Redcurrant Slush Sorbet

by Nigella. Featured in NIGELLA SUMMER

Introduction

Just as with ice cream, the glorious thing about home-made sorbet is that you can make flavours you could never buy in a shop. And the texture is so much better, too: smoother, richer, without all that icy brittleness. This sorbet is intentionally slushier still: a sluicing with Cointreau adds an orangey depth and keeps it all from freezing solid.

If you're not using an ice-cream maker, then just pour the sugary fruit puree into a plastic container and whip it out of the freezer every hour for 3 hours as it freezes and give it a good beating, either with an electric whisk, by hand or in the processer.

For US cup measures, use the toggle at the top of the ingredients list.

As featured in

NIGELLA SUMMER

2002

Buy Now

Redcurrant Slush Sorbet — Photo by Petrina Tinslay

As featured in

NIGELLA SUMMER

2002

Buy Now

Ingredients

Serves: 6

Metric Cups

750 grams redcurrants
500 grams caster sugar
zest and juice of 1 orange
75 millilitres cointreau

1¾ pounds red currants
2½ cups superfine sugar
zest and juice of 1 orange
5 tablespoons cointreau

Method

Preheat the oven to 180°C/gas mark 4/350ºF. Put the redcurrants, stalks and all, into an ovenproof dish and add the sugar and zest and juice of the orange. Cover with foil and put in the oven for about 45 minutes, by which time the fruit will have become soft and pulpy.
Let the fruit cool before pushing the mixture through a mouli, or puree it in a blender or processor. The advantage of a food mill, though, is that it purees and sieves at the same time. A blended or blitzed mixture will have to be pushed through a sieve to remove all the pippy bits. Either way, make sure you use all the syrupy juice the redcurrants have made as well, and then stir in the Cointreau.
Put the sorbet mixture into an ice-cream maker to freeze and then decant this vivid puce slush into an airtight container and keep in the freezer until the actual point of serving.

Preheat the oven to 180°C/gas mark 4/350ºF. Put the red currants, stalks and all, into an ovenproof dish and add the sugar and zest and juice of the orange. Cover with foil and put in the oven for about 45 minutes, by which time the fruit will have become soft and pulpy.
Let the fruit cool before pushing the mixture through a mouli, or puree it in a blender or processor. The advantage of a food mill, though, is that it purees and sieves at the same time. A blended or blitzed mixture will have to be pushed through a sieve to remove all the pippy bits. Either way, make sure you use all the syrupy juice the red currants have made as well, and then stir in the Cointreau.
Put the sorbet mixture into an ice-cream maker to freeze and then decant this vivid puce slush into an airtight container and keep in the freezer until the actual point of serving.