Mung bean coconut milk ice cream

Mung bean ice cream is seriously the hardest thing to find. Most of the time, one can find Asian mung bean popsicles in the Asian supermarket that are creamy and full of dairy (and other unspeakable ingredients!). However, finding a quality ice cream is a much harder feat. Thankfully, I know how to make ice cream at home, so I hazarded a try at making mung bean ice cream.

I like to sprout all my mung beans for 2 days prior to boiling with the ice cream base. Usually it takes 1 day to have tiny sprouts, and 2 days to fully sprout. A quick rinse, and they are ready to boil with the coconut milk base.

I decided to use honey with this batch. After a prolonged period of sitting in my freezer, the ice cream began having an extreme honey flavor, which was followed by the mung bean. I made a test batch previously, and found cane sugar to impart the best intense mung bean flavor.

Ingredients
1 dry cup mung beans
2 cups coconut milk
1/4 cup sugar or equivalent in sweetener
4 egg yolks

Directions
(1) Soak the mung beans for 24-48 hours until they sprout.
(2) Wash the mung beans and combine with the coconut milk on medium-high heat in a pan over the stove. Add sweetener and continue simmering on medium-low heat for 30-40 minutes.
(3) Strain the mixture of the mung beans and return the liquid to the pan, allowing it to come back to a gentle simmer, with just enough heat so that there is no bubbling of liquid.
(4) Beat egg yolks in a bowl. Add some hot liquid into the bowl and stir. Do this 3-4 times until the egg yolks are well-incorporated into the liquid added without curdling or chunking.
(5) Add the egg yolk mixture to the rest of the liquid and stir. Stir constantly for about 10 minutes, until the mixture is as thick and viscous as pouring warm honey.
(6) Let the mixture cool and chill for about an hour.
(7) Transfer mixture to an ice cream maker and allow to aerate/churn for 10-20 minutes, depending on desirability of thickness/airiness of the ice cream.
(8) Allow to sit in freezer overnight to allow flavors to incorporate, before digging in.

Enjoy!

Dai Dai