Salmorejo sorbet
Córdoba's salmorejo turned into sorbet: tomato, bread, garlic and oil. Thick, savoury and salty. A starter, not a dessert.
The bread is not filler: it is what emulsifies the salmorejo. Its starch holds the oil and stops it separating, exactly as in the classic dish.
Ingredients
For 1 kgTick each ingredient as you get it ready.
Need to adjust the formula?
Step by step
9 steps · follow the order for the best result
Chef's notes
- ·The salmorejo, cold, with the mix already at 4 °C, and blended thoroughly.
- ·Do not skip the cold ageing: it hydrates proteins and stabiliser and clearly improves the texture.
- ·The serving temperature depends on your recipe: if you formulate to a softer PAC than your freezer (say -11 °C with the chest at -18 °C), temper it for 5–10 min before serving; if the PAC matches your freezer, it can be eaten straight out.
- ·Why formulate at -11 and not at -18 °C: even though your freezer sits at -18 °C, formulating at -11 makes the ice cream tastes better — at -18 it is so cold that the taste buds barely pick up the flavour and the fat is slow to melt in the mouth. And keeps better: ice cream formulated at -11 and kept at -18 has less free water, suffers less from Ostwald ripening (ice crystals joining and growing) and keeps its creaminess longer.
- ·Keep your own notes: write down the POD and PAC that work best with your machine.
The texture
spot on
Thick and unctuous, with the oil and bread building the body just as in the spooned salmorejo. Almost all the sugar is dextrose, which sweetens little: it is there so it can be served frozen, not to sweeten it.
All about this salmorejo sorbet
First make the salmorejo: tomato, bread and garlic blended, the oil in a thin stream while it runs so it emulsifies, and through a fine sieve to remove the skins. Chill it, better still in the freezer.
The sorbet base carries no fruit at all: it is water with sugars that do not sweeten — dextrose, inulin and 21 DE glucose — and barely any sucrose. Hence half the sweetness of an ordinary ice cream.
The salmorejo goes in with the mix already cold and is blended in well. The crisp ham goes on top right at serving, so it does not soften.
The ingredients and what each does
The vegetables bring the flavour and almost all the water. Olive oil adds the little fat there is and salt sets the savoury note, which is why sweetness is lower than in a fruit sorbet. Sucrose and dextrose set the sweetness and the hardness at serving temperature. Glucose adds body and barely sweetens. Inulin adds solids with almost no sweetness, the job milk would do in an ice cream. The stabiliser holds the free water and stops crystals forming in the freezer. Water adjusts the concentration so the flavour is neither watery nor pasty.
Technique and controlling the numbers
Adjusting the POD (sweetening power) and the PAC (antifreezing power, given as a target temperature) lets you match sweetness and hardness to your taste and your machine. With the selectors in the side bar the formula recalculates itself and you will see how the amount of each ingredient changes.
Storage and common mistakes
Store at -18 °C in an airtight container and avoid freeze-thaw cycles. The commonest faults are not ageing it enough, too much sugar so it never freezes properly, and over-churning, which whips in too much air and wrecks the texture.
Recommended for this recipe
Equipment and ingredients that make the difference.
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