This is classic rich coconut ice-cream, served in a Thai style. Thai ice-cream isn't really iced cream, it's often made from non dairy products. This recipe contains taro, a root vegetable whose starchiness gives the ice-cream a soft smooth texture. You can also use sweet potato if you cannot obtain taro.
This recipe is much easier if you have a hand blender, during the preparation you will need to blend the ice-cream repeatedly as it freezes, this is done to break up the ice crystals that form. It is much easier to do that with a handheld blender or egg beater. Finally, the decoration is made from a gummy coloured mixture of cooked sticky rice flour, this is also very typical Thai, but you can use whatever toppings you like, although not strictly Thai, rum soaked raisins are popular in my house among the adults.
Ingredients
800 ml Coconut Milk
200 gms Sugar
5 gms Salt
100 ml Skimmed Milk
75 gms Taro or Sweet Potato
5 gms Corn Flour
Ice-water To Rapidly Cool the Mixture
Preparation
1. Chop the taro or sweet potato into large cubes and steam until cooked through.
2. Heat the coconut milk in a sauce pan on a very low heat (about 55 degrees celsius, this is nowhere near boiling, it is simply hot to the touch).
3. Mix the corn flour with 100 ml water and add to the coconut milk in the saucepan.
4. Add the sugar, salt, and skimmed milk, to the saucepan and stir until everything is dissolve.
5. Warm it to 65 degrees C and keep stirring it. Do not let it boil.
6. Mash the taro cubes with a fork and add into saucepan and using a hand blender blender the contents of the pan until the mixture is completely smooth and the taro has disappeared into the liquid.
7. Warm the pan a little higher to 80 degrees C for 4 minutes. Again it must not boil. This is to cook the flour through, without permitting it to become a thick sauce.
8. The mixture should be cooled quickly and then put in the fridge, the best way to do with is to empty it into a containing that is sitting in ice water.
9. Once it is cool enough, put it into the freezer until frozen.
10. While it is freezing ice crystals will form, every few hours you should remove it from the freezer and blend it with a hand blender to break up the crystals.
Sticky Rice Ball Topping (Ruam Mid)
These are used as the topping, they have a gummy texture and a rose smell, if you prefer you can use vanilla essence in water for a vanilla smell or other fruit essences. You can use coconut essence if you really want to emphasize the coconut taste.
Ingredients Red, Green and Yellow Food Colouring
9 Tablespoons Sticky Rice Flour (3 tablespoons for each colour)
4 1/2 Tablespoons Rose Water (1 1/2 tablespoons for each colour)
300 ml Cold Water
Water for boiling
Preparation
1. The colours need to be made up separately, steps 2 - 4 should be repeated for the red, green and yellow shapes in separate cups.
2. Drop the red food colorings into a cup and add 1 1/2 tablespoons of rose water.
3. Add 3 tablespoons of sticky rice flour to the cup and mix to a paste.
4. Pinch off small amounts of the paste and roll into tiny (corn sized) balls, or small sausages.
5. Repeat steps 2-4 for yellow and for green food colouring.
6. Boil water in a saucepan and drop the balls and sausages into the boiling water.
7. They will swell slightly when cooked, it only takes a couple of minutes. One cooked, scoop them out with a sieve and drop into the cold water.
8. Mix a few with the ice-cream just before serving.
