187 replies to this topic

[donbert]

GREATEST NYT CORRECTION OF ALL TIME:

"Correction: November 29, 2006, Wednesday An article last Wednesday . . . misstated the number of continents on which the food writer Mimi Sheraton has searched for bialys. It is five, not two."

That's awesome SE! What was the article being corrected? And did Mimi Sheraton find bialys on other continents?

edit: Woah! She wrote a whole book about it: The Bialy Eaters: The Story of a Bread and a Lost World (ISBN: 0767905024)

Edited by donbert, 05 December 2006 - 08:54 AM.

[alanamoana]

donbert, i'm not sure i'd go as long as 12 and 24 hours on the ddl experiment. keep it at a low simmer and do something like 4,6 and 8 or 6, 8 and 10...wouldn't go much longer. you'll still see differences in color/texture.

awesome experiment and i can't wait to see the results of the cajeta (real goat's milk ddl).

[donbert]

Don,

Aside from the quality of cocktails at Pegu Club and Milk and Honey, what do you think it was about cocktails or cocktail culture that hooked you enough to become so enthusiastic a devotee?

Erik,

I would say that it was a combination of my personality (INTP Myers-Briggs type) and the accessibility of other cocktail enthusiasts that got me so deep into cocktails. I naturally take a very logical and systematic approach to solving problems and figuring things out. I also have a tendency to get interested in tangential topics from reading and conversation (like SCM), which I then apply what others might consider an obsessive level of investigation that usually starts with reading as much as I can about it then trying it myself.

Getting into cocktails provided me with a great deal of reading/research that I could immediately reproduce yielding a tasty end product. I love being able to read about a recipe, try making it, then make several variation of it very quickly all in one evening. Cocktails to me were the culinary equivalent of fruit flies for genetics and evolution researchers.

As far as cocktail culture is concerned, the community is very open and accessible to anyone who is interested. I've never met a bartender or fellow cocktail geek that wasn't willing to share recipes and techniques. Even without bars like Pegu, between the eG cocktails forum, the Drink Boy forums, and cocktailDB there is a wealth of information already online and growing every day. And as you know it isn't just home enthusiasts like you and me. Practically all the cocktail gurus of today are regular contributors; Gary Regan, Dave Wondrich, Audrey Saunders, Robert Hess, Ted Haigh, etc... Who knows what it will be like in the future with this so called "cocktail revolution" going on now but right now the international cocktail scene is a great community to be a part of.

[Kouign Aman]

The dough from this morning is in the oven and I'm going to be making a very simple dinner for myself tonight.

On my way home from Pegu I went through 3 grocery stores and 6 bodegas to amass the following:



8 different kinds of sweetened condensed milk and 2 quarts of goats milk. Who knew there were so many different brands of scm?

With three cans of each brand I'll randomly number the cans and boil each brand for 4, 12, and 24 hours with the label removed. Then later this week I'll have someone else open and label the cans with letters for a double blind tasting. Any suggestions for what to taste the dulce de leche on?

You just made me laugh out loud with joy! Oh very much Thank You!
I was checking just-one-more-post, before heading to the kitchen to put a pot of water on the boil, with a can of the Borden's Magnolia brand scm in it. What a glorious experiment. I am so sorry to be too far away to help judge the results, but I await them eagerly.

I bought Magnolia for the first time the other day and its much thinner than Borden's Eagle Brand. Black and White is almost as thick as Eagle. Magnolia also has cheap looking can seals with small rust spots visible, which is a bit frightening.

Taste:
how caramelly rich is it? How sweet?
Any nasty flavors / undertones? (these would probably come from the tin)
How easy is it in the mouth ? (too thick which makes it hard to swallow like pnut butter, too thin to use as a spread, etc)

As for what to taste on, spoons. The first time I was served it, it was a glop in a bowl.
Oh, what a glop!

Thanks for the total-coverage info. Will now go add a kettle to the stove to keep the top-up water handy.

Edited by Kouign Aman, 05 December 2006 - 11:26 AM.

[donbert]

Had a craving for some spicy Thai food to combat the cold weather so I went to Won Dee Siam for lunch.



The Lunch Special for $6.50 are a steal. Today I went with the Green Curry with pork.

[donbert]

You know you have a problem when you see this walking the down the street...



...and the first thing you think of is "if I could steal this I could bet I could make some really cold cocktails!"

followed by "I bet the guys on the adventures with sodium alginate thread could do something cool with this..."

I'm guessing it isn't food grade though.

[donbert]

donbert, i'm not sure i'd go as long as 12 and 24 hours on the ddl experiment.  keep it at a low simmer and do something like 4,6 and 8 or 6, 8 and 10...wouldn't go much longer.  you'll still see differences in color/texture.

awesome experiment and i can't wait to see the results of the cajeta (real goat's milk ddl).

Hmmm... I know that after 4 hours or so works so I figured I'd take it to the illogical extreme of 24 hours. Do you think that after 10 hours it would go bad?

Maybe what I should have done was just get one of each brand to boil for 4 hours to find which is the best then get 24 cans of the best brand to see what the difference is at 1 hour intervals for 24 hours... Looks like there might have to be a follow up experiment.

[MarketStEl]

You've probably explained the process upthread, but please to be repeating for us slow learners:

You boil the scm in the can without opening it? Or do you poke a small hole in it to allow the vapor to escape? If the latter, how big a hole?

And in the process of reduction, the stuff caramelizes too?

Awaiting your test results....

[donbert]

You've probably explained the process upthread, but please to be repeating for us slow learners:

You boil the scm in the can without opening it?  Or do you poke a small hole in it to allow the vapor to escape? If the latter, how big a hole?

And in the process of reduction, the stuff caramelizes too?

Awaiting your test results....

You simmer a whole unopened/unpunctured can of scm in a large pot of water making sure that it is completely submerged in water for about 4 hours. Common sense suggests that you should let the can cool down a bit before you open it.

During that time the scm will caramelize into dulce de leche.

I'll probably start boiling the cans tonight or tomorrow but I think I'm going to hold off opening them till friday when folks will be over for cocktails.

[Kouign Aman]

Hmmm... I know that after 4 hours or so works so I figured I'd take it to the illogical extreme of 24 hours. Do you think that after 10 hours it would go bad?

Maybe what I should have done was just get one of each brand to boil for 4 hours to find which is the best then get 24 cans of the best brand to see what the difference is at 1 hour intervals for 24 hours... Looks like there might have to be a follow up experiment.

More happy laughter. I think you are doing well to start with a factorial experiement, simultaneously testing two variables. Perhaps one brand is better at 4 hours, but by 8 hours a different brand comes out the winner.

And in the process of reduction, the stuff caramelizes too?

I didnt read the cajeta recipe, so I dont know the reduction/concentration process for the goats milk (at a guess, slow cooking). The scm is from cow's milk and comes from the can already concentrated and sweetened. The additional cooking is for caramelization. If this stuff comes out like that I;ve been served in restaurants, it will undergo a slight texture change too. Not sure how/why that happens.

Im also curious if the closed system will result in thickening or keeping the Magnolia brand from thickening (90 min down, 150 to go). It will be very interesting to see what is spooned / poured out of each can of Donbert's on Friday.

Isnt there a fairly new thread about making dulce de leche cocktails?

Edited by Kouign Aman, 05 December 2006 - 01:53 PM.

[donbert]

Isnt there a fairly new thread about making dulce de leche cocktails?

Yup, right here. That's actually why I made dulce de leche last week. I wanted to play with it in egg nogs this friday. The last time I made dulce de leche was probably 4 years ago and I hadn't thought of it since that thread.

[Jean Blanchard]

Anybody know how long this will keep in the fridge?

[donbert]

Anybody know how long this will keep in the fridge?

I'm not sure of any exact length of time it will keep for but I've definitely left it in the fridge for a couple weeks without any problems.

[donbert]

...
The additional cooking is for caramelization. If this stuff comes out like that I;ve been served in restaurants, it will undergo a slight texture change too. Not sure how/why that happens.

Im also curious if the closed system will result in thickening or keeping the Magnolia brand from thickening (90 min down, 150 to go). It will be very interesting to see what is spooned / poured out of each can of Donbert's on Friday.
...

After 4 hours it definitely isn't pourable. When it's hot it's less viscous and easier to get out of the can but even then it's not exactly fluid. Closest thing I can think of off the top of my head that has a similar consistency would be hair gel.

I think the thickening is a result of the milk proteins being cooked. If milk proteins are globular like the albumin in eggs, heating them would cause them to unravel and knit themselves into latices which would account for the change in texture.

edit: punctuation

Edited by donbert, 05 December 2006 - 02:55 PM.

[Poffertjes]

Remembering longingly my year in Argentina as a foreign exchange student and my host mom and I testing every brand of Dulce de Leche in the supermarket over that year, I recommend testing on thinly sliced baguette, toasted in the oven.

[donbert]

Here's an interesting abstract from the Journal of Dairy Research.

Maillard browning is the main reaction of milk proteins during the manufacture of dulce de leche. This results in an attractive flavour and colour, but also leads to less desirable changes, such as loss of nutritional value and formation of toxic compounds (Rizzi, 1994; Friedman, 1996a). The natural reactants are free amino groups of milk proteins and lactose. However, as the addition of other reducing sugars is an accepted practice, the consequences may be quite different depending on the formulation used. In addition, other reactions leading to crosslinkages between protein chains contribute to the reduction in nutritional value (Mauron, 1990; Friedman, 1996b; Finot, 1997). The reduction of nutritional quality of milk proteins is attributed to the lower digestibility and the biological inactivation or destruction of essential amino acids. Lysine is the essential amino acid most affected as its free [epsilon]-amino group is very reactive (Hurrell, 1990; Mauron, 1990; Finot, 1997).

No mention what causes these "other reactions" in the abstract but "cross linkages between protein chains" sounds like a texture change to me.

Anyone want to put up the $20 to get the full article?

Edited by donbert, 05 December 2006 - 03:05 PM.

[mizducky]

Breakfast this morning was a toasted bialy with butter and a cup of coffee.



Everyone knows of the bagels in New York but for some reason the the bialy doesn't seem to get as much attention.    They're like a cross between a bagel and an english muffin.

I miss bialys intensely. Yeah, somehow they never made their way outside of New York the way bagels have, and I have no idea why. But part of me is sort of glad, because I'd hate to see them bowdlerized the way mass-produced bagels have been (cinnamon raisin bialys? blueberry bialys? jalapeno/cheese bialys? <shudder>).

[Kouign Aman]

Blessings upon your head, donbert.
4 hours of hot water, ~ 2 hours of cooling and voila, I have successfully dulced the leche, and humidified the crackling-dry house.

I opened the can to beautiful color, texture and thickness everything it should be. There is a faint slight hint of a metallic taste, most noticeable as aftertaste. It bothers me so greatly that I'm on my 5th large spoonful of quality control. (Its important to have sufficient sample size after all).

I think I shall have to try again soon, solely to determine process repeatability of course.

[donbert]

An unexpected boon from my quest for every brand of scm in my neighborhood last night was finding this:


I had this amazing farro pasta at Chez Panisse while visiting San Francisco last month and it's been on my mind ever since. So tonight I made some pasta using 2:1 farro:semolina.




On the way home from work I also stopped by Di Palo's to pick up some fresh mozzarella and a cacciatore .


Tonight's dinner:


(my kind of salad)


Farro Pasta with browned butter and porcini.

Now I'm off to Pegu for some drinks.

[miladyinsanity]

donbert, i'm not sure i'd go as long as 12 and 24 hours on the ddl experiment.  keep it at a low simmer and do something like 4,6 and 8 or 6, 8 and 10...wouldn't go much longer.  you'll still see differences in color/texture.

awesome experiment and i can't wait to see the results of the cajeta (real goat's milk ddl).

Hmmm... I know that after 4 hours or so works so I figured I'd take it to the illogical extreme of 24 hours. Do you think that after 10 hours it would go bad?

Maybe what I should have done was just get one of each brand to boil for 4 hours to find which is the best then get 24 cans of the best brand to see what the difference is at 1 hour intervals for 24 hours... Looks like there might have to be a follow up experiment.

I think after say, 8-10 hours you get a firm, sliceable toffee like thing. I've no idea what being boiled for 28 hours will do to the SCM.

[donbert]

I met up with Wienoo and Johnder for a few drinks at Pegu last night. Can you guess who had what?

Jack Rose: Apple Jack(Laird's bonded), Lemon Juice, Grenadine

This is a great drink to start someone on the path to cocktail geek-dom. With only three ingredients the quality of each really makes or breaks this drink. The Laird's bonded, fresh squeezed lemon juice and home made grenadine (pomegranate juice + sugar) is the only way to go on this one.

Holy Roller: Pecan Infused Bourbon (Elijah Craig), Simple Syrup, with a side of Brian's Salty Nuts

A drink that Brian has been working on for a while now. Perfect for the holiday season. Dangerously smooth. And everyone loves his salty nuts.

Manhattan: Rye, Sweet Vermouth (Carpano Antica), Bitters, with a flamed orange twist


Baked Apple: Apple Jack (Laird's bonded), Cinnamon Tincture, Hess Bitters

Tastes just like apple pie.

Unnamed: Apple Jack (Laird's bonded), Sweet Vermouth (Carpano Antica), Green Chartreuse, with a flamed orange twist

A drink that Phil and (evil) Jim have been working on for the winter menu. Not for the casual drinker, this one has some serious bitter complexity.

Vieux Carre: Rye, Cognac, Sweet Vermouth (Carpano Antica), Benedictine, Peychaud's, Angostura

This was served up which sparked a discussion on how it was historically served in New Orleans and then poured over ice. A great way to end the night.

Sazerac: Rye (Rittenhouse bonded and Old Overholt, Peychaud's, Simple Syrup, in an absinthe rinsed glass with a lemon twist

I love the layers of flavors in this drink.

After leaving Pegu Johnder and I proceeded to Milk and Honey to see what Chad was up to. Ended up closing M&H last night.

Van Winkle Family Reserve Rye 13 Year Neat

Chad had mentioned how this was getting difficult to find so I had to give it a try. Now I need to find some.

High Hat: Rye (Sazerac 6 yr), Cherry Heering, Lemon Juice, Angostura

The Rye and Cherry Heering made an interesting combination, spicy. I forget the specifics of the cherry garnish but it was perfect for this drink. It tasted almost like it had been pickled in vinegar.

Tamarind Rum Punch: Rum (Ron Zacapa 23), Lime, Tamarind Juice, Angostura

This one is just dangerous. You can't taste the alcohol in it at all. It just tastes like a tamarind punch.

[johnder]

Ouch.

Too
Much
Booze
Last
Night.

Head
Hurts.

[weinoo]

I met up with Wienoo and Johnder for a few drinks at Pegu last night. Can you guess who had what?

I can almost remember what I drank - it was mighty tasty. And I have no idea how you guys were able to continue on - my proverbial hat is off to you!!

And yes johnder, head hurts this morning.

[eje]

[...]
Farro Pasta with browned butter and porcini.

Now I'm off to Pegu for some drinks.

Wow!

You came home from work, made pasta, and then headed off for drinks!?

I assume you have a pasta machine of some sort, to get such nice flat strips. What sort? I've been putting off a pasta making exercise for too long now.

[lexy]

I met up with Wienoo and Johnder for a few drinks at Pegu last night. … Jack Rose … Holy Roller … Manhattan … Baked Apple … Vieux Carre … etc. etc.

Wow, I think I need to move to New York. These look fantastic. How sweet are most of Pegu's cocktails? While I don't expect my cocktails to taste like pure alcohol or anything, I'm not really a fan of the kind of cocktail that's basically spiked sugary juice.

[Sneakeater]

Not sweet. Or balanced. Or they taste like what they taste like, and if you don't want something sweet just ask for something that isn't sweet.

You would seriously love the Pegu Club.

[johnder]

I met up with Wienoo and Johnder for a few drinks at Pegu last night. … Jack Rose … Holy Roller … Manhattan … Baked Apple … Vieux Carre … etc. etc.

Wow, I think I need to move to New York. These look fantastic. How sweet are most of Pegu's cocktails? While I don't expect my cocktails to taste like pure alcohol or anything, I'm not really a fan of the kind of cocktail that's basically spiked sugary juice.

Of all the drinks we had last night, I would qualify only one as "sweet", the jack rose, mainly due to the grenadine. But it is more like a sour than a sugary juice sweet.

All the others are dry cocktails for the most part. The Holy Roller has a touch of brown sugar syrup in it, but for the most part the drink is 90% bourbon.

[Nishla]

That's an impressive selection of drinks. We had a vieux carre for the first time at Pegu a few months back and it's now one of my favorites. Did you have a preference for on the rocks or up?

Also, your dinner last night looked really, really good. I'm way too lazy to attempt fresh pasta on a weeknight.

[donbert]

Sorry for the lack of posts today. Just got back from running errands in NJ all day.

Breakfast this morning was some steamed buns from Mei Lai Wah in chinatown.

[Ling]

Your dinner last night looked great. So do the drinks at Pegu Club. We only have time for one cocktail lounge in NY during our trip, and that's where we're going!