R E C I P E S

Melon Ice

By Edward Behr

The most refreshing ice, and the easiest to eat, is slushy firm. I like a texture that is not just slightly loose but also grainy — icy — coupled with not too much sweetness, the kind of ice often called a granita. Less sugar and icier texture happen to go together. Softer texture as well as finer crystals occur when more things interrupt the water crystals, especially sugar but also fruit pulp, sometimes alcohol (and in ice cream, butterfat, of course, and sometimes egg yolk). Besides, efficient churning breaks up the crystals and can introduce more or less air. But in any frozen dessert it’s mostly sugar that prevents the water from turning into a solid block; too much sugar prevents freezing altogether. (An ice, having no fat to keep it soft, typically contains far more sugar than ice cream does.) Yet enough sugar to create a soft texture makes the taste too sweet. For a slight sweetness and a soft texture, you either have to serve the ice as soon it hardens to that in-between state or hold it in the freezer until roughly an hour before you’re ready, then take it out, allow it to somewhat soften, and mix it to break up the crystals. If you don’t have a machine, electric or hand-cranked, then a large glass or metal bowl and the freezer compartment of your refrigerator will do, and in fact they produce the coarse texture I like. Try to make ices no more than a few hours in advance; they taste best eaten right away.

Choose a particularly aromatic ripe melon, not a watermelon but one of the Cucumis melo, which includes varieties of muskmelon, cantaloupe, and honeydew. Some sugar is called for, because cold suppresses sweetness, and a little added acidity is needed to give dimension. A clean, fresh-tasting white wine blends better with melon than lemon juice does. Almost any fruit is most aromatic and sweetest at the blossom end, and the flesh at the center of a melon is riper than that near the rind. In making melon ice, any precise recipe is defied by all the variables, including the fruit’s sweetness and strength of flavor, both of which are affected by, for instance, how much water the vine may have pumped into the fruit after a recent rain.

 

¼ cup (50 gr) sugar

1 5/8 cups (400 ml) water

a fully ripe melon weighing at least 3½ pounds (1.5 kg)

½ cup (125 ml) or more fresh, light, cold white or rosé wine

  

Boil the sugar and water together, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Set this syrup aside to cool, and then chill it completely in the refrigerator.

Cut the melon in half, discard the seeds, and with the sharp edge of a spoon scrape out thin pieces, concentrating on the center and blossom end, until you have 2 compressed cups (a 500-ml measure) of flesh. Purée the flesh in a blender or food processor. Combine the purée with the chilled sugar syrup and wine, and chill them deeply in the refrigerator, at least 1 hour, followed by 5 to 10 minutes in the freezer.

Churn the mixture in a machine or put it in a shallow bowl in the freezer, breaking up the ice crystals thoroughly every 20 minutes with a fork, until the liquid has turned into a firm slush of fine crystals. If you don’t serve the ice immediately, put it in the freezer, where it will continue to harden, and then before serving partly thaw it, breaking it up and mixing it to a firm slush. Serve in chilled bowls. Makes about 1 quart (1 liter).

From The Art of Eating Cookbook