[Sca-cooks] Re: Larded Milk

[Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius]

Also sprach Martha Oser:
>Adamantius says:
>>Whole eggs, sometimes with wine added. Probably a slightly higher 
>>proportion of egg than is represented in the posted adaptation.
>
>Ah, so perhaps the original recipe wants the eggs to congeal more 
>and the cook to worry less about tempering them?  I can see how the 
>eggs would still need to be tempered and whisked in, or you just get 
>a lump of scrambled eggs in milk, but allowing the eggs to congeal 
>everything would seem to work.  Then the "water" that runs off is 
>really just the leftover milk/egg liquid that didn't congeal rather 
>than an actual whey...

I think this is one of those dishes where a 21st century education 
might be harmful. We've been conditioned to thinking a certain way, 
and when a recipe suggests a method that is counter to our training, 
we tend to come up with ways to change it and make it work before we 
even discover, accurately, whether the given instructions actually 
work.

Milk is a suspension of proteins, sugars, minerals and fats, in a 
water base. Mix in eggs, which are largely proteins, and you get a 
fairly protein-ey soup and, when heated in such a way as to denature 
the protein quickly, the solids begin to pull together.

Y'ever made consomme? It involves the adding of eggs, aromatic 
flavoring vegetables, and sometimes additional meat, to stock, and 
bring it all to a simmer without stirring. What it does, in essence, 
is causes all the little particles and extraneous flavoring agents to 
solidify (there's a network of protein strands mixed throughout, and 
these begin to shrink and solidify as the protein denatures) and 
separate out from the rest of the mass, which breaks apart into 
layers. One of those layers is a mass of egg, meat, vegetables, and 
gunk, and another is the consomme, a highly-flavorful, crystal-clear 
(we hope)  stock. The only difference in the underlying science is 
that in this case, it's that clearmeat (that's what it's called) that 
you want and are saving, and the liquid that you're discarding.

I think that, if you use unhomogenized milk (which is a suspension, 
as opposed to a semi-emulsion like homegenized milk), the same effect 
can be achieved, and there won't be a lot of milk left behind. It'll 
be whey, like the water that leaks from an overcooked quiche or 
custard as it cools.

>Things to contemplate, though this suggests to me a rather "eggy" 
>texture to the finished dish, which puts it on my list of things I'm 
>less likely to try making and/or eating.  Don't like eggs, unless 
>they're in chocolate cakes...

I suspect the final product's texture and egginess quotient would 
depend on how many eggs were used, and that you could tinker somewhat 
with that ratio to get en effect more like what you want, and still 
be within the parameters of the recipe.

Adamantius

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