DURING THE HOT summer, cool off with frozen homemade sorbet and have fun experimenting with different fruits and flavors. Sorbet is a French word that refers to frozen, smooth and fat-free fruit preparations. It is derived from the Italian word, ?sorbetto,? as well as the Arabic word, ?sharbah.?

Today, classy restaurants serve unique flavors of sorbet, such as calamansi and passion fruit. They also offer strawberry, watermelon or mango flavors. If you find them exotic and refreshing, there are other tasty tropical-fruit flavors to be had, like the soursop (guyabano), tamarind and guava.

Special preparation

The general recipe for sorbet-making: Boil two cups of water and dissolve a little more than two cups of sugar in it. You can adjust the sugar-water ratio to suit your taste. Cool the syrup, and mix in fruit pulp or puree. Then, mix in a blender and freeze partially for 20 minutes before serving. For special preparation:

1. Prepare tamarind puree by boiling 200 ml of water with one cup of tamarind pulp for 10 minutes. Strain, then mix tamarind juice with syrup.

2. Add two cups of guava puree to boiled syrup, and cook for a few more minutes until it?s thick. Remove from heat, cool, blend and freeze.

3. Soursop puree is prepared by removing seeds from flesh. Put two cups of flesh in blender and puree. Pour syrup into puree, blend, and chill.

You may add spices or flavoring, such as vanilla, almond or cinnamon. An Asian recipe even adds nutmeg and cloves to its specialized soursop sorbet. In any case, the natural fruit flavor should dominate the preparation.

Give it a try. Cool off and beat the summer heat with Mother Nature?s exotic blends.