Beso Oaxaqueño (Nieve)

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •Traditional wooden garrafa with metal cylinder and wooden pala
• •High-powered blender
• •Cast iron comal or heavy skillet for toasting
• •Box grater with small holes for the carrot
• •Medium-mesh sieve
• •Stout glass tulip cups for serving

Instructions

1. 1

   Toast the coconut and the pecans

   Heat a dry comal or heavy skillet over medium-low. Spread the shredded coconut in a thin layer and stir constantly until it turns a pale gold and the kitchen smells sweet, about three to four minutes. Tip it onto a plate to cool. Toast the pecans on the same comal for five to six minutes, until they smell deeply nutty and the color darkens by a shade. Let them cool, then chop them roughly. The coconut goes into the base. The pecans wait until the end. Asi se hace y punto.

   Coconut burns the second you stop stirring. Do not walk away from the comal. Pale gold is the color you want. Brown is too far.
2. 2

   Build the milk base

   In a blender, combine the pineapple chunks, the toasted coconut, the whole milk, the heavy cream, the condensed milk, the sugar, the vanilla, and the pinch of salt. Blend on high until completely smooth. Taste it. The pineapple should lead, the coconut should follow, the milk should round it out. If your pineapple is very sweet, hold back two tablespoons of sugar. If it is sharp, use the full amount. Mexican grandmothers taste as they go and so will you.

3. 3

   Stir in the carrot

   Pour the blended base into a bowl through a medium-mesh sieve, pressing gently with a ladle. You want to catch the coarse pineapple fiber, not the coconut. Stir the finely shredded carrot directly into the strained base. The carrot stays whole. It is what gives Beso Oaxaqueño its texture and its small flecks of orange that catch the light when the nieve is scooped. This is not a smooth ice cream. The carrot is the signature.

4. 4

   Chill the base thoroughly

   Cover the bowl and refrigerate the base for at least one hour, or until very cold. Cold base churns faster, freezes finer, and gives you a creamier nieve. A warm base will fight the salt and ice the whole way through.

5. 5

   Set up the garrafa

   Place the metal cylinder of a traditional garrafa inside the wooden barrel. Pour the chilled base into the cylinder, filling it no more than three-quarters of the way. Pack the space between the cylinder and the barrel with crushed ice, and layer in coarse rock salt as you go, about one part salt to six parts ice. The salt is what drops the temperature of the ice below freezing. Without it, you will stand there for an hour with no nieve to show for it. La sal hace el frio.

   If you do not have a garrafa, an ice cream maker will work. The texture will be cleaner and less rustic, but the flavor is the flavor. The senoras in Jardin Socrates would prefer the garrafa. They would not refuse the ice cream maker.
6. 6

   Hand-churn the nieve

   Cover the cylinder with its lid and begin turning. The first ten minutes feel like nothing is happening. Keep turning. After fifteen minutes you will feel the resistance change as the base starts to set against the inside wall. Stop, lift the lid, and scrape the frozen layer down with a wooden pala into the still-liquid center. Cover again and keep turning. Repeat the scraping every five to seven minutes. Total churning runs forty-five minutes to an hour. This is the work. There is no shortcut. No me vengas con atajos.

7. 7

   Fold in the pecans and finish

   When the nieve is the texture of soft snow and holds the swirl of the pala, scatter the chopped pecans over the top and fold them through with two or three turns. Do not over-mix. The pecans should be visible, not buried. Serve immediately in stout glass tulip cups with a wooden pala, the way they do at the dulcerias under the laurel trees of the Zocalo. Saber cocinar es saber vivir.

Chef Tips

• •The pineapple has to be ripe. A green pineapple gives you a sour, fibrous nieve and no amount of sugar will save it. Press your thumb into the base. It should yield slightly. Smell the bottom. It should smell like pineapple, not like nothing.
• •Shred the carrot as finely as you can on the small holes of a box grater. You want flecks, not strips. A coarse shred turns into chewy intrusions in the cold nieve. Doña Reyna uses a small hand grater she has had since the 1980s.
• •If you can find Oaxacan pecans, the small dark ones from the sierra, use them. Standard pecans work. Walnuts do not work. The pecan is the right nut for this nieve and substituting walnuts gives you a different, more bitter flavor that fights the pineapple.
• •A garrafa is not decorative. It is the tool. If you do not have one, an ice cream maker is an honest substitute. A blender and a freezer are not. You will get a block of frozen pineapple milk, not a nieve.
• •Sal de grano, the coarse rock salt, is what makes the ice cold enough to freeze the base. Table salt will not work. Kosher salt will work in a pinch but you will need more of it.

Advance Preparation

• •The milk base can be blended and refrigerated up to twenty-four hours ahead. Stir the carrot in just before churning so it stays bright and fresh.
• •Once churned, Beso Oaxaqueño is best the day it is made. It will keep in the freezer for two days but the texture hardens and loses the soft crystalline quality that defines a true nieve de garrafa. Pull it out fifteen minutes before serving to soften.
• •Toast the coconut and pecans up to three days ahead and store in airtight jars at room temperature.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 275g)