Luscious Home-made Mango Gelato

Mangoes have to be one of my favourite tropical fruit.  When I travel I try to eat as many of them as possible.  I saw them on a super-special at the local fruit store and knew that I had to get more than just a few.  So as well as mango lassi (mango, yoghurt and milk or water blended with some cardamom) and fruit smoothies and smoked chicken and mango salad …., I had to try making some luscious mango gelato in my icecream maker.

1 cup sugar

4 egg yolks

1 3/4 cups milk

1/2 cup cream

2 large mangoes

1 tbsp lemon juice

Peel and cut the mango into pieces, getting as much of the flesh as possible.  Blend it in the food processor along with the lemon juice.  You can strain the mango puree through a sieve to remove any stringy bits but I didn’t bother.  I had about 1 1/2 cups of puree.

Whisk egg yolks and sugar until pale and lemony.  In a medium sized, heavy based saucepan, bring milk and cream to a simmer.  Turn off the heat and slowly whisk the mixture into the egg yolk and sugar.  In the earlier Strawberry Gelato recipe I used the food processor to blend them but this time I tried just using a hand whisk and I thought it worked just as well.

Return everything back to the saucepan and stir over a low heat until it thickens.  Remove from heat and pour into a large bowl. Let it cool for 5 minutes and then mix in the mango puree.  Refrigerate overnight.

Next morning, process in your icecream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions.  As for the strawberry gelato, this recipe gave me more than my icecream maker could handle so I divided it into 2 parts and processed the second part the next day once the bowl had refrozen.