Oh my gosh. I did it again tonight u guyzzz. I made some motherfucking custard. I had: a[sic] egg, a persimmon, and some other shit, plus I threw in my room mates two soon-to-be-rotten bananas which she left behind for a 7 day jaunt towards creative glory. They were perfectly ripe, and I thought "How super fucking
perfect for the custard they would be"--in fact, I didn't think it, I said it, aloud, while wearing my polka dotted apron, holding a spatula, and staring into the eyes of my 4 lb. teacup Yorkie.
True story.
Soooo anyway... about that recipe:
Good Times Holiday Persimmon Custard
LOS INGREDIENTOS:
2 very ripe bananas
Quick, shove the peels down into the garbage and chop the 'nanners into the bowl before your other roomate sees you stealing!!!
6 oz. Persimmon, any kind.
It must be ripe--meaning squishy, and a slightly translucent deep orange. If it is not ripe, metaphor alert, you can't just chop it up and add sugar and expect it to be okay, because it contains tannins which will not go away, but ruin the whole thing. It's like chemical or something. I don't have time to explain this shit to you any further, what are you a fucking amateur? google it.
1 apple,
Granneh-granneh-granny Smith. Where did they come up with that name? I'll tell you where:
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| Dillon Smith, and his granny, Granny Smith |
1/2 cup sugar
Pretty self explanatory. I always try to one-up the bitch shopping next to me with whatever is the most organic-y and unprocessed seeming. Or you can go hardcore and use no sugar. Not me this time, assholes, it's the Holla-Dazzzzeeee. Seriously though, I do get organic when I can afford it because it's less chemical-tastic and then Monsanto will just have to wait that much longer for me to die.
1 egg
1/2 cup milk
1 Pinch of cinnamon
adjust according to fatness of fingers
Preheat the oven to 325 Farenheit, and place a baking dish, large enough to fit your custard dish within it, filled with an inch or two of water. This is the hot water bath for your dirty, dirty custard.
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I brought the Sauce. How the fuck do you keep pictures from being upside down?
Or are my eyes doing that thing again from those experiments they did on me in the army. |
1.) I probably should have warned you about this earlier, since you don't like surprises but--you're gonna be making apple sauce!! Yayyyyy!!!! So peel that apple, core it, and quarter it. Throw it into a saucepan with 1 cup water and the sugar, and boil it. Just boil it and boil it, and pretty soon the apple will disintegrate and it will indeed begin to look like the heretofore commercial phenomenon we know as apple sauce. When civilization crumbles and we return to a primitive farming society, you'll need to know how to make and can your own apple sauce. basically, let it continue to boil and boil, destroying all of the nutrients and live enzymes in the apple, but making it somehow special, and reduce it to like, meh--1/2-3/4 cup? Oh and--don't be a fool. Put a pinch of cinnamon on that. Let it cool a bit once you've reduced it to 1/2 the apple it once was.
2.) Peel the skin off the persimmon with a little knife, or scalpel if you want to be creepy and have one around. It will be thin , but be sure to get it all off. you'll take some of the flesh with it, but you can just suck it off and eat it if you're cheap and crazy like I am. Cut off that dried green leafy tuft up top of the persimmon, obviously. Then, mash the persimmon flesh about with a fork in a large bowl, and it will quickly devolve into a gloopy mass, as everything eventually does. Then, slice up the bananas, mash them in best you can with the fork, then (game changer) bring in the electric mixer, should you be fortunate enough to live in a community where there is not only the internet, but also working electricity. Mix the fruit on the lowest setting, until its as homogenous as you can get it without actually grafting a persimmon tree onto a banana tree, which I will address in my next flog post(
food b
log-my boyfriend always uses the term).
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| What now, Persimmon? What now??? |
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| Like I'd ever eat anything that wasn't a Power Food. |
3.) Next: in a small bowl, stir the cacao powder into the slightly beaten egg, and then finish it off with the electric mixer. When I have people over and really want to impress, instead of a bowl, I use my cupped hand, and sometimes even my mouth. Just be sure to run the mixture through a sieve in case of any teeth should you decide to do this. Then, slowly blend the egg mixture into the fruity one, also using the electric beater. Then do the milk in kind.
4.) You must then mix the fruity sugar apple sauce into the eggy persimmon surprise. Now, always in custards, you must not accidentally scramble your egg by adding too hot of a liquid, cause thats effing nasty. So, after letting the apple sauce cool, by stirring it, or setting the pan in some cold water, or leaving it to cool, or any combination of these three, obvious, common sense approaches that I should not have to explain, you can then blend it in, once again, with the electric mixer.
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This is what I mean by "Water Bath".
You can put back the bubbles and appletini mix now :( |
5.) Surprise--it's time to bake that motherfucker. Pour the batter into a fancy glass rameken, or as I used, a crappy non stick pie pan that reads "Giant"(of Supermarket fame) on the bottom and I cannot quite remember how I got. In fact, it works out perfectly when I make custards, because the lip of the pan fits over the edges of my Le Crueset (Is that even how you spell it?) grill skillet ( or as I like to say "Grillet") which I purchased at the housing works thrift store in Flatiron for $15, barely used. It then suspends the pie pan, which is probably giving me cancer because of that non stick shit thats probably like 10 years old, perfectly in the hot water bath.
No need to talk about any of that, however, since most of you probably aren't fortunate enough to have this kind of $15 le creuset/piepan suspension situation happening for you--don't worry, a regular old water bath with the bottom of the custard pan touching the bottom of the water pan will work just fine, or you can figure out some logical way to suspend your pan in the water bath, which I'm not going to bother coming up with for you since I don't want to deprive you of this fun way to spend your Saturday afternoon. P.S.--I'm not an actual bitch, I just act like one sometimes.
6.) Bitch: (N) Someone who says they aren't an actual bitch but only acts like one at times. Put the Custard in for 60 minutes.
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| Another great reason for ovens to have doors. |
7.) You've put the custard in, and will have to find another way to "cover the silence" for the next 60 minutes. Don't worry, if you're a control freak like me, you'll go to the oven 7 or 8 times just to peer inside, and make sure the oven isn't trying to screw you over or slack off while you're away. Or, if you're a narcissist, you can go up and stare lovingly into the oven at how awesome the custard is, simply because you made it. Don't go run an errand even though it is a whole hour--you might burn down your whole goddamn apartment, and I doubt buying renters insurance is something you can do online in like 15 minutes, right?
8. Oh Boy! CUSTARD TIME! I wonder how it
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| Custard and Puddin' |
turned out?? Guess what--I started writing this post while it was baking and had no idea how it was going to turn out but I figured apples and bananas are starchy and persimmons are binding (like the law, and certain contracts if you don't have a good lawyer)--so it just HAS to work. it just HAS to!!! Guess what--IT WORKED!!! Whoa--I don't know about you, but this "custard" is actually, legitimately, like the texture of straight up
cake. What. Whoa....lets see what happens when it cools. BUT YOU HAVE TO LET IT COOL.
9. Stick it in the fridge. it may be the texture of a cake, but deep down inside, it's still a tender custard. Custard is best off refrigerated for, like, 4 hours before serving. You have. To be patient. after this, loosen the edges with a knife, and flip onto a plate. Custards make great vehicles for impressive sauces or compotes, but not your film career.
Sorry guys for getting a little carried away with all the ALLCAPS and excalamation points!!!! towards the end. I just get too psyched about custard--I'm a little
cust-tarded. Anyhoo, it's 2AM, and I can't stay up 'til like 6AM to wait for the custard to set, taste it, and then flog about it, so...g'night.
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| Or can I |
Okay so: It tastes like an awesome fruity explosion, and I was wrong about the cake part. It was just the surface of things deceiving me again. It's definitely a custard texture. Somewhat grainy for a custard, not like a smooth flan, partially because of the fruit and the fact that there is only one egg. It still binds though, and the fresh fruit taste is really refreshing and makes me want a second piece. This would be a delicious treat for breakfast (The excuse being it contains egg and fruit), and is definitely sweet enough to bring to a holiday party.
Epilogue: Those bananas belonged to my room mate who was still home. I stole! But then bought him some more :(
