I received my new Alton Brown Salt Cellar today. Finally, I have a place to store kosher salt, and no more trying to pour salt into measuring spoons from the big box!
Jay came for dinner tonight. This is a good summer dish, even though it’s a soup. It uses fresh vegetables, and I wanted to use up the last of the corn. It’s my favorite tortilla soup. It can be made ahead and put together at the last minute. It’s best when made with homemade chicken stock.
Draeger’s San Mateo store used to sell a fresh mint gelato that I loved. I decided to try to duplicate it tonight. I didn’t have a recipe, but I did find something on Epicurious. I followed my own basic gelato recipe, then looked to the Epicurious recipe to figure out how I should do the mint. Larry thought it was too minty. Jay and I liked it, and thought it was very refreshing. It’s much more earthy than using mint extract. I have a Cuisinart electric ice cream maker, the kind with the cylinder that you freeze. It works really well. It’s basically the same as my manual Donvier that I started out with years ago, but now I don’t have to do anything but press “on”.

• Tortilla Chicken Soup Ole (Hot Chicken, Hugh Carpenter, p. 23)
• Chicken Stock (Fine Cooking #48, January 2003, p. 94)
• Fresh Mint Gelato

For the gelato, I used two recipes as a reference:
– Cinnamon Gelato (How to Make Ice Cream, Cook’s Illustrated, p. 83)
– Fresh Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream (Gourmet, August 1998)

Fresh Mint Gelato
2 cups whole milk
1 cup heavy cream
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup packed fresh mint, chopped
4 large egg yolks
Combine the milk, cream, 1/2 cup sugar and mint in a heavy 2.5-quart saucepan set over medium heat. Bring mixture to 175 degrees, stirring occasionally to dissolve sugar.
Meanwhile, beat remaining 1/4 cup sugar and yolks in medium bowl, scraping down sides as needed, until mixture turns pale yellow and thickens so that it falls in ribbons, about 2 minutes with electric mixer on medium-high or 4 minutes with whisk.
Remove about 1/2 cup hot milk-cream-mint mixture from pan and slowly whisk into beaten yolk mixture. Gradually whisk thinned yolk mixture back into saucepan. Reduce heat to low and bring mixture to 180 degrees, stirring constantly, about 5 minutes. Custard should be thick but not curdled or boiled.
Remove saucepan from heat and let mint steep in milk mixture for 10 minutes. Pour custard through a fine-mesh strainer and into nonreactive bowl or container. Chill custard, its surface covered with plastic wrap, until cold, at least 3 hours and up to 1 day. Stir will and then pour custard into ice cream machine. Churn until frozed but still a bit soft. Transfer ice cream to nonreactive container, seal, and freeze until firm.