Paper Chef-Grilled Nectarines with Macha Ice-Cream

I have been following the blog Lucullian Delights, operated by the talented Ilva Beretta, for quite sometime.  Ilva and two other bloggers started a challenge called Paper Chef few years back.  The goal is to create a unique dish with four randomly chosen ingredients, in this case almonds, nectarines, cornmeal, and green tea.   I have participated to this challenge only a handful of times but it was always fun.  This month it will be the 61st edition and when I saw the list of ingredients I could not not do it, don't you agree?  Can't wait to see what the others  participants are making with them.

The season for stone fruits is sadly coming to an end and I realized that I haven't baked anything with them the whole summer, what a shame.  Stone fruit can be used in desserts in so many ways, raw, baked, grilled, in tarts, in ice cream, you name it. 

I had few ideas for this challenge, one was to make a tart with cornmeal and almonds in the crust, but that would have taken longer, so I decided to adapt my ever-so-faithful streusel recipe and tried it gluten free (I used half cornmeal and half brown rice flour).  If you haven't tried this recipe yet, please do it asap, it only has four ingredients in equal parts, it is a pinch to make, it stores unbaked in the freezer, and it is add elegance to many desserts.  This time I used it as a topping to bake some nectarines for tonight's dessert as well.  The gluten free version is even better with the added crunchiness of the corn meal.

For the challenge I grilled the nectarines slowly on the stove and baked the streusel on the side.

The ice-cream recipe comes from David Lebovitz's book The Perfect Scoop, and it is one delicious recipe as always, this guy knows his ice-creams. I can't believe I hadn't made it before, I couldn't stop licking the spoon!

Macha Ice-Cream
adapted from The Perfect Scoop

1 cup milk
3/4 cup sugar
6 egg yolks
2 cups heavy cream
4 tsp macha powder

Bring the milk to a boil to dissolve the sugar.  Pour the milk while hot into the yolks mixing slowly to custard them.  Add the macha powder to the cream and then strain the hot yolk mixture into it.  Stir to dissolve the tea powder, and chill.  Freeze according to your ice cream maker.  

Enjoy!

Gelato al Té Verde
adattato dal libro The Perfect Scoop

225 ml di latte
150 gr di zucchero
6 tuorli
450 ml di panna liquida
4 cucchiaini di polvere macha

Portare il latte e lo zucchero ad ebollizione.  Mescolando, versare il latte bollente lentamente sui tuorli per farli addensare.  Aggiungere la polvere macha alla panna.  Passare la miscela  di tuorli con un passino a maglia piccola e incorporarla sempre calda alla panna.  Mescolare bene e fare raffreddare in frigo per alcune ore.  Versare il composto nella gelatiera, seguendo le istruzioni del vostro modello.  Congelare bene per alcune ore prima di servirlo.