WHY GELATO IS GOING TO BE THE FOOD OF 2018

Something weird happened to me the other day. It was a balmy July evening, so I headed out with my flatmate to grab a cool glass of white wine or a crisp Aperol spritz at the new food market near our flat. But instead of heading to the bar, I went straight to the gelato stand without a second thought, as if pulled to it by an invisible force.

Intense pistachio. Moreish black sesame. Bitter coffee. Creamy stracciatella. My head was swimming with the possibilities. Two hours later, we left. But I hadn’t even had a snifter of wine, and my friend, disappointed by the knok-off Aperol she was served, abandoned the full glass on the table. The gelatos, on the other hand, were demolished in minutes, in a flurry of groans, moans and eye rolls.

I got to thinking, I can’t be the only person who has uncharacteristically ditched booze for a dinky cup of pistachio gelato, or at least forged a new love affair with the dessert. Gelatos beautifully presented like roses or pressed into gourmet waffle cones seemed to be popping up across social media more and more, and gelatarias opening up across the country. Plus, the third annual Gelato Festival in London in June almost sold out. I, coming to terms with the fact that I had an addiction, decided to investigate.

My suspicions were confirmed by Alex Beckett, global food and drink analyst at the Mintel forecasting agency who specialises in ice creams and its sub-categories like gelato and sorbets. After some probing, he excitedly predicted that 2018 will indeed by the year of the gelato.

He says he has also noticed stores opening up across the UK, from Swoon in Bristol, to Badiani at the Mercato Metropolitano in London, and the newly-refurbished Unico in the capital which offers delicious vegan takes on favourites like moody dark chocolate. Google searches for the term have reached their highest ever point in the UK. Remeo, meanwhile, has this year become the first Italian gelato maker to start selling in the UK, with deals with Waitrose and Ocado rolling out earlier this year. All of this is great news for someone like me who has a habit to prop up.

At this point it's important to arm you with some facts if you want to enter the year of the gelato like a true pompous foodie. First, ice cream and gelato are most certainly not the same thing. Yes, they’re very similar, but not the same.

Gelato contains more milk than cream, making it freeze at a lower temperature and taste cooler, lighter and, arguably, more refreshing. Churned slower than ice cream, it is more dense and has a more intense flavour. According to Maggie Rush, the president of the Ice Cream Alliance, the ingredients and the fact that it contains less air than ice cream means it also has a short shelf life and generally must be sold the same day that it is made. As gelato must be produced in smaller batches, this makes it ripe for experimentation with the highest quality ingredients, from sweet lychee or fig to black olives and wasabi.

“The quality of the gelato on offer in the UK is increasing and people are enamoured by the discernible flavour of gelato, which is less ‘diluted’ than ice cream,” adds Charlotte Vile, a spokeswoman for the Nationwide Caterers Association.

This, says Beckett, taps into the overall demand for healthier, artisanal, “craft” foods containing ingredients with an engaging story of provenance... and all the other buzzwords that make something a surefire hit these days.

“We are on the cusp of gelato becoming mainstream," says Beckett. "There is a latent understanding that it is high quality. It’s just that supermarkets are so competitive it's hard for brands to break through into retail." He says once a global manufacturer like Unilever takes the plunge, gelato will be everywhere.

"We know that alcohol consumption is declining and people still want their treats. Ice cream is one of the biggest treat foods out there. Millennials want to pay out for quality and authentic foods that have a clean label with fewer ingredients,” he adds. “Ice cream struggles in UK, but in the US gelato has been its saviour. We expect to see the same thing happening here."

For Jacopo Cordero di Vonzo, the founder of Remeo, it's not just data that plays into why he decided to bring gelato to the UK, but a bit of raw, carnal desire.

“We are convinced that Gelato is a better product than ice-cream  - tastier, healthier, sexier,” he tells The Independent. "In the last five to ten years gelato has grown enormously in US and Brazil so we expect this to happen in the UK as well, and we are seeing this already."

Established gelaterias are already noticing a difference. “Our sales continue to grow year on year and if you needed any evidence to support that you just have to look at the queues that form outside our shop," says Owen Hazel, the co-owner of Jannettas in St Andrews, which has been open for over 100 years. "Where once our customers waited perhaps five to ten minutes they sometimes, during peak periods, have to wait 40 minutes."

“I think the Brits are now embracing gelato,” adds Jon Adams, who founded Brighton’s Gelato Gusto in 2012. "I think in general people today are more discerning about the food they eat. Brighton in particular is a very foodie city and people appreciate the fact that we are an artisan producer making small batches of fresh gelato and sorbetto each day above the shop and they are willing." Meanwhile, Swoon in Bristol says it has seen as 43 per cent rise in sales up on last year.

Gelato, it seems, is set to explode in popularity across the UK. But there’s just one small problem to solve before it becomes embedded in British culture like it is in Italian, says Adams: "it would also be helpful if we had a little more sunshine."

Jeremy Lee’s recipe for vanilla pots with raspberries

Who ate all the ice-cream? This is all I had for lunch!” cries our beleaguered pudding chef, all too often. On warm summer days, he fights off steamy cooks, who seek out bowls of cooling ice-cream to soothe them in the heat of the kitchen.

There is rarely any pity for the pudding cook, just hoots of laughter and an outstretched hand for more. I am as guilty, if not more so, for heading up the ice-cream raids on his section, particularly when there is a delivery of fine fruit at the restaurant. Freshly churned vanilla ice-cream and a punnet of the best raspberries is a formidable pairing – peerless even, and consistently irresistible.

The raspberry has a quality that rises above its rather odd daily availability. Unlike most harvests that defy the seasons and outstay their welcome, offering little more than shape or colour, a raspberry out of season is sort of OK when a little cheer is needed. However, at its allotted time, when the fruit harvest begins its great summer season, the raspberry rises to the fore of the avalanche mightily.

Amid the many puddings that enjoy the company of raspberries, one in particular stands out, surpassing even that bowl of ice-cream: the vanilla pot.

Simply put, it is a vanilla custard, gently baked in a bain-marie until just set, then put aside to cool. Then it’s heaped with a raspberry sauce and served with a bowl of raspberries alongside, a clean, delicate conclusion to lunch or dinner when temperatures are on the rise. Or indeed, any time in between those two meals. I confess to being found in the kitchen all too often with an empty ramekin in one hand and a telltale splash of cream and raspberry pink down my front, rumbled by cooks whose suspicions were aroused by a half-eaten punnet of raspberries sitting upon a bench.

In the words of Messrs Gilbert and Sullivan in HMS Pinafore … “With a bit of burglary” … although I’m not sure those masters of topsy-turvy quite had the contents of a fridge in mind.

Vanilla pots with raspberries and raspberry sauce

Makes 8
600ml milk
1 vanilla pod
30g sugar
7 egg yolks

Fresh raspberries and caster sugar, to serve

For the sauce
250g raspberries
Juice of 1 lemon
1 tbsp icing sugar

1. Preheat the oven to 130C/250F/gas mark ½. Prepare a deep roasting pan and a kettle full of hot water. You will also need 8 little pots, cups or ramekins.

2. Pour the milk into a heavy-based saucepan. Split the vanilla pod and scrape the seeds into the pan. Gently bring the milk to a simmer, then remove from the heat.

3. In a bowl, stir the sugar into the egg yolks. Pour the infused milk into the bowl and stir well. Let the custard sit for 15 minutes or so, then spoon away any foam that may have formed on the surface. Pour the custard into the pots.

4. Put the pots in the roasting tray. Put the tray in the oven. With great care, pour the water from the kettle into a jug, then fill the roasting tray with enough water to reach halfway to two‑thirds of the way up the side of the pots. Bake for 40-50 minutes. There should not be a bubble upon the surface.

5. Carefully remove the entire tray from the oven. Put it down on a wire rack and let the custard pots cool in the water. Once cooled, put the pots on a tray and transfer to the fridge. They do not suffer for sitting, covered, overnight.

6. To make the raspberry sauce, put all the ingredients in a blender and render smooth. Put a sieve over a bowl and pour the sauce into it, pushing through with the back of a spoon to leave the myriad pips behind.

7. To serve, heap the raspberries in a bowl. Have a small bowl of caster sugar alongside. Put each pot on a plate and pour on a spoonful of the raspberry sauce. Leftover sauce can be poured into a jug for people to help themselves.

Nigel Slater’s orecchiette with peas

The recipe

Put a deep pan of vegetable stock on to boil (you can use water at a push) and salt it lightly. You will need 300g of peas, shelled weight. Keeping a handful of raw peas to one side, cook the rest in the boiling water for 5-7 minutes, depending in their size.

While the peas cook, grill 10 thin rashers of pancetta until crisp, then drain them on kitchen paper. Cook 250g of dried orecchiette in deep, generously salted boiling water.

Put the peas and their cooking liquor into a blender and process until smooth. Drain the pasta and return to the pan, pour in the pea sauce and fold into the pasta. Check the seasoning. Divide between 2 deep plates.

Break the pancetta into large pieces and add them to the pasta, scatter over the reserved raw peas and serve. Enough for 2.

The trick

Start the pea sauce before putting the pasta on. The sauce will hold in good condition while the pasta cooks. If you are using fresh peas, then check them every minute or so throughout cooking – they can take anything from 4 minutes to much longer to become tender. Much depends on their age and size. If you are using frozen peas, they should be done in 4-5 minutes. Process the peas and their stock in two goes rather than risk overfilling the blender. (Sorry. Obvious, I know, but it is so easy to.)

The twist

You can make a similar sauce with broad beans. They are more starchy than peas, so be prepared to add a little more stock during blending. Although I love the simplicity of peas, pasta and pancetta, I have introduced shelled clams to this before now, thinning the sauce down with some of their (strained) cooking liquor.

Nigel Slater’s cherry pie and cake recipes

We went in search of cherries: punnet after punnet of dark, sweet fruits, cheap enough for us to boil up a batch of jam. The pickers had been at work before breakfast, teetering on tall ladders, their heads hidden in the canopy of leaves. We ignored the dead blackbird that hung ominously from the gate and went in. I was struck by how cool it was under those trees, a good few degrees cooler than in the open, and we sat in their shade feasting on fruit and spotting our shirts pink with juice before driving off with our cut-price haul.

That was a few years ago, but I have always associated cherries with the cool, serving them on dishes of ice in lieu of pudding; making a cordial of their juice with sparkling water and glasses of crushed ice, or just snatching the odd, chilled orb from its paper bag each time I opened the fridge door.

It is only recently I have started to think of the cherry as a cook’s fruit – a fruit for cakes and compotes, crumbles and pies. Jam aside, they seemed too precious to cook. Of course, warm cherry pie is heavenly if you take the trouble to stone the cherries. (A cherry pie with stones is more torture than treat.) And maybe do as I did this week, tossing in a handful of blueberries, the little fruits having the effect of making the cherries sing all the louder, their juice all the more rich.

Cherry pie

Use all cherries if you wish, but the tartness of the blueberries seems to amplify the flavour of the cherries. The cornflour becomes invisible, but effectively thickens the juices. Serves 6.

For the pastry:
plain flour 230g
butter 140g
icing sugar 50g
eggs 1 large yolk, plus another beaten to seal and glaze the pie
For the filling:
cherries 800g
blueberries 200g
cornflour 2 tbsp
lemon 1
caster sugar 100g (plus a little extra)

You will also need a wide-rimmed metal pie plate or tart tin measuring approximately 26cm in diameter (including rim).

Make the pastry: put the flour into the bowl of a food processor, add the butter cut into pieces and process until the ingredients resemble fine, fresh breadcrumbs. Mix in the icing sugar and the egg yolk. Transfer the mixture to a bowl, then bring the dough together with your hands to form a smooth ball. Wrap the dough in parchment or clingfilm and refrigerate for 20 minutes.

Stone the cherries, put them in a mixing bowl then add the blueberries and the cornflour. Finely grate the lemon, add it to the cherries, then cut the lemon in half and squeeze the juice. Sprinkle the juice over the fruit and add the sugar. Tumble the fruit, cornflour, juice, zest and sugar together and set aside.

Place an empty baking sheet in the oven, then preheat to 200C/gas mark 6. Cut the pastry in half. Roll out one half to fit the base of the pie plate, then lower on to the pie plate, leaving any overhanging pastry in place. Spoon the filling into the dish, leaving a bare rim of pastry around the edge. Brush the rim with a little beaten egg.

Roll out the remaining pastry and place it over the top of the tart, pressing firmly around the rim to seal. Trim the pastry. Brush the surface with beaten egg, pierce a small hole in the middle to let out any steam, then sprinkle the pie lightly with caster sugar. Bake for 25-30 minutes, on the heated baking sheet, until golden.

Cherry polenta cake

Serves 8-10.

butter 220g
caster sugar 220g
cherries 200g
ground almonds 180g
fine polenta 220g
baking powder 1 tsp
lemon 1
eggs 3, large 
For the syrup:
cherries 400g
honey 3 tbsp
elderflower cordial 160ml

Set the oven at 180C/gas mark 4. Line the base of a 20cm cake tin with baking parchment.

Dice the butter and put it in the bowl of a food mixer with the caster sugar and beat until light and creamy. Halve and stone the 200g of cherries.

Mix together the ground almonds, fine polenta and the baking powder. Grate the zest from the lemon and stir into the polenta. Squeeze the juice from the lemon into a small bowl. Break the eggs into a bowl and beat them lightly.

Add the beaten egg to the butter and sugar mixture, beating continuously, adding a little of the polenta mixture should it start to curdle. Fold in the remaining polenta mixture and the lemon juice.

Spoon half the batter into the lined cake tin, add the cherries, then the remaining batter and smooth the surface. Bake for 35 minutes, then lower the heat to 160C/gas mark 4 and bake for further 25 minutes until the cake is lightly firm to the touch.

While the cake bakes, make the syrup. Halve and stone the 400g of cherries. Warm the elderflower cordial and honey in a small pan, then add the cherries and let them simmer for 5-7 minutes until the fruit has given up some of its juice.

When the cake is ready, remove from the oven, then pierce all over with a skewer or knitting needle. Spoon some of the syrup from the cherries over the surface so it runs down through the holes into the crumb of the cake, then leave to cool.

Remove the cake from its tin; serve with the cherry compote and, if you like some cream or crème fraîche.

National picnic week 2017: Recipes from smoked salmon pate to tomato tarte tatin

Tomato and shallot savoury tarte tatin

​Tarte tatin is often associated with dessert, but savoury versions are delicious too and this one is no exception.

Serves 6-8

250g French shallots, unpeeled
1tbsp olive oil
25g butter
2 garlic cloves, crushed
6 Roma tomatoes, halved lengthways
1tbsp thyme leaves, plus extra to garnish
1tsp sugar
1 sheet frozen puff pastry (about 24 x 24cm), thawed in fridge

Find yourself a 20cm (across the base) ovenproof frying pan. Check the handle is ovenproof too, basically not plastic, or cover it with a double layer of foil. Also check it fits in your oven with the door closed! Preheat a fan-forced oven to 180°C (200°C conventional/Gas 6).

Simmer the shallots in water for 5 minutes, then drain well. Cool slightly, then peel (the skins should slip off easily). Heat the oil in your frying pan. Add the shallots and cook for about 5 minutes or until starting to brown. Transfer to a plate and remove the oil from the pan.

Put the butter in the pan over a low heat. Once it has melted, add the garlic and stir around briefly. Add the tomatoes cut-side down and sprinkle with the thyme and sugar. Cook over a medium heat for 1 minute. Remove from the heat and add the shallots, ensuring that everything is in a single, compact layer.

If your pastry is a square sheet, snip off the corners to make them rounded. Carefully place the pastry over the shallots, tucking it inside the pan (not over the edges of the pan).

Place on a baking sheet and bake for 30-35 minutes until the pastry is puffed and golden. Remove from the oven and cool in the pan for 5 minutes. Then carefully turn out onto a large serving plate, remembering the handle will still be hot. Also be aware the tomatoes may have leaked a little juice. Serve warm or cold, scattered with the extra thyme. If transporting, cover with foil once cool.

Smoked salmon and roasted red capsicum pâté on toast

Serves 6

This creamy smoked salmon pâté served on crisp toast triangles is perfect finger food. You can make the pâté smooth or slightly chunky, depending on whether you blend the capsicum into the mix. If you stir the capsicum through after blending, the resulting pâté will be a little creamier.

1 small red capsicum (pepper), halved and seeded (or 50g bought chargrilled capsicum, drained)
200g smoked salmon
200g cream cheese
100g sour cream
4tbsp finely chopped dill
60-80ml lemon juice
8 thin slices of wholegrain or wholemeal (whole-wheat) bread

Preheat a grill (broiler) to high. Squash the capsicum halves to flatten them, then place under the hot grill, skin side up. Grill until the skin is completely blackened. Place in a plastic bag, seal the bag and leave for 15 minutes. Rub or peel off the skin (do not rinse), then finely dice the capsicum and set aside.

Put the smoked salmon, cream cheese, sour cream, dill and 60ml (2fl oz/¼ cup) of the lemon juice into the bowl of a food processor. Blend for about 20 seconds. Taste, then season with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper and add the extra tablespoon of lemon juice if needed. Now either add the diced capsicum and blend for 10 seconds, or transfer the pâté to a bowl and stir in the diced capsicum. Chill the mixture in the fridge for about 30 minutes so it firms up slightly.

Heat the oven to 180°C (350°F) fan-forced, or 200°C (400°F) conventional, and place a baking sheet in the oven to heat up. Remove the crusts from the bread, then roll the slices out thinly using a rolling pin or bottle. Cut each piece into four triangles. Place on the baking sheet and bake for 8-10 minutes, or until the toasts are golden and crisp. Set aside to cool.

Store and transport the toasts in an airtight container, then serve alongside the pâté.

Goats cheese, black olive and herb muffins

These are best eaten on the day they’re made, however, if you do have any left over, warm them up and serve with some butter the next day.

Makes 12 muffins

2 free-range eggs, lightly beaten
220ml milk
150ml olive oil, plus extra  for greasing
300g (2 cups) self-raising flour
1tsp sea or table salt
120g pitted kalamata olives, finely chopped
3tbsp flat-leaf parsley, finely chopped
150g goats cheese, crumbled
1 red chilli, deseeded and finely chopped (optional)

Preheat a fan-forced oven to 180°C (200°Conventional/ Gas 6). Grease a 12-hole (capacity 80ml or 1/3 cup) muffin tin or line with cupcake cases. Combine the eggs, milk and olive oil in a bowl. Sift the flour and salt over the egg mixture then stir gently to combine. Fold in the olives, parsley, goats cheese and chilli and season with freshly ground black pepper.

Divide the mixture between the muffin holes and bake for 20-25 minutes, or until the muffins have risen and are golden. Leave to cool for 5 minutes in the tin then transfer to wire racks to cool further.

Styling tip: Balls of coloured and textured twine look beautiful stacked in glass jars and are handy for wrapping sandwiches and muffins for lunches.

Why you should forget superfood fads and follow a traditional diet

For decades we’ve been told to eat a different food practically every year if we want to be healthy: blueberries, avocados, chia seeds, quinoa and kale have all had their moments in the sun, but a new book claims we should forget food fads and eat like our ancestors.

100 Million Years Of Food: What Our Ancestors Ate and Why It Matters Today by Stephen Le also reveals that we’re not actually consuming more calories than our predecessors, despite common belief.

Paleo, raw, veggan (nope, not a typo - that’s vegan but with eggs) - nowadays we’re spoilt for choice with diet options that will supposedly bring us optimal health and wellbeing, but it could be that these modern trends are doing more harm than good and have caused the current explosion of chronic diseases and allergies.

Le’s family are originally from Vietnam but his parents settled in Ottawa, Canada, in the 1960s, where Le and his three brothers were born and grew up.

He was finishing his PhD at the University of California when he discovered his 66-year-old mother's breast cancer - with which she’d been diagnosed years earlier - had spread to her lungs.

Le rushed home to Canada where his mother died three months later, aged 66. It was just two years after her own mother had died almost three decades older, aged 92.

His parents had obeyed every western food fad over the years, whereas his grandparents, unable to read English, had stuck to the traditional fare they knew. This got Le thinking.

As a biological anthropologist, he started doing research into ancestral diets and food-related illnesses: “Some of my preliminary readings,” Le told Macleans, “showed that Asians who migrate to North America and Europe see elevated rates of breast cancer as well as prostate cancer.” And he wanted to find out why.

Contradicting nearly everything we’ve been told recently, Le discovered that the average person in 2016 doesn’t consume more calories than humans millions of years ago, and thanks to our increased metabolisms, we’re burning just as many calories as our predecessors too, despite our sedentary lifestyles.

So rather than eating less or exercising more, Le believes the key to health is eating like your ancestors. He champions traditional diets and argues that we should be looking to our genetic and cultural history when deciding what to eat.

Forget foodie fads and so-called superfoods, it’s the simple fare of our great-great-great-great-grandparents we should be consuming, whether that’s meat and potatoes or vegetables with rice. So instead of asking for the latest healthy cookery book, it might be worth taking a look at your grandparents' cookbook and making the recipes handed down to them over the years.

Le thinks our society in fact places too much emphasis on fruit and vegetables. As our bodies have evolved, he believes we can no longer cope with the “daily jug-loads of fructose” we’re consuming through juices, smoothies and fruit.

And as for vegetables, Le points out that they became part of our diets late - even after meat and dairy - because they contain toxins.

Whilst cooking vegetables neutralises said toxins, western cultures place salad and raw vegetables on a pedestal: “If you took people from most parts of the world to a salad bar, they would gasp in horror. They’d say, ‘You can’t digest these things!’” Le explains.

Le is not a nutritionist and admits that fruit and vegetables have nutritional value, he just believes we overstate their importance. “As long as we’re eating an adequately balanced diet, there’s no fear of non-nutrition,” Le says.

So next time you fancy potatoes but feel you really ought to have broccoli instead, that’s something to remember.

Orange wine: Why we'll all be drinking it in 2017

Orange wine - which combines the richness of red and the freshness of white – looks set to be the drink of 2017.

Also known as the "fourth wine", orange wine earns its name from its colour and does not contain any citrus fruits.

While the grape juice and skins are separated immediately when white wine is made, the skins are left on for orange wine. This process - known as skin contact - produces tannins. Grape skins can be kept in the wine for between a week to a year to create different colours and flavours.

Additives, including yeast, are rarely used in the process. The result is a wine that can be more nutty and fruity in flavour.

Orange wine has been popping up on influential wine lists across the world. In the summer, the London Ritz added five orange wines to its highly traditional 800-wine “Livre du Vin” list, while wine sellers in New York are also catering for a spike in its popularity, according to Bloomberg.

While orange wines are experiencing a resurgence, they were first developed in George centuries ago, but have been made in Italy and Slovenia in recent years.

Amelia Singer, the ITV’s wine expert, recently told the Evening Standard that the best orange wines have a “thrilling perfume, combined with an enticing intensity of honeyed, fleshy fruit and assertive grip from the tannins.”

Orange wine is “incredibly versatile”, she added, and can be paired with cheese boards as well as Indian, Ethiopian, Persian and Moroccan dishes because of the acidity and fruitiness.

However, as orange wines are made in small batches you are more likely to find a bottle at a wine bar than a supermarket.