In a 3-quart sauce pot, stir together the heavy cream, milk, sugar and salt. Split vanilla bean lengthwise and scrape out caviar. Add the vanilla bean halves, the vanilla caviar and the cardamom pods to the cream mixture.

Over medium low heat, bring the cream mixture to a simmer, stirring constantly. Be sure to scrape the bottom and sides of the pot while stirring. Remove from heat. Place a fine mesh strainer over a medium-sized bowl. Pour the hot mixture through the strainer to catch the cardamom pods and vanilla bean halves. Return cream mixture to the pot.

In a medium-sized bowl, lightly whisk the egg yolks. Temper the egg yolks by slowly streaming 1/3-1/2 of the hot cream mixture into the egg yolks while whisking rapidly.

Return the pot with the remaining cream mixture to the burner. Slowly stream the tempered egg yolks into the pot with the cream mixture while whisking rapidly. Over medium low heat while stirring constantly, heat the cream base until it begins to thicken and coats the back of a metal spoon. Slide your finger across the back of the coated spoon. If a definitive line remains, then the custard is done. If not, continue to cook and stir the mixture, testing periodically with the spoon until the custard has developed. Remove pot from burner and stir in the vanilla extract and cardamom.

Continue to stir ice cream base until cool enough to refrigerate. Do not allow the base to sit without stirring because a "skin" will form on the top which will be lumpy if stirred back into the ice cream base. For a faster cool down: Make an ice bath by filling a very large bowl about 1/4 full of ice. Pour a little water over the ice and place the pot or bowl of ice cream base down in the ice bath. Stir the ice cream base to cool it.

Put the ice cream base into an airtight container and refrigerate until well chilled. Note: If the ice bath method for cooling the base has been used, it may be cool enough to proceed directly with processing.

Process in an ice cream freezer according to manufacturer's instructions. Put ice cream in a container or bowl, cover and place in freezer to ripen for several hours or over-night.

In a small sauce pot, stir together honey, orange zest and orange juice in a small sauce pot. Add apricot halves. Bring to a very low boil over medium low heat. Cook for 30 minutes, stirring as needed.

With an immersion blender, blend sauce ingredients until smooth. Optionally, allow sauce to cool, then blitz in a blender or food processor until smooth.

Serve sauce over ice cream and top with chopped pistachios.