Yuzu is a fruit native to Japan, and it has to be one of my favourite citrus fruits because it combines the flavours of lemon, lime, mandarin and cumquat — it’s truly fascinating the different flavours you can pick up in the one fruit.
My nephew, Alessandro, came up with the concept of The Samurai when we were brainstorming ideas for our gelato cake shop, known as the ‘creative department’, which is next door to our original store in Darlinghurst. There, we shape this sorbet into a silicone magnum mould and encase it in silver chocolate to make it look like a blade. It looks really cool.
You can buy frozen yuzu juice from specialty Japanese stores, or alternatively use a mixture of fresh lemon, lime and mandarin juice to achieve something similar in flavour to yuzu.