that highlights the “gatherer” part of hunter-gatherer.  I found a few patches of dewberries growing wild. Truth be told they were growing on an old fence that I built years ago on a piece of family property.  Between the fence and the grown up places around my old pole barn, I was able to secure the better part of a quart ziplock bag of these tart little gems.

Dewberries are basically a variant of wild blackberry plants that grow as a sort of weed or an edge plant here in Arkansas and throughout the southeast.  They can grow quite prolifically and have a reputation as cantankerous because of their endless supply of mean spirited thorns. The thorns range from hairlike, with the texture of fiberglass to something that resembles the claw of a snapping turtle.  For the most part, any ripe berries that are more than an arm's length into a patch are safe from me. Really though, they are easy to find and it's usually a simple matter of gingerly picking a good number of them quickly. The deep purple ones that are still firm get picked first, but I also make sure to get a few that are just shy of ripe for some of their balancing tang.  

Now, with the scratches and chigger bites beginning to subside, the fruits of your labor can be enjoyed. Myself, my wife and my oldest all enjoyed some after a simple rinse in cold water. My daughter had to be stopped from gorging herself.  I had other plans for the lot. To move from the wholesome activity of wild berry picking, into the realm of Norman Rockwell and Mr. Rogers, I decided to take these wild berries, picked by hand on the land that my wife grew from a child to an adult on and transform it into one of the most joyful substances on earth.  Ice cream.

This is a classic style egg based ice cream. The base recipe can be altered any number of ways to accommodate your flavoring of choice. Small adjustments may need to be made, but figuring some of that out through trial and error is fun.  You can change or omit the acid components and the dairy you use. Whole milk vs. half and half vs. heavy cream can be adjusted depending on what you have on hand and what you prefer.  I opted for a mix of whole milk and heavy whipping cream. The result is an incredibly rich ice cream that balances the assertiveness of acid with the finalizing addition of balsamic vinegar. 

If you’ve never made ice cream it sounds way more complicated than it is.  It’s not much more work than is required of making french toast and while an ice cream maker will result in a smoother ice cream, as long as you've got a freezer you can produce something endlessly better than anything out of a grocery store.

Ingredients

1lb of dewberries (approx)

1 cup of sugar

1.5 cups heavy whipping cream

1.5 cups whole milk

6 egg yolks

Juice and zest of 1 lime

Vanilla extract

⅓ to ½ cup balsamic vinegar

1 tbl vodka (optional)

1.  After a thorough rinsing and picking through for bugs and stems, mash the berries up and put them in a pot.  Include a few spoonfuls of sugar as well as the zest and juice of your lime. Cook this on medium heat until the resulting liquid has reduced to a syrupy consistency.  Stir this often. The compote then needs to be run through a strainer to remove the seeds and skins. I reserved a spoonful of the “pulp” and mixed it back into my syrup for a little more backbone, but that’s up to you.  

   *Make sure to strain your syrup into a large bowl big enough to hold all your ingredients comfortably.

2. Separate the egg yolks.  Beat them with a whisk until they are smooth and consistent.

3. To make the custard base, combine the milk and sugar over low/med heat with a whisk.  Stir regularly and make sure the milk doesn't start to boil. 

4. Slowly drizzle a spoonful of the warm milk and sugar mixture into the egg yolks while you whisk vigorously.  This is called tempering. We are slowly raising the temperature of the yolks without cooking the egg. Once you've incorporated the first spoonful, do it again.

5. Now, slowly transfer the yolks into the warm milk, while whisking briskly.  Keep stirring for a few minutes while you continue to heat the mixture. Once it thickens and starts to look like thin pudding you can kill the heat.

6. Add a few drops of vanilla extract to your custard.  You can also add a tablespoon or two of vodka at this point.  The alcohol can aid in achieving a creamier texture by inhibiting the production of ice crystals during freezing.  I killed two birds with one stone by using a homemade version of vanilla extract that is the result of covering vanilla beans with PGA.  Voila, instant, high quality vanilla extract. 

7. Pour the heavy whipping cream into the large bowl containing your berry syrup.  Mix the two together, then stir continuously while slowly pouring in the warm custard base. Keep stirring.  Get it all mixed up.

8. Now, slowly drizzle in the best quality balsamic vinegar you can get ahold of.  Start with a ⅓ cup then taste it. Add up to a total of a 1/2 cup or so. You’ll end up with something that is super rich with a little tang at the end.  Kind of like if it were made with a buttermilk base.

9. You can freeze this mixture after transfer to an appropriate container and you’ll have ice cream.  The texture will greatly benefit from being finished in an ice cream maker though. Just follow the instructions on the model you have access to.  I ran mine for about 45 minutes then froze the results for about 3 hours. I ended up with a wonderfully rich, creamy, and smooth ice cream that everyone enjoyed.  Legit boutique ice cream shop stuff.

Wild Sumac-ade

Yes, there is a difference between edible sumac and the poisonous varieties that produce the rash inducing urisol oil.  The edible variety is tasty, easy to gather, full of vitamin C and purportedly many other health benefits. The poisonous variety is no bueno. Visually, the differences are fairly obvious. 

We are going after is what is commonly known as the staghorn sumac. The deep red, conical shaped, clustered berries of the staghorn sumac are covered in a gentle “fuzz” that is reminiscent of a deer in velvet, thus the name.  When the berries turn red in the summer, it is one of the most easily recognizable edible plants in my area. Poison sumac has small clusters of white berries and is quite apparently a different variety and easy to avoid. To be frank, I don’t know that I have ever even seen poison sumac in the wild.  Admittedly, almost all of my woods experience is in Missouri and Arkansas, places without a real distribution of the plant. If you live in an area where poison sumac is more common, use the resources at your disposal to make sure you can identify the different varieties. Don’t be intimidated though, a quick google search should reveal that it would be difficult to confuse the two.

Wild, edible sumac is a sun loving plant that grows on a rhizome structure.  That means that it grows in big clusters, spreading through an underground network of shallow roots. This makes it easy to collect a good amount, quickly.  The berries have a pleasant, very tart, and slightly fruity flavor. I’d describe it as reminiscent of a Sweet-Tart candy, without the sweet part. Native North Americans used this plant as a food and medicine for millennia and it remains a popular spice agent in middle-eastern cooking today.  On a recent family trip to Northwest Arkansas, I noticed that the interstate medians and side ditches boasted huge populations of staghorn sumac, much of which was turning the bright, deep red color you want on the berries if they are to be used for cooking. On the return trip I pulled over and grabbed a few handfuls so my family could enjoy the summer treat known as “sumac-ade.”

Sumac-ade is just what it sounds like, a lemonade type drink that derives its tartness and flavor from sumac berries as opposed to lemons.  I’m hesitant to even call this a recipe, because it’s so simple and has so few ingredients. I’m more inclined to say that this is really more me explaining a process.  The only ingredients involved in this process are wild sumac berries, sugar and water. 

Ingredients

Staghorn sumac berries

Cold water

Sugar (to taste)

1.  After gathering the sumac berries, give them a very quick rinse in cold water just to make sure you are removing any surface dirt or bugs.  Don’t rinse too thoroughly or you will remove the tart, sticky coating we want for our drink.

2.  Fill a gallon container, with a tight fitting lid, about halfway with your berries.  The berries do not need to be removed from the stems, but you might want to break the clusters off from the main stem for ease of use.

3.  Fill the rest of the container with COLD water.  Do not use hot water.  Hot water will leach the tannins out of the plant and you’ll end up with something that taste a lot more like medicine than lemonade.  Agitate your jar a few times over the coarse of the next 30 minutes or so by vigorously shaking the jar. You should start to see a light pink color develop.

4.  After 30 minutes, use a potato masher to smash up your berries.  They don't need to be made into a pulp, we are just trying to expose more of the berries to the water.  Now, stick the jar in your fridge and leave it for half a day. Shake your jar a few more times, every now and then, while steeping.

5.  Now, just strain the liquid through a fine mesh strainer or some cheesecloth.  Add sugar to taste, as you would if making lemonade or kool-aid. I used 1.5 cups of sugar pre-dissolved in a little hot water, then added my strained liquid.  The result is a sweet, tart, and very slightly “green” tasting drink that’s perfect for sipping on a front porch during the summer. Sumac-ade is a crowd pleaser, for both kids and adults. This makes a fantastic, sophisticated mixer for summer-time cocktails as well, just add booze.