Thursday, December 1, 2011

The dairy bomb: getting your nog on.

I'd like to share with y'all my eggnog recipe. I made a few adjustments to it this year, and I believe it to be nearly perfect if you love nog. Real nog, no soy. Hecka eggs. Serious dairy. Crap-tons of booze.  And a bajillion calories. If you are down for all of that, this is the real deal.

The frugal femme's killer nog:
1 dozen eggs
1 quart half and half
1 quart heavy whipping cream
2 cups of sugar
1 bottle of white rum
1 1/2 -2 cups of whiskey
a crap-ton of nutmeg
cinnamon sticks if you got em!


I know what you're all thinking. That's a whole lot of booze and a whole lot of dairy. Yes, yes it is.  And these eggs don't get cooked. So, yeah. The idea is that the booze will cook em! But that's just another reason to use organic cage free eggs. Cuz, uh...good egg karma? There's also a way to check for bad eggs where you see if they floats in water, although, typically, if you crack into a bad egg...you know it.

So, first off, the ingredients. I like to use organic stuff; brown eggs, organic dairy, and turbinado sugar rather than white, or even brown sugar will be better than white. The rum can be any kind, you don't even taste it AT ALL, you can use brown or white, I tend to use white.  The whiskey should actually be of a higher quality, and if you can find one that's both smooth and spicy, that's a good one to use.

Let me just tell you that I do this whole thing by hand, and its a bitch. If you have an electric mixer or a blender (or both! how I envy you!) then this is gonna be way easier for you. Also if you have two pitchers, that's gonna make it far easier as well. I use one pitcher and a wide mouthed jar and several bowls and a colander to strain the stuff. (cheesecloth would be better...if only I could remember to get some in advance) I inevitably get nog everywhere using my method, but by the point that this happens I'm typically half tanked anyway. I season to taste, which involves a lotta tasting, and this is potent stuff, and I'm a lightweight.

Okay!

So, this stuff gets better with age, I typically begin the night before, but may start doing it a day in advance in order to let the spices sit overnight! I'll let you know how that goes...

So! Step 1!
Start by separating the eggs, whites into a tupperware and yolks into a pitcher. Add the sugar and the entire bottle of rum to the yolks and refrigerate that shits overnight!

Step 2.
The following morning you whip the eggs whites till frothy, ditto ALL the heavy whipping cream. That's a whole bunch of frothitude. I know.  ***This is the part where a mixer would come in very handy, but it can all be done by hand. It just takes a minute.

Step 3.
Pour the quart of half and half into the yolk-sugar-rum mess, and *fold in* the whipped up whites and whipping cream. You will wanna really work to blend this, and it may be a bit too thick for your particular taste, if so, go ahead and thin it out with some milk after adding the whiskey. I guesstimated how much whiskey I put in, as I was adding it to taste and getting drunker each time I tasted it. :) lols. Start with a cup, see what you think. You should be able to taste booze, but not only booze. I did add a little milk too, to sorta thin it out. It should be frothy, but not so thick you need a spoon to drink it.

Step 4.
You wanna go ahead and start shaking in some nutmeg while whipping this all together, and if you've got a blender you're probably good to go. You can just blend it. Once that sucker is mixed or blended up well, throw it in the fridge to chill. It should sit and chill with all the spices for a few hours. (like at least 3 or 4)

Step 5.
Once your shit is chilled, its probably gritty from all that nutmeg, and you will want to strain it before serving. 
In my case, since I'm doing all the blending by hand, I find that there are bits of yolk AND gritty nutmeg all up in my shit. Major ick. So I strain it twice, making a huge mess all over the place.

Then I usually add more whiskey to make up for what I've spilled.  :) At this point its a really good idea to ask a sober person to taste it and tell you if you need more whiskey BEFORE adding more.

Once its chilled and strained, serve topped with nutmeg, and a cinnamon stick if you got one!

That's it!