Pistachio Labne Ice-Cream Without Machine

The whole summer I have been theorizing about homemade ice-cream. But the practical implementation had to wait: maybe I live too close to an excellent artisanal ice-cream parlor or, even more likely, I am just afraid to clatter my kitchen with a new ice-cream maker. Whenever I clean the kitchen (every day, few times a day) I find a utensil that has to go or pantry item that needs to be used immediately because the expiry date is too close or I have abnormal quantities of that (1 kg whole dry sumac berries from Antakya anyone?). And still my kitchen is packed, and there is no way to fit even a small ice-cream maker in the cabinets.

Summer is a good time to think about minimalism. I learned it the summer I quit my job, parked my possessions at my sisters’ place and went traveling for 3 months. First I headed out to Croatia: I had no plan as such, and the only way to travel in the midst of the high season was to do hostels that were possible to arrange on a few days’ notice. I arrived to Pula on the Istrian coast: the bus dropped me off at the outskirts, and the driver waved to a small unpaved road leading to the hostel and the beach.

At the reception I was handed over a room key. I did not really need it as both the door and the only window were open, and closing them was not an option in the 35+C heat. I saw the lipsticks and deodorants on the three bank beds, bikinis hang to dry, maps and used tickets on the floor. I burst into laughter. I could have not been more ridiculous with my 2-month-consultant-salary worth of the gear: camera with 3 lenses and a macbook. What did I think? To hang out with my gear or enjoy the sun and sea? I took shower, put on bikini, buried my gear under a pile of blankets and decided that if I don’t find it when I was back, so be it.

Another lesson of minimalism took place in the little town of Herzegovina later the same summer. I wanted to see stunning Ottoman settlement Počitelj but could not find out whether there were any hotels there. I got on a bus from Mostar to Čapljina, next biggest town to Počitelj where I thought I was guaranteed a place to stay. After traveling the coastal Croatia for 3 weeks where any house had a room for rent I did not even think that finding accommodation might be an issue.

The folks at the Čapljina bus station were astound by my arrival and completely puzzled by my request about hotels/rooms for rent. A big festival was taking place that night, and the foreign delegations occupied the only hotel in the city. No one was renting rooms. The cleaning lady at the bus station joined the conversation after a while said she had a room. I was keen to fix the price to avoid any surprises later, and the lady would refuse to make a quote. Finally it occurred to me that she had never hosted a traveler and had no idea of the “going rate”: she took a pity on me rather than seized a profitable opportunity.

A whole room normally occupied by the two adolescent children was generously offered to me. To say that the house was humble is to say nothing. It was a post-war house: bare walls and few essential pieces of furniture. No framed photographs of the family members, marble elephants from India and purposeless gallery of gifts. And amidst all that imagine over-geared me. Forget the electronics: I carried more cosmetics with me on that trip than you could find in the bathroom of a family of 4 grown-ups. It felt redundant to own more if any time one might be forced to scale down.

This summer in Russia when I visited my parents I had to deal with the results of excessive shopping and emotional attachments of decades back. It might be great to go through the memories during the parental visit once a year but why does their house need to be clattered with my nostalgia? I put away a lot of stuff. And then I had to deal with a part of my belongings parked at my sister’s Moscow flat that acted as my storage for a long time. I could relief her only of a handful of books, some clothes and bags, and we had to donate/throw away/gift the rest. Why did I buy all that stuff exactly?

So I thought that the least I could do this summer is to continue the young tradition of minimalism and not to buy the ice-cream maker. But I could not stop thinking about making ice-cream. So I decided to see if I am intimidated by making ice-cream without a machine. The advantage of the ice-cream machine is that it makes the ice-cream smooth, creamy and soft without any apparent ice-crystals in the mixture, the result that is hard to achieve through the manual freezing. Sure, there are some move-shake or stir-whisk methods out there but they turn your ice-cream making project into the Tamagotchi.

I discovered that the job can be done with less effort and a small food processor. You just combine the ice-cream ingredients there, cover the bowl and place it to the freezer. A few times you need to take it out, run the food processor and then put to the freezer. No mess, even freezing without ice clusters and no new device needed!

The other idea I have been entertaining for a while is labne, or seriously strained yogurt (very thick süzme yoğurt). While straining yogurt and similar dairy products has been a routine in many countries (including Turkey) for centuries labne seems to be very trendy these days. Perhaps, because labne is such a perfect illustration of minimalism.

Think about it: you undertake an almost zero effort to make this pantry item, and immediately (well, one night later) so many horizons open in your eating and cooking. You can forget butter, mayonnaise, creme cheese and other fat-loaded spreads and dressings and from now and forever make your sandwiches, eat your granola or porridge, make your cheesecake and serve your soups, eggs, salads and what not - with labne.

And, if you are determined enough you can make a labne ice-cream. I had a bag of the wonderfully green and intensely tasting Antep pistachio, turned them into a paste and combined with labne. Then added a bit of sugar. That’s really all. I felt very tempted to throw dozens of other things into the mix, but since it’s an exercise in minimalism I am keeping to the ingredients’ number to the shocking three.