EL GORDO LOS VIETNAMITAS

The naturopath in North Hobart (or ‘NoHo’, as locals call the suburb) sent a request for coffee ice cream, due to a serious lack of caffeine-induced licking. Banter ensued, with all sorts of wild claims as to the medicinal purposes of real coffee ice cream, which kept us in rapturous laughter at the idea of pawning ice-creamy pharmaceuticals. We make this ice cream with a nod to the Vietnamese, who sip their coffee with condensed milk, and add chicory for a 1970s hippy feel to the whole malarkey. You will never lick the same again.

MAKES 1 LITRE (35 FL OZ/4 CUPS)

300 ml (10½ fl oz) milk

200 ml (7 fl oz) thin (pouring) cream

50 g (1¾ oz) full-bodied roasted coffee beans (we love El Gordo, roasted by the superstars at Melbourne’s Seven Seeds)

a pinch of ground chicory tea

50 ml (1½ fl oz) condensed milk

100 g (3½ oz) sugar

6 egg yolks

Warm the milk and cream in a saucepan, along with the coffee beans and chicory. Set aside to infuse for about 30 minutes. Then, using a stick blender, break up most of the coffee beans, blending until the milk is tinged brown with coffee colour.

Mix together the condensed milk, sugar and egg yolks, but do not over-aerate. Set aside.

Stir the egg-yolk mixture into the infused milk and cream. Cook slowly until the mixture coats the back of a spoon (83ºC/181ºF on a sugar thermometer).

Remove the pan from the heat and pour the mixture through a fine sieve, into a bowl. Place the bowl over ice to chill.

Once cool, you can churn the mixture immediately, but the flavours will be better if left another day in the fridge before churning.

Churn the mixture in an ice-cream machine, as per the manufacturer’s instructions.

The ice cream will keep in the freezer for up to 4 weeks.

FAT ELVIS

As a random tip, on Elvis nights, this ice cream is awesome with some smoked lard added towards the end of churning. Red-eye-gravy-inspired and slapped with banana in a split or the like, it’s our version of a Fat Elvis!