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Ginger ice cream
this comes from Sainsbury's in the UK, I think. The taste is unique, and heavenly. You get more flavour out of the ginger than you could ever have believed possible, with hints of honey and lemon mixed in. This is how Ambrosia must have tasted in mythological times. If you always do the traditional Christmas Pud at christmas, use this as a topping because it will knock the spots of any old brandy butter. It goes perfectly with any mixed-fruit pie, cake or pudding, and is equally delicious just by itself.

This ice cream takes longer to make, but you will never begrudge the time: it is so worth it.

The first thing you need to make is 'ginger syrup', and this is what takes the time. You want to get the best of the essence and the flavour from the ginger, and remove all the woody stalk, to leave a sauce behind with everything good in it.

Ingredients
125g, 4oz of fresh root ginger, peeled and cut into small (5mm) cubes. (that's 125 g after cutting and peeling)
250g, 8oz demerara or light brown sugar
400ml water
75g, 3oz honey
625g Greek, high fat or otherwise tasty yoghourt
1 pint, 600 ml whipping cream.


Method

To make the ginger syrup, you need something to bash things in. Either use a pestle and mortar, or a thick-bottomed saucepan and the top of a wooden handle to hit things in the saucepan. Put the ginger and the sugar into the pestle (or saucepan), think angry thoughts, and hit it, bash it, grind it, again and again. As you grind up the ginger, some of the juice comes out, and dissolves the sugar. Osmosis will then accelerate the extraction of the rest of the juice from the ginger pulp, and in around 10-15 minutes of applied violence, the sugar should be more or less dissolved in the liquid that it has sucked out of the ginger.  Then add the water, bring to the boil, and simmer fast for around half an hour with no lid on the saucepan. Watch it, because you want it to become very slightly syrupy, but if it goes dry, it's all wrecked, and you will have to think angry thoughts all over again. The volume should reduce by around two thirds. Let the liquid cool, and then pour it through a metal sieve. Use the back of a spoon to squeeze the pulp left behind in the sieve, to squeeze out as much as possible of this precious liquid.

Mix the honey and yoghourt with the cool ginger syrup. Whip the cream to soft peaks,  and fold the rest of the mixture into the cream. Put this mixture into the ice-cream maker.

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