Mango-Orange Sorbet with a whiff of laurel
Currently I find myself stuck in a strong mango phase. In plain language: I´m addicted to these supersweet fresh fruits and therefore I try to compose all kind of dishes around them.
Last night I cooked for a very dear friend of mine. We
had one of those satiny summer nights, when you loose the feeling for time while dining, and talking, and laughing, and drinking light white wine...
Furthermore, last night was a perfect night for an icy sorbet as desert and finish of our dinner. Though I like mangos very much, this fruit sometimes seems to be not more than sickly-sweet. To avoid an only-sweet-sorbet-experience, the mango needs to be accompanied by fresh tastes or strong spices like curry or chili.
For our satiny summer night finish I decided to add lemon, orange and something completely unusual: a very small, fresh laurel leave from my windowsill, to insert a surprising whiff of spice into the sorbet.
The preparation of the fruits
For the sorbet one mango has to be peeled, cut in slices and then pureed afterwards. From the orange I only rubbed off the shell, form the lemon I used not more than the juice.
Sorbet cooking
The base of this sorbet was half a liter of water, a very small leave of fresh laurel and 50 grams of brown sugar, together boiled up until the sugar dissolved. Then I took the pot off the cooker, removed the laurel and let the liquid cool down a bit. Later on the pureed mango, the lemon juice and the orange shell were added into the sugared liquid. I stirred one leave of soaked gelantine into the puree at the end. Gelatine in general makes the texture of sorbets a little more smooth.
After the sorbet cooled down in the fridge I filled it into my little ice machine and turned this horrible kitchen utensil on. I quickly left the kitchen for a coffee outside: this machine unfortunately has a sound like a tractor, that is why sorbet @ mobile-minds really has become a highly rare desert:-).
Serving the sorbet
Before the sorbet was served I took it out of the fridge and let the surface melt a bit so that I could easily abrade little portions. Wonderful decorations with the mango-orange-sorbet are candied violets and a few spots of vanilla yoghurt.
Our evening ended far after midnight – having still a mix out of white wine and softly melting sorbet on our tongues.
dolce vita ahoi • mobile minds • monika ebert
