Whenever we have a guest over for dinner, I always find myself struggling to come up with at least one new dish inspired by that person. For me creating a signature dish for that person becomes my gift to them. Recently we had a friend from Thailand come for dinner, and as usual I was racking my brain for an idea. Then it came to me; in Thailand the flavours of coconut and pandan abound in sweet and savoury dishes. Pandan, ‘bai dteuy’ in Thai or ‘screw pine’ in English is a fragrant leaf with somewhat of a sweet grassy smell. It is usually paired with coconut in desserts and in savoury rice dishes.

By now, you may be asking yourself “Isn’t your blog called “Bukopandan?”. Buko is the young green coconut in the Philippines. The answer to that question is yes., but I have yet to create any dish that is made from coconut and pandan; this is the first. So, for a friend, my challenge was to create a something familiar to her taste buds, but not too easily recognizable.

Notes:

• The recipe below for coconut pandan ice cream follows the traditional custard method of making ice cream, using eggs. It will yield 16 oz of ice cream
• I used farm fresh eggs, since they have a little more stiffness in the yolks which is what I want in an ice cream base
• I used a kitchen-aid stand mixer, with the ice cream maker bowl.
• I also used pandan extract to boost the flavour of the pandan. This is not required, as we will cook pandan leaves in the coconut milk. Pandan leaves and pandan extract is available in Thai Grocers or at larger Asian Food Grocers
• Consider adding a drop of green food colouring . This is very common in the Thailand and the Philippines — to colour dishes made using pandan.-  — - As with most ice cream make your base the night before.

Yosita’s Coconut Pandan Ice Cream

• Ice cream machine, 3 quart sauce pan, and a wooden spoon
• 8 oz heavy cream
• 8 oz coconut milk
• 3 pandan leaves
• 3 oz sugar
• .5 oz simple syrup
• a pinch of kosher salt
• 7 eggs yolks. Use 8 if not using farm fresh eggs

For the base: In a medium saucepan heat the heavy cream, coconut milk, pandan leaves, half the sugar, and syrup on medium for 10 minutes. Turn the heat off on the mixture. While they are heating, we will get started on cracking eggs.
In a large bowl, crack all the eggs. Separating the yolks from the whites. Keep the yolks, and discard the whites (or reserve them to be used in other recipes).

Combine the yolks with the second half of the sugar until they are well mixed.

Remove the pandan leaves from the base. Temper 1/3 of the saucepan mixture into the bowl containing the egg yolks and sugar. Mix well.

After tempering, add the tempered mixture to the base in the saucepan. Then cook on medium heat for 5 minutes. Add a drop of pandan extract for extra flavor or a drop of green food coloring for more green color.

Turn the heat off on a saucepan, then pour the base into the kitchen-aid ice cream bowl and begin churning for 20 minutes on low (or follow the manufacturer’s direction on your ice cream machine). Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and freeze for 12 hours.

About 45 minutes before serving time, remove the bowl from the freezer. After 30 minutes, churn again for 10 minutes on low.