Cooking ideas and needs

November 30, 1999

Tamara Holt, cookbook author, teacher and food editor at Redbook magazine, will answer your questions and talk with you about your cooking ideas and needs.

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HomeArts: Welcome to our chat with Tamara Holt, the food editor at Redbook magazine. Today this cookbook author and teacher will answer your questions and talk with you about your cooking ideas and needs. Welcome, Tamara!

Tamara Holt: Hi, welcome to the chat! Hope everybody enjoyed their Thanksgiving dinner and used all the ideas we talked about last month. Just because you are stuffed with stuffing from your Thanksgiving feast, doesn't mean that you should give up on treats just yet. Christmastime and Millennium parties are coming so there's a lot more left to cook and eat. Does anybody have any questions for the upcoming cooking season?

Vagrant6: How do I make spiced cider?

Tamara Holt: Basically you can use either regular apple juice or better yet a good quality fresh-squeezed cider. Heat it up in a saucepan with some spices --be sure you use whole spices like cinnamon stick, cloves, allspice, or cardamom pods or slices of fresh ginger. Simmer it just until the flavor comes out. You can add a little kick if you want with a shot of brandy or rum.

Sigmagirl: Can you make eggnog at home? The stuff in the grocery store is so thick, and expensive!

Tamara Holt: Sure you can. Basically, eggnog is just a very thin custard. There was a delicious recipe for eggnog in our Redbook December '98 issue. Let me give it to you. For an orange-ginger spiked eggnog, here is the way to do it. Heat 2 cups of milk with a few slices of ginger and 2 tsp. of grated orange zest just until they are hot. Remove from heat, and let the mixture stand 30 minutes. Then strain. In a saucepan, whisk together 6 egg yolks, 1/2-cup sugar, and the milk. Cook it over a low heat until it's just thick enough to coat the back of a spoon and chill until cold. Stir in another cup of milk, 1/2 cup of cream, 1/4 cup of rum, and serve sprinkled with ground nutmeg and cinnamon. Feel free to up the rum if you like.

Mimi: What do people cook with chestnuts? And just how do you cook them?

Tamara Holt: The most important thing with chestnuts is to be sure that you use fresh ones. The ones that come in a jar or vacuum-packed tend to taste like plastic. So you want to start out by roasting them and peeling them yourself. There is a myth that they have to be peeled when they are hot from the oven but that is not so. Go ahead and let them cool and spare your fingers. Once you have the chestnuts, look in any basic cookbook, like, "The Joy of Cooking," or "The Doubleday Cookbook" for instructions. Once they are cooked you can mix them into stuffing for stuffing a turkey or a duck, sauté them with Brussels sprouts or on their own for a holiday side dish. You can douse them with liquor and sugar for a sweet, spiked holiday treat or puree them with sugar and cream for a classic dessert. I'm a huge fan of chestnuts and love them every way. Now is the time to experiment with them because they are fresh and in season.

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