Greetings from the home of the happy hausfrau! Don those aprons and follow me into the kitchen, chop chop.
Starting November and lasting all the way through February is the season for Parsi weddings and navjotes. The highlight of these events that host anywhere between several hundred to a few thousand guests, is the sit-down, four-course meal, served on banana leaves and rounded off with our recipe for today–lagan-nu-custard, which simply means ‘wedding custard’. A Parsi wedding is a not-too-frequent occurrence, and many a gourmand attempts to wheedle an invite, openly citing the cuisine as their reason for doing so. Now, whether you’re invited or not, you can make authentic lagan-nu-custard in your own kitchen!
First, the colony of characters:
Starting from the left, top row: Mr. Makhania, Coomi Condensed Milk, Darabshaw Doodhwala, Vinifer Vanillawali, Safed Khansaab
Starting from left, bottom row: Ms. Skinny Badaam, Messrs. Edulji Eeda, Eski Elchee, Jerbai Jaiphal
Sigh. You need their passport names, don’t you?
Oh alright.
Here we go: Butter (just enough to grease the baking dish), condensed milk, full fat milk (you can even use low-fat, like I did)-half gallon/1.89 liters, vanilla essence, white sugar, sliced almonds and/or pistachios, 5 eggs, powdered cardamom, powdered nutmeg.
Now, pour the milk into a large saucepan and bring to a boil. Like so:
Switch/ pull off the heat. Next, open the can of condensed milk and get down on your knees.
For what we are about to receive
Let us be truly grateful.
And for what we are about to do
Turn the world momentarily blind.
Cue finger-to-lid-to-mouth technique.
Pretend you didn’t just read that.
Continue.
Turn off/remove from the heat and pour Coomi in. I once had a neighbor with that name. She married a man from Herzegovina and adopted his unpronounceable last name. Don’t you love how I’m so generous with other people’s lives?
Moving on….
Dunk 300 gms of soogar into the saucepan.
Soogar is swit and I’m a twit.
Give it all a big stir and turn the heat on. You can pretend you’re Gloria Estefan while doing this next step.
Turn it up, turn it up, not upside down
Turn it up, turn it up, not upside down
Stir the heat around
Got to make the custard
Stir it round and round
Love to stir it
Love to stir it….
*waits for you to finish waggling rear end*
Now mi amigos, if the milk is slightly thicker and ivory in color, pull it off the stove and let it cool. And get to work greasing a baking dish with a stick of butter.
Like so. Ignore the chef’s desperate need for a manicure. She’s like this only.
Next, whack each of the eeda into a bowl….
Vegetarians don’t look!!! Oops. Too late. 😳
There were five in the bed
And the little one said
Move over, roll over!
And then there were four in the bed.
You can take the teacher out of school, but you canna take the school out of the teacher, no ma’am!
Beat the eggs and beat ’em good.
Once frothy, pour into the cooled milk (or the milk into the egg dish, whichever is larger)…
And add the final touches to your piece de resistance…
Vanilla essence, 1 tsp. That hand model should be sued.
Powdered cardamom, 1/2 teaspoon. Or edited out of the frame.
Powdered nutmeg, 1/2 teaspoon. Or made to wear gloves.
Whew!
Now get rowdy and beat it all up again.
If you’re OCD like someone I know, shudder at the splatter.
If you aren’t, proceed to the next step.
Add sliced/slivered almonds to the mixture and pour it all into a baking dish.
Eet veel luke like thees.
Then, get ready to say your goodbyes.
There, there. Here’s a hanky. It’ll be back soon. In 45 minutes, to be precise. All golden brown and tanned at 350 degrees.
And voila! Cool and chill in the refrigerator overnight. Serve cold the next day.
And remember, before your guests gather to devour, call out a resounding “JAMVA CHALO JI!!”
Enjoy. 😀
(Pictures courtesy the Happy Hausfrau’s direct beneficiary, a.k.a. the resident photographer, a.k.a. the Boy)
Vox populi