The best food-related aspect about the summer heat is the case it makes for eating ice cream. If you’re going to be naughty, ice cream is the food to eat.  My favorite ice cream flavor is pistachio.  I think it goes back to my days growing up in Brooklyn, where Italian spumoni was popular. If your not familiar, spumoni is a molded Italian ice cream made with layers of different colors and flavors, usually containing candied fruits and nuts. The ice cream layers are often cherry, pistachio, and either chocolate or vanilla. These days I don’t often get spumoni or even see it offered, but I still order the pistachio-chocolate ice cream mix when I splurge.

So in the spirit of summer, I set out to make my own homemade pistachio ice cream.  There are all different recipes out there.  Some call for roasted pistachios, some for raw.  There are varying amounts of cream-to-milk ratios and number of egg yolks, if included at all. This recipe results in an incredibly delicious, creamy, sweet pistachio ice cream.

To make the ice cream, add one cup of raw pistachios and one cup of sugar to the bowl of a food processor and process until fine.  Set pistachio-sugar mix in a mixing bowl and add the egg yolks and almond extract and mix through.  Set aside.

For the base, I use a 1:1 cream-to-milk ratio.  I like this flavor and consistency for homemade ice cream.  Any more cream than that, results in an extremely soft ice cream because of the higher fat content and the temperature of home refrigeration.  I also use raw, unsalted pistachios to flavor the ice cream and lightly toasted pistachios for the mix-in at the end.

Create ice bath with a bowl in it and place a sieve nearby.  In a heavy pot on the stove, bring cream, milk and salt to a very high heat, making sure not to boil. Remove the cream from the  heat and temper the egg-sugar-pistachio mixture with the hot cream so that the egg yolks do not curdle. Then mix the entire egg-sugar-pistachio mixture to the cream and heat through until hot, but again, make sure it does not boil.  Once heated through, remove the cream from the stove and pour it through the sieve and into the bowl in the ice bath.  This will stop the cooking process.  Let cool and cover with plastic wrap and place in refrigerator until chilled.  This can take 2-3 hours but I prefer to keep it in the refrigerator overnight, so the flavor intensifies a bit more.

When the cream is chilled, pour it into ice cream maker and let it churn according to directions. As the ice cream is churning, toast remaining pistachios in oven for 2-3 minutes, make sure not to brown, then add to ice cream when just about done so they mix through.  When the ice cream is done, move it to a container and freeze for at least two hours, for a harder consistency.

Pistachio Ice Cream

Ingredients:

1 cup sugar

1 1/2 cups raw, unsalted shelled pistachios

1 1/2 cups whole milk

1 1/2 cups heavy cream

1 teaspoon salt

3 egg yolks

1 teaspoon almond extract

1/2 cup raw shelled almonds

Add one cup of raw pistachios and one cup of sugar to the Bowl of a food processor and process until fine.  Set pistachio-sugar mix in a mixing bowl and add the egg yolks and almond extract and mix through.  Set aside.

Create ice bath with a bowl in it and place a sieve nearby.  In a heavy pot on the stove, bring cream, milk and salt to a very high heat, making sure not to boil.  Remove the cream from the  heat and temper the egg-sugar-pistachio mixture with the hot cream so that the egg yolks do not curdle. Then mix the entire egg-sugar-pistachio to the cream mixture and heat through until hot, but again, make sure it does not boil.  Once heated through, remove the cream from the stove and pour it through the sieve into the bowl in the ice bath.  This will stop the cooking process.  Let cool and cover the bowl with plastic wrap and place in refrigerator until chilled for about two-three hours or overnight.

When the cream is chilled, pour it into ice cream maker and let it churn according to the directions.  As the ice cream is churning, toast remaining pistachios in oven for 2-3 minutes, make sure not to brown, then add to ice cream when just about done so they mix through.  When the ice cream is done, move it to a container and freeze for at least two hours, for a harder consistency.

Makes one quart