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The Best Eggnog Three Ways

I was expe­ri­enc­ing con­sid­er­able dif­fi­cul­ties hav­ing the capac­i­ty to cook for a devel­oped time­frame, par­tic­u­lar­ly since cook­ing is one of my favored tech­niques for stress alle­vi­a­tion. In this way, this past Fri­day I said ‘to hell­fire with it’ and made a cake in my half torn down kitchen. The broil­er was in work­ing request and there was ledge space enough for the blender, and that was ade­quate for me.

I also had quite a few peach­es on the counter that were get­ting a bit too ripe, so I sim­mered them all down into a jam. This is great for when peach­es get too soft to slice prop­er­ly and just kind of turn to mush in your hands when you try to pull the sliced parts off – you still get to keep all the peachy fla­vor, and the mushi­ness doesn’t mat­ter once it cooks down into a soft, fruity compote.

They are par­tic­u­lar, how­ev­er, to be con­sis­tent in the use of gar­nish­ings. Flow­ers and fruits are reserved for sweet dish­es, except in the case of nas­tur­tiums, which they regard as much a veg­etable as a flower and use freely with meats. It isn’t essen­tial that every dish should be turned into an elab­o­rate work of art, as if it were to be entered at the annu­al exhi­bi­tion of the Société des Chefs de Cui­sine, but nei­ther is there any rea­son, even with mod­est means at com­mand, for giv­ing cause for that old slo­gan of the great Amer­i­can din­ner table: “It tastes bet­ter than it looks.”

Vanil­la and lemon have an almost uni­ver­sal appeal to the palate, and know­ing this, the Amer­i­can cook, like the gen­er­a­tion before her, has always sea­soned her rice pud­dings, for instance, with one or the oth­er, just as her apple sauce has invari­ably been fla­vored with lemon or nut­meg, her bread pud­ding with vanil­la, and so all along her restrict­ed line. An ordi­nary bread pud­ding becomes ver­i­ta­bly a queen of 14puddings as, indeed, it is called, mere­ly by hav­ing a lay­er of jam through its cen­tre and a sim­ple icing spread over the top.

A stew or a creamed dish is mere­ly a more or less indif­fer­ent some­thing to eat when it is dished up any old way and set upon the table. But if it is heaped dain­ti­ly on a pret­ty plat­ter, sur­round­ed by a ring of brown mashed pota­to, its sides dec­o­rat­ed by dain­ty shapes of toast­ed bread, per­haps but­tered and sprin­kled with minced pars­ley, it has become some­thing to awak­en the slum­ber­ing or indif­fer­ent appetite and at prac­ti­cal­ly no extra expense of time or money.

It isn’t essen­tial that every dish should be turned into an elab­o­rate work of art, as if it were to be entered at the annu­al exhi­bi­tion of the Société des Chefs de Cui­sine, but nei­ther is there any rea­son, even with mod­est means at com­mand, for giv­ing cause for that old slo­gan of the great Amer­i­can din­ner table: “It tastes bet­ter than it looks.”

But if it is heaped dain­ti­ly on a pret­ty plat­ter, sur­round­ed by a ring of brown mashed pota­to, its sides dec­o­rat­ed by dain­ty shapes of toast­ed bread, per­haps but­tered and sprin­kled with minced pars­ley, it has become some­thing to awak­en the slum­ber­ing or indif­fer­ent appetite and at prac­ti­cal­ly no extra expense of time or money.

The Best Eggnog Three Ways

  • Serv­ings: 2–8
  • Dif­fi­cul­ty: medi­um
  • Print

For the top­ping, I sim­mered down some rhubarb with fresh straw­ber­ries, sug­ar, a dash of water, and the husk of the vanil­la bean pod that was left after I scraped it out. This made the most refresh­ing & tangy syrup with a won­der­ful­ly sweet but not over­ly so fla­vor that only vanil­la can bring.

Ingredients

  • 4 eggs, separated
  • 13 table­spoons maple syrup
  • 16 ounces milk
  • 2 ounces hazel­nut liquor
  • 1 tea­spoon grat­ed nutmeg
  • 12 tea­spoon cloves
  • pinch of cocoa powder
  • 8 ounces heavy cream
  • 3 ounces cognac

Directions

  1. Boil the sug­ar, water and tar­tar­ic acid five min­utes. When near­ly cold beat into the syrup the whites of the eggs, beat­en until foamy, and the fla­vor­ing extract. Store in a fruit jar, close­ly cov­ered. To use, put three table­spoon­fuls into a glass half full of cold water, stir in one-fourth a tea­spoon­ful of soda, and drink while effervescing.
  2. A pint of any kind of fruit juice may dis­place the water, when a tea­spoon­ful of lemon juice should be added to the con­tents of each glass before stir­ring in the soda.
  3. Pre­heat the oven to 350 degrees Fahren­heit. Grate the choco­late, put it in a dou­ble boil­er with the milk; stir until hot, and add the sug­ar, vanil­la, cin­na­mon and one pint of the cream. When cold, freeze; when frozen, remove the dash­er and stir in the remain­ing pint of the cream whipped to a stiff froth.
  4. In a large bowl, mix togeth­er the flour, salt, bak­ing pow­der, bak­ing soda, and cin­na­mon. Mash the rasp­ber­ries; add half the sug­ar and the lemon juice. Put the remain­ing sug­ar and half the cream in a dou­ble boil­er; stir until the sug­ar is dis­solved, and stand aside to cool; when cold, add the remain­ing cream, turn the mix­ture into the freez­er, and stir until part­ly frozen.
  5. Place the pans in the oven and bake for 40–50 min­utes, or until they’re gold­en around the edges. In mak­ing pies of juicy fruit, it is a good way to set a small tea-cup on the bot­tom crust, and lay the fruit all round it. The juice will col­lect under the cup, and not run out at the edges or top of the pie.

Tips: Fruit pies with lids, should have loaf-sug­ar grat­ed over them. If they have been baked the day before, they should be warmed in the stove, or near the fire, before they are sent to table, to soft­en the crust, and make them taste fresh. Rasp­ber­ry and apple-pies are much improved by tak­ing off the lid, and pour­ing in a lit­tle cream just before they go to table. Replace the lid very carefully.

A stew or a creamed dish is mere­ly a more or less indif­fer­ent some­thing to eat when it is dished up any old way and set upon the table. But if it is heaped dain­ti­ly on a pret­ty plat­ter, sur­round­ed by a ring of brown mashed pota­to, its sides dec­o­rat­ed by dain­ty shapes of toast­ed bread, per­haps but­tered and sprin­kled with minced pars­ley, it has become some­thing to awak­en the slum­ber­ing or indif­fer­ent appetite and at prac­ti­cal­ly no extra expense of time or money.

Although a meal sat­is­fies your hunger you should have dessert, because the edu­cat­ed palate craves that par­tic­u­lar spice as a prop­er fin­ish. Sci­en­tists tell us that a din­ner digests bet­ter because of a tasty dessert, which, they say, gives the final stim­u­lus nec­es­sary to dis­pose of the food pre­vi­ous­ly received.

It is impos­si­ble to deal in a short arti­cle with the many vari­eties of Sum­mer Sausage, but there are three or four which can be touched upon. To have a thor­ough under­stand­ing of their good­ness one must not only read about them but taste them. They are the sta­ple diet in many for­eign coun­tries and in the Armour brand the native fla­vor­ing has been done with remark­able faithfulness—so much so that large quan­ti­ties are shipped from this coun­try every week to the coun­tries where they originated.

My look is a cock­tail. I’m not as nice­ly turned out as the french, but I don’t care like the Eng­lish.
Jane Birkin

Jane Birkin

It is a wise plan to keep a vari­ety of Sum­mer Sausage on hand, as in a very few min­utes deli­cious sand­wich­es may be pre­pared with this, these sand­wich­es hav­ing the charm of nov­el­ty. It is impos­si­ble to deal in a short arti­cle with the many vari­eties of Sum­mer Sausage, but there are three or four which can be touched upon. To have a thor­ough under­stand­ing of their good­ness one must not only read about them but taste them. They are the sta­ple diet in many for­eign coun­tries and in the Armour brand the native fla­vor­ing has been done with remark­able faithfulness—so much so that large quan­ti­ties are shipped from this coun­try every week to the coun­tries where they originated. 

It is impos­si­ble to deal in a short arti­cle with the many vari­eties of Sum­mer Sausage, but there are three or four which can be touched upon. To have a thor­ough under­stand­ing of their good­ness one must not only read about them but taste them. They are the sta­ple diet in many for­eign coun­tries and in the Armour brand the native fla­vor­ing has been done with remark­able faithfulness—so much so that large quan­ti­ties are shipped from this coun­try every week to the coun­tries where they originated.

The pan­cakes end­ed up won­der­ful­ly airy in tex­ture with an incred­i­bly rich and sump­tu­ous fla­vor, the goat cheese was sub­dued by the sweet creamy mas­car­pone and the vanil­la, but you could still get a very sub­tle hint of tang, which was com­pli­ment­ed per­fect­ly but the sweet zing of the straw­ber­ry rhubarb vanil­la syrup.

Flow­ers and fruits are reserved for sweet dish­es, except in the case of nas­tur­tiums, which they regard as much a veg­etable as a flower and use freely with meats. It isn’t essen­tial that every dish should be turned into an elab­o­rate work of art, as if it were to be entered at the annu­al exhi­bi­tion of the Société des Chefs de Cui­sine, but nei­ther is there any reason.

Georgie Forman
Georgie Forman

I’m a London-based qualified and registered organic process therapist. I consider victimization real food to help people feel their best. I’m a firm believer that real food ar typically straightforward, and simple to bring into your life. I take a awfully smart approach that is realistic for my purchasers.

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