As you may or may not know, I’ve been “blogging the alphabet” this month. The inspiration for this little adventure was the September 2009 issue of Gourmet magazine. When I took on this blogging challenge, I didn’t know that this issue would be one of Gourmet’s last…
As much as I’ve enjoyed perusing Gourmet’s take on seasonal recipes from A-Z, I’ve also had fun coming up with my own. That is until I got to the letter “U”. “U” left me in a lurch, so I turned to my Gourmet to see how they handled it: Uva (Grape) Sorbet made with Concord grapes.
Here in New York’s Hudson Valley, we’ve had some very chilly weather lately. Here’s my front yard two days ago. See the frost on the ground? Too cold for sorbet in my opinion…
But since it’s warmed up considerably since then, I happily made sorbet.
Gourmet’s version of grape sorbet is pretty simple, and I am sharing it with you below. I didn’t use this recipe, though, for two reasons.
1. I didn’t have enough grapes
2. I wanted to attempt a sorbet without adding much sugar
So, here is Gourmet’s recipe for grape sorbet:
Sorbetto di Uva (Concord Grape Sorbet)
from the September 2009 issue of Gourmet magazine
Ingredients:
2 pounds Concord grapes (about 2 quarts), stemmed, divided
3/4 cup superfine granulated sugar
Directions:
Purée half of grapes in a blender until smooth, then force through a fine-mesh sieve into a bowl, discarding solids. Repeat with remaining grapes to yield 3 cups purée. Whisk in sugar until dissolved. Chill until very cold, 3 to 6 hours.
Freeze in ice cream maker, then transfer to an airtight container and put in freezer to firm up, at least 2 hours.
And here is mine:
Concord Grape Sorbet with Pomegranate Juice and Figs
Ingredients:
3 cups local Concord grapes, stemmed
2 cups pomegranate juice (I used POM Wonderful brand) plus 3 Tb. agave syrup, boiled in a small pot on the stove until reduced by 1/2, and then cooled
1 cup drained figs from figs in rum syrup
Directions:
Purée grapes in a blender until smooth, then force through a fine-mesh sieve into a bowl; discard the solids (or, even better, compost them).
This will yield approximately 2 cups purée. Add the cooled reduced pomegranate juice and the figs and blend again. At this point you will have about 3 cups of purée (and it’s fine if it’s not completely smooth). Transfer to the in refrigerator to chill for a few hours, before freezing in your ice cream maker.
Right out of the ice cream maker, this sorbet will be fairly soft; it will harden up a bit after storing in the freezer for a few hours or overnight though.
It’s super sweet and delicious, perfect for a warm fall day!
This is my entry for Weekend Herb Blogging, an event managed by Haalo from Cook Almost Anything. This week’s host is Yasmeen from Health Nut!
