The Heat is on: Pistachio Vanilla Wasabi Ice Cream
Are you feeling the heat? You’re lucky. Mid July in Paris and we’re thinking of putting the heating on indoors as we watch the torrential rain. At least there’s no need to worry about sunburn and slapping on the sunscreen. On the other hand, I’m seeing poor friends having to deal with soaring, sky-high, sweltering temperatures.
While our American friends are enduring the worst drought since 1956, they’re hopefully enjoying National Ice Cream month, at least. Although we’re not craving ice cream just now as much as we should in Paris, I have a solution for our differences in temperatures. Needing something ice cold? Needing ice cream but with some heat? Here’s my solution with an intriguingly delicious Pistachio Vanilla Wasabi Ice Cream.
One of my favourite French chefs is William Ledeuil of Ze Kitchen Galérie in Paris (and KGB). He makes the most incredible dessert consisting of a white chocolate and wasabi ice cream and serves it with a pistachio and green tea sauce, fresh strawberries and either crumble or wasabi meringues. The flavour combination is simply incredible!
I have been experimenting with the flavours that he concocts in his grand finale but twiddling with my own recipes at home. First I made pistachio, coconut and wasabi macarons (recipe in Mad About Macarons). This time, I’ve put the flavours together into just one ice cream to make it simple – after all, I’m a lazy gourmet! I replaced the white chocolate with egg yolks (as macaronivores, we need the whites for macarons!) The result is a gluten free dessert, full of interesting flavours.
Pistachio-wasabi ice cream. Are you making a face?
Pistachio Vanilla Wasabi Ice Cream
200ml coconut milk (small carton)
300ml whole milk
50g ground pistachios
1 vanilla pod
1 tsp pistachio extract
pinch green and brown food colouring (3 parts green, 1 brown)
5 egg yolks
100g caster sugar
4 tsp powdered milk
15g wasabi paste
1. Heat the milk, coconut milk and pistachios in a heavy-based pan with the vanilla pod which is cut in two lengthways. Bring to the boil, and turn off the heat for the vanilla to infuse in the creamy milk for 5-10 minutes.
2. Cream together the egg yolks and sugar in a large bowl until light and fluffy. Add the powdered milk, wasabi paste and pistachio extract and mix well.
3. Scrape out the seeds from the vanilla pod and add to the yolk cream. Discard the pod from the warmed coconut-milk and add the food colouring.
3. Pour the creamy milk onto the egg mixture whisking continuously. Return the mixture to the pan on a medium heat, whisking constantly until the custard thickens and coats the back of a spoon. Set the mixture aside to cool.
4. Once cool, place in the fridge for 1-2 hours before pouring into an ice cream maker to churn according to your ice cream maker.
Serve on fresh strawberries with pistachio macarons on the side.
If you feel like a double intriguing wasabi wham – enjoy this with Pistachio, White Chocolate and Wasabi macarons (recipe on p65 of my first book, Mad About Macarons.)
The perfect summer ice cream with fresh strawberries - pistachio and wasabi ice cream with coconut and vanilla (this recipe requires an ice cream maker)
- 200 ml / 7 fl oz coconut milk small carton
- 300 ml / 11 fl oz whole milk
- 50 g / 1.75 oz ground pistachios
- 1 vanilla pod
- 1 tsp pistachio extract
- pinch green and brown food colouring 3 parts green, 1 brown
- 5 egg yolks
- 100 g / 3.5 oz caster sugar
- 4 tsp powdered milk
- 15 g / 0.5 oz wasabi paste
- Heat the milk, coconut milk and pistachios in a heavy-based pan with the vanilla pod which is cut in two lengthways. Bring to the boil, and turn off the heat for the vanilla to infuse in the creamy milk for 5-10 minutes.
- Cream together the egg yolks and sugar in a large bowl until light and fluffy. Add the powdered milk, wasabi paste and pistachio extract and mix well.
- Scrape out the seeds from the vanilla pod and add to the yolk cream. Discard the pod from the warmed coconut-milk and add the food colouring.
- Pour the creamy milk onto the egg mixture whisking continuously. Return the mixture to the pan on a medium heat, whisking constantly until the custard thickens and coats the back of a spoon. Set the mixture aside to cool.
- Once cool, place in the fridge for 1-2 hours before pouring into an ice cream maker to churn according to your ice cream maker.
Serve on fresh strawberries with pistachio macarons on the side.
Jill Colonna
Jill Colonna 
Jill- this sounds awesome! How fun- a cold ice cream with a little heat. Can’t wait to try it!! Thanks for posting. Oh, and congrats on making the Top Nine 🙂
Thanks, Jennifer. Let me know how you get on – it’s a family favourite and great for serving up something a bit different with friends without any effort on the night.
hi, just wanted to clarify the wasabi…did you mean the green paste from a tube or wasabi powder?
also, at what point is the wasabi added?
can’t wait to try this out. thanks for the wonderful idea!
Hi June,
Thanks so much for pointing this out! I’ve updated the recipe to be precise; it’s wasabi paste and I add it at the end of step 2. Enjoy!
Bravo for trying something different! I love all these ingredients and would try it 🙂 After all chocolate and chilli works so why not wasabi pistachio and vanilla?
I hope you do try it, Jacqueline; it’s definitely a talking point and full of flavour (not just the wasabi…)
I am not a big fan of wasabi and I would dig into this lovely creation.
Well played with the heat.
Bravo!
I’ll be honest: I tried a first batch which was 5g too much. The kids and I loved it but French hubby thought it was a bit too nose-tingling. This is just right and the sweetness helps it along nicely with a balance of flavours. Thanks, Laz.
What gorgeous colors! Subscribed so that even without Buzz, I won’t miss a post!
Merci – hope you manage to try it, Michelle.
This ice cream looks amazing! For what it’s worth, it’s gray and rainy here too and we actually DID put the heat on yesterday.
Here’s hoping that you’ve had some sunshine in the meantime!
Just thinking of wasabi ice cream makes my tongue hurt 🙂 It looks wonderful though.
This doesn’t hurt at all. Honest!
I could be your only Japanese friend who doesn’t eat wasabi, yet pistachio and vanilla ice cream sounds heavenly! 😉
Go on, Nami. Have you tried it with the wasabi. This could change your whole perception of the stuff in a sweet context.
This sounds so so so good. I’d love a big bowl of this sat outside in the sunshine. The addition of wasabi is really interesting too!
Sounds good if we can always have it outside in the sun but without it, the heat definitely helps.
What an absolutely gorgeous way to beat the heat. I love the flavors. Wow!
Lora, you’re beating the heat; we’re trying to create it here with these sorry temps.
Enjoy your weather!
This flavor combination has me seriously intrigued. Thank you for the inspiration and gorgeous photos!
Well good, I’m so glad I’ve intrigued someone! Appreciated.
Jill, I love how you find these unusual flavor combinations and turn them into marvelous desserts (macarons included!). Gosh, I wish you could send some of your torrential rains our way…I’d be happy to share the heat!
Gosh, thanks Liz. Hope you had some of the rains in the end. We had a month of sunshine and now it’s back to ze rain. Time to make another batch, perhaps?
Jill, what a fabulous ice cream flavor! The color is lovely as well with the pale green, and it must have such a delicious flavor with the combination of nutty pistachios and spicy wasabi! Yum! You are so creative :)!
As I said, Amy, I’m just a lazy gourmet that couldn’t be bothered trying to do a fancy dessert in different stages so this was easier and seriously good.
Jill, I love how you’ve put a hot flavour into a ice cream – Lickable photos too.
Lickable? Hester, I was hoping I could do a scratch and sniff but it’s not good for the computer.