Gastroanthropology

Brown Bread Ice Cream

We've been a bit disappointed with the food scene in London. It's true you can get just about anything you want, but the quality and price of food in the grocery stores and restaurants often falls far from our least expectations. That being said we have found a few gems in the Big Old Smoke. One such gem, just a few blocks away from our apartment flat is Andrew Edmunds*. It's a tiny candle-lit place with tables squashed together and squeezed in corners. The food, however, is pretty darn good and on one recent visit I tried the Brown Bread Ice Cream. I had never had it and the server told me it was from Victorian times where old toasted bread was stirred into vanilla ice cream. I had to give it a go - it was delicious! I've never seen it on any other menu and haven't seen it in any ice cream shops in England so I wanted to try making it at home.

First step, make some brown bread. I wanted something moist and easy to crumble so I made my Irish Soda Bread. This is the simplest bread to make (taking mere minutes to stir together) and absolutely heaven to eat warm from the oven. Would be a perfect too for a certain holiday that falls tomorrow. If you don't have the time, energy, tools to make ice cream for the Brown Bread Ice cream you must still do the following: (1) make this bread and eat the better part of it minutes out of the oven, standing at the kitchen counter with a huge slab of softened butter; (2) save a few bits of bread to make the brown bread crumbs (recipe below); (3) stir into your favorite store-bought vanilla ice cream (softened); (4) freeze it for a bit and enjoy your Brown Bread Ice Cream.

If you do have the time, energy, and tools to make ice cream at home use this ice cream base recipe - it's basically a vanilla ice cream base, but some of the regular sugar is replaced with dark brown sugar.

BROWN BREAD ICE CREAM BASE

• 2 cup heavy cream
• 1 cup whole milk
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup packed dark brown sugar
• 1/2 vanilla bean
• pinch salt
• 6 egg yolks
• 1x Brown Bread Crumbs (recipe follows)

METHOD

Heat cream, milk, sugars, vanilla bean (scraped and leave pod in pot) and salt. Heat the mixture to a scald. Meanwhile whisk egg yolks. Temper the eggs with the hot mixture. Put everything back on a low heat to thicken the mixture so it coats the back of a spoon. Strain. Chill mixture. Spin the ice cream following your ice cream machine's instructions. Just as it is done spinning, add most of the brown bread crumbs, reserving some for garnish. Keep in freezer till ready to serve.

BROWN BREAD CRUMBS

• 3 oz (2-3 slices) brown bread
• 1/4 cup packed dark brown sugar
• 1 1/2 oz unsalted butter

METHOD

Preheat oven to 350ºF/175ºC. Crumble brown bread between your fingers - some should be like sand, other like small pebbles. Because my bread is so moist using your hands will be possible if you use my Irish Soda Bread recipe. If you use another brown or whole wheat bread you may need to use a food processor. Melt butter and brown sugar on low heat till sugar is melted and the mixture barely comes to a bubble. Put brown bread crumbs in a heat safe bowl and pour the brown sugar+butter mixture over top. Stir in till well mixed. Place on a sheet pan lined with parchment (grease with a small bit flavorless oil) or use a silpat. Bake for about 15-20 minutes till edges crisp up. It will bake into one piece, but let it cool for a few minutes after it comes out of the oven and then crumble, leaving some bits larger than others. Do not use in the ice cream base until it is completely cooled. Reserve some crumbs for garnish.

These brown bread crumbs are pretty delicious and I can see them making an appearance as a crumble topping for lots of sweets, especially as the streusel for a coffee cake or jam tart.

To celebrate St. Patrick's Day I'm joining Daily Spud's St. Paddy's Day Food Parade with this post!

*Andrew Edmunds does not have a website. The restaurant is located at 46 Lexington Street in Soho, Central London. Reservations taken only a week in advance at +44 (0) 207 437 5708.

Dingle Peninsula, Co. Kerry, Ireland

Thanksgiving is maybe one of the most difficult days to spend in a foreign country. Doing an entire Thanksgiving Dinner in two hours after work is a challenge. Going to work the day after the feast is no picnic either. Most American expats in London push the holiday to the Saturday, but we escaped London altogether and went to the Dingle Peninsula in Ireland.

It was actually a perfect trip for a Thanksgiving weekend away from the States. The weather was on our side, cold but sunny during the day, rainy at night when we were holed up in our B&B with our books. The people of Dingle were so genuinely friendly, you couldn't help but feel part of what was around. 

The trip was also a bit of a history lesson for me. In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue, but from Europe he wasn't the first to head west, as in 542 AD Saint Brendan of Ireland had already achieved the quest. Tradition and lore say that St. Brendan of Kerry, along with fourteen other monks, constructed a boat of wood tied together with leather strips. The start of the seven year journey was from this inlet (pictured below), now called Brandon Creek. His mission was to bring the Gospel to the West.

Legend says he traveled from here to the Isle of Sheep (The Hebrides), to the Paradise of Birds (The Faroes), to the Isle of Smiths (Iceland), to the Land of Crystal Pillars (Greenland), and through the Region of Fog (Newfoundland), to the Promised Land (America).

The Dingle Peninsula also had some interesting architecture. We saw many beehive huts made of stone and the Gallarus Oratory, a church built sometime between the 6th and 9th centuries. The huts and Oratory are built with stones, use no mortar, and slant slightly down to let rainwater run off.

It got dark pretty early, so what did we do when it got too dark for trolling around the Irish countryside? Head to the pubs for some Irish music, stout - Guinness and Murphy's, and Irish whiskey.

The Irish love their whisky - our host was shocked that I didn't want Jameson stirred into my breakfast porridge. Whisky before coffee? In Ireland, yes! I also discovered white pudding. White pudding is a sausage made of oats, suet, pork, onion, herbs, and spices. It's sliced and fried up on either side for Irish Breakfast. Irish Breakfasts are similar to English Breakfasts, but with the addition of this white pudding. Much more appealing to me than the black blood pudding.

 

Irish Soda Bread

I grew up in California where a bad weather day is a few clouds hiding the sun for more than a few minutes. So imagine my amazement when I felt the absolute strongest wind of my life in Ireland. The gale force winds (I think they must have been stronger than gale force) smashed the waves against the Cliffs of Moher spewing ocean spray everywhere. It wasn't hard to imagine our little blue rental car being whipped into the winds and being dumped into the Atlantic.

We ventured all over the lower Shannon making sure to take the roads less traveled. Here we had to pull over and wait for a little while when the locals were moving pasture.

We finally made it to this unmarked stone structure, right at the edge of a cliff. It had obviously been abandoned for some time and something unexplainably mystical about it.

The only food we had that stuck out in my mind after the trip was a small loaf of Irish soda bread Nate procured one morning on a much needed coffee run. It had just arrived to the store from the baker and steamed a little when we pulled it apart. It was so simple and misshapen, but hit the spot.

It's not the most prettiest bread, but it does the trick. The major difference between Irish soda bread and most other breads is that it uses no yeast. The key ingredient to this quick bread is, of course, baking soda. Yogurt or soured milk (buttermilk), is used because the lactic acid in the yogurt or milk reacts with the baking soda to make carbon dioxide, leavening the bread. In my recipe baking powder is included because where I use all-purpose flour the folks on this side of the pond tend to use self-raising flour.

This recipe makes a fairly small loaf because Irish soda bread tastes the best straight from the oven and drys out pretty quickly so it needs to be eaten no later than the day after it was baked. It's delicious warm from the oven and slathered with butter and jam. Nate had some today with a little mustard and Irish cheddar. This bread would also be great torn into chunks to dip in soup. The bread takes less than 5 minutes to put together (excluding baking time).

IRISH SODA BREAD

• 1 c all-purpose flour
• 1 c whole wheat flour
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 c plain, full-fat yogurt

METHOD

Preheat oven to 325°Fahrenheit/ 180°C. Whisk together drys. Add yogurt and stir in with a wooden spoon. I usually get my hands in it for a few seconds, just to make sure everything is incorporated, but there is no need to work the dough at all. Put dough in a sprayed loaf pan or you can leave it free form in a round shape and bake on a greased baking sheet. Bake for about 35-40 minutes (test with a skewer). If you double the recipe it will need to cook for an approximately 20 more minutes.