The World Table

An interactive culinary compendium: recipes, lexicon and study

Idaho · Dessert

Idaho Ice Cream Potato

  • Intermediate
  • 40 min
  • roughly 2 of 4 for cost
  • Vegetarian

rich · herb-fresh · floral Leads with richness that coats and comforts, fresh herbs arguing happily on top, leaving a faint perfume.

Ingredients

  • 4 large scoops vanilla ice cream
  • 4 tbsp cocoa powder
  • 250ml whipped cream
  • 2 tbsp chocolate sauce
  • 2 tbsp crushed nuts (optional)

Equipment

Piping bag

The skills inside

Chilling to firm: the fridge as binder

Allergen screen

Found: dairy

Screened for: gluten, dairy, egg, nuts, peanuts, fish, shellfish, molluscs, soy, sesame, celery, mustard, lupin, alcohol. Not screened: sulphites.

Screened by keyword from the ingredient list, not reviewed by a person; check every label for what the list cannot show.

Method

  1. Shape each scoop of ice cream into an oval and freeze hard, at least 2 hours. 120 min
  2. Roll each frozen oval in cocoa powder until completely coated so it looks like a dirt-dusted potato.
  3. Set on a plate and cut a slit down the middle.
  4. Pipe whipped cream into the slit so it looks like sour cream on a baked potato.
  5. Finish with a drizzle of chocolate sauce for gravy and nuts for chives. Serve immediately.

How to tell it is going right

This dish has no standard of its own yet. It is judged on the technique it exercises: checked at the pan, while there is still something to be done about it.

Chilling to firm: the fridge as binder 48 recipes

  • It went cold before it was handled any further, and it went in spread flat and covered rather than as a warm mass that insulates its own centre.
  • It is cold through rather than cold at the edge: tested at the middle it is as firm as it is at the rim.
  • It holds its shape unsupported; it can be cut, portioned, rolled or lifted without slumping, tearing, or sticking to the hands.
  • The fat in it has gone solid: it feels firm and waxy to the fingers rather than greasy and yielding.
  • It survives the step it was chilled for, going into heat or a coating or a mould still holding its form rather than collapsing the moment it is touched.

Where it goes wrong It was given twenty minutes instead of the hours it needed, so it is firm at the rim and soft at the core: it slumps out of shape as it is portioned, and everything made from it spreads or breaks apart in the pan.

At the Table

The Pour
Banyuls or Ruby Port
Also Right
PX Sherry
From the Taps
Imperial stout
Zero-Proof
Espresso

Chocolate wants fortified sweetness or roast-bitter contrast: the wine must out-sweet the plate, or oppose it entirely.

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Film school

This dish, cooked on camera Search films of Idaho Ice Cream Potato Search YouTube: J. Kenji López-Alt on Idaho Ice Cream Potato A YouTube search for J. Kenji López-Alt and this dish. No affiliation.