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By: Christian Convey
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I'm tweaking a recipe for cooked eggnog. The first step is to bring a combination of milk, light cream, and cloves to a scant boil. After that, the cloves are discarded.
I want to see if I can get similar results without having to get that mixture so hot. But I'm concerned that a lower temperature won't extract as much flavor from the cloves.
Is there a good source of information for this?
Maybe this is unrealistic, but ideally I'd like to know, for a given cooking spice, what the trade-off curve is for (cooking time) x (max cooking temperature) x (size of grounds) vs. (amount of flavor extracted).
So far I've only found guides for how to create liquid extracts for various kinds of spices, e.g. here. But they all focus on creating extracts for later use, rather than directly infusing the flavors into something presently being cooked.
Speaking in general terms, I don't think you'll find a one-size-fits-all answer for spice-temperature infusion times. Different spices will react differently with water vs fat vs alcohol. Spices (and foods in general) are complex plants where certain compounds give certain attributes, and those attributes will change depending on what you do to the spice.
Cold-infused vs hot-infused can give different flavor profiles. Hot coffee vs cold brew coffee is a good example of how varying time & temperature gives dramatically different flavor results, even given identical ingredients.
I always remember something a science teacher told our class when I was very young: "Whether you're making a solution, or dealing with more complex reactions, the three basic ways to speed them up are to shake it, break it, or light it on fire!"
Speed -- This is a key part, in that time is a factor. If you just let cloves sit in milk, eventually they (might) infuse sufficient flavor, even at fridge temp. But given the relatively short shelf life of milk & cream, time is not unlimited, so quicker is better. So time is a factor to consider.
Shake it -- Stirring, swirling, shaking, and agitating all count here. Stirring prevents a build-up of a gradient where the "stuff" saturates the liquid touching it, while the liquid at the other parts of the container are still virgin. I don't think that you can stir your way to extracting flavor from cloves into cold milk, though.
light it on fire -- More generally, this just means heat. This is the thing you're trying to do less of. You could try heating less, but for a longer time.
break it -- This seems like it might be the best choice in your case. Just use ground clove. It'll give off it's flavor much more readily due to the increased surface area. If it is finely ground, you can leave it in the finished product without completely removing it.
A combination of lower heat + using ground clove might get you to your end goal. But keep in mind that heat does more than just infuse flavors. The milk will change by being heated, and that might have downstream effects on the recipe, including the point where the eggs meet the milk. :)