Salted eggnog: a triumph

plus, the recipe

Hi, clowns!

I don’t know about you all, but for us, 2023 was a wild one. I got diagnosed with a weird eye disease (boo), made Adult Uncrustables filled with peanut butter and grape-flavored sex lube, fried up a KFC-style Double Down using Marshmallow Peeps, started reading you bedtime stories, and cooked with more fucking dog food. Jesus, even that last sentence was an emotional rollercoaster. Oh, yeah—Davida and I got married, too.

In order to finally unwind, Davida and I will be taking the next few weeks off to hang out with family and ring in the new year. And frankly, you should too. Get off your phone for a bit, draw some schlongs on a piece of paper, challenge your grandma to a round of Magic: The Gathering, go fishing at the city aquarium, live your best life.

Normally, an edition of the newsletter like this would be for paid subscribers, but Davida insisted on sending this one as a gift to you all. So happy holidays from I, Dannis Ree, the greatest food writer in all of history, Davida, Scorpion and Sub-Zero (the two worst cats in the world, one of which whom tried eating broken glass today), along with Harvey, Mr. Bee, and Pepper. We love the shit out of you clowns, and you bring joy to us every single day.

And if you get too lonely, you can always upgrade your subscription and unlock the over-four-year’s worth of archives, too (hint, hint).

Back to culinary mayhem.

If you recall, my initial version of Davida’s salted eggnog last week was sort of a bummer.

Because instead of the classic thickened egg and milk cocktail I was expecting to create out of salted egg yolks, I got a nasty clotted nest of what appeared to be milk fat and eggs. But rather than dive right back into it, I thought I’d get some constructive advice from my qualified friend, Subha R. Das, who’s an associate professor of chemistry at Carnegie Mellon University.

I asked him what might have happened after I tried making Davida’s salted eggnog in my Nutribullet blender. Das said, “I think that's a combination of the egg yolk and milk solids getting together.”

He went on to say, “You are also perhaps causing a bit of curdling before blitzing, if you are dumping the alcohol in.” I certainly believe the curdling part—the weird clotted substance that came out of that blender cup did seem kind of like ricotta.

He suggested that I push the cooked salted egg yolks through a sieve of some sort, then add it to the cream and milk to create a sort of “slurry,” as he called it, before I boozed it up.

And when it came to the jet fuel, Das also advised that I ease the alcohol in, rather than violently agitate the entire ingredient base altogether all at once. That’s too bad, because violence is probably my favorite mixology technique. So it was time to switch around the order of operations.

Salted eggnog, take two!

Instead of using the Nutribullet again, I decided to go with my penguin-shaped cocktail shaker.

My friends keep gifting me with penguin-shaped cooking tools and I can’t for the life of me figure out why.

I fished out a few more salted egg yolks, and this time, I carefully considered my approach.

Rather than simply blend everything together, I’d listen to Das’ advice and I’d start by squashing the salted cooked egg yolks through some kind of sieve. The thing is, my kitchen sieve is completely broken (there was an “incident”), so I had to think fast. I rummaged through my kitchen gadget drawer, and there I found the perfect tool.

Ah, yes, my garlic press would do the trick.

I tried putting a salted egg yolk into it and I squeezed the handle. Suddenly, it crapped out about 50 strings of squashed egg and I let out a little fart of joy. It was like an adult version of one of those Play-Doh factory sets that shit out whatever shape of Play-Doh you want.

I started fantasizing about what else I could put into my garlic press, until I remembered I was in the middle of doing something very important for humankind.

After being extruded through the garlic press, the salted egg yolks had basically crumbled into powder, so I dumped them right into the shaker.

Then I shook the egg yolk bits with whole milk, sugar, and cream (following the ratios in this Serious Eats recipe), pretending I was one of those Las Vegas flair bartenders.

You know the kind, the ones that like, juggle knives and light their own heads on fire while making a bright neon cocktail that looks like it’ll taste terrible. But it turns out that shaking a stylish yet leaky penguin cocktail shaker isn’t as easy as it looks, and soon, eggy cream was running down my hands. Tears began running down my face once I realized I’d never make it in Las Vegas. Happy holidays to no one.

I uncapped the shaker and took a peek at it.

The inside of it was starting to look sort of gross; there were bits of yolk floating in the liquid, and then I realized I’d forgotten to add the egg whites. So in they went, and I shook the shaker again, reliving my broken dreams of never becoming a flair bartender.

When I poured the eggnog mixture out, I breathed a heavy sigh of relief.

This definitely seemed like eggnog, and no weird cheese had separated out of it. The beverage looked smooth and thick (just like my ass), and it was even a little foamy on top (also like my ass).

That was one thing, but I hadn’t added the alcohol in yet, so I was a little worried that the booze would curdle the fat in the cream again.

I gently poured the brandy in, prayed to the devil himself (Santa), and gently stirred the whole thing together. Lo and butthole, the salted eggnog didn’t turn into nasty cheese eggnog, and suddenly all balance had returned to the world. Just kidding, everything is still flaming garbage, but hey, at least there’s now salted eggnog to get trashed on.

And of course, to symbolize my redemption, I had to use the same Golden Girls glass I used the last time around.

Because truly, we all need to “Live like Rose, dress like Blanche, think like Dorothy, speak like Sophia, and gas it up like Dannis.”

I garnished the cup with a little bit of nutmeg, and handed it over to Davida. She took a big sip and beamed.

“Mmm. This is so good,” she said. “Mmm!!!”

I took a sip of it, and nodded, with an extremely grave expression on my face. This shit was good. The texture was velvety, and it had a really mild salted egg yolk flavor in the background, which tasted a touch like Parmesan. All’s well that ends well, and we stood around taking sips from the glass, enjoying the nog’s fusiony flavor and letting the booze warm us from the inside out.

“Will you send this one out as a recipe?” she asked.

“I wasn’t planning on it,” I said, “But, okay!”

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Salted eggnog

I adapted this from Serious Eats shaken eggnog recipe. REEEEEMIX! Makes three to four servings, or one serving if you plan on buttchugging the whole thing.

• 3 salted duck or chicken egg yolks (you can buy these at Asian supermarkets, frozen)

• 2 1/2 tablespoons granulated sugar

• 3/4 cup whole milk

• 1/2 cup heavy cream

• 2 large egg whites

• 1/2 cup brandy or dark rum

• Ground nutmeg, for garnish

Squash the salted egg yolks through a garlic press directly into an empty cocktail shaker, mostly because this is a funny thing to do. (You can use a sieve if you don’t have a garlic press.)

Pour the sugar, whole milk, and heavy cream into the shaker, and shake that shit together, clown, until the crumbled egg yolk bits dissolve into the liquid.

Add the two egg whites to the shaker, and shake that all together until the mixture is frothy. Pour this through a fine-mesh strainer into a large glass, and slowly stir in the brandy or dark rum. If you want it extra cold, shake that final mix one additional time over ice.

Dole the eggnog out into three or four glasses and sprinkle each with a tiny bit of ground nutmeg. If desired, place a tube in your ass that’s directly connected to a funnel, and buttchug the whole thing all at once.

Cheers, dickholes, you’ve made it to the end of the year.

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Okay, everyone, ho ho ho, that was our present to you all. If you’d give me the present of sharing the newsletter, I’d be grateful—word of mouth is what keeps this thing growing. Oh yeah, and supposedly if you hit that little heart button at the top, it does me some favors (but I’m not sure how).

Second of all, hey, think about supporting the newsletter by upgrading your subscription to the full one.

I know it’s the end of the year and we’re in that post-shopping wallet depression, but I always appreciate the support. Don’t worry, you get extra exclusive editions of the newsletter, plus you get to read through the archives, about half of which are behind the paywall—that’s a lot of catching up for some of you to do.

Okay. Rest is calling me for a bit. So are video games, more eggnog, and sleeping in. As always, I love you all, and let’s close out 2023 with a bang, okay?