savoury ice creams

I've been toying with the idea of getting an ice cream machine recently, hoping to make some flavours that even the most adventurous of ice cream shops in Singapore are afraid to put out. In particular, the idea of a savoury ice cream intrigues me. This is not purely a wilful inversion of expectations, the concept is being explored by many in the culinary world right now. I've had a few encounters with savoury ice creams myself and they were mind boggling. Good and bad does not even suffice to descirbe or appraise those concoctions.

A friend whom I've been throwing food ideas around with, alerted me to a new ice cream stand at Skinny Pizza in Suntec City serving a selection of home made savoury ice creams. Skinny pizza, if you are not aware, is an off shoot of House and serves pizzas on a thin papadum crust (they serve excellent pizzas in y opinion though pizza purists might disagree). So the savoury ice creams really piqued our interest and we decided to go try it out. They had 3 flavours available which were parmesan pecan, truffled mushrooms and Mexcican chilli. The parmesan pecan ice cream had delightful bits of shredded parmesan cheese but some how it reminded me of a cheese cake more than anything else. The truffled mushroom ice cream wasn't quite the frozen mushroom soup I was expecting but I enjoyed the earthy rawness of the mushroom flavour. My favorite among the 3 was Mexican chilli which had a strong jalepeno note in the slightly sweet milk base, ending with a punch of heat at the back of the palate. I think the master's stroke was really the pizza crust cone. The saltiness and slight smokiness of the cone brilliantly complements the savoriness of the ice creams and with that, lifted itself from being the gimmick that I initially thought it was to being a vital component. It is also worthy to note that the ice creams did really well when used as a cold dip for the truffle fries that the place serves. The only general criticism I have for all 3 flavours is that the very discernable sweetness in the milk base detracts from the idea of a saoury ice cream, as if the creators were afraid to go all out savoury.

It turned out that they had only put out the ice creams a few days ago, though at a cursory glance,they did not seem to be popular among the patrons. We were the only people who ordered the ice creams the whole time we were there. I'm not sure if savoury ice creams have a future in Singapore but I sure hope that it will have a future in my home. Need to start saving up for that ice cream machine.