Dita’s Granita — Shiso Elderflower Granité
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Intro
— granita // granité (dessert; palate cleanser):
[grah-NEE-tah // grah-NEE-tay]
An Italian (“granita”) or French (“granité”) semi-frozen dessert made of what’s basically a type of shaved ice, simple syrup, and flavorings of choice; common flavors include fresh fruit, lemon, and coffee. For those that have never tried this dessert, it’s like a lighter and fluffier sorbet (i.e. there’s not dairy). It’s unlike other types of shaved ice (e.g. Hawaiian shaved ice, Chinese shaved ice) because other types freeze water with or without flavor into a full-on ice block and then shave it down; a granita/granité never fully freezes into a hard ice block and instead is only semi-frozen, making it very easy to scrape into the desired texture and make at home without fancy equipment. A typical granita (I’m just going to call it granita from now on) uses a good amount of simple syrup, which makes easy to scrape into its classic light and fluffy texture since the mixture won’t fully freeze the way plain water would.
It took me a while to figure out how to make this because I meant this granita to be a cocktail. All the recipes I found during my research used heavy amounts of sugar syrup and almost no alcohol…I was afraid if I tried this with both simple syrup AND enough booze to make this more of a cocktail that I would be left with a watery mess. After several bouts of trial and error, however, I think I came to a good first boozy granita recipe.
My final note on this “cocktail” recipe — I made this recipe as a palate cleanser meant to be served after a pretty intense Thanksgiving meal and before dessert, which was also going to be lavish (duh). This translates into this intermezzo being slightly less sweet and more tart than if I were to make this as the final dessert. I’ll leave instructions in the recipe, below, for those that want to make this sweeter / as a standalone dessert though!
What You'll Need
Does require some prep time (up to 24 hours if cold brewing the butterfly pea flower tea); freezing times will vary (but at least 4 hours in advance):
Enough for 6 servings:
2 cups water
2 TBSP butterfly pea flower tea
½ cup lemon juice
¾ cup St. Germain (or 1 cup if you want to make sweeter)
⅓ cup London dry gin (or ¼ cup if you want to make sweeter)
4 fresh shiso leaves, julienned
Garnish: fresh full shiso leaves + dried or fresh butterfly pea flowers
Instructions
Make the butterfly pea flower tea by either:
Adding the flowers to the water and steeping in the fridge overnight (cold brew method)
Boiling the water, adding the flowers, and letting cool (boiling method)
To a glass container, muddle the julienned shiso leaves with a cocktail muddler or just bruise the leaves with your hands; pour in the rest of the ingredients and mix well
Cover your container and place in the freezer, taking care to ensure the container sits flat; freeze for at least 4 hours (might need more time if your freezer is really full or is overall weaker)
When the granita is frozen enough, use a fork to scrape up the ice until all of the frozen concoction is nice and fluffy; add 1 full and whole shiso leaf to each serving bowl and evenly divide the granita into your bowls; add some dried or fresh butterfly pea flowers as the final garnish (optional)
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