Slightly off topic; Pork Brain Ice Cream

[fixx.livejournal.com]

I say slightly because Baitcon came to mind, but I was simply wrong, and because this story will probably be appreciated here. The other day I was browsing the online personal ads for my local DC area when one of the interests of a particular lass was "liquid nitrogen ice cream". Being a geek chick she struck me as someone who mighta shoulda been at baitcon but I did not remember seeing her, but then I'm not really that good with faces, so I inquired.

Seems she learned about it from Popular Science and really wants to try it. Naturally this led to mor exchanged mail which I guess was a good thing for me anyway. The best thing to come out of it was this story which I've attained permission to post here to share with the rest of you.

I'll see your chicken liver and raise you pork brain. I shit you not. I was not present, but a group of my friends had an Iron Chef competition at which the ingredient was pork brains, and one of the contestants made ice cream. This was made even more entertaining by the fact that one of them came down with a mysterious (unrelated) illness very soon after, and when his doctor at the hospital asked if he'd eaten anything unusual lately, decided he was delirious when he admitted to the pork brain ice cream.

If anyone is interested I can probably get the recipe for that flavor, but I'm sure I'm too "chicken" to try it. :-)

Comments

[quietann.livejournal.com]

eeewwwwww!

I am now doubly happy that the new site, if the con actually moves, does not allow any pork products.

[sunspiral.livejournal.com]

I'm slightly bummed since one of the next ice cream flavor ingredients I was planning to play with was Bacon.

[fixx.livejournal.com]

See now, *that* I'd try... but it would have to be REAL bacon, not synthetic bacon bits, but I am assuming you are really replying to the previous comment about the new site not allowing pork products.

I don't really have a solution except to say that there are other conventional ways to make ice cream at home and that not being able to do it at Baitcon gives you a great excuse to have an "ice cream party" at home.

While I live not far from a specialty gas company myself, "Roberts Oxygen", and own a SIMAC gelatio, I like doing things interesting ways and this girl with the pork brain story suggested yet another way to make ice cream without shaved ice.

Were a person to essentially throw together a sort of anti freeze solution (salt based, whatever) in double bucket arrangement and lower that into a common top loading chest freezer (like the one in my kitchen) it is possible that a drill mounted blade style paint stirrer would do an adequate job of stirring. I'm probably not sufficiently motivated to do this myself, but depending on your facilities and weirdness factor it might seem more attractive to you.

[sunspiral.livejournal.com]

Yes, real bacon it is, not soy nastiness. I've never used a gelato machine, and wonder how different it is from the Salton ice cream maker that I have. It uses a bowl that's double-walled like a Dewar but with a freezable gel inside. You leave the bowl in the freezer for a day or so, and then run the beater inside it to agitate and freeze the mixture. Works decently well.

[mycroft.livejournal.com]

I suspect the chest freezer wouldn't be able to cool very fast. You'd have to stir it very slowly to prevent the mixture getting fluffy.