Pink Peppercorn and Sake Ice Cream

February. The blog's eighth year begins. Eight years of writing about miso soup and grief and the chipped bowl and the space between Japanese and American. Eight years of weekly posts that have accumulated into a body of work that is larger than any single post, larger than the book, larger than me — a collective meditation on food and feeling that four hundred essays have built, essay by essay, week by week, the way a cathedral is built stone by stone, except the cathedral is digital and the stones are sentences and the architect is a woman in her pajamas at a kitchen table in Portland.

I made chocolate mochi for Valentine's Day — the annual tradition, the fusion treat that Miya loves and that I love and that nobody else in either of our families has ever made because it exists only in our kitchen, the recipe that I invented and that belongs to us, the private cuisine of a mother and daughter who have built a food world that is entirely their own.

Miya gave me a Valentine — a card she made at school with a heart and the words "I LOVE YOUR SOUP MORE THAN CANDY." The statement is competitive and probably untrue — no seven-year-old loves soup more than candy — but the sentiment is real, and the real is the thing I hold onto, and the holding is the practice, and the candy Valentine is now on the refrigerator next to all the other cards, the gallery growing, the evidence accumulating: I am loved. I am loved by a person who has known me her whole life and who has watched me cook her whole life and who associates love with soup and soup with me and me with soup and the circle is complete and the circle is the bowl and the bowl is the chipped one and the chip fits my lip and the love fits my life.

The editor at the Portland magazine asked me to write a monthly column — "From Jen's Kitchen" — about Japanese home cooking in Portland. A monthly column. Twelve essays a year. Paid. The career is building itself, the way the blog built itself, the way the book built itself: one yes at a time, each yes a stepping stone, each stone in a river that I am crossing slowly, carefully, with the faith that the next stone exists even when I cannot see it.

The chocolate mochi is our Valentine’s tradition, but this year I kept going — kept standing at the counter after Miya went to bed, kept wanting to make something else that lived in that same in-between space, Japanese and American and entirely ours. Pink Peppercorn and Sake Ice Cream felt like the right next step: sake for the Japanese side, cream for the American side, pink peppercorn for the Valentine on the refrigerator. Another stepping stone in the river, another recipe that belongs to no tradition except the one we’re building.

Prep Time: 20 minutes | Cook Time: 15 minutes | Total Time: 35 minutes + churn and freeze time | Servings: 6

Ingredients

2 cups heavy cream
1 cup whole milk
3/4 cup granulated sugar
5 large egg yolks
1/4 cup sake
1 tablespoon pink peppercorns, lightly crushed
1/8 teaspoon fine sea salt

Instructions

Toast the peppercorns. In a dry saucepan over medium heat, toast the crushed pink peppercorns for 1 to 2 minutes until fragrant. Remove from heat.
Steep the cream base. Add the heavy cream and milk to the saucepan with the peppercorns. Heat over medium until the mixture just begins to steam, then remove from heat, cover, and let steep for 20 minutes.
Make the custard. In a medium bowl, whisk together the egg yolks and sugar until pale and thick, about 2 minutes. Slowly pour the warm cream mixture through a fine-mesh strainer into the yolks, whisking constantly to temper.
Cook the custard. Return the mixture to the saucepan and cook over medium-low heat, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon, until the custard thickens enough to coat the back of the spoon, about 5 to 7 minutes. Do not let it boil.
Add sake and chill. Remove from heat and stir in the sake and salt. Pour the custard into a clean bowl, press plastic wrap directly onto the surface, and refrigerate until thoroughly chilled, at least 4 hours or overnight.
Churn. Pour the chilled custard into an ice cream maker and churn according to the manufacturer’s instructions until thick and creamy.
Freeze. Transfer the ice cream to a freezer-safe container and freeze for at least 2 hours before serving. Let sit at room temperature for 5 minutes before scooping.

Nutrition (per serving)

Pink Peppercorn and Sake Ice Cream — A Fusion Sweet for the Kitchen That Is Ours