Double Nutella Kulfi (basically, Indian-style ice cream)

From this website, sent to me by my friend Aimee. The pictures are helpful.

serves 8, in conical kulfi moulds 9 cm high

Ingredients

• 300 ml of fresh cream to whip
• 1/2 cup of sugar
• 275 ml of evaporated milk (I used full fat, but if you try this with low fat, let me know how it goes)
• 250 gms Nutella (or or taste) plus 4 tbsp melted Nutella in 1 tbsp of hot milk to drizzle

Directions

1. Whip cream and sugar together to stick peaks
2. Stir in Nutella and evaporated milk. You'll lose your peaks and it'll look foamy.
3. Pour into Indian Kulfi molds, yogurt containers, ramekins, or anything else. If you don't use the kulfi molds, put plastic wrap over the containers and press against the cream so you don't get ice crystals.
4. Freeze overnight
5. Before serving, top with 4 Tbsp melted Nutella mixed with hot milk. Toasted hazelnuts are also good.

Results
I made this for my birthday yesterday. I actually halved the recipe (which was difficult considering I was also doing ml to oz conversions--I gave up on trying to figure out how much Nutella to put it), which I decided is more like frozen mousse than ice cream, although it's close enough to ice cream that one wonders why anyone would ever need ice cream. It turned out VERY rich, Chris and I together couldn't finish half a serving. I wonder if a lighter evaporated milk would help, but then I also wonder what that would do to the consistency of the finished product. Let me know if you try it. In the future, I think I'm not going to worry as much as I did about getting the Nutella completely mixed in. It's impossible to do, for one thing. For another, the parts that didn't get mixed in ended up being really delightful crunchy bits in the ice cream. All in all, really easy, really good, and really rich, and no special equipment required.

Cold Corn Soup

From the Washington Post:

This is a distilled flavor of high summer. The coconut milk accentuates the sweetness of the corn.
Serve with salad and a glass of chardonnay. The soup tastes better with a day's refrigeration.

4 servings
Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons sweet butter
• 3 or 4 medium shallots, cut into thin slices
• Pinch curry powder
• Kernels from about 8 ears white corn (4 cups)
• 4 cups low-sodium chicken broth
• 4 whole black peppercorns
• 6 whole coriander seeds
• 3 stems parsley
• 1 cup unsweetened coconut milk, preferably low-fat (may substitute whole milk)
• Salt

Directions:

1. Melt the butter in an uncovered Dutch oven over medium heat. Add the shallots and cook for 3 to 4 minutes, stirring occasionally, until they are softened but but not browned. Add the curry powder and cook for 1 minute, stirring to coat evenly.
2. Add the corn and chicken broth, stirring to combine.
3. Tie the peppercorns, coriander and parsley in a small cheesecloth bundle, then add to the soup. Reduce the heat to low and cook for about 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove from the heat.
4. Stir in the coconut milk. Cover, and let the soup rest for 20 minutes.
5. Discard the cheesecloth bundle.
6. Reserve 1 cup of the soup. Puree the remaining soup in a blender (working in batches) or with an immersion (stick) blender until smooth.
7. Set a strainer over a bowl; strain the pureed soup, gently pressing on any solids to extract as much liquid as possible. Add the reserved 1 cup of unpureed soup to the bowl (for texture); mix well. Season with salt to taste, keeping in mind the soup will be chilled.
8. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate until well chilled before serving.

RESULTS:
This wasn't all that much different from the other cold corn soup that I posted up here a while ago and am too lazy to link to now, but I did really like the combination of coconut, coriander, and ground ginger (which I used because I didn't remember that I had curry powder until just typing this sentence now...). I thought the whole cheesecloth thing was unnecessarily fussy, so I just tossed the spices in there and figured, if I get a whole peppercorn, so be it.