waiting for flan

[ritaxis]

No words today. I cleaned and I visited with my father and stepmother, who has an insane desire to move to Santa Cruz, which is not exciting to mt father who has, well, a life, in San Francisco. I don't know who to root for. But we did look at nice houses today.

I have an orange flan in the oven. It should have been done by now.

Yesterday the mighty hunters brought home a passel of craterellus and a few candy caps and a blewit (sorry, no picture. Suffice it to say: it's mauve). I sauteed them and mixed them with ziti. We had deliciousness.

I'm very sleepy and I want that flan to finish up.

Comments

[mayakda.livejournal.com]

Mmm ... flan.
My husband's family cooks flan in the pressure cooker. 7 minutes of jiggling, I think. It comes out very moist and delicate.
Though I've never tried orange flan. Recipe?

[ritaxis.livejournal.com]

I've never tried orange flan. Recipe?

Not really. This is how I did it:

I had a cup of milk Emma said was nasty tasting and the nice fellow said was good. I grated a Meyer lemon and a Valencia orange onto one plate and sprinkled -- I don't know, a fourth or so of a cup of sugar on it and left it for a few hours while I went house hunting with my stepmother and stuff. I squeezed the juice into one bowl -- I guess there was a little over half a cup. I separated 3 eggs and beat the whites to soft peaks and the yellows to light and frothy. I beat the sugar-zest stuff into the separated eggs about half and half. I decided I needed more sugar and I added maybe another third of a cup some into one and some into the other. I added a teaspoon of brandy to the whites. I added the milk to the yolks. I added the juice to the whites and the yolks about half and half. Then I remembered I hadn't made any caramel. So I put about half a cup more of sugar in a hot cast iron pan and stirred it from time to time and tried to keep hard crystalline white lumps from forming in it and I was almost successful. Then I poured the yolks and milk into the whites and stirred up the mess to be even and try not to break up the bubbles too much. When the caramel was foaming a little and a really nice brown color I poured it into the star shaped pan I use the most. Then I poured the custard stuff into the pan, put the pain into a water bath (an inch and a half of water in a larger pan) and stuck it in the oven. This time I ran it at 275 degrees because I thought that might cook a little faster than 250 degrees but it took two and a half hours. Then after about an hour and a half I put about half or three quarters of a cup of chopped hazelnuts into the pan where I made the caramel and cooked them with about a half tablespoon of cinnamon sugar and stirred it all up till it smelled like roasted nuts, at which time the pieces were sticking to each other something fierce, and I scattered them as evenly as possible over the top of the custard. So when you eat it, there's a caramel top, the orangse custard, and crunchy nut stuff at the bottom. And caramel syrup all over the table, alas.

[mayakda.livejournal.com]

Heh. I wish I could be more touchy-feely when cooking. I need specs and diagrams, usually.

I think the secret to my hubby's flan recipe is that the egg yolks+condensed milk+evaporated milk+sugar mixture must be refrigerated for at least 2 hours so the bubbles dissipate. The whites don't get used at all (which is why when we make flan we also end up making either meringue or egg white omelettes)

The caramel top is annoying. We put sugar in the pan we're going put the flan in, and slowly melt it over the gas range. Tricky, as it's easy to burn.

After the thing gets steam-cooked in the pressure cooker, we cool it in the fridge again.