I love peppermint

[mothwing]

I've been searching for fresh peppermint plants for ages, but even though they always have rosemary and sage in stock our shops never offered any. One of the things I missed most when coming back to Germany from Glasgow was the lack of peppermint plants, or even peppermint extract. Maybe I just go to the wrong shops, but I've been searching and not finding anything for months. I was very exited when I finally spotted two scrawny plants in the herb section of our local supermarket, and they've now got a new home on our living room window sill and have been growing happily so far.

Peppermint lime sorbet - this time with a gaudy peppermint leaf. And with crummy scoops, because I used a spoon. Ignore that.



Ingredients

• 1 egg white, beaten - it's sort of optional - it works without the egg white, but the consistency is much smoother with it, and I am not sure how to replace it, really. Some use starch, but I didn't get the same effect.
• 250 ml of lemon zest and lemon juice.
• a handful of peppermint leaves.
• 200 ml of sparkling water (or 100ml, if you use the sugar mixture, see below)
• Something to sweeten the ice. Usually, people seem to use 100ml boiled and then cooled 1:1 mixture of sugar and water, but as far as I can see, 5 TS of sugar work just as well, makes the resulting ice cream just as sweet.

What to do
You beat the egg white. In a separate bowl, blend the lime juice, lime zest and the peppermint, add the sugar - to taste, really. Then add the mineral water, then beat in the egg white. Freeze for an hour, then blend with your hand blender again. Repeat three or four times until the consistency is right.


Nectarine sorbet

• 1 egg white (see above)
• 250 ml of nectarine zest and juice.
• 200ml of sparkling water (or 100ml, if you use the sugar mixture)
• Sweeten to taste. By common recipe consensus, either use 100ml of the 1:1 mixture of sugar and water or 5TS of sugar, which works just as well.

The process is the same - you beat the egg, in a separate bowl, blend the nectarines, add the sugar, add the sparkling water, then blend in the egg white. Freeze for an hour, handblend, repeat four times until the mixture has the right consistency, which should take about four hours.

The lime sorbet was unexpectedly good for the cold I had last week, and tea with fresh peppermint is also a real treat.