What a pretty ice cream? I dare say, I do believe it is one of the prettiest I've ever seen. Beautiful jadite green with deep crimson tones. A nod to the pink and greens of spring to come, or a reminder of a recent Christmas.
This beautiful nod to complimentary colours and flavours is an original recipe I created out of necessity. I had a lovely bright green brick of pistachio paste that had been neglected, as does happen to some of my food treasures. It had been sitting in my freezer begging me to do something with it. I'd been wanting to make pistachio ice cream for as long as I've had an ice cream maker. However, I've realized that good quality, fresh green pistachios are a difficult, well pretty much impossible, food to source where I live. So that beautiful green tinged, pistachio flavored dessert was going to have to wait until I could get those pistachios of my dreams. But while cleaning out my freezer it occurred to me that this would be the perfect use for this paste. Using paste rather than fresh nuts saves a lot of time roasting, skinning and pureeing.
Pistachio Raspberry Swirl Ice Cream
1 cup cream
2 cups whole or 2% milk
225 g sweetened pistachio paste
6 egg yolks
1 tsp vanilla
150 g frozen raspberries, unsweetened and defrosted
3 Tbsp sugar
1 Tbsp vodka
Heat 1/2 cup cream and the milk to just below boiling. Crumble pistachio paste into mixture and stir often until completely dissolved. Taste. It should taste too sweet. Add more sugar if necessary.
Pour 1/2 cup of the cream in a large bowl with a sieve placed over top. Put the whole thing in a larger bowl filled with ice cubes and a little cold water. This will serve as a quick way to cool down your custard mixture.
Reheat milk to quite hot if its cooled down much. Beat egg yolks in a medium bowl until slightly thickened. Slowly drizzle in the the hot milk mixture little by little to temper the egg yolks. Once all added put over medium heat and, stirring constantly, heat to 177 degrees or until the mixture thickens and coats the back of a spoon. Immediately pour through the sieve into the bowl over the ice bath and stir in vanilla.
Stir often until cold, then refrigerate until very cold and follow the instructions for your ice cream maker.
Make the swirl: Puree raspberries and their juice along with sugar in food processor. Push through a sieve to remove seeds. Stir in 1 Tbsp vodka. Refrigerate until needed.
Once churned, spoon in layers of swirl mixture between ice cream. Freeze at least 3 hours.
