Acorn Ice Cream Is Delicious But It Might Poison You

Ever heard the phrase "Life is too short too leach acorns"?

No, me neither. But perhaps it should be put into everyday use because trying to cook with acorns is a bit of a ball-ache.

"Yeah, it's totally a faff," admits chef Jon Atashroo. "But at the same time, it's fun playing with new ingredients. I'm not a forager—just an opportunist, I guess. I like finding things and taking it as a bit of a challenge to use them."

It's a challenge that has seen Atashroo spend the last few weeks treating and cooking with nature's free nuggets. Acorns now take pride of place as ice cream on the dessert menu at East London restaurant The Richmond, where he is head chef.

But acorns are—to understate things massively—a bit of a tricky nut to prepare for human consumption. First, you've got the naturally occurring tannins that at best, give a bitter flavour and at worst, can be poisonous when consumed in high quantities. This leads to the leaching process, which involves bringing your shelled acorns to the boil until the water runs clean. They then need to be roasted.

Essentially, this is a labour-of-love job.

I join Atashroo in the kitchens of The Richmond to go through the acorn-preparing procedure required for the ice cream. I'm hoping it won't end in my death.

We start by pulling the caps off the acorns before crushing the outer casing to pull out the nut inside and discarding any with holes (this is a sign of weevils—not on the menu today, pals). The resourceful Atashroo tells me it was a hooch-making session with some friends that lead him to the squirrel's food of choice.

"Every year—schedule permitting—we go to my friend's father-in-law's place near Bristol, which has an orchard in the garden," he says. "We press the apples, then we get hammered on last year's cider. I noticed there was an oak tree at the end of the orchard so I took some acorns, then I came home and started Googling, 'What the hell do you do with acorns.'"

Yeah, what the hell do you do with acorns? Relatively unused in British cuisine, the nuts were enjoyed by ancient Greeks and Native Americans due to the prevalence of oak trees in these areas. Acorns became a major food source for both peoples, with the nuts being dried, pounded, and then leached to make soup, porridge, bread, and a sort of primitive pancake. In present day Korean cuisine, dotorimuk is a staple dish. The brownish jelly is made from acorn starch often mixed in with garlic, onion, carrots, and onions to form a tasty side plate. Noodles can also be made from the starch.

Back in the kitchen and Atashroo explains the importance of knowing your nuts.

"Different trees produce different acorns so even within oak trees you get certain acorns that you can't eat and that are bitter and sour, and some that are more mild and edible," he explains. "It was pure luck I'd picked the right ones."

Acorns shelled and the leaching begins. We wash the nuts well, then place them in a big pot of cold water and bring to the boil before rinsing out the the brown, earthy-smelling water and repeating. And repeating. And repeating.

"You know when they're ready when the water runs clear," says Atashroo. "Last time I made it, it took three times before that happened."

The nuts are then roasted like coffee beans in the oven for about 15 minutes, or until they're golden brown.

While Atashroo has spent almost a decade working in London restaurants including the now shuttered Aubergine in Chelsea, La Trompette, and Elliot's Cafe at Borough Market, he can remember only one restaurant and chef cooking with acorns.

"I used to work at Hibiscus and Claude Bosi used to do this fish dish with raw langoustines, passion fruit, and an acorn puree," he says. "He was the first person I ever saw cook with an acorn. I knew I wanted to do something different with them."

Atashroo's three years spent working in pastry inspired him to incorporate the acorn into ice cream.

"I guess because I started out as a pastry chef in life, whenever I start to work with something new, I always go back to something pastry-wise," he explains. "I thought the best thing was probably to make an ice cream so I've been playing around and evolving the recipe that I've made up."

The recipe is pretty simple: acorns, milk, cream, egg yolk, caster sugar, and a touch of Maldon salt. The acorns are brought to the boil with the milk, cream, and salt in a saucepan, before the eggs and sugar are added and the whole thing is cooked. The mixture is then blended and put in a deep freeze overnight, followed by a spell in a turbo-charged Swiss frozen food machine called a Pacojet. A few minutes in this device, and we've got ourselves some ice cream.

I try a little spoonful. It's almost malt-like in taste with a hint of caramelisation from the roasting of the nuts. The ice cream is silky-smooth in texture, sweet, and—thankfully—with not a hint of bitterness. With the tannins presumably long gone, sampling the ice cream is not quite up there with the danger of eating fugu sashimi. I think I'll live to eat another day.

Atashroo pairs his ice cream with another seasonal ingredient: Bramley apples. He steams and blends a puree for the base of the dish, spoons out the ice cream, and tops with candied apples.

"The puree gives the dish a bit of acidity. The candied Bramleys have been gently poached in sugar syrup and then dried overnight," Atashroo explains. "This gives it that sweet/sour thing and gives it a bit more texture."

It works—the slight tartness of the apples fizzes alongside the acorns' muted, caramel nuttiness. While the acorn ice cream appears on The Richmond's menu as seasonal special, Atashroo is already thinking of other ways to use the nut.

"Next up, I might try a dish which uses the acorns as a puree to see if I could match that flavour with something," he says. "The other option is sort of more traditional, which would be pairing it with pigs, because they eat the acorns. Therefore pig and acorn must go well together, I think."

With the season running from September until about January, Atashroo had better get a move on. Those acorns certainly aren't going to leach themselves.