Saturday, March 8, 2014

Honey Badger Pudding

Honey Badger Pudding

Recently I had the pleasure of having my friend Kythryne of@wyrdingstudios/wyrdingstudios.com stay with me for a few days. There was much silliness. Really, a wonderful, unreasonable amount of silliness. At one point, nearly out of nowhere, I said WAIT, WE NEED TO MAKE HONEY BADGER PUDDING.

Possibly this requires some backstory.

Firstly, I think you've all heard of the Honey Badger Internet phenomena, yes? The one with the quirky narrator whose catch phrases were "honey badger don't care," and "honey badger don't give a shit." To be honest, I have no idea why this became a hit. I thought the video was kind of annoying. All you really need to know is that the honey badger is very aggressive and likes to bite unlikely and challenging things like bees and venomous snakes.

If you really want, here's the link to the video.

http://youtu.be/4r7wHMg5Yjg

Yeah, three minutes you'll never get back.

While the video was completely meh, it inspired some delightful and hilarious honey badger nonsense on twitter between writers/artists @mcahogarth and @UrsulaV. THIS is totally worth your time. Really, go, I'll wait. http://sfy.co/da6j

(On a side note: I have bought books from both artists and enjoyed them immensely. I would particularly point you to digger.com if you enjoy Ursula's style of art & humor. It is a wonderful, weird epic fantasy about an anthropomorphic wombat.)

So obviously, we needed to make a nicely bitey honey badger pudding. How does one make honey badger pudding one might ask? (As Kyth did. Credit to her for not backing away slowly when I suggested it as I was bouncing rather hard at the time.) With honey and lemon and Campari!

If you've made my basic tapioca pudding before, you'll notice that the modifications are minor for such a huge variation in flavor.

Honey Badger Pudding

1/2 cup small pearl tapioca (I use bob's red mill, requires 30min soak)

1 can coconut milk (about 1 3/4 cups)

1 1/4 cup water minus a tbsp or two

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 cup honey

2 eggs

Juice of one lemon

1 tbsp Campari (bitter orange liquer)

1. Pour all ingredients except eggs, lemon & Campari into a pot. 2 quart is a good size. Let sit for at least as long as your pearls need to soak (my package says 30 minutes) or until whenever you remember that you left it there..

2. Bring to a boil over medium high heat - stir as much as possible while doing this because at this point the tapioca will want to stick to the pot which is annoying. This step is 5-10minutes. Make sure the tapioca is cooked (clear) through and most if not all of the liquid is absorbed. If the pearls are clear on the outside but opaque in the center, it's not.

3. Turn the flame down to warm, and crack eggs into a small bowl. I use a 2c Pyrex cup. Whisk until pretty fully scrambled. You're going to temper the eggs. Take about 1/4 cup (I use a metal measuring cup) of pudding and pour into the Pyrex while whisking. Repeat until egg mixture is warm or cup is full.

4. Pour egg mixture into pudding pot, stir till pretty thoroughly mixed, bring the heat back up to med-low or medium (depending on how hot your stove runs.) and keep stirring about 3 minutes until it thickens.

5. Turn off heat, pour in lemon & Campari, stir until incorporated and ignore for 10 minutes. This is delicious hot or at room temperature or nearly as good out of the fridge.

This makes about 4 full sized portions.