What to do this weekend: Make the simplest Mango Ice Cream!

This time of the year is when Thai Honey Mangoes are ripe for the picking. Supermarkets in Singapore are abundant with cheap and very tasty mangoes from Thailand.

So why start with mangoes?

One of the main gripes I have with a lot of ice cream recipe books available today is that they neglect building recipes around tropical fruits. So we're going to solve that issue with this simple-to-make mango ice cream recipe.

Mangoes, especially, are very fragrant, sweet and pulpy, making them excellent candidates for making into a wonderfully textured ice cream.

What you need:
1 ripe mango (Thai Honey Mango or any other variety that is just as sweet)
3 tablespoons sugar
100ml whipping cream
1 egg yolk
1 tablespoon of lemon juice

Here's what you need to do:

1. In a large bowl, use a large metal spoon to scoop out all the mango flesh and add lemon juice and 2 tablespoons of sugar. Cling wrap bowl, toss the mixture until evenly mixed and leave in fridge for 2 hours. This step is known as macerating the fruit. But do check up on the fruit after an hour to give it a good toss to make sure they are evenly mixed.

2. When 2 hours is almost up, you can start cooking: In a pot, mix 50ml cream and egg yolk with remaining 1 tablespoon of sugar and cook gently over low fire until mixture thickens to coat back of spoon. Remove from heat and leave to cool for 15 minutes.

3. Remove chilled macerated mango from fridge after about 2 hours. Sieve out the liquid that has seeped out of the mango to retain only the fleshy bits. Put into a bowl and mesh with spoon or fork.

4. Pour custard through sieve into the meshed up mango flesh and whisk thoroughly. Pour in remaining 50ml of cream and whisk thoroughly. Leave in freezer to set, removing it every 45 minutes to give it a good whisk to churn the ice cream by hand.

After 2 to 3 hours, ice cream should be done and ready to serve. If texture is still too soft to serve, leave it for another hour to set.

If the ice cream is not sweet enough, I recommend macerating the mango with slightly more sugar. The eventual taste should be a tangy, fragrant and rich mango ice cream.