Slow Food Fresh Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream

After the quick and easy key lime pie ice cream, I thought it might be fun to experiment with a real ice cream recipe. The kind that takes time and a gentle touch. The New York Time's "The Only Ice Cream Recipe You'll Ever Need" fit the bill perfectly. I love fresh mint ice cream and this version came out amazing. It's a lot of work but totally worth the flavor.

I started with fresh mint, lots of it. I put it into the chopper and pulverized it with the sugar. I then put all of the ingredients but the eggs into a sauce pan until the sugar dissolved.

I tempered the eggs before adding them to the mixture, then gently cooked the custard until it started to thicken, stirring constantly with a whisk. It's important that you don't use high heat and over cook the eggs - otherwise you'll end up with scrambled eggs in your ice cream mix.

I strained the ice cream through a sieve after it cooled, removing the mint leaves. I let it chill for 4 hours and put the mix in the ice cream machine. When the ice cream was thickened I added chocolate chips whole. If I could do it over, I would have smashed them up first with a meat tenderizer. However since I waited 4 hours, I didn't chill the ice cream until Oliver had gone to bed and I didn't want to wake him by hammering chocolate in the kitchen. However I would recommend breaking them up a little.

Mint Ice Cream Recipe

Ingredients
2 cups heavy cream
1 cup whole milk
⅔ cup sugar
⅛ teaspoon fine sea salt
6 large egg yolks
1 cup dry mint leaves
1/2 cup chocolate chips, smashed

1. Pulverize mint in a food processor with the sugar.

2. In a small pot, simmer cream, milk, sugar and salt until sugar completely dissolves, about 5 minutes. Remove pot from heat. In a separate bowl, whisk yolks. Whisking constantly, slowly whisk about a third of the hot cream into the yolks, then whisk the yolk mixture back into the pot with the cream. Return pot to medium-low heat and gently cook until mixture is thick enough to coat the back of a spoon (about 170 degrees on an instant-read thermometer). Let the ice cream steep off the heat for 30 minutes before straining.

3. Strain through a fine-mesh sieve into a bowl. Cool mixture to room temperature. Cover and chill at least 4 hours or overnight.

4. Churn in an ice cream machine according to manufacturer’s instructions. Add chocolate when the ice cream mixture has thickened. Serve directly from the machine for soft serve, or store in freezer until needed.