Vanilla Pastry Cream

Vanilla pastry cream is a very thick custard or pudding typically used as a filling for cream puffs or donuts, or used between layers for cakes, or used as the base for some pies and dessert tarts.* It is thickened by quite a lot of cornstarch and egg yolks (some use whole eggs). The amount below is good to fill a nine inch pie shell.  

Ingredients:

2 cups milk
1/3 cup sugar
1/4 cup cornstarch
6 egg yolks (large eggs)
1 or 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 tablespoons butter, softened 

Put the milk into a heavy bottomed pan over low heat. You don't want to boil the milk; just let it gradually heat up until it gives off steam. Meanwhile, whisk or beat together the egg yolks, sugar and cornstarch, until the mixture is smooth and thick. I use an electric mixer on low speed, but you don't want the mixture all frothy, and using a whisk is fine. When the milk is steaming hot, but not boiling, remove the milk from the heat and gradually add about half of the milk to the egg mixture, WHILE WHISKING CONSTANTLY; otherwise, the eggs will curdle and you'll have scrambled eggs. Don't be afraid to temporarily stop, adding milk so as to prevent curdling, but keep whisking even if you've stopped adding milk. After about half of the milk is mixed into the eggs, and it is smooth, put the pan with the remaining milk back onto low heat. Now gradually add the egg/milk mixture to the milk, whisking constantly. The mixture will begin to thicken more and more as the temperature rises. Turn the heat to very low and continue to whisk to prevent sticking and scorching. When the mixture is very thick, remove it from the heat, add the vanilla and 1 tablespoon of the butter, whisking to incorporate these ingredients into the vanilla cream, then add the second tablespoon of butter and whisk it in. Cover the vanilla cream with plastic wrap (usually called "cling film" in the UK) by literally putting the plastic wrap right on top of the cream; this will prevent a "skin" from forming on top. Most often vanilla cream is chilled for a few hours before use.

 * For a fruit tart, here is the link: https://pontificating-randy.blogspot.com/2019/09/fruit-tart.html

Vanilla pastry cream base in a pie shell ...  

WORD HISTORY:
Clear-This word is distantly related to "claim," a word of Latin derivation borrowed by English from French. It goes back to Indo European "keleh/kelh," which had the notion, "shout, to call out." This gave its Latin offspring the adjective "clarus," which meant, "clear/understood (of sounds)," and broadened into, "bright, clear (of sights), famous, glorious (of people or places 'that stand out clearly')." This passed to Latin-based Old French as "cler," meaning, "bright, easily seen." Carried to England by the Normans, English borrowed the word in about 1300 with the same general meanings as the French and Latin words, as well as figurative senses (as in "clear title or deed;" "not obstructed by conditions or claims by others"). The verb developed from the adjective in the middle of the 1300s. The noun form also developed in the first half of the 1300s, meaning, "open patch of forest." "Clear" has various forms in many of the Germanic cousins of English: German "klar," Low German "kloor," Dutch "klaar" ("klaren" as verb), Danish, Norwegian and Swedish have "klar."     

Rice Pudding

Rice pudding is typically a dessert dish in the United States, but some cultures use it as a main course, and there are various recipes. Rice likely moved out of Asia into the Middle East and then into Europe through Greece and later by way of the Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal). Where rice pudding developed is really not known, but certainly China would be on any list of possibilities, although what would actually have qualified as being "rice pudding" is unclear, but maybe rice with some spices and perhaps some sweetener? After all, rice pudding is generally a simple dish. Cinnamon is one of the common spices used in many countries for rice pudding, as well as nutmeg sometimes, and on the Indian subcontinent cardamom is also often used. Some people make rice pudding by cooking the rice in water, while elsewhere the rice is cooked in milk, as in German speaking countries, where the dish is literally called "Milchreis" ("milk rice"), and it is usually topped with sugar and cinnamon. On Puerto Rico coconut milk is part of the recipe.*    

Ingredients:

1 cup white rice
1/4 to 1/3 cup sugar
1 cup cream
2 cups milk **
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
bare pinch of salt
(optional) 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
(optional) 1/3 cup raisins 
some sugar and cinnamon for garnish on each serving

In a sauce pan, add the rice, sugar and salt, then add the milk, cream and vanilla. Mix well and place over medium heat for just a couple of minutes (DO NOT BOIL), then reduce heat to low or very low (you can continue reducing the heat as the rice cooks, if you prefer), cover and cook until the rice is tender, stirring occasionally to prevent sticking (because this is cooking with milk and cream, and not with water, it can stick easily). (Optional) If you'd like, you can stir in 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon and/or 1/3 cup of raisins; otherwise, just top each serving with some sugar and a little cinnamon. This can be served warm or chilled. If chilled, you can serve it with whipped cream, which is common in the United States.

* For Puerto Rican rice pudding; that is, Arroz con Dulce, here is the link: https://pontificating-randy.blogspot.com/2016/04/puerto-rican-rice-pudding-arroz-con.html

** I use 1 cup of evaporated (canned) milk and 1 cup of regular milk, but if you use evaporated milk, the rice will not be completely white, if that matters to you. 

WORD HISTORY:
Hornet-This word is related to "horn," and it goes back to Indo European "k(h)er," which meant, "horn, head." This seems to have developed only in West Germanic, as "hurznuto," meaning, "hornet."^ This gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "hyrnet/hyrnetu," with the same meaning and this then became "hornet." The other West Germanic languages have: German "Hornisse," Low German "Hoornk," Dutch "hoornaar." I could not find a form in Frisian, although presumably there once was such a form, and the North Frisian dialect has "horn" and the West Frisian dialect has "hoarn," both meaning "horn," the base of the word "hornet."     

^ Apparently from the antennae, but there is some speculation that it is from the buzzing sound and its connection to "horn," the instrument, which literally were animal horns in ancient times, and some Germanic forms of long ago did use. I favor the antennae idea. 

Vanilla Sauce (Vanillesoße)

Apparently vanilla has been around for a long, long time, but it was the development of the New World that sent the flavoring to other parts of the world on an increasingly large scale. Vanilla is derived from the pods of a type of orchid plant... and here I thought they got it from vanilla ice cream. There are many variations to vanilla sauce recipes, but this is from Germans (Germans, broadly speaking, not just from Germany*), and it is called "Vanillesoße," or sometimes, "Vanillesauce," in German, and it is a fairly common accompaniment to desserts from German kitchens, although the English and French have the same or similar, so if Prince Harry and Meghan drop by, tell them it's "Crème Anglaise," but if Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte are your guests, says it's "Crème Française à la Vanille." Put simply, it is a vanilla custard.
.  
Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups canned milk (12 ounce can)
1 cup heavy cream
4 egg yolks
3 tablespoons sugar (for a little sweeter use "heaping" tablespoons)
1 1/2 teaspoons cornstarch
1 teaspoon vanilla

Place a bowl (I use a stainless steel bowl) over a pan of simmering water. The bowl should not actually touch the water. Mix the eggs and the cornstarch together, set this aside for the moment. In the bowl over the hot water, mix the milk, cream and sugar. Let the liquid heat, but do not let it actually boil. Stir well to completely dissolve the sugar. Add a tablespoon of the heated liquid to the eggs and stir immediately to mix it; repeat a couple of more times. This will help the eggs to mix in with the hot milk and cream easier, as you don't want to end up with scrambled eggs in milk and cream ... Hey! I think I just invented a new dish... scrambled eggs in milk and cream.... Wait a second, I've "fixed" this dish before, unintentionally! Gradually drizzle in small amounts of the egg, whisking constantly, until the egg/cornstarch mixture is fully added. Add the vanilla and whisk further to incorporate it into the sauce. The milk and cream should thicken as you add the egg mixture. You can, of course, adjust the cornstarch amount for a thicker or looser sauce, but the best sauce has a thickness on the order of melted ice cream. The sauce will have a slight "yellowish" tint to it from the egg yolks. This is good served warm on various desserts, but if you let it sit, cover it with plastic wrap to prevent the sauce from developing a "skin" on top. By "cover," I mean the plastic wrap should literally be in contact with the sauce.   

* Not just from Germany, but from Austria, much of Switzerland, Luxembourg, Liechtenstein, much of Alsace, a part of Lorraine and part of northern Italy (South Tirol/South Tyrol, Italian: Alto Adige). 

I had some vanilla sauce on sweet bread pudding...

WORD HISTORY:
Starch -This word is closely related to "stark," a word from the Germanic roots of English. It goes back to the Indo European root word "ster," which meant "rigid, stiff." The Old Germanic offshoot was "starkaz," which had much the same meaning, but also with the added notion that if something was rigid, it was "strong." This gave Old English "stearc," which meant, "stiff, rigid, hard;" thus also,  "unyielding," and also, "stern." This provided the verb form, "stearcian," meaning, "to stiffen, to harden, to become hard." This then became "starchen/sterchen" (?), and this verb produced the noun  "starche" in 1400s, before it took on the modern form. Germanic relatives also meaning "starch": German has "Stärke," Icelandic has "sterkja" (?), Swedish "stärkelse." All of the Germanic languages have relatives to the base word "stark."