See, I didn’t live in South Philly, but most of my extended family did. Water ice from the Water Ice stands there were a bit different than the frozen Rosati cups I would eat. Rosati’s was a bit like frozen flavored ice. The other type Philadelphia water ice is a bit creamier and very easily scooped into cups. Now in the Philadelphia area, water ice is so popular a huge chain called Rita’s Water Ice has emerged everywhere (almost like how Starbucks is everywhere). But, I miss those days of going into Wawa and grabbing a cup of Rosati’s. This recipe for Water Ice is closer to that one than the softer, scoopable Rita’s Water Ice. And, yes, when you scrape it with a spoon, it does kind of look like granita… but I refuse to call it that.

Whether you call it granita or water ice, cool yourself down with this fat-free treat. Make individual sizes by pouring the mixture in cups and freeze that way or make one large “tray” and scrape out however much you want. It’s refreshing, sweet, tart and will have you saying “Wooder Ice” in no time! Here’s a question for you – do you have any summertime sweet food memories that are similar or different from mine? I’m curious.

LEMON WATER ICE (SCRAPE-SYLE)

Ingredients:

• 4 cups water
• 2 cups sugar
• 3/4 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
• the zest of one lemon

What to do:

• Boil water and sugar together for a few minutes till they become one.
• Stir in lemon juice and zest.
• Pour into a glass bowl, glass baking pan, popsicle trays or individual ramekin and allow to freeze.

Check out some other posts you may enjoy:

• CREAMY LEMON PASTA
• BREAD-CRUSTED FISH WITH LEMON-BUTTER SAUCE
• FRIED LAMB RIB CHOPS WITH ROSEMARY-GARLIC REDUCED BALSAMIC
• CACIO E PEPE: SPAGHETTI WITH PECORINO AND BLACK PEPPER ROMAN-STYLE

That day, my friend and I popped into said pub and sought something warming to take the chill off. The specials’ board told of a “South African hot toddy” – something I had never heard of. I was familiar, as many of us are, with the typical hot toddy – whiskey or brandy, with hot water, sugar and lemon juice, (and there are many variations on that theme – some including tea, some not) but this one contained brandy, hot water, ginger, rooibosh (red bush) tea, honey and lemon juice, the rooibosh tea making it particularly South African. It was delicious, simultaneously intoxicating, soothing and warming. The ginger and lemon enlivened the sense and the palate, the red bush tea is a restorative, the honey offered energy, and the brandy rounded everything out with a boozy smoothness that engendered warmth and relaxation. After two, or was it three, of them, we were ready to venture home in the cold, but instead, and very mistakenly, decided to have a go at ice-skating. We didn’t break any limbs or endanger anyone with our drunken attempts at toe-loops and salcos (we were the only ones on the ice), but when the alcohol wore off and the bruises came through, it became clear that it had been a mistake.

However, the drink really is a treat if you’ve got chill in your bones you just can’t shake, just please don’t go ice-skating afterwards. Before perhaps, but definitely not after.

South African Hot Toddies Recipe (serves two):

4oz brandy (doesn’t have to be good stuff ’cause you’re adding lots of flavor to it)
10oz boiling water
2 bags or 2tbsp red bush tea
4oz lemon juice (juice of 2 or 3 lemons)
4tbsp runny (clear) honey
2tbsp ginger root (stem ginger), sliced into thin rounds

Divide brandy, lemon juice and honey into two mugs. Toss in the ginger and red bush tea. Fill mugs up with hot water and stir vigorously until honey has mixed in and you can smell the ginger. Allow to steep for three to four minutes before removing red bush tea bags (or tea strainer with loose tea), put your feet up and enjoy!

P.S. – in case you were wondering, like I was, why it’s called a hot toddy, here’s what I found the explanation to be. During the British Raj in India, the British came upon a sweet sap, and a liquor fermented from the sap, from tropical Asian palm trees (the so-called toddy palm – genus Borassus), called toddy by the locals. The British then added this sap to their cups of tea as a sweetener, making it a hot toddy. In many cases, the fermented sap (which was alcoholic) was also added to these cups of tiffin. British sailors (who are not famous tee-totallers) picked up on this idea and began making their cups of tea in this way, substituting the sugar and their rations of rum for the toddy. Quite how whiskey or brandy became involved, I didn’t discover, but there you are, a little history with your recipe.

So maligned are pressure-cookers that it seems almost sacrilegious of a food blog like this, that likes to extol the virtues of fresh ingredients and traditional cooking methods, to even consider adding a recipe that calls for using one. Undaunted, here we are flaunting convention and defying the culinary thought-police once more with a recipe for red wine and herb braised lamb shanks made in our brand spanking new pressure-cooker. Of course, this is but an exaggeration. We’re perfectly happy to try almost any food and any cooking method, and since we’d got given a pressure-cooker for a wedding present, and yesterday was the first autumnal feeling day of the year, we thought, why not give it a try?

Pressure-cookers got their bad name originally for two principal reason. Firstly, they were fundamentally quite dangerous contraptions that were liable to explode and inflict either physical injury by launching scalding lumps of food at those in the kitchen, or enduring damage to your kitchen decor, or both. And secondly, because they tended to stew food, boil out it’s goodness and turn everything to mush. However, advances in design and therefore safety mean that modern pressure-cookers are regaining popularity for their astounding ability to cook dishes that normally take several hours, within forty minutes, while preserving the food’s goodness.

We were first put on to the beauty and convenience of the pressure-cooker by the humble, and vastly underrated, Jacques Pepin. On more than one episode of Fast Food, My Way, Monsieur Pepin gets out his trusty pressure cooker and makes a delicious braised dish (beef, mushrooms and pearl onions, from memory) in about half an hour, while describing how he was inspired by his mother who used to use her pressure cooker on weekday evenings to create a hearty family meal in under an hour. Apparently, Maman Pepin would chop the vegetables and meat while still in her coat, and then slap the lid on the pressure-cooker, while she did various other household chores, and while we used our pressure-cooker for the first time last night (a Sunday) we can definitely see how using it on a weekday meal in the winter would work extremely well.

Here’s the recipe for the dish we made, but there are probably hundreds of different things you could make, all of them inside forty minutes. Next time, we’re going to make lamb rogan josh curry.

Check out some of our other pressure-cooker recipes: Lemongrass Beef Shortribs, Korean Style Pork Ribs and Lebanese Fatteh Blahmeh.

Wine-Braised Lamb Shanks with Rosemary and Thyme in the Pressure-Cooker

1 1/2 – 2lbs lamb shanks (probably 2 shanks)
1 spanish onion, roughly diced
3-6 large garlic cloves, roughly chopped
1 large carrot, roughly diced
1/2 lb mushrooms (whichever kind you like) quartered, halved or whole depending on size
3 sprigs fresh rosemary
7-10 sprigs fresh thyme
1/4 bottle red wine (whatever you like drinking)
1pt chicken or vegetable stock
3 tbsp olive oil
4 tbsp flour
kosher salt
fresh ground black pepper

1. add a couple of good pinches of salt and pepper to the flour in a bowl and dredge lamb shanks until lightly coated.
2. add half the oil to pressure cooker at medium-high heat and brown lamb until colored well on all sides. Remove and set aside.
3. reduce heat to medium and add onion, carrot and mushrooms to pot and remaining oil. sautee until onions go opaque and carrots soften a bit and get sugary. add garlic and sautee for three more minutes.
4. add herbs and the lamb shanks back to the pot. turn heat back to high and add wine and about 3/4 of the stock.
5. bring liquid to a boil then place lid on pressure cooker. keep heat turned to high until pressure monitor shows maximum pressure has been reached, then follow manufacturer’s directions for keeping pressure at the right level for the right amount of time. On our model, I turned the heat to medium, and cooked it for 35 minutes.
6. release pressure and stand back until steam clears.
7. season to taste before plating, but be careful! I burned the sh!t out of my mouth tasting the sauce
8. Enjoy.

I served the lamb with a smoked provolone, cream and parsley polenta and wilted broccoli di rape, and it worked very well indeed. It’s worth noting that the whole thing tasted much better the following day, as is often the case with sauces – they improve until finally they go off.

Do any of you have good pressure-cooker recipes? And, if so, are you brave enough to come out and say that you too appreciate the noble pressure-cooker for what it is – a much-maligned invention of genius? Well, come on then, let’s have them!