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1. Boil small pieces of taro for 10 minutes with a little lemon juice to keep them white, then rinse briefly with cold water | ||
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2. Place cream and sweetened condensed milk in mixing machine (or bowl), then meet the cooks | ||
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3. Add about three tablespoons sugar and 2-3 drops of vanilla essence | ||
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4. Whip for 30 seconds at high speed, or mash and whip thoroughly by hand; count the seconds to avoid too much whipping | ||
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The layout of this site, and all texts by Peter Matthews, are copyright of The Research Cooperative 2001-3 (all rights reserved). The copyright for original contributions by other authors is retained by each author concerned. Articles may be copied for personal use and reference.
Taro appears to be very good as a thickener for ice-cream. This may be because non-starch polysaccharides (NSP) are present in the starchy tissue. The main kind of NSP is a vegetable gum, arabinogalactan-protein (AGP), which is present in the water soluble mucilage of taro corms. We can see it when a clear liquid emerges from the cut surface of a corm. In gelato, this gum may help to give body just like the vegetable gums often used in commercial ice-cream.
For more information, see: L. Ramsden and Yu Man Chi (2002) Polysaccharide deposition during corm development in taro In M. Nakatani and K. Komaki (eds) Potential of root crops for food and industrial resources (Proceedings of the 12th Symposium of the International Society for Tropical Root Crops (ISTRC), Sept. 10-16, Tuskuba, Japan. pp. 409-411.
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Plain vanilla with mint leaf |
To make gelato ice cream with taro, peel and boil small starchy side-corms until they are soft all through. Place in mixer with cream, condensed milk, sugar and vanilla. Whip until smooth then pour into a container and freeze. When frozen, but not completely hard, the gelato is ready to eat. Add a fresh mint leaf (whole or chopped) just before serving.
If the gelato is kept in a freezer for a long time, it will need to be thawed before serving. A brief fling in an oven might do the trick for a single serving, but for a larger volume, slow thawing in a refrigerator or at room temperature might be better.
Our starting point was a recipe given by the Urawaza Cooking page on the website of this Japanese NTV television company.
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5. Pour the mix into a container, cover, and place in a freezer; enjoy with mint leaf as above, or with fresh fruit |