Fresh Tangerine Sorbet

So after you have one helping too many of my Lasagna Bolognese what would be good for dessert? A nice light and refreshing sorbet of course! I recently bought an ice cream maker and have thus far made Classic Vanilla, Cinnamon and  Lemon Verbena ice cream (all from David Lebovitz' book The Perfect Scoop, my ice cream bible). If you are ever able to get your hands on fresh lemon verbena I highly recommend making ice cream out of it. It blew my mind! Anyway I have been so excited about the myriad possibilities of making my own ice cream that it never dawned on me that I could also make sorbets. They are so simple and since tangerines were crazy cheap last week I decided to give it a try. Wow! This had a really amped up and bold tangerine flavor and was so refreshing. I'm looking forward to trying other flavors now. The chocolate cups and garnishes were just used to try and make a blob of sorbet look nice. A wonderful family friend had given me a gift box with all of these great chocolate cups in various shapes and sizes and chocolate curls and other adornments made out of chocolate so I decided to use a couple. The chocolate did not go well with the sorbet however but I like the picture. The recipe calls for 15 tangerines and if yours are a normal size that's pretty accurate. The ones I bought were the size of oranges so 10 was all I needed. I foresee many a summer evening cooling off with a nice dish of fruity sorbet. I even used some to make a batch of frozen tangerine margaritas! Sometimes I could just kiss myself. Enjoy!

Recipe: Fresh Tangerine Sorbet

Gourmet, February 1997

Makes about 5 cups

 

3 1/2 cups fresh tangerine juice (from about 15 tangerines)
3/4 cup superfine sugar

In a bowl stir together juice and sugar until sugar is dissolved. Chill juice, covered, until cold, about 3 hours. Freeze juice in an ice-cream maker. Sorbet may be made 1 week ahead.