Papaya Sorbet

Its getting hot here in Evanston, IL and the summer's always a good time for ice cream. I've made kulfi (recipe later) and today I decided I should try making sorbet. I'd heard and seen so much about the famed dessert that it was about time I gave my kitchen a whiff of it. Especially since I'm currently on a low fat cooking spree. It also reminds me of the sherbet that we used to have in India growing up. Different fruits and ice shaken together.

So, while rummaging around my refrigerator for some fruit, I came across some papaya which inspired this sorbet! Papaya is such a value for money kind of fruit! Its so popular in so many of the developing countries - India, Mexico etc. For me, it kind of mimics the mango but on a budget. Further research on the internet, and I concocted a trial recipe for papaya sorbet. I blended half a papaya with 2-3 tbsp of lemon juice and half a tsp of vanilla extract. On the side, I added 1/4 cup of sugar (adjust this as per your needs) to 1/4 cup of water and boiled it down to create a sugar syrup which I added to the blended papaya. You could potentially add a sprig of mint to the syrup while boiling for another layer of flavor. Freeze this mixture.

After about 2-3 hours in the freezer, take out the sorbet and blend it once more in the food processor till smooth again and then back into the freezer. Once frozen, just spoon it out and enjoy!

The result: It wasn't as tasty as I thought it would be. My guess is that it was the choice of fruit. I think this recipe would be fantastic with mango pulp!

I added passion fruit juice to the frozen sorbet and put it through the food processor again today. Much much better!! Very fruity and I could taste the natural sugars of the two fruits blended together. I hadn't much sugar to begin with (in line with my aim to eat healthy) so the passion fruit juice definitely took this to the next level.

Experiment with this recipe and different fruits! Add a drizzle of honey on top. Reduce the amount of sugar in the syrup. There are definitely multiple flavor combinations possible here.