Flantastic! (or, Stop Looking At Me, Flan!)

This is Scott.  Here in the blue.  I thought about having my color be red...for the Utes and RSL, but the Fresno State Bulldogs (Mary's school) are also red and she likes RSL as well.  Plus, there's that whole "blue for boys, pink for girls" thing that we grew up with.  Whatever.  I'm blue. 

So...I love cooking.  I get way jazzed when I think about trying new recipes and buying ingredients, so I have been very excited to have a couple of fun new cookbooks.  I had the idea that Mary and I should both make a list of five recipes from the cookbooks that we wanted to try.  Before I go any further, I should also write a bit about how we operate in the kitchen.

We are both fairly mellow people, but we are both also kind of control freaks.  We know how we want certain things done and we get anxious when they are done other ways.  Before we figured out how to operate in the kitchen, a typical evening would consist of many quotes like: "Um...are you sure you want to use that much?" "Um...is that really how it's supposed to look?" "Um...do you not want to put any water on there?"


This wasn't working.  We both enjoy cooking and we were stressing each other out!  We've tried to remedy this by having one of us be in charge of whatever we're cooking.  The chef.  The other of us will be the sous chef.  I know it sounds silly.  Maybe it is.  Control is part of what I like about cooking, though.  If it tastes amazing, it's because I did a good job.  If it tastes terrible, it's because I messed it up.  I'm in control.


Back to our lists.  We each picked five dishes from the various cookbooks that we have and we are going to take turns making them.  For the recipes that Mary picked, she will be the chef and I will be the sous, and vice versa.


Mary's List
1. Poulet en Cocotte ("Chicken in a Pot"--it's French)
2. Pastitsio
3. Garlic Lemon Potatoes
4. Tortilla Soup
5. Chocolate Pumpkin Cake


My List
1. Cardamom Chicken
2. Lamb Stew
3. The "Indoor Clambake"
4. Fish and Chips
5. Pad Thai


So you can see we have quite a variety of dishes there.  We both gave it a great deal of thought and I am certain we could write an entire post about our personal motivations for picking each dish.


There is a problem with my list, though.  I didn't realize this until later (so maybe I didn't give it as much thought as I thought I had).  There are no desserts!  That's a problem for me.  I love dessert.  So far, I only know how to make one dessert well--bread pudding.  I don't think it's too much of an exaggeration to say that my bread pudding is legendary.


Moving on.  Sorry, I'm getting a little bogged down here.  The point, Dear Reader, as you have undoubtedly deduced from the title of this post, is that I made flan.  I have always loved it and my mother was making a Latin-inspired soup for Sunday dinner so I volunteered to make dessert.  Flan seemed in keeping with the Latin theme.


Also, just to whet your appetite for a later post not yet written, I also picked up a butane torch for...well, torching things.  I think I will be trying creme brulee in the near future and I will be busting the torch out for that.


Back to the flan.  On reading the recipe, I was concerned that it was too difficult.  It is a custard, after all, and there is also flipping involved, so I was a little nervous.  Mary bailed entirely and made cupcakes.  See?  [Mary here. Go Bulldogs!  I DID NOT BAIL.  I took the photos.  Besides, we needed those cupcakes.  And you will see why in a second.  Keep reading.]

They were Mocha Chocolate cupcakes with whipped topping (not pictured) and were delicious.  Still, I thought she was a bit of a coward.  [Control Freak.]


The ingredient list for flan is short: sugar, water, eggs, egg yolks, zest from a lemon, sweetened condensed milk, and milk.

The first step of the flan is the caramel.  This is pretty simple.  It's sugar and water.  You cook it until it thickens up and turns brown and then you pour it in the bottom of the pan, like so.

It gets hard instantly, but that's cool.  Don't worry.  It's supposed to do that.  Next is the custard
proper.  Whisk the eggs and yolks together.

Then add the lemon zest, sweetened condensed milk, regular milk and you're just about ready.  Well, you're just to the weird part anyway.  First, pour it in the pan on top of the caramel.

Make sure to get it all.

Now the weird part.  I forgot to say that this whole time, you've been boiling a kettle of water.  You'll see in the above picture that the flan pan has been placed inside a larger pan on top of a dish towel.  What?!?  I know.  I know.  Just stay with me.  Pour that boiling water into the big pan (but making sure not to splash onto the custard.  Pour that in until the water is about halfway up the side of the smaller pan.

Now bake it.  It takes 30-40 minutes or until the center of the custard "is no longer sloshy."  It was still pretty wiggly when I took it out but a quick poke revealed no sloshiness, only jiggliness.  I also tested the center with a thermometer and it was within the prescribe range of 170-175 degrees.

Now the boring part.  Wait.  Wait two hours and then put it in the fridge.  Then wait  at least two more hours.  I just fridged it overnight. [Aaaand ENTER CUPCAKES.  Ha!  We wouldn't have had any dessert that night had it not been for your cowardly, bailing sous chef.]
  

Other than that, though, it was lovely.  And the taste?  Heavenly.  You'll notice that we don't have any pictures of anybody enjoying this.  It was simply gone too fast.  [It totally was.  Gone too fast, and amazingly well crafted.  Well done, babe.]