Banana-Tamarind Spring rolls with Coconut Ice Cream and Caramel Sauce

Battle Tamarind and Brown Sugar!

Tamarind is something that I associate with Thai food, so I decided to try a dish inspired by my one of my favorite Thai desserts, the fried banana. It all starts with...

Coconut Ice Cream

If you can't tell yet, I'm a gigantic fan of coconut milk. I could drink it straight, but that's generally frowned upon. So let's freeze it instead!

• 6 egg yolks
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla
• Big ol' pinch of salt
• 2 cans (27 total ounces), unsweetened coconut milk

 In a large bowl, whisk together egg yolks, sugar, vanilla, and salt until thoroughly combined. Slowly whisk in the coconut milk, then transfer to a 2 quart pot over medium-low heat, stirring constantly. Heat the mixture until it reaches 180 degrees Fahrenheit (or until it thickens enough to coat the back of the spoon; it should give off whisps of steam, but not be boiling), then put into a container to chill for a minimum of 4 hours (overnight is best).

Freeze the mixture using the directions on your ice cream machine. This recipe might be a little big for smaller tabletop ice cream makers; after overrun (air incorporation) I had about a quart and a half of ice cream.

Caramel Sauce

A little word of warning: I make caramel sauce the hard way (because I'm lazy and it takes fewer steps). If you are fast and loose in the kitchen you can use these directions, otherwise this looks like a great recipe which will get you similar results.

• 8 Tbsp unsalted butter*
• 3/4 c. brown sugar
• pinch of salt
• ~1/3 cup milk*
• 1 tsp vanilla

Melt butter over medium heat, then add the brown sugar and salt. Whisk constantly until sugar is completely dissolved and starts to foam up. Carefully and slowly add the milk, while whisking like a mad (wo)man. I generally add a splash, whisk like mad, add another splash, whisk again, etc. until it looks about right. You want a smooth, thick sauce that has a nice sheen to it. Don't forget that the sauce will thicken as it cools, so don't make it too thick to start out.

*I never have heavy cream on hand, and it's too expensive to buy a pint just to use a couple tablespoons. If you do happen to have it on hand, you can cut the butter and use heavy cream instead of milk. Otherwise, the added butter is needed to keep the milk proteins from curdling.

Banana-Tamarind Spring Rolls

A while back I decided to make Pad Thai, and the recipe I used needed 1 Tbsp of tamarind concentrate. Since then I've used exactly 0 of the stuff, so I'm glad to finally get some use out of it!





The night before

• 2  bananas, diced (quarter the banana along the length then slice)
• 1/3 cup tamarind concentrate
• 2 Tbsp brown sugar

Mix together all ingredients and store in fridge overnight.

The day of

• 32-ish wonton wrappers or 8-ish spring roll or egg roll wrappers.

This is the easy part or the hard part, depending on your skill level. As a midwestern White suburban American, I have little to no experience in making wrapped/rolled/stuffed foods so mine always turn out... interesting. I played around with wontons vs. spring rolls, and ended up choosing the latter. The wontons probably have a better ratio of inside stuff to outside stuff, but I couldn't make them without making a huge mess, and it was sometimes hard to get enough filling inside.

Anyways, fill your skins with an appropriate amount of filling (I didn't have any problems with air bubbles expanding and popping, but the marinade oozes out when you are trying to close it), then seal with water (or the leftover egg whites from the ice cream recipe). Fry at 350F until golden brown. I got criticized last time for my lack of photography, so here are some action shots (side note, my camera now has cooking oil, egg whites, and tamarind sauce all over it):




(Notice my misshapen wrappers)


(Notice my misshapen egg rolls)

Serving

To serve, place a big ol' scoop of the ice cream in a bowl, slice two spring rolls in half (or use four wontons) and place fancily around the outside, then drizzle everything with brown sugar. Pretend that because it has fruit it must be good for you, and eat a second serving as well :)