Minty Green Apple Granita

"snow gives the most delicate flavor to creams, but ice is the most powerful congealer and lasts longer."

-Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), third President of the United States.

At summer's height, few people crave heavy desserts, but dinner guests always enjoy something fresh and seasonal. Simple granitas, frozen desserts with an appealing icy texture and crunch, fill the bill.

The Chinese had discovered how to conserve naturally formed winter ice for summer use by building icehouses, which were kept cool by evaporation. The harvesting and storage of ice are recorded in a poem of circa 1100 B.C. in the Shih Ching, the famous collection of Food Canons.

However the granita—the precursor to ice-cream was introduced to the world by Italy. When Marco Polo returned to Venice, from China he brought with him ‘ice’; which the able Italian chefs later made into frozen desserts like granita.

Granita is a frozen dessert made with water and a syrup base, much like sorbet. It is popular in Italy, and closely associated with Sicily in particular. In Italy, granita may be served at breakfast, with Italian brioche, or at any other time of the day.

Like many other frozen desserts, granita is probably related to sherbet, a Middle Eastern drink made with syrup, water, and ice. According to legends, granita was invented accidentally by a sherbet seller who left her wares on ice too long, causing the sherbet to turn into a block of highly granular ice.

It should not, however, be confused with shaved ice. Shaved ice is made by drizzling syrup or a flavoring over a dish of ice which has been shaved from a block. When making granita, the flavoring is mixed into the ice, and even when it is shaved, granita has a crackling crystalline structure which is quite distinctive in the mouth.

I have been making this simple ‘drink’ dessert for a long time now using seasonal fruits. I have tried several versions with coffee, lemon, blood oranges etc. Imagination is your limit to the different flavours you can incorporate in your granita.




Here is one of my all time favourite— Green Apple Granita. Generally this granita contains a dark,apple flavoured brandy like Calvados. However, I made it without any alcohol. Just added a dash of flavoured soda instead, while serving.


Minty Green Apple Granita
Ingredients:
½ cup water
1 cup sugar
¾ cup unsweetened apple juice
2 tart green apples
2 tsp lemon juice
a dash of flavoured soda (optional)
a sprig of mint,bruised

Method:
Peel, seed and slice apples. Place in a heavy saucepan with the apple juice, water and sugar. (I left some apple skin on, just for added crunch.)
Cover and cook over moderate heat until very tender (about 15minutes).
Process the apple mixture in a food processor and stir in lemon juice. Cool.
Add the bruised mint leaves.
Pour mixture into 13 x 9 in. baking pan and place in freezer.
Every twenty minutes, take the pan out and scrape the frozen mixture with a fork until all the frozen pieces are broken into small shavings and mixed well with the remaining liquid. Continue to freeze. Scrape every twenty minutes until no more liquid is in the granita.
Serve it in chilled glasses with a straw and a dash of lemon soda.
Drink your dessert!! :p

Cheeky Chikoo Smoothie..for the Maman and Gourmand Smoothie/Shake Recipe Contest!

An excerpt from our life; the morning of April 28th 2009.

DH: “Hun I don’t want to have anything for breakfast…not feeling like it.”

Me: “ What…not again…I am not letting you go till you have breakfast…it’s the most important meal of the day.”
DH: “In that case just give me liquid breakfast…one of your fruit smoothies/milk shakes…you have chickoos in the fridge..right?!”

Well that is how the Sapodilla fruit smoothie came about. In my quest to provide wholesome nutrition (without tipping the balance) to ourselves,at breakfast. Here is my Cheeky Chikoo smoothie (pardon the pun). ;p




I am a fruit-person (from the dessert-first type category). If you are a regular reader ….you would know the concoctions I have made using fruits.
Try my Austrian Walnut-Strawberry Torte, or spoon out my Bluberry-Papaya Syllabub, or my prize winning Persimmon & Walnut Croquants Trifle, or the Dragon fruit brownie in true fusion style, the Berry Jam, or the more recent Alphonso milk shake...to name a few. I love fruits and I love having them plain as well as in innovative forms.

I added a little ground almonds to this smoothie to make it healthier and it imparts a beautiful nutty flavour to the drink. Since the chikoos were extremely sweet I did away with the sugar too. It’s a simple, no-hassle smoothie prepared in a jiffy.
(Ideal for working couples with/without kids, especially if their significant half/child doesn’t like the idea of having to ‘eat’ breakfasts.)

The fruit of the Sapodilla tree is called Chikoo /Sapota in India.
The use of ripe chikoo in our diet gives agility and freshness.
It activates the performances of intestines. It eliminates the excessive bile in the body.
Infact the Ayurveda has held this humble fruit in high opinion…just do a google search and you will know what I mean.
It is one of the few fruits that have edible skin. I just wash them and slice the ripe brown fruit. However I skip the skin when preparing my smoothie/shake.

Not many of us know that the latex extracted from the chikoo stem forms the base material for the chewing gum.

Cheeky-Chikoo Smoothie

Ingredients-
2-3 ripe medium sized frozen chikoos/Sapodilla fruit, washed,peeled & de-seeded
1 ½ glasses skimmed milk, chilled
1-2 tbsp sugar (optional)
3 tbsp ground blanched almonds (which I keep ready in the fridge at all times)


Method-
In a blender puree the chikoo fruit with the ground almonds. Now add the milk with sugar, if using.
Blend on high and serve chilled.
This smoothie is pretty filling and a glassful only keeps you satiated till lunch.

Update: I have edited this post as a few friends wanted to vote for my drink for the contest. However thats not happening as I am not listed. Just a tiny glitch in the contest rules and my entry. No problems. Thanks all ..anyways!

Sincere apologies....with the 'King of all fruits'.

Friendship isn't a big thing - it's a million little things.

I know I am very late in posting this, but trust me when I say that I have been extremely tied down with home-shifting, either family and friends visiting over or we making courtesy calls. (Infact as I write this post my hub's busy booking tickets for another trip in May.)

There have been festivities but not without certain mishappenings innundating all this time. In the past month I have seen the frolic of a 'mundan' (a hindu ritual where the kids head is clean shaved) of my nephew, starkly contrasting the deep anguish followed by nervous calm when my maternal uncle lived through a major cardiac arrest.

In all this flurry I admit to have ignored my 'virtual' home and friends. All the wonderful endearing comments and concern as to how I am and whether I am doing fine makes me guilt ridden. For all those who showed concern and who remembered me in my absence, who support me always....I seriously love you guys! You all rock!!

Please accept my apologies though.

Quite true that friendship is a million little things.....a million kind words/thoughts lighting up my day!

It was a love affair long before we knew what love was. They were golden, dripping with a heavenly juice, fleshy and aromatic. As kids we didn't understand why we could gorge on them just once a year, but were happy just to be able to dig into them. The perfumed 'Alphonsos', the green 'Dasheharis', the succulent 'Chausas' and the golden skinned 'Langdas' (I am still intrigued why its called a 'langda' which means crippled), gleaming in their jewel tones - red, yellow and dark green.Decades later, the mango still has such a magnetic hold on my generation. Is it because it is so much more than a mere fruit? It represents a rite of passage, a time of giddy childhood, of endless summer days and life stretched into infinity - an unending field of gold, an abundant orchard of luscious mangoes dangling from countless shady trees....


Mangoes are ephemeral - here today, gone tomorrow - so many Indians hoard them and have found ways to keep the gem-like fruits with them as long as they can. Green unripe mangoes are pickled in so many different ways, to be drawn out in the cold of winter, to be relished - summer relived. Another delicious pickled treat is mango murba - mangoes marinated in a sweet sugar sauce, with garlic and black onion seeds. It's a real comfort food when eaten with a bowl of kichdi (rice gruel) or a chappati - you can feel all's right with the world. For a full-blooded Indian, any time is mango pickle time, and a dollop of ambh achaar enhances any meal.


Where did this wondrous fruit come from and why does it have such a hold on the Indian psyche?

The earliest mention of mango, Mangifera Indica, that means "the great fruit bearer," is in the Hindu scripture dating back to 4000 BC. The wild mango originated in the foothills of the Himalayas of India and Burma, and about 40 to 60 of these trees still grow in India and Southeast Asia.

The mango is a member of the Anachardiaceae family which includes poison ivy, cashews, and pistachios.

So passionate are modern day Asian Indians about their most adored fruit, the cultivated mango, that during mango season in India, families actually argue heatedly about which of the many varieties is best for their favorite mango dishes. For the rest of us, we're just delighted to welcome mango season ( the only good thing about the otherwise sweltering heat), enjoy the luscious tangy fruit that dribbles down our chins, and leave the fistcuffs out of it!

According to M. Varadrajan, author of The History of Tamil Literature, the eye of a woman is compared to a tender mango cut in half, with the stone being the pupil of the eye. Alexander the Great was a big fan of Indian mangoes and The Mughal Emperor Babur called it "O Fairest Fruit of Hindustan."

Alphonso Milk Shake
Ingredients-
1 medium sized alphonso or any mango of your choice
1/2 litre of skimmed milk
2 tbsp sugar (adjust according to sweetness of mangoes)
a pinch of ground cardamom

Method-
Blend all the ingredients together in a juicer/blender.
Serve chilled with cubes of golden ripe mangoes.



Folklore

India is a country rich with folklore that sometimes becomes woven into cultural rituals as well as religious ceremonies, and it's little surprise that it's India's national fruit.
It is said that the Buddha was given the gift of a whole grove of mango trees where he could rest whenever he wished. From that time on the mango tree was held in awe as capable of granting wishes.
So revered is the mango tree in its home country that it has become a symbol of love.

(A symbol of the love and adoration I have for my readers/friends and well wishers. I thus offer this exotic fruit as apology.)

Offerings of mango leaves are presented at wedding ceremonies, a ritual that guarantees the couple will bear many children.
In the villages there is a powerful belief that the mango trees grow new leaves each time a son is born. To herald the new birth to their neighbors, doorways are decorated with mango leaves.

Old Sanskrit writings reveal a legend of deep love and beauty that sprang from the mango tree. It was the daughter of the sun, Surya Bai, who transformed herself into a golden lotus to evade persecution of an evil sorceress. The sorceress became angry when the King of the land fell in love with the beautiful lotus, and she burnt it to ashes. Good overcame evil when a magnificent mango tree sprang from the ashes and Surya Bai stepped out from a ripe mango that had fallen to the ground. The King instantly recognized her as his long lost wife, and the two rejoiced.

Health Benefits

Revered not only for their exotic sweetness and juicy quality, mangoes are known for their many health blessings. They contain an enzyme similar to papain in papayas, a soothing digestive aid.

In India mangoes are used as blood builders. Because of their high iron content they are suggested for treatment of anemia and are beneficial to women during pregnancy and menstruation. People who suffer from muscle cramps, stress, and heart problems can benefit from the high potassium and magnesium content that also helps those with acidosis.
One lab test turned up rather startling results that raised mangoes to the "highest perch." Mango juice was poured into a test tube that contained viruses. Shortly, the viruses were destroyed.