Lemon, Basil & Chilli Sorbette

I made a lemon, basil and chilli sorbette. The flavours go particularly well together, so why not whip them up into a sorbette? (That's my reasoning anyway!) For the base recipe I used the lemon sorbette recipe from Linda Tubby's Ices Italia, adding into it shredded basil leaves and chilli flakes. Start with the sugar syrup, one and a half cups of water to 1 cup sugar, add to it rind of 4 lemons, and heat until the sugar dissolves completely, about 3 minutes on high. I then added it into the juice of four lemons (I would've liked more lemon, but four lemons was all I had. (I found, later, that it was enough, the scant 1/2 pint that four lemons yielded) The chilli was a bit of a last minute light bulb- I opened the spice cupboard and saw a bottle of chilli flakes, and so proceeded to toss into the warm mixture approximately a teaspoonful. I left that to cool, then sieved out the bits of lemon, and rind. Of course, that removed the chilli flakes, so I tossed into it anther spoonful along with 26 leaves of chopped up basil. That was done the wrong way 'round, the ideal method would be to sieve out the bits when it was hot, add in the basil leaves so they infuse, let it cool, and then add in the chilli so that there are wonderful bursts of hot chilli in every spoonful, along with the crisp zing of lemon and minty bites of basil. (That's the way it'll be done next time, then.) All that went through the process of chilling, freezing, mixing, freezing, until it was time to blend the sorbette before the final freeze. I tasted it and decided it needed more basil, so into a food processor  went 18 more leaves of basil, along with the sorbette, and that was blitzed until the sorbette was fluffy and churned, ice crystals broken up, and speckled with green flecks of the basil and red of chilli flakes. It looks lovely, but i'm not going to lie, if one didn't know what it was, one would think it was parsley sauce.
But the taste! Oh, I think it tastes wonderful. The fresh burst of lemon, the heat of chilli, the minty flavour that the basil lends to it, it tastes fizzy on the tongue, and the gorgeous combination dances in your month and makes you laugh a little crazy. Its true, I was standing at the kitchen counter eating spoonful after not-so-frozen spoonful from the tub, grinning like a loon at the explosion of flavour and the burn of chilli on my lips, and my brother walked in, took one look at me, and proclaimed that I was quite mad. Mad though I may be for liking it, it really does taste all that explosively wonderful.
To be honest, its nowhere near a perfect sorbette, and i'm sure some may not like it. Certainly if you do not like strong flavours, or cannot handle chilli, or find basil absolutely repulsive, or intensely dislike lemon, you're obviously not going to like it. My little brother tried it and pronounced it yuck on the account of it being 'too citrus-ey' (the lemon), 'too chilli' (the chilli flakes) and 'too minty' (the basil)... Well! Yes, the balance of flavours does need adjusting, as I added a little too much chilli, so that does pack quite a punch, but I do have a hypothetically correct recipe, which i'll leave here, until I get round to re-trying it.

LEMON, BASIL, AND CHILLI SORBETTE 

(Keep in mind this is not a tried and tested perfect recipe.)

INGREDIENTS:
1 1/2 Cups cold water
1 cup caster/ granulated sugar
rind of 4 lemons
juice of 4 lemons (approx, 1/2 pint)
35-40 (medium sized) basil leaves, shredded.
1tsp chilli flakes, lightly toasted

METHOD:

1. In a small pan, place the water, sugar and lemon rind. Bring to boil, then simmer for approximately three minutes, stirring once, until all the sugar granules have dissolved.
2. Juice four lemons, place in heatproof bowl or jug. (Don't worry about getting lemon flesh or seeds in it, it'll be sieved out later) Pour into it the sugar syrup mixture. Leave to cool slightly, it should be very hot, but not steaming. 
3. Strain the mixture into a bowl, or directly into a freezer-proof container. Add into it the basil leaves, stir, and leave to cool.
4. When sufficiently cool, stir in the chilli flakes, and place the container uncovered into the coldest part of the freezer. Freeze for two hours, checking after one and a half hour. With a fork, scoop the frozen outer edges into the middle, smushing it until it is more or less combined. Return to the freezer. repeat again after another one and a half hour, then return to the freezer until it has frozen through, but not completely solid. 
5. Remove  from freezer, break up, and place into a food processor. Process until smooth and fluffy, then return to the container, cover, and freeze until you wish to serve. You may need to taste it after processing it, if you wish to add more basil or chill, return to the processor with the added ingredients, and process until combined. 
6. If the sorbette is frozen solid, remove from the freezer approximately 20 minutes before serving. 

This is the hypothetically correct recipe. I think I would lightly toast the chilli flakes before adding them into the sorbette, taking care not to burn them, as that releases the fresh, lovely smell of the chilli, rather than not toasted. This sorbette tastes lovely added to a glass of ginger ale, or lemonade, or a melon fizz smoothie. Hell, I tried it with the chocolate gelato I made previously, and that tasted good too. (That surprised me) Try it with whatever you wish, or on its own, that tastes lovely too.