andy has an ice-cream maker, & over the summer we’ve experimented with a few batches of ice-cream including coffee, caramel, frozen yoghurt, asparagus & most recently carrot (beetroot is next on the list to try). ice-cream often requires egg yolks – the carrot ice cream recipe asked for 7 yolks – so the question is, what to do with the egg whites? a girl can only take so much merangue. i searched the internet for things to do with left-over egg whites, but pretty much everything was cake or some other kind of sweet thing. we have a freezer full of ice-cream, we don’t need more sweets!

egg white omeletes were the main savoury option. but this evening, wanting to make spinach sauce for pasta but missing the sour cream, i remembered the egg whites sitting quietly in the fridge (some of them are in the freezer for another day). so i decided to try an eggsperiment, and use the egg whites to make a creamy sauce. i did look first for a recipe online, but didn’t find one, so i boldly made it up as i went – & it was very tasty.

first i sauted onions in butter, then added spinach which had been previously cooked (lightly) & chopped. while this warmed, i beat the egg whites until they were firm but not too stiff. taking the pot off the heat, i folded the egg whites into the onion & spinach mixture, & stirred until it was well mixed – normally a no-no if you’re folding beaten egg whites into a soufflé or macaroon mixture, but i knew the air was going to go out of it anyway in the sauce. i only beat it because i didn’t want the egg white to cook like a fried egg. then into the mixture i added small chunks of gorgonzola, and left it off the heat for the cheese to melt in, occasionally giving it a stir. when the pasta was cooked i combined everything in a big pot & served it with grated parmesan. lecker!

as for the ice cream – the carrot ice cream was not a total success, mainly because i used a recipe from the internet without thinking that the quantity was larger than the recipes in the ice-cream machine’s book; so the machine was too full & it didn’t freeze while churning. however it froze overnight in the freezer & tastes just fine. so when i make the rotebeet eis, i’ll remember to check the quantities!