Chez Panisse's Chocolate Ice Cream

One of the major disagreements I ever had with my roommate/best-friend/soul mate was over the ice cream machine I bought our first year in college. After she told me it was a waste of money, I was determined to prove her wrong and quickly gained the freshman fifteen in the last couple months of that year. We used the ice cream maker for everything. If you have an ice cream maker, or want to be daring and follow the freezing instructions from the New York Times' Tiny Kitchen, this recipe is the most chocolatey, rich, smoothe, do-not-read-any-further-if-you're-on-a-diet delicious ice cream around. It is from the cook book Chez Panisse Desserts by Lindsey R. Shere. We served it with a really light dinner of Venetian Carrots and BLUE Salad (recipes to come!) so that we had enough room for dessert.


Tools:
Ice Cream Maker

Ingredients:
6 oz of semi-sweet chocolate broken up into small pieces.
1 cup of non-fat milk (Rhody Fresh)
2 cups of half and half (Rhody Fresh)
6 egg yolks (save the whites for meringues!)
1/2 cup of white sugar
1 teaspoon of vanilla
1 pinch of salt

Directions:
1. To melt the chocolate, make your own double boiler. Fill a semi- large saucepan with about 2 inches of water. Put a smaller saucepan on top of the larger saucepan. The water should not touch the small saucepan. Turn on the stove, and heat up both until the water starts to boil. When the water boils, put the chocolate in a smaller saucepan, turn off the heat, and cover with a lid. Stir after about 3 minutes. The chocolate should melt. If it seems to thick, feel free to add in about 1 tablespoon of butter. It melts a lot easier than expected; I promise.
2. In a medium sized sauté pan, add the three cups of milk and sugar. Cook over a small-medium flame until it starts to boil. Stir occassionally.
3. In a small heat-tolerant bowl, mix together the egg yolks.
4. When the milk mixture starts to bubble, in two-three rounds add a bit of the mixture into the eggs and stir well. Then pour everything back into the sauté pan and stir constantly until a custard forms. You know a custard forms because the back of your stirring utensil will get a coat on it, slid your finger down the back of the spoon and the line should stay. Add the one teaspoon of vanilla and the pinch of salt and remove from heat.
5. Slowly pour the custard into the chocolate. Pour in a little bit, mix super well, and then pour in a little bit more. Continue until the entire custard has been well mixed into the chocolate.
6. Let stand for 15 minutes.
7. Refridgerate for at least 30 minutes or until the mixture is fairly cool.
8. Follow your ice cream maker's directions and enjoy!