SERVES 6
Shooting Top Chef’s Season 11 in New Orleans was a pivotal experience for me. The music, food, people, and culture of that city are forever in my heart. We shot from late May through July, and it was hot. I was pregnant with Dahlia and often queasy. Luckily my friend, chef Sue Zemanick, one of the city’s brightest talents, introduced me to Hansen’s Sno-Bliz, a NOLA institution famous for its snoballs: scoops of fluffy shaved ice doused in an array of unique homemade syrups. Resistance was futile. After tasting my way through most of Hansen’s menu, I landed on my favorite: satsuma and ginger, drizzled with condensed milk. There’s no way to exactly replicate it at home, since satsumas are regionally grown and Hansen’s ice-shaving device, responsible for their snoballs’ magical lightness, is a patented machine. Still, I have mastered a close second in the form of this granita, and on the hottest of summer days it totally hits the spot.
¼ cup sugar
½ cup peeled thinly sliced ginger (from a 3-inch knob), plus ½ teaspoon finely grated ginger
Kosher salt
2 tablespoons freshly grated clementine or tangerine zest (from 3 clementines or 1 tangerine)
2 cups fresh clementine or tangerine juice (from 15 clementines or 10 tangerines)
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
2 teaspoons finely chopped fresh basil
½ cup (4 ounces) sweetened condensed milk for serving
In a saucepan, combine the sugar, sliced ginger, a pinch of salt, and 1 cup water. Bring just to a boil, stirring to dissolve the sugar, then reduce to a simmer and cook for 5 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat, cover, and let steep for 10 minutes. Uncover and allow the mixture to cool to room temperature.
Strain the ginger syrup into a clean mixing bowl, pressing gently but firmly to extract as much liquid as possible; discard the solids. To the syrup, add the clementine or tangerine zest and juice, lemon juice, basil, and grated ginger.
Pour the mixture into an 8 x 8-inch metal baking pan, or similar wide shallow freezer-proof pan, and freeze for 2 hours. Stir and mash the frozen crystals with a fork, then freeze again, stirring and mashing every 30 minutes until the mixture is completely frozen, and the crystals are evenly broken up, fluffy, and flaky, 3 to 3½ hours total. To serve, scoop the granita into small bowls or cups and drizzle with condensed milk.
The granita keeps, covered and frozen, for up to 1 week. Just before serving, let stand at room temperature until slightly melted, about 10 minutes, then gently fluff with a fork before scooping into bowls and drizzling with the condensed milk.