How to Make Gelato

Tom Spellman: Good afternoon! I'm Tom Spellman from Dave Wilson Nursery Today we're at the Venetian Polato Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada, right on the Las Vegas trip, and I'm with my friend Doug Taylor, who is executive pastry chef here today. He is going to show us some of the things that he is doing with Dave Wilson Food varieties, from the University Nevada, Test Orchard. Doug Taylor: My name is Doug Taylor. I' m the pastry chef for Mario Batali in Los Vegas. I'm working with Bob here with the University. So a lot of what we do, is we take from the local farmers within the area, driving distance basically. We take whatever is in season. Whatever the apricots, figs, apples, pears pomegranates, We break that product down that is great, that's perfect to in itself, and which I don't have to alter it too much, or at all, really. We just try to support them to bring about a farming community, to support communities that exist, that we're all trying to so hard to make. And their products we get to use, and I get to show everyone else what it is that the farmers are doing? That's what we do here. So today we're going to take some of the fruit that Bob has brought in to me. We're going to break them down, basically just wash them very quickly to get all, any kind of dust off of them. Cut them off, take the seeds out, purée it out, then pass it through a sieve, just the strain anything extra out, and then add a little bit of sugar or honey to it. We're then going to spin it into a survey or make it into gelato basis of some type. In Italian cooking, which is what this restaurant is, the whole idea behind it is, using what is available, what's out of necessity, and what they had than, is what we're trying to do now. So, this is our Gelato machine and the pasteurizer. So if we're making a gelato basis, all our products get pasteurized through this machine, and then poured through here, and into our spinner. We also spin all of our sorbets in here as well, throw about a gallon of patch or purée, takes about 3 minutes to spin to a very nice and soft consistency, which is ideal for what we do. We spin every batch once, and then we use it in another way, whether it'd be a sauce or we're going to some other kind of production. The basic what it does is, it freezes the purée as quickly as possible while still pumping air into it, to give you that light smooth frozen texture that you wanted so much. So, obviously at home you don't have a Gelato machine. but if you do. that'd be great, but it probably won't. But if you do have a KitchenAid, all you would do is make a sorbet base, which is purée sweetened by the sugar or honey, a little bit of salt, lemon juice, basically just tasted out. And you put it in a KitchenAid with a paddle, throw a couple of chunks of dry ice in there, let it mix up, and it'll freeze and incorporate air, and you have homemade gelato sorbet, or anything you like, in a matter of seconds. Tom Spellman:These are all fresh fruit sorbets. Tell us what we've got here? Doug Taylor: All the fruits are stone fruit and berries from the market; over the farmers market. So, all different farms that are local here. A lot from Bob, and from other farmers. We have Blackberry, nectarine, plum, strawberry and peach. Please begin. Tom Spellman: Phenomenon! Let me try these out. Oh, that's delicious, real fruit forward with that apricot. You can tell those were absolutely tree ripened fruit when they were picked. Doug Taylor: We really are trying to focus on not picking green, really just kind of shaking the tree and what falls, we kind of take. Tom Spellman: Nice fresh strawberry. Doug Taylor: The sugar content, when you do that is just so high that I really don't have to add anything to it. I just kind of make a purée and you can spin it, that's all there is to it. Tom Spellman: That nectarine is delightful. It's got a little bit of a tang to it, it's not a subacid variety, it's got a good sugar to acid balance, and you can just taste the fresh nectarine, spectacular! Dough Taylor: It's very cool.