There’s something about olive oil that makes foods seem fancier, especially extra virgin olive oil. That’s especially true when a recipe calls for the oil to be drizzled on. You imagine the special glass container and spouted lid gently dancing above your bowl as you try to pour straight from the bottle without pouring half the contents again. Drizzle olive oil onto any food to make it classier.
That seems to mean any food. An unlikely addition is appearing in ice cream: drizzled extra virgin olive oil.
Once you move beyond the idea of oil in your ice cream, it seems to bring surprising flavorful benefits. Outside of being added to seem like your dessert is from a fancy restaurant, the addition of olive oil is meant to make your ice cream experience one you never expected. As you enjoy, the olive oil brings the subtle flavors in your scoop of vanilla ice cream to a rich crescendo. A shocking spoonful or two into the pairing may lead to a sophisticated combination you always crave.
If that isn’t an unlikely enough creation, some are taking the classiness of ice cream even further with another instruction: sprinkle a pinch of sea salt. Yes, people who love the sweet and salty combination of milkshakes and fries are sprinkling salt onto their olive oil drizzled ice cream. The additions apparently bring out all the flavors in ice cream you want but never get enough of.
And while this is a neat trick to try, we can’t help but wonder who first had this idea. Sea salt caramel is a fancy ice cream flavor, so perhaps the addition of salt isn’t so strange. However, who thought to add olive oil? It was a brilliant plan, but did it come from an ice cream connoisseur or a mad genius?
Regardless, this unexpected addition to your scoop of vanilla ice cream adds an unexpected class. This National Ice Cream Month, will you try the unlikely addition of olive oil and sea salt in your ice cream?