A few weeks ago I wrote about making Peach Ice Longan.
Curiously enough, in an ongoing discussion among some makan kakis in Makansutra about Cendol*, my friend rojak mentioned she bought a new ice shaver. Made in Taiwan, it is a manual ice shaver that yields really fine ice shavings. Best of all, it comes in cool psychedelic colours and costs less than $15. rojak kindly helped me buy one, and we finally found time to test it last Sunday. More precisely my tastebuds were rather overwhelmed by the prata and curry lunch, and we needed something cold and sweet to rejuvenate them.
Here they are, side by side, the Kenwood electric and the No-Name manual. I was rather pleased to get the green version because I don't happen to have many green appliances.
The judges ( umami and husband) unanimously decided in favour of No-Name. It shaves the ice so finely it resembles snow, yet the snow did not melt as quickly as we feared. To make like those hawker centre desserts, all that is needed is to shave and press down a little to compact the ice, so that it does not melt as quickly. No-Name does require a bit more effort to use, because in place of a handy button, we had to turn the rotary attachment, but it was only marginally more effort, like having to walk instead of using the rolling castors on the study chair.
Having decided that the manual shaver is the one to use, we decided to make some iced desserts. My friend slurp had suggested I could make ice of sweetened milk instead of boring old water ice. And that got me thinking I could make ice of syrups or coloured drinks, like coffee, wine, teas, orange juice, you get the idea...We froze some Ribena solution because we love Ribena and there is always a giant bottle in the fridge. It froze to a lovely ruby red. And the shaved ice does look real pretty next to the canned longans. That was a quick experiment, as we embrace any excuse to consume Ribena and canned longans. I am already planning more adventures with No-Name. Next time I will add fruit and alcohol to a syrup base and try making granitas.
* Cendol is a local dessert of shaved ice, coconut milk, green pea noodle and palm sugar. It is better than ice cream. I will blog about this great dessert in more detail one of these days, it really deserves its own permalink.
