Frozen Wine

All this talk about ice cream reminds me that I never posted the recipe for the frozen wine from the Renaissance cooking class. Thanks to Chef Cathy Kaufman and her Italian source Della Porta for this one--it was a huge hit in the class, and Jenny & I hope to make it again as soon as we either (a) have an ice cream maker; or (b) have the patience to freeze it in a pan, stirring occasionally. Everything that follows is quoted from Chef Cathy's recipe:

3 1/2 cups red or white wine
1 cup sugar
2 cups water
3/4 ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground malaguetta pepper (grains of paradise)

1. Place all of the ingredients in a large saucepan and bring to a boil. Remove from the heat and let infuse for 1/2 hour. Strain through cheesecloth, reserving the wine.

2. Place the wine in a shallow container and place in the freezer. Stir the mixture periodically with a fork to create a slushy texture, in the nature of a granita. Or place in an ice-cream maker according to the manufacturer's instructions for a sorbet.

The picture below comes from Delia Online, some cookery website that came up with another recipe for wine sorbet on Google. Ours looked pretty much like this, and we used the cheap cooking wine they had on hand--Franzia, I think it was. Box wine, anyway. It didn't matter a damn, although I wonder whether nicer wine would make nicer sorbet. For red, I imagine you could do worse with a more complex wine, and perhaps not much better; for white, I expect you could do worse, too, but also a lot better with something more interestingly fruity. A fun but potentially expensive experiment, to be sure!