Salivating Savoury Ices

Intrepid gourmande Clare Tollick takes a spoon to Yee Kwan’s new batch of savoury ices with some mouth watering results.

Anyone who knows me will know that I’m all about the savoury.  Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate a good bit of cake, but if I could have a meat pie instead, I’d go for that every time.  So when Yee Kwan asked if I wanted to try her savoury ice cream, I jumped at the chance.

 Yee Kwan is based in Sheffield and she has been producing ice cream for about two years.  She’s well known for her far eastern and spice flavours such as chocolate and chilli and black sesame seed and you’ll find her ice cream in many restaurants across the city. 

Harvey Nichols have also snapped Yee and her ice cream up and you’ll find her at the the Leeds, Manchester and Knightsbridge outlets; something that I think the whole city can be proud of.  With so many contacts, I was honoured to find that Yee wanted to know what I thought of her latest creation.

Moving into the savoury side of things is a new venture for Yee, but they’re already on sale at the Knightbridge Harvey Nichols store, so I’m sure that they’ll catch on.

Indeed, Yee isn’t the only one at it with the savoury and Heston Blumenthal worked with Waitrose to bring us mustard flavoured ice cream last summer.  And, according to this Love Food article, savoury ice cream is far from a new fad.  With recipes dating back to 1768 it seems that Yee, Heston & co are reviving an old food tradition; one that is worthy of a bit of a revival.

So onto Yee’s savoury flavours…. there’s smoked olive oil with black pepper, avocado and chilli  & parsnip and wasabi. 

Tasting them each separately first, I found that, although these are definitely savoury ice creams, they can be enjoyed on their own.  Smoked olive oil and black pepper is beautifully smoky, avocado and chilli is as creamy and smooth as a ripe avocado and parsnip and wasabi has all the flavour of wasabi without that intense heat that gets right up the nostrils.

I was really interested to see how these would work with other savoury foods and Yee suggested that I try the smoked olive oil and black pepper with some fish or some cured meats.  For my first experiment I prepared a simple starter of cold meats and olives.  Wrapping the meat around little balls of the ice cream made it easy to eat and I thought that the flavours worked well together.  I’ve since tried it with some strong cheddar cheese and that was delicious, just like smoked cheese. 

Being a lover of steak, I was pleased to hear Yee recommend the parsnip and wasabi ice cream paired with a T-bone steak.  Think beef with a gentle horseradish sauce and you’re just about there.  I’d now like to try it with a steak tartare.  I’d serve the ice cream in place of the raw egg, to be mixed into the steak.

Yee suggested I try the avocado and chilli flavour with salmon or a gazpacho.  I decided to serve it with a salad of prawns and roasted salmon, cooled to room temperature.  I thought that the other two ice creams would be good with this salad too, so I stuck a spoonful of each in there. 

Both the smoked olive oil and the wasabi flavours worked really well with the fish.  For me, the avocado was too creamy and I think it would work better with something spicy such as a burrito or a fajita wrap.

With many more combinations to try, I want to give these another go; I’d love to serve them up at a dinner party!

Have you tried any savoury ice creams at all?  Got any good combinations to share with us?