posted by Dave ArnoldÂÂ
WhileÂtrying to make an ice cream that could be fried or brûléed, I accidentally produced a recipe that very closely resembles Salep Dondurma –the fabled Turkish stretchy ice cream.ÂÂ
Dondurma means ‘ice cream’ in Turkish. Salep dondurma is an ice cream made with flour from the ground tubers of wild Turkish orchids. Some say the word Salep is derived from the word for fox testicl*s, which makes sense if you look at the picture below.ÂÂ
Salep flour contains a hydrocolloid that produces a stretchy, chewy ice cream. The ice cream has to be worked long and hard to make it stretchy –almost the way you would to make glutenÂdevelop in a bread dough. Vendors in Turkey beat and pound the hell out of it with long rods to get the consistency right. ÂWhen the texture is right you can cutÂthe ice creamÂwith a knife and eat it with a fork.ÂÂ
Harold McGeeÂtoldÂme about Salep DondurmaÂin 2007. He wanted to cover ice creams with alternative textures in a class he teaches with us at the FCI (the next one is in April, by the way). Nils and I decided to make some for the class, but we couldn’t - turns out it is illegal to export Salep, which only grows in Turkey.ÂThe Turks love Salep so much that they are hoarding the world’s supply. It takes something like a thousand salep orchids to makeÂone kilo of flour.ÂYou can’t increase Salep production; it is wild, not farmed. SoÂMcGee suggested we use guar gum as a substitute. Guar made a very chewy ice cream, but it wasn’t like the pictures and descriptions of Salep Dondurma. After the class, McGee wrote a piece on Salep and other non-standard ice creams for the New York Times, which includes a photo of the most amazing mustache I’ve ever seen.ÂÂ
Mc Gee’s article piqued the interest of Âour friend Professor Kent Kirshenbaum of NYU and the Experimental Cuisine Collective. HeÂand aÂTurkish graduate student wanted to find a way to reproduce Salep Dondurma legally here in the US. Under the auspices of scientific research they smuggled some Salep flour out of Turkey. The ice cream they made at the FCI with that Salep, flavored with gum mastic (Chios Mastic), was my first authenticÂSalep Dondurma. Indeed, guar was not a substitute for Salep. Guar, as Kent pointed out, is a galactomannan (a type of complex polysaccharide). ÂSalep, on the other hand, is a glucomannan –like Konjac flour. We tried Konjac, but unfortunately it didn’t work. WeÂseemed to be outÂof luck.Â
Fast forward to last week. I wasn’t thinking about Salep. I had a hydrocolloid class coming up, and I wanted to demonstrate a few new recipes: how about aÂfryable, brûlée-able ice cream using a fluid gel? ÂFluid gels are made by blending a solid gel, usually agar or gellan (a type of hydrocolloidÂmade byÂCP Kelco). Once blended, the fluid gels have some properties of a liquid, and some of a solid. When they are standing still they act like gels; when force is applied they give way like a fluid. Thick fluid gels look like purees, but have the mouth-feel of a sauce. Thin fluid gels look like a liquid, but can suspend particles. I chose gellan because I wanted a thick fluid gel that wouldn’t melt. There are two types of gellan: high-acyl and low-acyl. High-acyl gellan is freeze-thaw stable – Âgreat for ice cream. Unfortunately, it melts at high temperatures, especially in milk. Bad for an ice cream that you intend to fry. Low-acyl gellan won’t melt when fried, but itÂisn’t freeze-thaw stable; I decided to add Guar to increaseÂfreeze-thaw stability (thickeners like guar can do that). Most GuarÂtastes pretty crappy,Âbut we have some nice guar from TIC Gums with a dead neutral flavor.Â
The result:ÂÂice cream with a texture almost exactly the same as Salep Dondurma! I was surprised and excited.ÂÂIt gets better:Âthis same month my Turkish intern, after many botched attempts on ourÂbehalf, made her first successful Salep smuggling run. WeÂwhipped upÂsome authentic Salep Dondurma to compareÂwith our fake batch. We were still impressed. Real Salep is slightly more stretchy, but the mouth-feel of our imposter is almost exactlyÂthe same. Plus, unlike Salep Dondurma, this stuff can be brûléed or deep-fried.ÂÂ
I called CP Kelco. They said they were not aware of any strange Salep-like behaviorÂwhen Gellan and Guar are combined. I had to figure out whether the Guar was needed for the Salep texture, or whether gellan would work alone. If gellan alone worked, was it necessary to use dairy to get the Salep texture? Many hydrocolloids have weird interactions with dairy, including gellan. If gellan alone didn’t work, would another thickener other than guar work in concert with gellan to give the Salep texture? Maybe Xanthan? CP Kelco had asked why the hell I used guar to help with freeze/thaw instead of Xanthan, which is what they would use. I had some more experiments to do.ÂÂ
We tested Heston Blumenthal’s flaming apple sorbet, a non-dairy gellan fluid gel,Âand confirmed that gellan alone in a non-dairy system does not yield a Salep feel.ÂÂI then made a milk-based ice cream with gellan and no guar. It was creamy and delicious; many people in our class loved it. It could be brûléed and fried, but it didn’t have Salep-ness either. Gellan and dairy alone were not sufficient. Next I tried ice cream with gellan and xanthan –nope. There is something special about gellan and guar together. Tests yet to run: Gellan and locust bean gum, gellan and Konjac flour, and gellan and guar in a non-dairy system.
As luck would have it, one of the students in our Hydrocolloids class was Turkish. She gave us a two-thumbs up for authentic Salep texture!ÂÂ
Here is the recipe for our fake Salep. This version is flavored with tea.ÂÂ
Fake Fryable, Brûlée-able Salep Darjeeling DondurmaÂÂ
24 grams Singell Darjeeling tea leaves (A second flush Darjeeling from Harney and SonsÂwith a fruity, muscatel note)ÂÂ
500 grams cold milkÂÂ
500 grams cold creamÂÂ
5 grams KelcoGel ÂF Low Acyl Gellan GumÂÂ
3 g saltÂÂ
5 grams TIC Flavor Free Guar (TIC is a company; they make a neutral tasting guar. Most guar is “beany†tasting –not delicious borlatti bean tasting either,Âjust guar bean tasting.)ÂÂ
150 grams granulated sugarÂÂ
2 scraped vanilla beansÂÂ
3 egg yolks (beaten)ÂÂ
2 grams Calcium Lactate GluconateÂÂ
Combine the milk, cream, and tea leaves. Infuse the mixture in a vacuum bag at full vacuum plus 30 seconds. Allow to steep till flavor is developed (about 1 hour). Strain tea from milk/cream mixture and add gellan, salt, and guar. Whisk vigorously to combine (this step disperses the gellan and begins to hydrate the guar). Bring the mixture to a boil while stirring (to hydrate the gellan). Simmer for 1 minute (ensures the gellan is hydrated). Remove from heat. Add sugar and vanilla and stir (drops the temperature a bit). When mixture drops to 83 or 82C add the egg yolks and stir (if you go higherÂyou might curdle the eggs. The yolks increase the creaminess of the recipe). When the temperature drops to 70C mix in the calcium and stir (I read a reference that calcium added to milk/gellan systems might cause problems if added above this temperature. Calcium added below this temperature will also cause problems). Put mixture in an ice bath to set. When mixture is completely set, blend in a high-speed mixer till creamy. Freeze with liquid nitrogen in a Kitchen-Aid mixer fixed with a paddle attachment. Beat until the ice cream gets stringy and stretchy.ÂÂ
To make creamy ice cream without the Salep feel omit the guar gum and increase the gellan to 7 grams.
