Bastani

Bastani sonnati Persian saffron ice cream is the best argument for owning a machine if you live far from an Iranian grocery. The base is a custard of cream, milk, yolks and sugar, colored gold with bloomed saffron and perfumed with rosewater, with chopped pistachios stirred in before freezing. Some versions thicken it with sahlab, an orchid-root starch, for extra body. Good saffron is the expense, and it is worth buying properly, because the flavor is the whole point. Add the rosewater a little at a time and taste the base before churning, since too much turns floral into soapy.