Lean, Green, Edamame Machine

I am a big fan of sushi. Often when I go out to a Japanese restaurant, I will order edamame as an appetizer. Recently, I purchased a bag of frozen edamame at the supermarket. I planned on using the edamame one night as an appetizer at home, but as so often happens, laziness set in and I never got around to using the edamame. As most of you by now know, I am also a big fan of experimenting with unusual and unique ice cream flavors. When I ran across a recipe for edamame ice cream in Bon Appetit Magazine, I thought it was the perfect opportunity to use up the bag of edamame I had sitting in my freezer.

Edamame Ice Cream

Ingredients:

8 oz of frozen shelled edamame

2 large eggs

1/2 cup heavy whipping cream

2 cups whole milk

2/3 cup dry milk powder

1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar

1/4 cup light corn syrup (I only had dark corn syrup, so I substituted that instead. It came out just as well in my opinion).

 

Preparation:

Cook edamame in boiling salted water until tender. (The back of the package will tell you how long to cook the edamame for, but mine took about 5 minutes.) Drain, cool.

 

Whisk eggs and cream in a bowl.

 

Mix milk, milk powder, sugar and corn syrup in a medium saucepan. Stir over medium heat until sugar dissolves and mixture simmers.

 

Gradually whisk milk mixture into egg mixture.

 

Return custard to same pan. Stir over medium heat until thickened, about 2 minutes. Pour into bowl; cool. (I placed my custard in the refrigerator for a few hours).

 

Puree custard with edamame (remember to shell the edamame prior to putting it in the blender) in blender until smooth (this takes a few minutes); chill until cold. (I skipped the second chilling process, as my custard was already chilled from being in the refrigerator for a few hours).

 

Churn in ice cream maker.

Flavor: The ice cream definitely tastes like edamame. I was not a huge fan of it, but my husband enjoyed it. I guess it just comes down to individual preference.

Texture: This is the most pleased I've been with an ice cream's texture in a long time. I was a little bit nervous when I was pouring the custard into the ice cream churner, as it looked a little watery. However, I left the mixture to churn for almost an hour and it came out solid. I think part of the reason that this ice cream's texture might have come out so well is that it uses both eggs and corn syrup, both of which act as stabilizers. This is the first ice cream recipe I've used that combine both eggs and corn syrup in the same recipe.

Also, something that really pleased me about the edamame ice cream was that it was naturally green! Usually when I make ice creams at home, they come out white, which just goes to show you how much artificial dye and other chemicals is in store bought ice cream. This is one of the few homemade flavors I have made that is naturally colorful. It's a little hard to tell, but you can kind of catch a little bit of the light green color in the photo below.

Yes, that is my dog trying to eat the edamame ice cream. We snatched it away from her just in time.

Overall: If you like edamame, give this ice cream a shot. If nothing else, you'll have fun with the color.

Until next time, keep calm and get your ice cream eating on!