Okay, today's theme is Mexican (Hispanic, Latino, whatever) Flan. After sampling my first real Flan at the office today I decided to try my luck at one of our southern neighbors more delectable treats. This was inspired by one of my legal assistant's bringing in a big plate yesterday for everyone to share. The whole staff was oohing and ahhing and I thought to myself, "hey, I bet I could make Flan. It doesn't look that hard to me. Probably just some egg, cream, and sugar. Piece of cake!"
So tonight about 9:00 after the kids were in bed I decided to see if I could find a good Flan recipe. Admittedly I don't know what criteria one would employ in determining the difference between a good and a bad Flan recipe. I turn, like any other red-blooded member of generation whatever generation I am, to Google.com. I type in "flan recipes" and choose the "I feel lucky button," certain that the first website to pop up will contain a good Flan recipe. The recipe pops up and I begin to run down the list of ingredients: 10-12 eggs, 1 can sweetened condensed milk, 1 can evaporated milk, cinnamon, and vanilla. I look to the refrigerator and find that I only have three eggs to work with. My choice is to either split the recipe 25% or find a less egg-intensive Flan recipe. Finally, I find a recipe that calls for one egg and five egg yolks. I estimate that three eggs contains roughly the same volume as one egg and five egg yolks and so I decide to use that recipe substituting my three whole eggs for the recommended egg and yolk concoction proposed by the recipe. Aside: It is a constant point of contention between my wife and I as to whether recipes need to be followed to the letter, or whether their instructions are merely suggestions. I typically employ the latter of the two philosophies and thus my successes and failures in cooking are spotty at best. (The one thing I have learned, however, is to always cook chicken and other poultry according to the directions. My prior experiments in cooking chicken until it was "about done" or "probably done" were all dismal failures with uncomfortable consequences.)
At any rate, I had solved my little egg shortage issue and moved on to determine the status of our cache of sweetened and evaporated milks. I found sweetened, but could not find any evaporated milk. Admittedly evaporated milk is not something that we typically store between our constantly rotating boxes of mac and cheese and Tootie Frooties; I thought I might get lucky.
After tearing into each of our pantry cupboard and finding no evaporated milk, I decided to determine whether there was a good substitute for evaporated milk on the Internet. I locate a couple of promising options each with instructions more complicated than those for my original recipe of Flan. After estimating the time it would take to attempt to create an evaporated milk substitute and comparing it with the time it would take to drive the 2 miles to Albertson's for a sure fire purchase of ready to use evaporated milk, I intelligently determined to make my own evaporated milk substitute problem was I only had skim milk and the recipe indicated that only whole or 2% milk would work. At first I thought maybe I could substitute skim milk for whole milk in my evaporated milk substitute recipe and then I actually thought I would drive to the closer than Albertson's by 1/2 block mini mart to get some whole milk for my evaporated milk substitute recipe. Finally, I decided to just go and get some evaporated milk at Albertson's
Now if you are like me you can never walk into an Albertson's without checking out some of the day-old bakery items prominently displayed at the front entrance with enticing "Only 99 cents" and "Fresh yesterday" stickers on them tempting the risk-taking, deal-finding part of each of us. I determined that I could probably only consume one dozen day-old donuts even though they were only $1.99 and selected one of the more assorted dozens complete with a cruller and maple bar. Then I purchased enough evaporated milk for my Flan and could not pass up the two 24-pack Pepsi for $4.99.
I made it home in time for my wife to hand our new baby to me and inform me that I needed to be a little more helpful in the childcare department. Now I am living the Flan dream baby. Kid in one hand, Flan ingredients burning a whole in my other hand.
The recipe instructs me to "caramelize sugar by heating it in a saucepan to a nice dark brown." I place the suggested amount of sugar (plus a little extra for good measure) into a saucepan and turn on the heat. First the sugar clumps together into small stones, then it actually melts, and finally it begins to produce copious amounts of acrid smoke as it turns something akin to a "nice dark brown" color. I wonder to myself whether I need to keep it on the heat and "cook through" this acrid smoke phase and into the sweet caramelized phase as my fears of a smoke detector going off build and build. Finally, I determine that I have likely overcooked the sugar and remove it from the heat and use cold water to cool the mixture and chip it out of my saucepan.
Feeling that I should not let a little sugar mishap dampen my Flan enthusiasm, I through myself a fresh 1/2 cup of sugar into my newly cleaned saucepan and use a lower heat to bring the sugar to a nice golden brown thick bubbly texture. Just as the sweet aroma hits my nostrils I instinctively put my left index finger into the sugary, bubbling nectar for a little taste. Now I don't know whether the average person knows this, but apparently it takes quite a few Joules of heat to actually liquefy and caramelize sugar. I don't know exactly how hot the mixture was, but let's just say I have a nice second degree Flan souvenir on the tip of my left index finger.
I grab an ice cube, pull the now solid candy bit of caramelized sugar off of the tip of my finger along with some skin and pour the liquid into to the bottom of my authentic Flan pan. (read: glass pie plate) I then mix the other ingredients without incident substituting and tweaking the recipe as I will according to what I think will work for the best final Flan product. (You know what they say about jazz musicians and just being able to improvise and jam on the spot while creating beautiful, soulful music. Just think of me as the jazz musician of Flan cooking.) I pour the soupy mixture onto the caramelized sugar mixture and then read the rest of the directions.
Apparently, it is good to read recipes all the way through at least once before beginning any cooking project. At least, that is what other non-jazz musician Flan cookers would have to do. At any rate, I now learn that this pie plate needs to be placed in another oven safe container filled with water and placed into a pre-heated 350 degree oven. The potential problem I see is that I do not have a container large enough to fit the Flan filled pie plate. I struggle with the reasoning behind cooking Flan in a container that is in a container filled with water. Is this a suggestion? Is this something that can be left out? Can't I just stick a pan of water on the stove and boil it while the Flan cooks in the oven? I decide to construct a water container out of foil, place my Flan container into it and onto a cookie sheet and then place it into my now 350 degree oven, cook for 45 minutes, let sit while I typed this and here is the finished product.
So tonight about 9:00 after the kids were in bed I decided to see if I could find a good Flan recipe. Admittedly I don't know what criteria one would employ in determining the difference between a good and a bad Flan recipe. I turn, like any other red-blooded member of generation whatever generation I am, to Google.com. I type in "flan recipes" and choose the "I feel lucky button," certain that the first website to pop up will contain a good Flan recipe. The recipe pops up and I begin to run down the list of ingredients: 10-12 eggs, 1 can sweetened condensed milk, 1 can evaporated milk, cinnamon, and vanilla. I look to the refrigerator and find that I only have three eggs to work with. My choice is to either split the recipe 25% or find a less egg-intensive Flan recipe. Finally, I find a recipe that calls for one egg and five egg yolks. I estimate that three eggs contains roughly the same volume as one egg and five egg yolks and so I decide to use that recipe substituting my three whole eggs for the recommended egg and yolk concoction proposed by the recipe. Aside: It is a constant point of contention between my wife and I as to whether recipes need to be followed to the letter, or whether their instructions are merely suggestions. I typically employ the latter of the two philosophies and thus my successes and failures in cooking are spotty at best. (The one thing I have learned, however, is to always cook chicken and other poultry according to the directions. My prior experiments in cooking chicken until it was "about done" or "probably done" were all dismal failures with uncomfortable consequences.)
At any rate, I had solved my little egg shortage issue and moved on to determine the status of our cache of sweetened and evaporated milks. I found sweetened, but could not find any evaporated milk. Admittedly evaporated milk is not something that we typically store between our constantly rotating boxes of mac and cheese and Tootie Frooties; I thought I might get lucky.
After tearing into each of our pantry cupboard and finding no evaporated milk, I decided to determine whether there was a good substitute for evaporated milk on the Internet. I locate a couple of promising options each with instructions more complicated than those for my original recipe of Flan. After estimating the time it would take to attempt to create an evaporated milk substitute and comparing it with the time it would take to drive the 2 miles to Albertson's for a sure fire purchase of ready to use evaporated milk, I intelligently determined to make my own evaporated milk substitute problem was I only had skim milk and the recipe indicated that only whole or 2% milk would work. At first I thought maybe I could substitute skim milk for whole milk in my evaporated milk substitute recipe and then I actually thought I would drive to the closer than Albertson's by 1/2 block mini mart to get some whole milk for my evaporated milk substitute recipe. Finally, I decided to just go and get some evaporated milk at Albertson's
Now if you are like me you can never walk into an Albertson's without checking out some of the day-old bakery items prominently displayed at the front entrance with enticing "Only 99 cents" and "Fresh yesterday" stickers on them tempting the risk-taking, deal-finding part of each of us. I determined that I could probably only consume one dozen day-old donuts even though they were only $1.99 and selected one of the more assorted dozens complete with a cruller and maple bar. Then I purchased enough evaporated milk for my Flan and could not pass up the two 24-pack Pepsi for $4.99.
I made it home in time for my wife to hand our new baby to me and inform me that I needed to be a little more helpful in the childcare department. Now I am living the Flan dream baby. Kid in one hand, Flan ingredients burning a whole in my other hand.
The recipe instructs me to "caramelize sugar by heating it in a saucepan to a nice dark brown." I place the suggested amount of sugar (plus a little extra for good measure) into a saucepan and turn on the heat. First the sugar clumps together into small stones, then it actually melts, and finally it begins to produce copious amounts of acrid smoke as it turns something akin to a "nice dark brown" color. I wonder to myself whether I need to keep it on the heat and "cook through" this acrid smoke phase and into the sweet caramelized phase as my fears of a smoke detector going off build and build. Finally, I determine that I have likely overcooked the sugar and remove it from the heat and use cold water to cool the mixture and chip it out of my saucepan.
Feeling that I should not let a little sugar mishap dampen my Flan enthusiasm, I through myself a fresh 1/2 cup of sugar into my newly cleaned saucepan and use a lower heat to bring the sugar to a nice golden brown thick bubbly texture. Just as the sweet aroma hits my nostrils I instinctively put my left index finger into the sugary, bubbling nectar for a little taste. Now I don't know whether the average person knows this, but apparently it takes quite a few Joules of heat to actually liquefy and caramelize sugar. I don't know exactly how hot the mixture was, but let's just say I have a nice second degree Flan souvenir on the tip of my left index finger.
I grab an ice cube, pull the now solid candy bit of caramelized sugar off of the tip of my finger along with some skin and pour the liquid into to the bottom of my authentic Flan pan. (read: glass pie plate) I then mix the other ingredients without incident substituting and tweaking the recipe as I will according to what I think will work for the best final Flan product. (You know what they say about jazz musicians and just being able to improvise and jam on the spot while creating beautiful, soulful music. Just think of me as the jazz musician of Flan cooking.) I pour the soupy mixture onto the caramelized sugar mixture and then read the rest of the directions.
Apparently, it is good to read recipes all the way through at least once before beginning any cooking project. At least, that is what other non-jazz musician Flan cookers would have to do. At any rate, I now learn that this pie plate needs to be placed in another oven safe container filled with water and placed into a pre-heated 350 degree oven. The potential problem I see is that I do not have a container large enough to fit the Flan filled pie plate. I struggle with the reasoning behind cooking Flan in a container that is in a container filled with water. Is this a suggestion? Is this something that can be left out? Can't I just stick a pan of water on the stove and boil it while the Flan cooks in the oven? I decide to construct a water container out of foil, place my Flan container into it and onto a cookie sheet and then place it into my now 350 degree oven, cook for 45 minutes, let sit while I typed this and here is the finished product.
It looks pretty darn good, smells even better, and I can't wait to see the faces of my staff when Christopher the Chinese-speaking, Flan-cooking Gringo lays down this Flan-cooking gauntlet. Is that some form of jazz I hear playing in the background?
9 comments:
Looks good, honey. I didn't see any donuts when you got home! Sorry about the burn.
Good job. I am also a 'recipe is mearly a suggestion' cooker. But I have never made flan, well- at least not from scratch.
So? was it good?
I laughed so hard at your story, that I cried. I would call you the Winston Marsalis of the Kitchen.
But, all that work, and I don't even like flan:)
"Now if you are like me you can never walk into an Albertson's without checking out some of the day-old bakery items prominently displayed at the front entrance with enticing "Only 99 cents"
You and Craig were indeed separated at birth. Awesome story.
If this whole attorney thing doesn't work out, you could be a writer. Or a chef....Or a jazz musician..... Or the head of the bakery department at Albertsons. thanks for the belly laugh.
Craig
i now know way more than i ever wanted to know about flan. you are, however, the son of your father. unlike the scriptures, recipes are merely guidelines along the path to culinary excellence. on our favorite channel the food network none of the men chefs measure anything. even the king emeril just dumps stuff in. i think we can invoct the priesthood somehow but suggest we do so carefully and with great audience selectivitiveness. another new word from Dad.
I enjoyed the varied comments from your friends and relatives, too. Funny stuff, my son!
Yummy!!!!!!!!!! I think you should teach a class in R.S. "How to make Flan"
I am wondering what the legal definition of "mostly" is. So far, on this "mostly blank blog" I see photos, multiple posts, over a dozen comments, etc. I think you must change the name of this blog to "nearly" blank or "sort of" blank or whatever the correct legal definition would be for a blog that used to be mostly blank but is no longer ipso facto so blank. :)
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