Dondurma (Turkish Ice Cream)

The chefs/owners of Arrows, Mark and Clark came to me and asked me if I could make the famous nougat-like Turkish Ice Cream, Dondurma, for the tasting menu. They had eaten some when they visited Turkey and they loved the pliable ice cream that you can actually cut with a knife and fork. So when they asked me, I immediately thought it would be a daunting task, but I became very enthusiastic on trying to re-create it. I ran into the first problem after doing some extensive research, which was that the main ingredient Salep Flour was illegal to export out of Turkey. Salep flour comes from wild Turkish orchids and it contains a hydrocolloid that produces the stretchy, chewy ice cream. The "ice cream" has to be worked for a while to make it stretchy. It was almost like the way you would to make gluten develop in a bread dough.  Vendors in Turkey beat and pound the hell out of it with long rods to get the consistency right, like below…

So unless I found a Turkish pastry black market, I would have to find a new way to make it. I first tried to use a combination of guar gum and low acyl gellan. I was reading another blog and the chef was trying to make an ice cream that can be "bruleed", similar to Heston Blumenthal's flaming sorbet.  He said the final product was similar to Dondurma so I figured I would give it a shot.  I first made the base by shearing in the gums into the milk and cream mixture. I made the base like any other ice cream base but I made it into a fluid gel. The base looked promising and seemed like it would be some what "stretchy".  I churned the base and piped it into a container and then proceeded to beat the mixture like hell. The ice cream did not become anything like Dondurma, but it was chewy and did not melt quickly. The amount of gums actually kept it from melting for quite a while, almost 20 minutes.  I tried it again after speaking with my friend James (the pastry chef at On20 in Hartford CT), and he said to try another starch. I tried a combination of potato starch and glutinous rice flour and the ice cream was somewhat stretchy but just tasted like starchy mochi. I learned that in pastry, if you do not have a key ingredient, do not try to expect the same results.  I am going with a frozen yogurt now.

Mise-en-place

Gelled Base 

Fluid Gel Base 

Final Product