Peruvian Highlands · Dessert
Queso Helado Arequipeño
- Intermediate
- 30 min
- roughly 2 of 4 for cost
- Vegetarian
Leads with warm spice humming through the middle, richness that coats and comforts, melting away silken.
Ingredients
- 1 L whole milk
- 400 ml evaporated milk
- 200 g sugar
- 80 g finely grated coconut
- 2 cinnamon sticks
- 6 cloves
- 4 egg yolks
- a pinch of salt
- ground cinnamon, to dust
Equipment
Sheet pan · Grater / zester
The skills inside
Allergen screen
Found: dairy · egg
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
- Warm both milks with the coconut, cinnamon sticks and cloves to the point where the surface shivers, then take the pan off and leave it 20 minutes, until it smells strongly of cinnamon and the coconut has swelled. 20 min
- Whisk the yolks with the sugar and salt, temper in a ladle of the hot milk, then return everything to low heat and stir until it coats the back of the spoon and a finger leaves a clean line, about 82C (180F).
- Fish out the cinnamon and cloves, leaving the coconut in, cool the custard over ice and chill it thoroughly.
- Pour into the shallowest metal tray you own and freeze, scraping the set edges into the middle with a fork every 30 minutes, four or five times, until it is stiff and finely crystalline. 30 min
- Scoop into cold glasses and dust heavily with ground cinnamon.
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.
Tempering a custard 59 recipes
- The hot liquid went into the eggs a little at a time with constant whisking, and only then did everything go back to the pot.
- The heat under it stayed gentle throughout and it was never allowed to boil.
- Stirred continuously and right into the corners of the pan, where it thickens first and sets unnoticed.
- Judged by behaviour: it thickens enough to coat the back of a spoon and hold a clean line when a finger is drawn through it.
- Taken off before it looks finished, and strained. Residual heat carries it the rest of the way, and a custard held on the heat until it looks right arrives past right.
Where it goes wrong The hot liquid went in too fast, or the pot went back over full heat to save time. The yolks set into threads before they could thicken smoothly, and a scrambled custard does not come back; straining hides a little of it and nothing hides the rest.
At the Table
- The Pour
- Demi-sec Champagne
- Also Right
- Off-dry Chenin (Vouvray)
- From the Taps
- Fruited sour
- Zero-Proof
- Coconut water with lime
Tropical sweetness wants bubbles or Chenin’s honeyed acid: richness met with lift, not more weight.
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