Sunday, 22 February 2009

Australian Finger Lime Ice Cream

In my previous post I asked what was it?

Its actually an Australian native, a Finger Lime.
It has an interesting characteristic, which is the juice vesicles are fairly tough, meaning that they retain their shape without bursting. Obviously if you apply enough pressure, they will burst & the juice will run out. But why attempt to juice one of these fairly small limes? They are about the size of your finger, so juicing them in the usual fashion would be a challenge.
I prefer to use them where you'd like the tang of lime but not the wet soppiness of the juice. I've previously served a traditional Russian potato pancake topped with sour cream, caviar and lime. The shape of these lime vesicles makes them look like little beads of caviar and biting into them releases an explosion of lime flavour.

There are a few different varieties available (Australian Finger Lime company has a few listed), but I have only ever seen the green variety for sale.

Today I thought I'd try something a bit different, using the lime in an ice cream. My reasoning being that the lime vesicles would hold their shape & juice within the ice cream. I was hoping to achieve a creamy smoothness of the ice cream & then bursts of the sour-tangy lime.
So I made a fairly standard vanilla creme anglaise (recipe here)and churned it in the ice cream machine.
I added the lime vesicles to the mixture just before pouring into the container.
End result? Vanilla & Lime Ice Cream.

8 comments:

Cindy said...

Terrific! Do the vesicles freeze hard? Retain their flavour?

Mikey said...

Hi Cindy, well they did freeze hard in this one, but it was a small amount that I made. I want to make a larger portion & see how it differs. Syill it did have the effect of melting & bursting in your mouth. Quite nice actually :)

Murasaki Shikibu said...

This is really an interesting ingredient. Although I'm not a vegan myself (or even a vegetarian for that matter) I'm always on the look out for ingredients that look like 'caviar' because they just look great on canapes. I know of one other option (vegetable caviar) that vegans can eat and I guess this would be the other option. If it tastes like lime I guess it should taste fine with crème fraîche & smoked salmon. :)))

Anonymous said...

I was sure you had a breakfast sausage there on a white plate and, I'm thinking, Finger Lime Ice Cream?? What? Never heard of such a fruit, but hey, I'm game. We have our annual Nurseryman's Show Fri. and I'll add it to my shopping possibilities list.

Anonymous said...

Mike - where can you buy these in the United States?

Mikey said...

I'm not sure where you'd get these in the USA, maybe specialty grocers or importers & then only during the Australian growing season.

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Lauralie said...

There is a grower in California. Buck brand citrus. They grow all kinds of specialty organic citrus. Our local grocery store on Vancouver Island (B.C. Canada)carries a bunch of their stuff. It's always really good!