Saturday, March 03, 2007

Kung Hay Fat Choy -- Lychee Sorbet for the Lunar New Year

A post on Sweetnicks about her Chinese New Year Party sparked some pleasant memories of similar parties I’ve hosted over the years. Usually pot lucks they included watching our local Chinese New Year’s parade on television.

Some highlights from feasts past:

Home-made wontons in soup
Scallion cakes
Steamed salmon with ginger, garlic and black beans
Lots and lots of stir fries
Various noodle dishes
Home-pickled vegetables
Noah’s almond cookies
Noah’s fruit tart with ying-yang design (lemon cream with kiwi and strawberries)
Lychee sorbet

The sorbet is easy, easy, easy. The lychees are sweet with a slightly floral tone and the sorbet is a refreshing finish to almost any meal. The sorbet is a pale, off white (quite appropriate for the lunar new year) and looks nice presented in a colorful dish and/or served with berries or other fruit and maybe an almond cookie, too.

Lychee Sorbet

(From 365 Ways to Cook Chinese by Rosa Lo San Ross, Harper Collins)
Makes about 1 quart

2-20 ounce cans of lychees packed in syrup
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
grated zest of 1 lemon

Drain fruit, reserving syrup. Puree lychees. (There should be about two cups.) Add two cups of the reserved syrup, cinnamon, cloves and lemon zest. Mix well. Place pureed mixture in ice cream maker and process following directions. Finished sorbet might be a bit soft, if so pack into freezer-proof containers and freeze for a few hours. Take out 10-20 minutes before serving.

To make the sorbet without using an ice cream maker, see the directions on the tangerine sorbet post here.

1 comment:

Brilynn said...

Any kind of frozen dessert is good in my books! I went through a time in University when I ate waaaay too many lychees, I'd just sit with a bag of them in front of me and plow through them until I felt ill...