Salt - The Salt & Straw ice cream cookbook

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

To my cousin, friend, and business partner, Kim Malek, who designed this company so thoughtfully and has led it in such a way that it makes the people and community around her better.

To our Salt & Straw team: To Casey, who if you ask me is the most talented hospitality-focused mind of our generation and whose genius is to make food culture approachable. If youre ever lucky enough to talk with her, she might change your life. To Kat, James, Kristen, Rudy, Amanda, Ian, Laura, and David, some of the first people we ever hired and still leaders in our company. Were all here (five hundred Salties and counting!) because we believe ice cream has the ability to change the world. Im honored and grateful that you have given so much time and energy and life force to help make this company what it is. To the rest of our leadership team: Austin Ketchum, Kavita Patel, and Nicki Kerbs; to Melissa Broussard, our amazing publicist; and to Kathleen Healy, our invaluable real estate broker.

To Mike Axley, Kims partner, who not even a year into their relationship put up his house as collateral to help us start this companyand who let me move into his basement! To Sandy Ryan, Kims sister-in-law, who came up with our name and has given me tons of fun flavor ideas ever since.

To my wife, Sophia, you are everything to me. You push me to be smarter and more thoughtful. You will be fighting by my side till the end of the world. To my grandmasGrandma Malek, who I learned how to cook from, and Grandma Joan, who I learned how to cook for. To my grandpasGrandpa Malek, who offered endless support, and Grandpa Norm, who inspired me to do and try everything so I could be anything. To my mom and dad, who loved and supported me through every step. And to my stepdad, who, when he was slowly slipping away, fighting off cancer, was the first person to genuinely love something I cooked. You are one big reason Im in a kitchen today.

To Francis Lam and JJ Goode, who are the reason this book was written. Francis met with Kim and me when we were just a tiny company in Portland and convinced us we had a story that needed to be told. That conversation, one of the deepest and realest wed had then or since, has guided a lot of the ways in which we took our business. Then, after spending two years sitting on scribbled notes and drawings, JJ is the one who swooped in to help get things off the ground, forcing me to stick to deadlines and, in tandem with Francis, helping in every way imaginable to get this finished. These two are my heroes.

To Andrew Thomas Lee, who shut himself in a tiny room with me for, like, two hundred hours to take these photos. The only prompt we started with was to do something with ice cream thats never been done before, and dang, he killed it. To Andrea Slonecker, Caroline Wright, and Emily Stephenson, who were by my side the entire way, testing the recipes to ensure they worked perfectly in a home kitchen. And to Andee Hess, one of the best designers in the country, who has lent her genius to Salt & Straws aesthetic since 2013 and is one reason this book looks so beautiful.

To the design team at Clarkson Potter, Jen Wang and Stephanie Huntwork, who patiently, skillfully, and diligently worked to help me execute my vision for this book. And to the production team of Chris Tanigawa and Heather Williamson, who made it real.

To Kim Witherspoon and her team at Inkwell Management for helping to get the project off the ground.

To Danny Meyer, Peter Mavrovitis, Mark Leavitt, and the rest of the Enlightened Hospitality Investment team, as well as Billy Logan, Alan Karp, and the KarpReilly team. You believed in us early and have been 110 percent supportive of our vision for a company that invests back in their people and communities.

To the citiesL.A., San Francisco, San Diego, Seattlethat have welcomed us with open arms. And to the city of Portland, where we got our start, that supported us through it all. To everyone who waited in line for a lick, and to the chefs, artists, artisans, and citizens whose generosity and collaborative spirit inspires me every day. Just to name a few: Mark Bitterman, David Briggs, Gabe Rucker, Gregory Gourdet, Jenn Louis, Gaby and Greg Denton, Charley Wheelock, Ben Jacobsen, Tom McMahon, Steven Smith, Tony Tellin, Michael Madigan, Sarah Masoni, Geoff Latham, the team at OP, the team at Feast PDX, Red Ridge Farms, Congressman Earl Blumenauer, Karen Brooks, and Thomas Lauderdale.

My ice creams, sorbets, and everything in between start with whats called a basethe concoction that is to the frozen treats what stocks are to soups. You can flavor stock with carrots, celery, or onion (just the way you can flavor an ice cream base with chocolate, vanilla, or strawberry). Or you can add to the stock ingredients things like chunks of chicken and noodles (think chips, caramel, or cookie dough). Or you can do bothhello, seafood chowder; hi, mint chocolate chip! Whatever you decide to do, the base is your ice creams jumping-off point.

In this chapter, youll find the two bases that are used for just about every recipe in this bookone for ice cream and one for sorbet and gelatoplus an amazing vegan ice cream base. (Later on in the book, there are a few custard bases that are unique to their recipes.) All these bases are pretty darn simple. They dont require ice baths, instant-read thermometers, or precarious tempering of egg yolks. You mix, you heat, you stir, youre done. This is no concession to home cooks, either. Its exactly what we do at Salt & Straw.

BUT FIRST THE SECRET SUPERHERO OF ICE CREAM

So youve stored your ice cream just the way I told you to. You shoveled it from machine to container with haste. Youve dutifully tucked it in the very back of the freezer and employed a phalanx of frozen expendables to defend it from the warm world beyond. Wait, whats that you say? You didnt?

Okay, I get it. Even at Salt & Straw, where we have a rigorous high-tech distribution systemstore at 20F, deliver at 10F, temper in shop to 5F, scoop at 5Fthe unexpected happens. We understand that we just cant manage every second of the ice creams life. At home, you have more control but less fancy technology and, I assume, less will to focus all of your energies on maintaining the crystal structure of your ice cream. Who out there can save Americas pints from an icy fate? Why, look! There, in the bag! Its flour, its sugar, itsxanthan gum!

Every recipe in this book uses xanthan gum in its base. Now, I know what youre thinking (its exactly what I thought when I first heard of it): Xanthan gum sounds funny. It starts with an x! It must be impossible to find and it must be bad. Well, its not and its not! Its easy to get, not just online but at most supermarkets. Its sold by ubiquitous brands like Bobs Red Mill and Hodgson Mill. Second, although that x makes it sound especially unnatural, xanthan gum is no stranger than cornstarch or baking soda.