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desperanceI have just been making a chocolate duck's-egg custard, to give me some guidance how I need to adjust quantities of choc and sugar and cream to take account of extra richness in the yolk. I don't want it set too stiff on Sunday.
I have made a single portion. With a single yolk, and weighed ingredients. It makes me feel just a little like Heston Blumenthal. (I didn't weigh the yolk, though. Shoulda done that. Damn. *fails the Heston test*)
It made me think, though: I never do this. I never test out dinner party dishes before the dinner. Almost never cook anything familiar. At least half the point of dinner parties is to try stuff I haven't done before. I am aware that this runs counter to the traditional advice, which boils down to "Cook what you know" - but nah. Where's the fun in that? If you're not all sweaty and anxious and ducking in and out of the kitchen all the time to fiddle and poke, you might as well just get someone else in to cater...
On this occasion, though, I am the someone else they got in to cater (because my friends love and understand me, and they knew I'd be thrilled). So I wanna get it right. So, test run on the custard...
In other news, if Mac means to continue turning on the vacuum cleaner, now that he's learned how, Barry and I both feel it would be a good thing if he learned also how to turn it off. (I'm fairly sure he's doing it deliberately. Barry is scared of the vacuum cleaner. Mac ... is not.)
I have made a single portion. With a single yolk, and weighed ingredients. It makes me feel just a little like Heston Blumenthal. (I didn't weigh the yolk, though. Shoulda done that. Damn. *fails the Heston test*)
It made me think, though: I never do this. I never test out dinner party dishes before the dinner. Almost never cook anything familiar. At least half the point of dinner parties is to try stuff I haven't done before. I am aware that this runs counter to the traditional advice, which boils down to "Cook what you know" - but nah. Where's the fun in that? If you're not all sweaty and anxious and ducking in and out of the kitchen all the time to fiddle and poke, you might as well just get someone else in to cater...
On this occasion, though, I am the someone else they got in to cater (because my friends love and understand me, and they knew I'd be thrilled). So I wanna get it right. So, test run on the custard...
In other news, if Mac means to continue turning on the vacuum cleaner, now that he's learned how, Barry and I both feel it would be a good thing if he learned also how to turn it off. (I'm fairly sure he's doing it deliberately. Barry is scared of the vacuum cleaner. Mac ... is not.)