Cooking with Mother Goose: Mulberry Gelato

Cooking with Mother Goose: A series of occasional posts inspired by children's stories and rhymes -  just one more way for me to hook the children into the kitchen.

Here We Go 'Round the Mulberry Bush
Here we go round the mulberry bush,
the mulberry bush, the mulberry bush;
Here we go round the mulberry bush
so early in the morning.

Maybe you have a mulberry bush or tree in your yard.  If you do, you probably have cursed it at least once for dripping berries onto something you didn't want stained dark purple.  Maybe you cut it down. I know the sentiment. I have walked through the park behind our house many times and stepped carefully around those berries so that I don't get the juice all over my shoes.

But as they have in so many areas of my life, my daughters have given me a different perspective.  They love those mulberries.  As do the squirrels, who go to amazing gyrations, hanging upside down from the branches, to fill their bellies with berries.  Buddy goes crazy watching them.

And because I am a food-obsessed nut, I have wondered for years if I could cook with mulberries.  I had thought of making a pie or tart with them, but since I usually use about 10 cups of fruit in a pie, it seemed like it would take forever to collect enough. Then, last year, when I read Alice Waters and Chez Panisse, she described making mulberry ice cream. Of course mulberries were out of season by then so I had to wait a year.  But now they're back, spilling their black-purple ink all over the sidewalks.

Adding to my mulberry fever, this past weekend on our long car trip, we listened to Linda Sue Park's Project Mulberry, a story about two kids who set off in search of a mulberry tree for a silkworm project.  In the book, one of the characters describes mulberry ice cream as the best ice cream ever. 

With our Italy trip still very much in mind, gelato sounded even better.  Gelato usually has a lower fat content than ice cream, which according to Gourmet Today, makes the fruit taste more prominent.  Interesting.  I found a recipe in Gourmet Today for cherry gelato, and with a bit of fiddling -- more fruit, some vanilla bean -- I adapted it for mulberries.

The other day, I set off with the children to the park to collect mulberries.  I wish I could tell you that the promise of homemade gelato, made from berries we foraged ourselves, would motivate the children to happily gather as many mulberries as they could.  Instead of skipping along singing while we gathered berries -- okay, not really my vision, but wouldn't that have been nice? -- it was more like this:

"Mulberry picking is stupid.  I don't even like mulberries."

"I have to go to the bathroom."

"I'm thirsty."

"It's so hot."

"I'm tired."

"I just got attacked by ants. AAAHHHHH, they're killer ants!!"

"I think we have enough."

"Can we go now?"

You get the idea. But somehow we did manage to collect a small basketful of berries. I had brought a small stool, and I used it to reach the branches and pull them down low enough so that the kids could pick the berries.

Then we whacked a couple of the higher branches with a long stick and gathered the berries that fell. And soon, without anyone dying of thirst or being swarmed by deadly ants, we had enough for our gelato. 

One note about the berries. There are at least two varieties of mulberries around here, the dark purple ones and the white ones. I always thought that the white ones were just unripe, but friends of ours clued me in that they are actually a different variety and even sweeter than their purple cousins. Just look for the ones on the tree that are tinged slightly pink.

By the time we got home and cooled off, the children were willing to pitch in to make the gelato, picking the stems off of the berries and helping measure and mix. 

And  they were eager to try the finished product. I thought it delivered a pure mulberry flavor. The children loved it, too. Oddly, though, they all thought it tasted a bit like banana. Even though the picking process was somewhat challenging, I hope that by the time the mulberry juice has faded from their fingers, they will have forgotten the cranky bits of the day and remember the picking, making, and eating fondly. I know that's what I plan to do.

So now, when I see those mulberries all over the place, I have a new attitude. If life hands you mulberries. . . make mulberry gelato.

 

Mulberry Gelato

Adapted liberally from Gourmet Today
Makes about 5 cups
40 minutes preparation time
20 minutes cooking time, plus several hours for chilling

1/2 vanilla bean
3 1/2 cups whole milk
pinch of salt
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons granulated sugar, divided
2 tablespoons cornstarch
1 1/2 cups fresh mulberries

Scrape the seeds from the vanilla bean and put them, the vanilla bean pod, and the milk in a small saucepan. Bring the mixture to a boil and immediately remove the pot from the heat. Remove the vanilla bean pod.

Whisk the 1/2 cup of sugar and cornstarch together in a small bowl.  Add 1/2 cup of the milk mixture to the cornstarch and mix until it is smooth. Then add the cornstarch-milk mixture back into the saucepan.  Return the saucepan to the stove, raise the heat to medium-high, and bring the mixture to a simmer.  Simmer, whisking constantly, for 3 minutes.

Remove the pan from the heat and pour it though a strainer into a heat-proof bowl.  The straining might seem to be a bit fussy but it only takes a couple of extra minutes and will result in a creamier gelato. Refrigerate, stirring occasionally, until the mixture has cooled, about an hour.  Then cover the bowl and refrigerate until very cold, about 3 hours.

While the mixture is cooling, prepare the mulberries.  Remove the stems and reserve a few mulberries for decoration if you like. Add the mulberries and the remaining 2 tablespoons of sugar to the bowl of a blender or food processor.  Let the mixture sit for at least half an hour and then pour it through a sieve. Again, this straining will be quick and will be worth it in the end. 

When the milk mixture has cooled, stir in the mulberry juice. Pour the mixture into an ice cream maker and process according to the instructions of your ice cream maker.  When it has finished, transfer it to an air-tight container and freeze for at least 2 hours.

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Comments

[Carey]

Awesome! Sam has been picking them on our street and just eating them. Now we have something else to try!

[Nikki]

Last weekend we picked strawberries that ended in strawberry sorbet! Yum. I don't think I've ever tasted a mulberry--I guess I live too far north?

[Priscilla]

I love this! We too just found some wonderful mulberry tree's around our neighborhood and I have started experimenting with recipes using them. So far we have made Mullberries and cream Popsicle (with this really cool Quick Pop Maker by Zoku) and Mulberry muffins. We just went out this morning and collected more Mulberries and we are getting ready to make pancakes with them. Here are my posts about Mulberries. http://naturallymom.blogspot.com/2010/06/mulberry-muffins-and-more_1751.html
and
http://naturallymom.blogspot.com/2010/06/mulberries-and-cream-pop.html
I am very into organic, local and traditional foods too and I love to cook with my children who are 3 and 5.
Thanks for your great recipe!

[Margy]

Carey, Sam is such a budding chef. I can't wait to make some of his recipes.

Nikki, I'm not sure how far north the mulberry tree grows, but surely with global warming it will soon be coming to your neighborhood. If not, look for them when you're down this way.

Priscilla, so glad you found my blog, and me yours!