Curd

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Curd is essentially juice or stock thickened with creamed eggs and made glossy with butter. It's very similar to Hollandaise Sauce. There are a bunch of different techniques for making curd.

Some general tips:

• You don't need as much sugar as most recipes call for. Half a cup for two or three eggs is probably enough.
• You also don't need as much butter. Many recipes call for a whole stick, which, when cool, will result in a super thick curd. A few tablespoons is enough to give it a nice gloss.
• Most curd recipes call for citrus juice, but any stock will work. Eugene made a corn curd inspired by Justin for Iron Chef 2008 that was freakin awesome. He used a cup and a half of corn stock.
• As with any recipes calling for a double boiler, use a pot and bowl that will enable the steam to cover the maximum surface area of the bowl. You can also just cook it directly in a pot, although you have to be really careful so that the eggs don't curdle.
• If you're using citrus zest, you can strain the curd afterward to remove the zest, but it's not necessary. I like the texture of the zest in the curd.

Alice Waters' Art of Simple Food calls for a mixture of yolks and whole eggs as well as milk. Haven't tried this yet, although emphasizing yolks for this sort of thing is common. Jessica also noted that on Epicurious, someone suggested blending all of the ingredients first, then slowly cooking it.

I recently made curd with a 4:1 orange juice:lemon juice mixture using the Improved Lemon Curd recipe from David Lebovitz, and the results were good. He too suggested mixing all the ingredients together and cooking over low and direct heat. I chickened out and did as I always do it: mix everything together, except the butter, and whisk constantly in a double boiler set-up, and then, after the curd has thickened, whisk in the butter off heat.

UPDATE (2012-03-03): I finally tried David Lebovitz's Improved Lemon Curd recipe by mixing everything together (in our Pyrex pot, which is preferable to a metal pot -- even stainless steel -- because it's nonreactive), heating it over low and direct heat until the butter is melted, and then cooking it over medium-low and direct heat while constantly whisking. Once it started thickening, I checked the temperature and took it off the heat when the curd reached 165 degrees. I continued to whisk the curd off heat for a while to cool the curd down. (It might have been good to use an ice bath here, but I was too lazy.) Then I strained the curd, which had very minimal bits of coagulated egg, into a 3-cup Pyrex bowl. I stirred in the zest of 3 lemons. YUM. Success.

"LEMON-GASM" Frozen Tart: Basically curd (a double batch of the Lebovitz version) lightened with whipped cream (1-1/2 cups heavy cream, whipped) and then frozen in a springform pan. The recipe where I originally saw this called for an 8" pan. I didn't measure either my whipped cream or my curd when making a version in my mini heart-shaped springforms. They're in the freezer now (2012-03-05), so I have yet to determine whether they're worthy of this rather ridiculous name. After you plate them (optionally onto a pool of raspberry coulis), you spread them with some fresh lemon curd and topped with some more whipped cream (why not?). Why not indeed.