Blueberry & Sage Sorbet

The final tasting at this year's Thanksgiving was a little experiment. I had a ton of sage and thought it would be fun to try to add it into a sweet for the end of the meal. A quick little Google search on fruit pairings with sage brought up Blueberries.

Hmmm, what to do?

Well, I've never made a sorbet before and thought it might be a nice light thing to do.

It worked really well!

Blueberry & Sage Sorbet
3 cups Blueberries
1 1/2 cup Ginger Ale
3/4 cup sugar
5 sage leaves
Pinch of salt

If you're using fresh Blues, rinse and discard bad berries. Roughly chop the sage leaves.

Add all the ingredients into a sauce pan and place over medium-high heat, bring to a heavy simmer, stirring regularly. The blues will start to break apart, the sugar will dissolve. I think this was about a 10-15 minute.

When done, line a fine sieve with 4 layers of cheese cloth and place over a large bowl. Pour the Blues mixture into the sieve. The syrup will drain into the bowl. Press on the fruit bits to extract more syrup. Allow to drain for 20-30 minutes. If cool to touch, you can twist the cheese cloth to extract even more goodies.

Pour the syrup into a heavy zip top bag and refridgerate over night.

When ready, mix according to the instructions of your ice cream/sorbet making. I had about 20-25 minutes in my machine. When done, transfer to a freezer safe dish and put in the deep freeze for at least a few hours.

Serve!

I bought fresh berries, wash them and discarded the bad ones. Then froze them. I actually was looking to get frozen berries, perhaps a little more affordable and maybe more flavorful-frozen at their peak ripeness? But Giant didn't have frozen Blues, just fresh ones. Since I got them a few days before needing them, I felt freezing them was a good step.

The rich, deep amethyst syrup. If cooled, this would be a very tasty fruit sauce.

The final product. Even when frozen, the sorbet has this soft, creamy texture in your mouth. And both flavors really came through. The Blues and the sage were both very distinct. The Ginger Ale dien't come through. I think if I'd want more of the warmth of the ginger, I'd actually add a lump of crush ginger into the mix at the beginning to extract some extra flava!