21. Rare/Scarce Ingredients March 8 - March 21
Just where does one find some of the ingredients for these recipes? That’s your job for this challenge! Find a recipe that relies upon an ingredient that can’t be had from the corner store, locate the ingredient, and recreate the dish.
If you love this -
- or this -
Then you'll want to read this -
Leafing through our CBS Homemakers Exchange Recipes booklets from 1950 and 1951, we wondered how many rare/scarce ingredients there could possibly be in just 65 years. Of course the increase in prepared/processed foods and fast food restaurants has changed our culture's eating habits tremendously. Patrick remembers having his first pizza when he started college, and I first ate at a McDonald's fast food restaurant when I moved to Chicago at 40 years old. Really!! When I was a child we had two choices for a night out with children in our town in Wisconsin - the A&W, which my mom told me stood for 'amburgers and woot beer, and Dairy Queen for frozen desserts. Now you can understand that growing up in the dairy state meant I had a very steady diet of milk, cheese, butter, and best of all - ice cream. Root beer floats in frosty mugs, ice cream cones with little curls on top - what more could a child ask. Heavenly! Patrick's home state of North Carolina was also a top dairy state and as a teenager Patrick drove trucks for Biltmore Dairy. Biltmore Dairy was operated by the Vanderbilt family at their estate in Asheville and has since been replaced by their winery operations. As part of his benefit package Patrick was given milk, cheese, and - yes - ice cream!
So we were excited to find our April, May, June, 1950 booklet to have recipes for home-made ice cream. Although I didn't intend to make those recipes for this Challenge, when I tried to find the ingredient Junket rennet in either powder or mix I was surprised that it or any substitute was not readily available in any of my local stores.
Rennet is a complex of enzymes produced and extracted from the stomach of certain animals. It was primarily used in cheesemaking to separate the solid curd from the liquid whey. The history of rennet use and the wonderful background of Junket Desserts since 1874 and the founder, Chr. Hansen, is best described on Junket's very fun and informative website.
If you have a child they might enjoy the illustrated story of Flibbity Jibbit and the Key Keeper and how they come to find the key to the King's rennet-custard cabinet.
Junket rennet products are ingredients in many of the recipes in the booklet we are using:
I had placed an order with Junket and received their chocolate, strawberry, and vanilla ice cream mixes and a package of rennet tablets to experiment with my own cheesemaking.
We first made the strawberry recipe:
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| Ingredients for Strawberry-Pineapple Parfait. |
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| 2 cups of light cream whipped for 2 minutes. |
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| Ice cream mix added and whipped for a minute. |
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| Placed in a freezer tray. |
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| Frozen approximately 4 hours. |
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| So creamy!! |
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| Strawberries and pineapple on the left, strawberries only on the right. |
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| Ice cream added and topped with a sliced strawberry. Oh my!!! |
Then the chocolate:
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| 1 cup chilled evaporated milk whipped. |
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| 1/3 cup evaporated milk blended with water and then mixed with ice cream mix. |
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| Whipped evaporated milk folded into ice cream mix combination. |
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| Poured into a freezer tray. |
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| Frozen for approximately 4 hours. |
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| Marshmallows snipped into small pieces. |
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| Frozen ice cream broken into chunks... |
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| ....and whipped until fluffy. |
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| Marshmallows and nuts added and back into the freezer. |
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| Ready to eat! |
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| Oh my heavens and stars! Topped with a mini Hershey bar! |
We may never buy store bought ice cream again! The recipes were so simple and the ice cream so glorious because of the fresh ingredients and the extraordinary flavors of the mixes. Also gluten free for those who require that in their diet. I would imagine every child and adult would have as much fun making these desserts as eating them. We sure did! The other great news is the cost. A package of the ice cream mix is just $2.00. The rennet tablets were $1.75 for a package of 8 and has recipes for ricotta, Neufchatel, feta, basic hard cheese and American mozzarella using whole or skimmed milk and buttermilk or yogurt for cultures. There are also recipes for ice cream using milk and cream and your choice of flavorings - strawberry, peach, banana, maple walnut, chocolate chip, chocolate and coffee. I see a whole new tangent of cheese and ice cream making in our kitchen!
February 29, 1992 - Our wedding day and intimate family celebration. Everyone ate cake and ice cream including Bullette the kitty.
Enjoy!
Patrick and Jeanette
P. S. If Junket products are not carried in your local store, we purchased online here:
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