Mint Chip Ice Cream

Directions

1. 1
   1. Combine the milk, sugar, 1 cup of the heavy cream, and sea salt in a saucepan and gently warm until bathwater warm. Squeeze mint leaves in your hands to help release the oils a bit and add to the warm milk mixture. Stir until they are all settled into the saucepan, remove pan from heat, cover, and set aside for 1-2 hours (depending on how minty you'd like the ice cream to be).
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   2. Strain the mint-infused mixture into another medium-sized saucepan, using a fine mesh strainer. Squeeze the mint leaves to extract as much of the delicious minty-ness you can out of them, then discard the mint leaves.
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   3. Prepare for the final step by putting the remaining 1 cup of heavy cream in a medium bowl with a fine mesh strainer over the top. Prepare an ice bath which this medium bowl will fit into. Set both aside.
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   4. Gently re-warm the mint mixture and in a separate medium-sized bowl, whisk together the egg yolks. Slowly pour the mint mixture into the egg yolks, whisking constantly. Pour this mixture back into the saucepan and return to the heat.
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   5. Heat over medium heat, stirring constantly, until the mixture thickens and coats the back of the spoon. Pour the thickened mixture through the fine mesh strainer into the remaining heavy cream. Place bowl in the ice bath and stir to combine and cool the mixture in the ice bath.
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   5. Chill the mixture in the refrigerator until fully chilled.
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   6. After mint ice cream mixture is fully chilled in the fridge, begin gently melting dark chocolate in a saucepan over simmering water or directly in a saucepan if you have a cooktop which will cycle on and off like Thermador's XLO (ExtraLow) function.
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   7. Begin churning ice cream in your ice cream maker according to manufacturer's instructions. When the ice cream is nearly finished freezing in the ice cream maker, slowly drizzle the melted chocolate into the ice cream, trying to avoid pouring onto the paddle or dasher. If the chocolate clings to the paddle (dasher) stop the ice cream maker and use a spatula or spoon to break up any chunks. Put mint chip ice cream in freezer to finish setting the ice cream if necessary.
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   Makes about 1.5 quarts.