What flavor sorbet would you serve?

[TorontoJo]

I'm making dinner for a friend who can't have any dairy. For dessert, I'm making poached pears in a spiced red wine sauce:

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/foo...

The dominant flavors in the red wine sauce are orange, cinnamon and cardamom. I would normally serve this with a vanilla ice cream, but obviously that won't work, so I was thinking of using a sorbet instead, and sprinkling some toasted chopped almonds to give some crunch.

I'm stumped as to the flavor of sorbet that would work best with this. If I could find pear sorbet, that would be my obvious choice. If not, then... ? Lemon? Something else?

[TorontoJo]

Just reporting back after dinner last night. I couldn't find blood orange, so I ended getting a grapefruit sorbet to go with the pears and it worked very nicely. The tartness and slight bitterness of the grapefruit was a good balance to the sweetness of the pears and red wine sauce. The cornmeal almond biscotti (batch 2, where I ground my cornmeal a bit finer in my Vitamix) were delicious. I think I should have crumbled some of the biscotti over the dessert for a more evenly distributed "crunch" texture, but it was still wonderful to just dip the biscotti in the sauce. All in all, a yummy dessert.

I also had some fabulous single origin dark chocolate that I meant to bring out to end the dinner, but damn it, I forgot them. Grr.

Thanks to everyone for their thoughts and suggestions!

[cinnamon girl]

yum - now you can have the chocolate yourself as a reward for all your research and work. The cornmeal biscotti sound perfect for dipping into the poaching juice. Thanks for reporting back.

Do you grind grains often in your Vitamix? Do you use it often?

[TorontoJo]

I love, love, love my Vitamix, but this was the first time I used it for grains. I actually just put the coarse ground cornmeal I already had and blended it finer. Worked just fine. But I use the Vitamix to make the best smoothies, sauces, soups and sorbets (frozen chunks of fruit with some frozen cubes of juice and a bit of fresh juice to help it all blend up).

[Claudette]

TorontoJo - you didn't throw out the poaching liquid, did you? I always freeze mine as a granita. Also, canned liquids from canned fruits like lychee also make easy and delicous granitas - just freeze in a metal pan and scrape every so often.

[TorontoJo]

Nope, I gave the rest of the poaching liquid to my guests to take home. One of them is NOT lactose intolerant, so he got the liquid and vanilla ice cream to pour it over.

[TorontoJo]

Just a quick update. Sadly, one of my dinner guests got sick and we had to reschedule dinner. But I did make the Zuni cafe cornmeal-almond biscotti, with a couple of modifications. I used Amaretto in place of the Anisette, and cardamom in place of the anise seed. They are really quite yummy. My only complaint is that the recipe calls for coarse ground cornmeal and I found I didn't care for some of the larger bits of cornmeal that I crunched on. So next time I'll use a finer grind.

My final decision was to offer a lemon sorbet (from Ciao Bella -- couldn't find the blood orange!) as an option. Unfortunately, I won't be able to report back on the pairing with the poached pears until later!

Thanks to everyone for a great set of suggestions!

[phoenikia]

The non-dairy dark chocolate fondente from Il Gelatiere would be pretty decadent with poached pears, TorontoJo!

Too bad your friend can't do dairy- I think the riso would also be pretty amazing with that red wine sauce ;-)

Other thoughts- chai sorbet/gelato (noticed on the oregon chai site that it can be made with chai concentrate and dairy substitute).

Non-dairy coconut sorbet.

Non- dairy coconut flan.

Meringues, macarons, or amaretti.

Blood orange sorbet.

Red wine sorbet (an Italian chef/friend made one out of fragolino which was amazing).

Second the idea of sabayon, but not sure what type of sabayon I would serve with a red wine sauce, since the sabayon is usually made with a marsala,madeira or riesling in my experience.

[TorontoJo]

Ooh, I wonder if I can track down some of Gelato Fresco's blood orange sorbet?

I think I'm going to make Zuni's cornmeal-almond biscotti, subbing cardamom for the anise seeds.

http://www.culinate.com/books/collect...

[goodhealthgourmet]

i love cornmeal in baked goods, but i'm not really feeling it with the other flavors. something about it strikes me as out of place...just my two cents

i'd do chocolate-dipped almond biscotti with cardamom...and if you still want to serve sorbet, i vote for either chocolate or blood orange.

[TorontoJo]

Interesting about the cornmeal -- I thought the cornmeal would make for a lighter, more crispy biscotti. Do you have a biscotti recipe that you like?

[goodhealthgourmet]

to be fair, i've never had the Zuni biscotti, and i've heard they ARE light and wonderful. i was just getting hung up on the idea that the flavor of cornmeal would be a strange pairing if it's at all noticeable. maybe someone who has made them can tell you, because if you can't *taste* the cornmeal, i'm sure they'd be great.

but if you do want alternatives, i like this old recipe from Bon Appétit (with a couple of tweaks):
http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Anise-Almond-Biscotti-102706

- use 1 cup plus 2 Tbsp of sugar instead of the 1 1/2 cups called for in the recipe.
- increase almonds by 1/2 to 1 cup if you like a lot of texture in yours.
- drizzle with (or dip halfway in) melted dark chocolate.
- you can also sub cardamom for all or half of the anise if you want to tie it into the pears you're serving.

OR

chowser once posted her take on a Williams-Sonoma recipe that got great reviews from other CHers:
http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/3488...
sounds like you could make them with almonds and maybe add a little cardamom.

[TorontoJo]

Thanks for these recs, GHG -- I had done a search on the board for biscotti and holy cow, there are a lots of threads and a lot of recipes! So it's a big help to narrow it down to a couple of recs. :)

[goodhealthgourmet]

happy to help...just be sure to post back & let us know how it all turns out! :)

[TorontoJo]

Thanks, I will definitely report back! I'm going to make the Zuni biscotti recipe tomorrow and see how they turn out. If they taste too "corny", I'll have time to make the Epicurious recipe before my dinner later this weekend.

[cinnamon girl]

I still stick by hazelnuts with pears though. They're such a natural combination. I would sub out half of the almonds w hazelnuts - or even substitute entirely. If it were a stone fruit, I'd go with almonds all the way.

[TorontoJo]

Thanks! I'm just a bigger fan of almond over hazelnuts. I think almonds would still work well -- I'm thinking of pear frangipane tarts, a classic pairing of pears and almonds.

[greygarious]

I like pear with almond too. I frequently see pear combined with cranberry, and think pomegranate would work well, too. You can buy that juice combination in supermarkets. I'd put a little amaretto into the sorbet.

[cinnamon girl]

Yes that's true - pear and frangipane is a natural. Can't lose. I hope you let us know what you do and how it goes.

[cinnamon girl]

It doesn't sound like there's going to be Gelato Fresco blood orange sorbet this year. I think I read that on a blood orange thread on the Toronto board yesterday.

Everything from that book is good. You could still put in a large pinch of anise seeds. I find the few times I make biscotti I add a pinch of them . . . they don't come out anisey so much as they give a kind of nuance. It kind of screams Italy and channels the real deal.

[Quine]

I vote with "why the sorbet?"

Without knowing the rest of the menu...I say dark chocolate very tiny taste, to end.

[cinnamon girl]

Does it even need a sorbet? A biscotti would be nice; many of them don't have butter. I'm not sure about a fruit sorbet. Is it possible to make a dairy-free sorbet flavoured with pistachios or hazelnuts? Sorry, not a sorbet expert.

[Ruth Lafler]

True sorbet is dairy free.

I don't really see why you would need a sorbet, either. Does dairy include eggs? If eggs are okay, then some kind of meringue-based accompaniment might be nice, anything from crunchy to chewy, maybe with nuts and/or cardamom, or perhaps if you wanted something creamy without cream, a zabaglione.

[cinnamon girl]

Yes a warm zabaglione/sabayon with the cold pears would be nice. Don't flavour it with marsala though b/c of the red wine. Or meringues with a bit of chopped hazelnut folded into it. Or almond biscotti (as per Visciole).

[Ruth Lafler]

Sorry, btw, I misread your post and missed your point about making dairy-free sorbet with nuts -- I think you could make a very nice sorbet with nuts and a nut-milk or soy-milk base.

[cinnamon girl]

Ooohh - it never occurred to me to make a nut sorbet with a nut milk (or soy too for that matter). Hazelnuts and pears just seem so right this time of year.

[visciole]

+1. With poached pears I think almond biscotti would be perfect. Many traditional recipes do not contain butter, and are easy to make.

[TorontoJo]

I suppose it doesn't actually need a sorbet, but I just like the cold and creamy against the pears with the crunch of the chopped nuts or some crumbled biscotti.

Eggs are ok, just no lactose.

Thanks for the ideas so far!

[Cherylptw]

Lemon sorbet would go good with the pears & the wine sauce; other possibilities are lime, pineapple and raspberry