Eggnog Nashville

Ever wondered why Eggnog is even a thing? Find the saccharine filled carton from the local supermarket repulsive and only palatable with copious portions of rum? Wonder no more! Eggnog is essentially cake batter, with the superfluous flour replaced with booze. Should be delicious, right? With a little effort, you will start your own holiday tradition!

Ingredients:
18 eggs, separated
2 cups of sugar
3L of cream
2 to 4 cups of Bourbon
1 to 2 cups of Jamaica rum
1 to 2 cups of Brandy

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Steps:
1) Beat egg whites until soft peaks form and set aside

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2) Mix the egg yolks and sugar on high until well blended and pale yellow
3) Add the bourbon, brandy, rum and cream

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4) Fold in egg whites until evenly mixed

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5) Age and enjoy garnished with some nutmeg386729_10150492442110499_847965154_n

 

Okay, just accept that this recipe takes some serious commitment. It makes makes a *lot* of eggnog and takes up a lot of space. With the beaten egg whites, you need a very spacious container to do the folding (I use a stock pot). But trust me – it is time, effort and money well spent. There is no better way to get into the holiday spirit!

Tips:
– Use good booze. If you don’t, this will burn going down (even if it does, don’t worry, it will mellow with age)
– Make this well ahead of time. It is delicious, but gets better as it ages. The sweet spot seems to be about 3 weeks. I usually made it during Thanksgiving for Xmas parties.
– Adjust your type of cream according to how much alcohol is being added. Lighter cream(half & half) for the bottom end and full fat heavy cream for full portions

2014 Bicycle Project Day 3

Another bike evening!   In an attempt to get a good chunk of work in, I went directly from the Potrero and 18th stop to the Bike Kitchen.  The timing’s not bad, get there just as they’re opening up.  Volunteers get organized and then they check people in.   Not super strict on time, but it helps with the relaxed atmosphere.  I set up away from the back corner this time.  Much nicer, less foot traffic going past me.  But it was still close to the door and rather chilly.

The goal for the day was to get the drivetrain running.  Picked up a few pieces of chain, strung them together to figure out how much chain I needed.  The volunteer pointed out that my front sprocket was actually fairly worn out and if I was going to the trouble of finding a chain anyway, I might as well choose a better one first.   Some discussion on ring size, but since I was sticking to a single gear up front for now, middle of the road and I ended up with a 48.

Putting it all back together, I managed to pick a length of chain that actually fit on the first try!  Put it on with a loose fit before checking things with a chain tool.  Handy little thing to check if the bushings inside the chain have worn out without actually having to measure it.  It’s nice to have access to their tools.

After that, I didn’t manage to get anymore help.  So I decided to keep myself busy with adjusting and putting on things that were less complicated than putting on a shifter.  So I tried adjusting the brake pads to fit the 700 wheel.  Back one adjusted just fine, but the front brakes were rather bent.  Had to try a few before finding one that fit properly.

I also repurposed a bolt for handlebar and I also track down some brake levers that didn’t look too bent and mounted those as well.

Looking more and more like a bike!   But it was a rather chilly night and I was getting hungry so I took off a little after 8pm.  I think it also helps to avoid the cleanup rush. But next time I think I’ll want to pack a beat up old hoody and some of my own tools.

Parking Lot Salmon

Cleaning stuff out of my parent’s place took much longer than anticipated.  I was starving, so on my way back downtown I swung by Church’s Chicken.  Armed with a BOGO coupon, I was going to order 2 Guacamole Wraps wolf one down and head home to unload the car.

But since it was later in the afternoon, they had to make my wraps and I had to wait a few minutes.  I had seen the pickup truck when I pulled into the parking lot, but hadn’t paid it much mind.   Standing around, I noticed a steady stream of people going up to it and walking away.   The manager mentioned they were selling fish and I went out to check it out.

$15 for a large and $10 for a small – I got one of the larger ones and took it home.   Impulse purchase – I didn’t even ask what kind of fish!

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Worst part of getting a freshly caught fish – scaling and cleaning.  Used the cleaver to scrape off the scales – they got everywhere!   Should really do this kind of thing outside.

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Much to my surprise, the fish was full of roe.   Pulled that out and proceeded to fillet.   I love my chinese cleaver, but it really is not very good at filleting fish.  I suppose that’s why they sell fillet knives!   Pretty sure this is the second fish I’ve ever prepped, so I don’t think it’s a bad job:

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Things for the future:  1)  Buy some needle-nose pliers.   Pin bones are enough of a bitch to pull out without tools that are coming apart on you.  2)  Buy/acquire a fillet knife

I was starving by the time I was done.  Fortunately, the rice I had put on was done.  I cut some roe out of the lump, put it on rice with wasabi and soy sauce:

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To be honest, not all that good.  Very rich but kinda stringy.  Usually, when I make things at home, it’s at least as good as your average restaurant.  This was far from even an Ikura Don from a crummy japanese restaurant in Vancouver.  Since it wasn’t all that great and I had a lot of it, I went online to figure out how long it would keep and how to prep it.

So I learned that Ikura isn’t just roe – it’s prepared/brined.  That’s why you get the awesome salty flavour as they pop in your mouth.  The skein holds the eggs together and needs to be separated.

My method:

1)  Soak in hot salty water – hot to the touch.  For me, this was just hot tap water.  The eggs will change colour and go a little opaque.  The internet said not to worry, this just toughens up the eggs up since you’ll need to be a little rough with them to separate them from each other and the skein.

2)  Once separated, rinse gently to get rid of any stringy bits.   Add a teaspoon of non iodized salt(ideally sea salt) and mix.   Put in fridge for 30mins.

3)  Add another half teaspoon of salt, mix and then pour into a sieve and let stand in the  fridge for an hour.

Finished Product:

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This really was good.  Very happy with it.   I froze one fillet and the other skein of eggs for another day.  This still left me with the head/spine.  Normal thing to do when you have a resource like this is to make stock.   Unfortunately, salmon is really too strong tasting to make into stock that’s much use for anything that doesn’t taste like salmon.

I threw everything in a pan, roasted it in the oven for 30 minutes before putting it in a pot with browned shallots, ginger, garlic and a carrot.  Adding a can of tomatoes made a very tasty soup.   But not entirely thinking clearly, I had included all the bones – including the tiny pin bones.  This ended up producing a very dangerous dish.  Lots of things to choke on.  Next time, I’ll still stick to the formula – make stock from the bones/scraps.  Strain/filter and then make soup with that.  But considering how much meat I have in the fridge/freezer, it’ll be a while before I do this again.

Learned a few things so not the disaster it could have been.   I’d say it was $15 well spent.