Strawberry and Oat Ice Cream

Strawberry and oat ice cream: unexpectedly nuanced

Time: 45 minutes working time, plus 40 to 50 minutes to churn

Oatmeal. It's so everyman. Strawberries. They're so superstar. Together, they're so fabulous! We adore the thrilling intersection where hot meets cold and soft meets firm, where neutral meets high blush. All we want is some sugar, mama.

Of course, when we took these two and churned them into ice cream, the storied contrasts—hot and cold, firm and soft, neutral and high blush—took a bath. But what remained, set in the deep, frozen luxury of egg yolks, cream and sugar, was sweet fruit perfume in a soft, toasty palette; tiny bits of frozen berry and crackling seeds against silky, tapioca-textured oats.

Vanilla and maple syrup, each, in its own way, eclipsed the innocence of the experience. Thus we drew back to basics. What remains is pure perfection.

Equipment Mise en Place
For the strawberries you will need a heavy-bottomed medium saucepan, a blender, a fine, conical stainless strainer, and a 2-cup glass measuring cup.

For the ice cream base you will need a large mixing bowl; 3 quarts of ice; a fine, conical strainer; small heavy-bottomed saucepan; a medium heavy-bottomed saucepan; a medium mixing bowl; a whisk; an instant-read thermometer; a 4-cup glass measure or pitcher; and an ice cream maker.

Ingredients
1 ½ pounds ripe strawberries
7 ounces (1 cup) granulated sugar
Fine sea salt
2 tablespoons juice from ½ juicy lemon
2.6 ounces (½ cup) Anson Mills Handmade Toasted Stone Cut Oats
¾ cup milk
2 cups heavy cream
5 large egg yolks

Directions
1. Make the strawberry sauce: Clean, hull, and slice 1 pound of strawberries and turn them into a heavy-bottomed medium saucepan with ½ cup sugar and a pinch of salt. Set over medium heat and stir until the sugar begins to dissolve and the strawberries are warm, 5 minutes. Spoon the berries and their juices into a blender jar and puree. Transfer the sauce to a fine, stainless conical strainer set over a 2-cup glass measuring cup, and press with a spoon or small ladle to extract every drop of liquid. Discard the seeds. Stir the lemon juice into the sauce. You should have 1 ½ cups of strawberry sauce. Cover and chill until ready to use. (If you have extra sauce, save it for another use.) Refrigerate the remaining berries until later.

2. Prepare the oats: Place the oats in a small mixing bowl and cover them by a couple of inches with cold tap water. Swirl lightly. Let settle, then tilt the pan and pour the hulls and water off the oats, draining completely. Heat the milk and ¼ teaspoon of salt in a small saucepan over medium-high heat until the milk boils. Stir the drained oats into the boiling milk and return to a boil immediately, stirring constantly. Remove from the heat, cover, and let rest while you make the custard.

3. Make the custard base: Set a large bowl into a sink or basin filled with lots of ice cubes and cold water. Have a fine conical strainer nearby. Pour the cream into a heavy-bottomed medium saucepan set over medium-high heat. Whisk the egg yolks and sugar together in a medium bowl. When the cream is just shy of a simmer, pull the saucepan off the burner and pour half the hot cream into the yolk mixture. Whisk well. Add the remaining cream and whisk well. Pour everything back into the saucepan and return the saucepan to the burner. Reduce the heat to medium and stir with a heat proof spatula or wooden spoon until the cream thickens and the temperature hovers right around 180 degrees Fahrenheit, about a minute. Do not let the temperature exceed 180 degrees! Pour the custard immediately through a fine conical strainer into the bowl set in the ice bath. Whisk in the plumped oats. Chill the base completely. Remove the bowl from the ice bath. Stir in the reserved strawberry sauce. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate until you're ready to make the ice cream, at least 4 hours or overnight.

4. Make the ice cream: Clean, hull, and slice the remaining half pound of strawberries. Turn them into a bowl and mash them with a fork. Pour half the chilled custard base into the canister of your ice cream maker; add the mashed strawberries and their juices. Churn until the ice cream maker indicates the cream is frozen, about 50 minutes. When the cream has set, transfer it to a covered container and place it in the freezer to set. Churn the remaining custard base and the remaining mashed berries, and transfer it to the container in the freezer. Allow the full recipe of cream to temper two or three hours before serving.

Makes about 1 ½ quarts

Cooking Notes

Obviously, you'll want ripe strawberries for this cream. If it's January, or April, or even May (unless you live in the South), forget it: make something else.

Many cooks approach custard cookery with apprehension because of the c word: curdling. It makes them err on the side of caution, pulling custards from the stove before the eggs have cooked enough. A custard, properly cooked will, however, improve the frozen consistency of a cream tremendously.

Do use an instant read thermometer and let it climb to around 180 degrees. Just don't stop stirring, and don't boil!

We found that putting a touch of heat on the strawberries and sugar before puréeing them improved both the flavor and color of the purée. The idea is not to render fresh berries into cooked berries, but optimize their contribution to the cream.