Ginger and persimmons (15)

I love persimmon time of year: it's one of the few fruits that is still restricted to a specific season, so it feels special when the orange globes arrive in the market—I always try to snap a few up before they vanish again. Which I did, last week: two hachiya and four fuyu. The fuyu I've been eating like apples, but I had to wait—patiently—for the hachiya to ripen. And yesterday, they were perfect: almost-bursting-out-of-their-skin soft. Just right for a scrummy persimmon pudding. 

(I have written about persimmons before: here and here and here, this last one with a different pudding recipe.)

When we were in Madagascar in September, meanwhile, one of the nicer restaurants we dined at served ginger ice cream. It was delicious. I tucked the tasty memory away, resolving to dust off my too-little-used ice cream maker and find a recipe.

Yesterday the two flavor treats came together. And boy, were they delicious—apart, but especially together. Here are the recipes I used (the first adapted from rainbowdelicious.com, the second from the New York Times).

Persimmon pudding

Dry ingredients

• 1 cup flour
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp cinnamon

Wet ingredients

• 1 cup persimmon pulp
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 Tb melted butter
• 1 egg white, whipped but not stiff

1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease/butter a small casserole dish, one that will fit inside a larger (9 × 13)  dish.
2. Sift together the dry ingredients in a medium-large bowl.
3. Add all the wet ingredients except the whipped egg whites to the flour mixture and stir until just combined.
4. Fold in the egg whites, again until just combined.
5. Pour the pudding into the casserole dish and place in the larger pan. Add about an inch of water to the larger dish.
6. Bake for 1 hour. Let cool slightly before serving with whipped cream or vanilla ice cream.

Or, as the case may be, with

Ginger ice cream

• 

  NYT photo by Christopher Testani
  

  2 cups heavy cream
• 1 cup whole milk
• 2/3 cup granulated sugar
• 1/8 tsp fine sea salt
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 1 whole clove
• 3 Tb grated fresh ginger
• 4 large egg yolks
• 1/3 cup candied ginger, finely chopped

1. In a medium pot, cook cream, milk, sugar, salt, cinnamon stick, and clove over medium heat. Once the temperature exceeds 160°F, add the ginger (this is important, to keep it from curdling). Continue heating until the mixture is just at a simmer. Then cover, remove from heat, and let steep for 1 hour.
2. In a medium bowl, whisk the yolks. Whisking constantly, slowly add about a third of the cream to the yolks, then whisk yolk mixture back into the pot with the cream. Return pot to medium-low heat and gently cook until mixture is thick enough to coat the back of a spoon (about 170°F).
3. Strain through a fine-mesh sieve into a bowl. Cool mixture to room temperature. Cover and chill at least 4 hours or overnight. Churn in an ice cream machine according to the manufacturer's instructions, adding the candied ginger during the last few seconds of churning. Serve directly from the machine for soft serve, or store in freezer. Can be frozen for a week or so before it starts to develop ice crystals.