Egg Nog!

Today, I've been feeling well enough to make Egg Nog. The end product is most yummy and not Salmonella-inducing, as the eggs are cooked for a good 7 minutes or so. Also, milk can be substituted for the alcohol if kids are present -- or if you just don't drink alcohol.

Here's a picture of the ingredients:


Heat 3 cups of whole milk in a heavy saucepan until it's just barely boiling. In the meantime, whisk together 7 eggs and 3/4 cup of sugar in a large bowl. The recipe says to then pour the milk into the eggs, but if you do that, you're likely to get scrambled eggs and milk, yuck.
So instead, I carefully whisk in milk by the 1/4 cup, pouring slowly with a cup measure and whisking vigorously all the while. The slow rise in temperature keeps things from curdling. No scrambled egg nog, yay!
After the first 3/4 cup or whole cup of milk whisked into the eggs, you can slowly pour in the rest of the milk -- while whisking!

Then, pour the milk/egg/sugar mixture back into the pot and cook on medium low until a thermometer registers 170 degrees (F, not Centigrade!). Pour custard-like mixture into a clean bowl. The recipe says to pour through a fine-meshed sieve, but I've never had to do that. It turns out perfectly smooth every time.

Add 1 teaspoon vanilla, 2 cups of heavy cream, 1/4 cup cognac and 1/4 cup of bourbon or brandy. The original recipe calls for 1/3 cup of both kinds of liquor, for a total of 2/3 of a cup of booze. I like to taste something besides booze. And I don't want to end up under the table after just 1 glass of egg nog!

Here's what the end result looks like:


Yum!

Let cool on the counter, then cover and refrigerate. It tastes even better the next day, after the booze has had some time to mellow.

Enjoy!