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Dessert
Asian
1½ quarts
25 minutes
1 hour 20 minutes
2 large Asian Pears
1 cup milk
2 ounces crystallized ginger or candied ginger
2 cups heavy cream
1 vanilla bean, split and scraped
8 egg yolks
½ cup sugar
½ teaspoon ground ginger
Peel and core the Asian Pears (nashi), then puree them with about ⅛ cup of the milk until they are pulpy and slushy. Finely mince the ginger into tiny nuggets.
In a saucepan, heat the cream and remaining milk with the vanilla beans, but do not boil. Cover the pan and remove from the heat. Let the mixture steep for up to 1 hour.
Beat the egg yolks and sugar together until the sugar has been absorbed thoroughly. Reheat the cream mixture over low heat until warm. Remove cream mixture from heat and pour about ¾ cup of the cream into the egg yolks, whisking constantly. Do not allow eggs to scramble. Add this egg mixture to the rest of the cream mixture and return to a medium heat. Do not allow the mixture to boil.
Slowly beat in pureed Asian Pears. When the mixture is nice and thick, remove the pan from the heat, and stir in the ginger nuggets. Freeze in an ice cream machine according to manufacturer's directions.
