I love nutmeg. The taste, that is. Grating it? No. That, I do not like. Anything that has to be done on one of those really fine microplane graters--citrus zest, Parmesan cheese, nutmeg--is almost guaranteed to be a pain in the ass. But I love the taste of nutmeg in custard and so on enough that I take the trouble to grate the little nutmeg nuts*.
But I always, ALWAYS drop the damn nut into whatever I'm grating it into. I don't know if I have particularly clumsy fingers or what, but the nut inevitably slips from my fingers and sinks into the wet mixture I'm grating it into, requiring me to go fishing around in raw eggs and milk with my fingers to rescue it from the bottom of the bowl.
Irritating.
The recipe I made for bread pudding just now--to use up some random white bread the MiL had bought for church communion bread--required a full teaspoon of grated nutmeg. That's a lot of nutmeg. And a lot of opportunity to drop the nut. But I only dropped it once! Yay for me!
Should be good bread pudding, though.
* Incidentally, have you ever seen the inside of the nutmeg nut? It's got these little dark squiggles running through it. It's cool. Here's a page with a photo that is much better than anything I could ever take.
Just listened to a program on NPR that suggested substituting cardamom for nutmeg sometime. Mary in MN
ReplyDeleteI loooove nutmeg as well. Although I rarely seem to drop it. But I always grate my own as well - the tinned stuff is far too bland.
ReplyDeleteAnd now I want rice pudding. Thanks.
-moi
Love the pictures. The cross-section looks like a little brain.
ReplyDeleteI always feel like I'm a giant zombie grating the tiny brains of my fallen enemies..muhahahaha! But then, the little bastards take their revenge when I grate my fingers...
ReplyDeleteYou always have such great alternative sites to visit. Not a big fan of nutmeg, but loved the pictures.
ReplyDelete