VANILLA POURING CUSTARD

When gently cooked together in a saucepan, milk, egg yolks, and sugar become a simple pouring custard, or crème anglaise. Served on its own, in a chilled cup, crème anglaise can be a delightfully simple dessert, but more often it is a sauce served to complement sliced fresh fruit, baked and poached fruit, and cakes. Only the yolks of eggs are used to make pouring custard. When slowly heated, the yolks thicken, adding richness and body to the milk. The standard ratio of egg yolks to milk for custard is 2 yolks to each cup of milk. Separate the eggs, saving the whites for another preparation. Put the egg yolks in a small bowl and mix them lightly, just until they are broken up. Too much stirring or whisking will make them foamy. Heat the milk in a heavy-bottomed pot with sugar and a split vanilla bean. (Vanilla extract can be used instead of vanilla bean, but the flavor will not be quite the same and the visual effect of the tiny black seeds floating in the custard will be lost.) The milk is heated to dissolve the sugar, steep the vanilla bean, and thicken the yolks. Heat it just to the point where little bubbles are forming around the sides of the pan and the milk is steaming; do not let it boil. When the milk is hot, the egg yolks are added, but first they are thinned and warmed with a bit of the hot milk. Whisk a ladleful of the milk into the yolks and then pour them, stirring all the while, into the hot milk. Now comes the most important step. If overheated, the eggs yolks will scramble and separate from the milk. To avoid this, stir the hot mixture constantly over medium heat. I like to use a wooden spoon with a bowl that has a flat end, almost like a spatula. Stir in a figure-eight pattern covering the entire bottom of the pan. The bottom of the pan is where the heat is strongest and where overcooking is most likely to happen (this is why it is important to use a heavy-bottomed pan). Don't forget to scrape the corners of the pot, where the sides and bottom come together. Cook the custard just until it thickens and coats the back of the spoon. I find this easier to see with a dark-colored wooden spoon. Run your finger along the length of the back of the spoon. If the mixture stays parted and does not drip back across the line created by your finger, then it is done. The temperature at which this occurs is 170°F. The other visual signal I watch for is when the mixture starts to steam profusely, the way other liquids do right before they are going to boil. Keep checking the custard while you are stirring; it will remain the same for a while and then thicken quickly, almost abruptly, when the proper temperature is reached. Have a strainer and bowl ready before you start cooking. Once the custard has thickened, immediately remove it from the heat, stir it vigorously for a minute or two, and then pour it through the strainer into the bowl. Stir the custard to cool it further and stop it from cooking. Retrieve the vanilla pod from the strainer and squeeze it into the custard. A lot of seeds and flavor will come out. Serve the custard right away or chill, covering tightly once cold. The custard will thicken even as it cools. Stir well before serving. For variety pouring custard or crème anglaise can be flavored with fruit purées, espresso, caramel, chocolate, or liquors such as rum, Cognac, or other eaux-de-vie. Flavored pouring custard becomes ice cream when enriched with cream and frozen in an ice-cream maker. The custard can be made slightly thicker with an extra egg yolk, or enriched by substituting half-and-half for part or all of the milk. Custard can also be baked in the oven rather than on the stovetop. An example is pots de crème, rich custards made with cream (or a mixture of cream and half-and-half or milk), in the same ratio of 2 yolks to 1 cup of liquid. Pour the yolk and cream mixture into a heat-proof ceramic baking dish or into little ramekins and bake in a hot-water ...

Yield makes 2 1/4 cups

Number Of Ingredients 4

• Ingredients