Fresh Mint Ice Cream - Outdoor Wednesday

From the kitchen of One Perfect Bite - Mint has been banished from our slopes and is now under house arrest. We had a bumper crop last year that all but strangled anything it its way. Between spearmint and peppermint our hillside had enough of the herb to supply every green grocer in the county. Now potted in containers, it's hard to remember the havoc caused by the unrestrained exuberance. This beautiful shrub-sized plant is the source of the peppermint used to make the mint ice cream that is my contribution to Outdoor Wednesday, an event sponsored by Susan at A Southern Daydreamer. The ice cream recipe comes from David Lebovitz's The Perfect Scoop. I found the recipe at Serious Eats. This is a lovely ice cream. You're gonna love the way it tastes.




Fresh Mint Ice Cream...From the kitchen of One Perfect Bite

Ingredients:
1 cup whole milk
3/4 cup sugar
2 cups heavy cream
Pinch of salt
2 cups lightly packed fresh mint leaves
5 large egg yolks

Directions:
1) Warm milk, sugar, 1 cup cream and salt in a small saucepan. Add mint leaves and stir until they're immersed in liquid. Cover, remove from heat, and let steep at room temperature for 1 hour.
2) Strain mint-infused mixture through a mesh strainer into a medium saucepan (milk will be a lovely shade of emerald). Mine was a pale green, not emerald. Press mint leaves to extract as much flavor as possible, then discard them. Pour remaining 1 cup heavy cream into a large bowl and set the strainer on top.
3) Rewarm mint-infused mixture. In a separate medium bowl, whisk together egg yolks. Slowly pour warm mint liquid into egg yolks, whisking constantly, then scrape warmed egg yolks back into saucepan.
4) Stir mixture constantly over medium heat with a heatproof spatula, scraping bottom as you stir, until mixture thickens and coats spatula. Pour custard through strainer and stir it into cream. Stir until cool over an ice bath.
5) Chill mixture thoroughly in refrigerator. Then freeze it in an ice cream maker according to the manufacturer's instructions. Turn into a storage container and freeze until ready to use. Yield: 1 Quart.