dusted with cardamom and wrapped in bacon: an imbolc feast

hello chickens. yes, it's been an inexcusably long while, and yes, we've missed you too. but we're now beginning to emerge from hibernation to once again bring you some stories, reviews and perhaps some a tasty recipe or two.

the gathering that prompted this return post was our celebration of imbolc, one of the four yearly celtic festivals. falling halfway between the winter solstice and the spring equinox, this festival marks the time of year when the stirrings of the coming spring become perceptible. in honor of this, we light fires (in the form of many many tea lights) to hasten the thaw of the earth. strongly associated with brigid (both saint and goddess of poetry, holy wells, sacred flames, and healing), Imbolc is also connected to one of my personal favorites food categories: DAIRY.

the menu:
first course - ginger cashew squash soup with spicy pumpkin seeds

sarah: TASTY. creamy but not too rich, a touch of hot pepper really balanced out the perfuminess of the ginger and married the whole thing together seamlessly. i took a big-girl bowl of this and squeegeed it clean with matt's equally delicious challah.

second course - herbed white bean salad with pickled red onion.

sarah: a cold dish that hit the spot. the onion pickles were a nice briny, crunchy balance to the white beans. i want this to be at every barbeque i go to this summer

main course - bacon-wrapped herbed cod and broccoli with cardamom yogurt [jamie oliver]

sarah: it's hard for me to naysay anything that's wrapped in bacon, and this dish was far from the exception. alternately, the fish wasn't so overly bacon-ated that you lost that light, clean quality of the white fish which i really appreciated. the yogurt sauce became the universal dipping medium for everything on my plate - it was so SO good. it also lent a nice aromatic balance to the smokiness of the bacon. i wish moishe's falafel cart served this stuff up in midtown...

dessert - cardamom vanilla bean crème brulée muddled raspberries [adapted from epicurious.com]

• 12 egg yolks
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 4 cups heavy cream
• 1.5 tsp ground cardamom
• 1 bourbon vanilla bean
• light brown sugar for dusting
• 2 containers of raspberries (optional)
  

1. preheat oven to 325 Farenheit. place rack on the middle-most rung and remove all other racks (you're going to need the room...)
   
2. In a large ovenproof bowl, beat together the egg yolks and sugar
3. Slice vanilla bean and scrape out seeds
4. In a heavy saucepan, add the heavy cream, vanilla seeds, the whole scraped-out vanilla bean and cardamom. Heat on a medium flame until little bubbles start forming at the edges of the pan. While the creaminess is heated, wash and dry six ramekins or any small, cute ovenproof ceramic cups that are very close in height. Also, prepare a glass or ceramic baking dish that will be big enough to comfortably hold the ramekins without crowding them.
   
5. When the cream mixture is ready, add cup by cup to the egg/sugar mixture while whisking constantly until the sugar has completely melted. Pour the mixture into the ramekins until they're halfway full and place them onto baking dish.
6. *You may want to place baking dish on a baking sheet to avoid an awful sloshing/scalding situation later.* Now these next steps must happen in rapid succession, so read this over three times and prepare as much as you can beforehand: Place baking pan/baking sheet on middle rack of the oven; fill the ramekins up to the top with the egg/creme mix; fill the baking dish with hot water so that they're halfway up the sides of the ramekins. (the main reason for the necessary quickness of this step is that the oven will lose a significant amount of heat the longer the oven door is open)
   
7. Bake for 25 minutes or until the custard has set - wobbly, not soupy, "pudding-y" ( i ended up having mine in for close to an hour because the oven lost so much heat in the latter part of step 6. trust me, practice the game plan.).
8. Remove ramekins carefully from what is now very steamy hot water onto a wire rack (if you have it, one of those jar-grabbing tools used for canning would be perfect for this; i used a towel pulled tautly over my hand). let cool until close to room temperature.
   
9. Refrigerate for at least 3 hours

   At this point in the recipe, I was expected over at the apartment of the other two eaterschmeaters, and there was absolutely no room in the fridge. So I employed nature's vast fridge that was Brooklyn, and put those puddin' cups on the porch to cool. In the 18-degree night, I like to think they were infused with something infinite and powerful under the light of that full winter moon. The perfect garnish.
   

10. When ready to serve, spoon a little less than a teaspoon of the brown sugar on top of the créme and gently smooth over the entire surface. If using a broiler, heat it up and place the cremes underneath for about 2 minutes. If you have a badass mini butane torch - thanks, mom! - light that sucker up and caramelize that sugar until it's reached a bubbly amber.
11. **If you're feeling fancy** mash up the raspberries (rinsed!) with a fork. Spoon into a corner of each creme, leaving ample space to satisfyingly crack that candy layer.
12. Serve. Eat. Repeat step 10 for +50 points.
    i ended up having a fair amount of left-over custard, but not enough ramekins to make at once. so i refrigerated it in a plastic container (with the vanilla bean!) for about a day and a half before i was able to do the second batch. the taste of this final round was much more flavorful and the texture was absolutely exquisite. I don't know anything about the science of it all, but i think there is success in giving yourself the luxury of time: heating the oven, setting up the water bath, letting the cremes come to room temp before they go into the fridge. beyond the indulgent ingredients, splurging on time really yields the ultimate decadence.