Workhorse? Bitter orange creme anglaise

When I was first learning how to cook, I remember reading that "Creme anglaise is the workhorse of the pastry kitchen. It is ESSENTIAL that you learn how to make it correctly." What followed was this detailed extravaganza of a recipe that would scare any potential pastry chef out of the kitchen.
Perhaps it is/was the workhorse. The thing about creme anglaise is that it's such a basic, relatively simple product that , in and of itself, I think it's almost never used. Rather, it's tinkered with, to the point where you could argue that you don't have creme anglaise anymore.
Well, back to that complex recipe. I remember making it a few times, and deciding it just wasn't worth it. It also, in my opinion, just wasn't very good. I remember there being flour, or cornstarch in it, and I could never cook that texture away. After it was chilled, it had a thick, kind of gloppy feel to it that reminded me of well made chicken stock - you know that thick gelatiny texture you get sometimes? Fine for soup, but for a dairy dessert? Uh uh.
I don't quite know when it happened, but when simplification (if you want to call it that), of cooking happened, the flour and other complexities of creme anglaise disappeared. I still made it, occasionally, but since I have my super duper ice cream maker, and everyone loves ice cream, well...
But, when you design a dessert, you have to think about everything. The bread pudding I was making was going to be served warm. Ice cream on the plate would begin melting right away. "What's wrong with that?" you may be thinking? OK, sit back a minute. When you see a dessert presented, say, on a TV show, and the cold ice cream begins melting next to the hot or warm cake, your digestive juices begin flowing, right?
Ever notice they cut away right away? That's because, in a few minutes, you're going to have a disgusting mess of cake crumbs, melted ice cream, and that beautiful construction is just going to look awful. So, for the bread pudding I thought, "something but NOT ice cream."
One food writer whom I respect has said that instead of making creme anglaise, he just melts good quality vanilla ice cream. He's not the only one who's written this. I respectfully do not agree. To my taste, creme anglaise is not nearly as sweet, nor as rich, as ice cream, and it shouldn't be. The thought of "melted ice cream" sat with me, however, and in my diseased mind I began thinking "if it's going to melt, why not start with the anglaise?"
Well, my thinking was a bit more foul mouthed than that, but this IS a family blog , right?
Next, came the question of flavor: what is going to balance bittersweet chocolate? I've written often of how I am not a big fan of chocolate, but when I do eat bittersweet, I think of the strong fruit flavors: berries, for example, but more often than not, orange. But not so sweet. Something that has the flavor of the orange peel in it, with that edge of bitterness.
As it happened, I had a few seville oranges left in the fridge from the failed attempt to make marmalade. These unusual critters have a VERY bitter taste , as the long suffering Guy will tell you from the time he got one in his lunch bag (I SWEAR it was an accident. It really, really was). If you don't have them around, which is what is the case for the normal household, use a regular orange. Use one that is organic, or unsprayed, or if you can't get that, please wash the orange thoroughly. You're going to be letting peel sit in dairy for a long, long time, and fat (from dairy) is an excellent solvent for all of the nasty pesticides and whatnot that are used on fruit (that biochem degree comes in handy from time to time). So, here we go. This is essentially a classic, simplified form of creme anglaise, with my orange trick.

You need 2 cups of whole milk, and 4 large egg yolks, plus 3 tablespoons of sugar. If you want to save a bit of time, 4 tablespoons of sugar is a quarter cup, but you'll wind up with a sweeter creme. Classically, you will use a vanilla bean, but we're not going to use that here. Instead, peel one or two seville or navel oranges. Use the juice for something else. You can use the peel in a large piece, or many small pieces, it just doesn't matter. Also, what you can do, if you don't mind the particles in the creme, is grate part of that peel instead of using it whole. That might be the better way to proceed with sweet oranges, because you'll get more oil into the dish.

Ok, let's dump all of that stuff into a pot, including the peel, and get our whisk ready. Start cooking, over low heat, until you get that familiar thickness that will coat the back of a spoon. It won't take long, and err on the side of too little rather than too much time, if you're feeling insecure. This is a sauce, remember, so you don't want it TOO thick. Take it off the heat, and when it cools, taste it. If you find the orange flavor strong enough, take out the big pieces of peel. To my taste, it was fine to leave the orange in the creme, up until service time. Then, pour it into a non reactive container that is clean, REALLY clean (remember what I said about dairy picking up solvents ? If you put the stuff in a container you recently used for tomato sauce, you may just have creme anglaise marinara when you're done), and refrigerate it.

For something like the bread pudding, spoon a few tablespoons onto a plate and put the unmolded pudding right on top of it. You could also pour this over a piece of cake, or toss some fruit, like bananas, into it. Maybe it'll become a workhorse again.

Play with your own variations, too. I bet you can think of other flavors that will work with the base of eggs, sugar and milk