Cooking corner at Plains

Danielle Switalski

Nothing says Christmas like homemade eggnog. Trained chef, Ben Gaitan of Benji’s Restaurant in Plains came to Plains high school to teach grade school and elementary students how to make homemade eggnog during their after school program.

The after school program is funded by REACH, which stands for Responsive Education for All Children and offers children the opportunity to learn a variety of activities by providing selected schools with a five year grant to fund these alternative educational activities.

On Monday night Gaitan came to Plains high school cafeteria to give the participating kids a cooking lesson.

“It’s a Christmas tradition and everyone loves eggnog, I loved it when I was a kid and I loved it even more when I was an adult,” said Gaitan.

Quinn’s/Hot Springs located outside of Paradise, where Gaitan also cooks, donated all of the products to make the eggnog.

After giving a brief history lesson of the origination of the creamy drink, the kids were ready to get their hands messy. A mess is exactly what happened as Gaitan showed the kids how to separate the egg yoke from the egg white in their individual bowls. Most of the kids ended up with gooey hands and shells in their yokes as they marveled at Geitan’s precision in separating the two successfully.

The children then had a chance to stir the yokes together, while Getian slowly added the cream.

The children were then given a quick lesson on the risks of salmonella and the importance of cooking eggs to 158 degrees in order to kill the bacteria commonly found in raw eggs.

Finally, the nutmeg was added and the kids got to happily drink their eggnog.

A full recipe for Geitan’s “adult” eggnog is as follows:

First bring two cups of cream, one cup of half-and-half and one half a tablespoon of vanilla extract to a simmer in a large saucepan. Then whisk six large egg yolks in a large bowl to blend. Next, gradually whisk the hot cream mixture into the yolk mixture.

Return the mixture to the same saucepan and stir over medium to low heat until mixture thickens to coat the back of the spoon for about four minutes. Strain this into a bowl and stir in one teaspoon of nutmeg. Fill six cups and add one tablespoon of dry sherry to each cup. Finally, sprinkle additional nutmeg over each cup and serve.