Chop your chocolate unless you are using chips. Put everything into a bowl.

Scrape the seeds from your vanilla pod by splitting it open and scraping out the seeds.

Put milk, cream, and cocoa powder into a saucepan along with the vanilla seeds and the pod.

Bring the mixture to a boil while stirring.

In another bowl, add sugar and egg yolks and whisk them until thick and frothy to make a batter-like mixture.

Pour a small amount of the hot cream-milk mixture into the egg mixture. Whisk vigorously as you do this to avoid increasing the egg mixture's temperature too much, which could result in scrambled eggs. Continue until both mixtures are combined.

Put everything back into a saucepan and set the heat to medium-low (5/6 out of 14 on my stove).

Stir constantly with a spatula until you reach 85 degrees Celsius (185 degrees Fahrenheit) - the mixture is now custard-like.

Pour the mixture through a sieve into the bowl with the chopped chocolate/chips.

Now it's about cooling the mixture down to about 5 degrees Celsius (41 degrees Fahrenheit) as quickly as possible. You can do this by placing the bowl in an ice bath/cold water while stirring occasionally.

Transfer the mixture to a container with a lid and place it in the refrigerator until it is completely cold.

Pour the mixture into an ice cream maker and churn until it is firm and creamy, similar to soft-serve ice cream.

Put it back into an airtight container and place it in the freezer.

I recommend taking the ice cream out of the freezer about 30 minutes before serving to achieve the desired consistency.