When The Yolk Is On You....

It's eggsasperating how yolks get the bad rap. Nothing grieves me more than seeing people eat their eggs and tossing their yolks. Okay, maybe not nothing, but at that particular moment, nothing. That is the utter disrespect and contempt for the Creator who made that perfect meal in that calcified shell.

However, just like Sophie's Choice, sometimes, separation is inevitable. Recipes call for egg whites, which begs the questions, what do we do with the REST of the egg, hallo. One such culprit is that damn dessert called the Pavlova, named after that reflex scientist, Pavlov...and his dog.... oh, hangon, maybe I'm getting my culinary history mixed up. Maybe it's named after that dancer chick...

Anyway, the yolk. What DOES one do with all that yolk? Much as I loathe people tossing their yolks from their half boiled eggs, it does make me shudder to ingest 5 yolks in an all yolk omelet. It's like being at a bad Chinese stag party. Semua telur kuning.

Since I have four hungry mouths to feed, at any one time, (the wife thankfully is capable of feeding herself), I have since found a cheap way to feed them, AND at the same time, dispose of them yolks with clear conscience.

Tah dahhh, the cream puff, filled with a Creme Patissiere, lightened with a bit of whipping cream. Okay, it's not meant to be this runny, and I should have probably let it chill a bit more, but you know....kids being kids.

Here's how I get rid of them yolks.

5 yolks
1/3rd cup sugar
2 table spoons cornflour

1½ cups milk, or if you feeling generous, cream, or half and half. Nursing mothers, feel free to try out the good old breast milk, and do let me know how that goes.

Vanilla pod, or Ipod, whichever is handier.
Or worst comes to worst, that icky vanilla essence.

Boil the milk/cream with the vanilla pod, (after scraping out the seeds...if I have to explain to you how to do that, then you need to return to baking 101)...bring to a boil.

Meanwhile, and there's plenty of time to do this, whisk the eggs, sugar and cornflour, until all mixed. Pour the hot milk into this mixture, and pour it all back into the pot.

Don on your halo, because you need the patience of a saint to make this custard thicken, without burning it. Stir continuously, until it thickens, and can coat the back of a wooden spoon. It has to be wooden, you hear, because it will just SLIDE OFF a stainless steel spoon.

Stir in some butter, about 80gms, to give it some fat content and for it to thicken. What is life without some fat.

Put a cling wrap over the surface and let it cool.

Make the choux pastry, (pronounced CHA OX)...even easier.

1 cup water, 80gm butter - to be boiled together
1 cup of flour, added to the boiling water butter liquid, stirring until a ball of dough forms...
Remove from heat. Using an electric beater, beat slowly, adding one egg at a time, until you've used FOUR eggs.
You should get a gorgeous glossy pasty pastry, which you should immediately dollop or pipe onto a baking tray, and bake at 170C for 30-40 minutes.
Actually, make the choux pastry only after the cream patissiere is cold. Unless you want hot cream puffs with hot custard cream, which will work too.

The point is, actually creme patissiere is very versatile, and can be eaten on its own too.

What a cheap way to fill the kids. I the man. I should start a parenting blog, and how to utilise your leftover foods to fill your kids.

Melbalova, Pavlova, and Stuff

For someone avowedly not into Pavlovas, I certainly seem to have been making a lot of them recently.

For starters, I sold my first Pav, thanks to OJW for the order....He ordered a pav for a birthday, but later on text me to say that he decided to give it to his girlfriends instead. Isn't that sweet. I hope it wasn't coz the tectonic plates in the pav shifted, causing a massive landslide. I have found that since I use fresh cream for the pavs, the cream tends to melt rather quickly if not refrigerated well.

I like to make them in two discs, coz I find the meringue very sweet, and the sandwiching of the two discs gives me a chance to try with various fillings. I used to use the same lemon curd as I did for lemon meringue pie, coz it's a good way to use up the egg yolks, but found that some people are averse to sourness. Anyway, for this virginal commercial Pav, I used fresh whipping cream. The yellow bits were mango, for color, as OJW did not like the smell of jackfruit.

And recently, again, at a friend's Mid Autumn Festival Party, I decided to bring a predominantly yellow Pavlova, since it is the Moon Festival as well. I remember my late ancestors praying to the moon...I can't remember it's significance.

Alright, what do you get when you combine one of my favourite desserts, a Peach Melba, with a Pavlova? A MELBALOVA. (the song, Mr Boombastic suddenly plays in my head. Mr Lova Lova)

Which is what I did for this one here. I made a creme patiserrie, using the egg yolks, and used peaches as the main fruit.

It was a smashing success with the dinner guests, but with dinner guests, you can never really know if they're being polite or not. However, the same problem, the creme patisserie was melting rather quickly. Perhaps it wasn't beaten stiff enough, but by the end of it, whatever left of Melbalova was swimming in a sea of pastry cream, fruit and meringue.

As we've had our Pavs served in a far more distorted fashion before, I have resigned myself to the function over form theory.....WMW very brutally told me, "your desserts taste good, but fail in the looks department".

I've always had a phobia of burning custards, because that's how my custards usually end up, BURNT. And making pastry cream (creme patisserie) involves patiently stirring the custard in a pot over a low fire. However, once you succeed, especially when using real vanilla pods, it is a dark day when you have to resort to instant custard again.

After tweaking a bit, here's my creme patisserie recipe:

300ml milk, brought to a light boil, with the vanilla seeds and pod split.

3 yolks + 1/3rd cup sugar, whisked together.
2-3 tbspns cornflour added to the egg mixture. This will yield a lovely pale yellow custardy looking batter.

Pour a bit of the hot milk into the egg mixture, whisk together to stabilise. Slowly pour in the rest, constantly stirring.

Put back the entire mixture into the saucepan, and heat over low heat, until the mixture thickens.

You should get a gloriously yummy thickish sauce like the one below. At this stage, this can be used as a yummy topping on anything, really, apple pie, cake, trifle, or eaten just like that.

To finally transform it into a thicker cream, fold in 1 cup of whipped cream (whipped till thick), and lo and behold, a yummy, natural pastry cream. Oh, of course, refrigerate the custard mixture before incorporating the cream.

One of the best ways to use pastry cream, I reckon, is to stuff them into choux pastry. While my choux may not be as nice as Beard Papa's, the pastry cream certainly is comparable, and the entire taste is rather good, if I may say so myself. I served this at home group, and one of my friends took a bite from her husband, saying they'll share. After one bite, her eyes lit up, and she said, "yummm", and went to get her own. (she didn't know I made them).

So there you go, a good way to maximise your eggs....separating the whites from the yolk.