For the past 3 years, I have walked by my neighbor’s house nearly every day, staring at their carport. No, they don’t have a car that I covet. They have grapes that I covet. Big fat juicy concord grapes. I covet concords.
As I walked by their carport this morning I stared up at the vines normally heavy with grapes, and I saw … stems.
A father-son pair stood beneath those naked vines, hosing down the carport. “Good morning,” I said. “What happened to the grapes?”
“We just harvested them,” replied the father.
“Wanna see?” asked the son.
He grabbed my hand and scampered up the stairs. “We just picked boxes and boxes of them. I’m Noah.”
“I’m Gayle. You must really like grapes.”
Noah nodded.
“Are you gonna eat all of them?”
“No. Grampa makes jelly.”
“Wow, that’s a lot of jelly.”
Noah nodded.
“Do you know what I would do with all these grapes?”
Noah shrugged.
“I would make sorbet – it’s kinda like ice cream.”
Noah licked his lips. “Yum!”
“Would you like me to make some ice cream for you?”
Guess who brought home a big bag of grapes!
The bunches climbed into a colander and took a few cold showers. The grapes said goodbye to their stems and assorted brethren – the travel weary, the old and wrinkly, the young and green.
The best of the crop took a dunk in the hot tub. A long dunk.
When they started to shed their skins, they knew they were done.
They left their skins and seeds behind, and, without a single glance back, dove right in to join their skinny dipping friends.
They then cozied up to a bar for a few cocktails, picked up some sweeties, and puckered up. (I added to the juice vodka, sugar, and lemon juice.)
Now, now, boys. It’s time to cool off. You’re gonna spend the night in the cooler.
These hooligans clean up nice, don’t they?
There was only one casualty.
I’m not sure there’s gonna be much left for Noah. But don’t feel bad for him. He has jelly.
Concord grape sorbet
I found inspiration for this sorbet in a few places. It seems that Gourmet, New York Magazine, and David Lebovitz all discovered and shared this gorgeous concoction in Autumn 2008 and 2009. I’m two to three years late here, folks. I guess that’s better than four years late. I always add some alcohol to sorbet so it keeps a smooth consistency and doesn’t get icy. I liked the NY Magazine version’s addition of a little lemon juice as well. I suspect you could make this with good pure grape juice (but what’s the fun in that?).
To get a smooth, silky texture that’s not icy, I use alcohol and an immersion blender. The alcohol (vodka here) prevents the sorbet from fully freezing. The immersion blender aerates the sorbet and this incorporated air helps with the texture. I happen to have the canister left over from an old Donvier ice cream maker — I keep it in the freezer to quick chill white wine — so that accelerated the process a bit. If you want the sorbet firmer, use less or no vodka. You can also adjust the suger based on the sweetness of the grape juice – as a general rule, sorbet should be a little bit sweeter than the juice (this is the case of all sorbets).
This recipe made approximately a quart (4 cups) of sorbet.
– 3.5 lbs grapes, straight from the vine, or 2.5 lbs grapes only (rinsed, de-stemmed, and yucky ones removed)
– 1/4 C water
– 1/4 C sugar
– 1/4 C vodka
– 2 T lemon juice
Clean. Rinse grapes in cold water, and then sort through, removing stems and any grapes that are dried, split, or green.
Simmer. In a non-reactive pot (I used hard-anonized), simmer, covered, the cleaned grapes with water until the grapes get soft. By this point, the smell of grape juice will entice you back to the kitchen. Give the grapes a stir a few times to loosen the skins. This whole process took about 20 minutes.
Strain. Pour the grape concoction into a fine-mesh sieve in batches, and push juice out into a bowl beneath, leaving the stems and seeds behind. I used a wooden spoon to press out as much juice as I could. I ended up with about 2.5 cups of pure grape juice.
Mix. Add sugar, vodka, and lemon juice to the grape juice and whir a few times with an immersion blender to dissolve the sugar. You’ll use the immersion blender again later.
Freeze and aerate. Pour the grape mix into a bowl, cake pan, or whatever you want and pop it into the freezer. The flatter the container, the quicker the sorbet will freeze. The more alcohol, the slower the sorbet will freeze. After about 2 hours, check on the sorbet. It should be about half frozen. Use the immersion blender to break up any icy bits. Return the sorbet to the freezer and repeat this every hour or so. If you forget and throw the sorbet in the freezer overnight, no problem – it will just take a few extra whirs with the blender to break up the solid mass the next morning.
Beautiful photos and a great recipe. I love Concord grapes.
Happy New Year.
Irene
sounds delicious!! I will need to give this a try..
almost halfway through I thought, “wonder what Noah thought of the sorbet!”
– Irene — thank you. I bet you could make the same recipe, with less trouble, with good old Kedem grape juice. Concord grapes are amazing.
– Rachelle RM – please do try out this recipe. As for Noah, I’m a little evil, aren’t I??
This sorbet looks scrumptious! The color is divine.
cy-ro-ge-n-i-c
can you make a version of this for mia too?
something cyrogenic-ally cool for desert to do with the apple streudel?
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