I’m a sucker for made up holidays. Talk Like A Pirate Day? Yarr! I’ll fight against the dark side on May the Fourth. Pi Day is my favorite excuse for math puns and dessert. So why not a crazy Whovian holiday? Some fans have decreed April 3rd to be Fish Fingers and Custard Day in honor of Matt Smith’s first aired appearance as The Doctor. I’m all for it.
The web is rife with Fish Fingers and Custard recipes. Heck, I added an entire bonus chapter on Fish Fingers and Custard to Dining With The Doctor. Most people focus on transforming the fish fingers into some kind of cookie or cake so it’ll be a more logical fit with the custard. I’m a big fan of fish, though, so I say if you’re not going to dunk your fish fingers into actual custard, take it the other way and go all savory. Make yourself some fish tacos with mango salsa as a custard substitute. Serve your fish fingers with a big bowl of honey mustard dipping sauce. Heck, you could even add turmeric to ordinary tartar sauce and get a nice custardy look.
If you absolutely have to go all sweet, though, I have a special present for you. With a little creativity and good rimming, you too can create a tasty Fish Custard Cocktail. Just like the faux fish fingers all over the web, this one ditches the seafood in favor of crumbly cookie goodness. It’s all about appearance. Well, appearance and booze.
FISH CUSTARD COCKTAIL
(From Dining With The Doctor: The Unauthorized Whovian Cookbook)
1 shot/45 ml cupcake flavored vodka
1 shot/45 ml vanilla vodka
1 shot/45 ml heavy cream
2 drops yellow food coloring
1 drop orange food coloring
graham cracker crumbs
If you don’t have any spare graham cracker crumbs hiding in a cupboard, throw a couple graham crackers into a plastic sandwich bag and smash them into crumbs using your bottle of cupcake vodka. Once you have a nice crumbly mess, empty it into a saucer. Tip a bit of heavy cream into an adjacent saucer. In this age of fat free recipes, you probably only bought the cream for this drink. You can afford to waste a little.
Dip the rim of your martini glass in the saucer of milk then grind it into the saucer full of graham cracker crumbs. See, rimming really is more fun than you expected.
You can’t leave a lovely glass like that empty. Pour your cupcake vodka, vanilla vodka, heavy cream into a cocktail shaker full of ice. If you really want that full artificial custard color, add in a couple drops of yellow and one drop of orange food coloring. Shake like your Tardis is tumbling through a time vortex. When you have your feet back under you, carefully strain the contents into your nicely rimmed martini glass.
Garnish it with the sweet faux fish finger of your choice and offer it to the nearest archaeologist with a reminder that your heart, among other things, is bigger on the inside