mkayahara
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Posts posted by mkayahara
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Thanks, both, for your replies. This hasn't turned up in my local liquor monopoly yet, so I guess we'll see if it does.
1 hour ago, tanstaafl2 said:The sample I tasted was sweet as well but otherwise a bit light and to be honest, bland, so I didn't get a bottle.
The description sounds a bit like Suntory's Toki, which was also developed for the North American market. While not a bad whisky, per se, it also isn't as good as some of the better Japanese labels. (Though, to be honest, I didn't find the current NAS bottling of Yamazaki to be all that compelling, either.) It certainly seems like there's some "capitalizing on interest in the category" going on.
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Rice whisky? That's fascinating! Did you pick that up in the US, or somehow acquire it from Japan?
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3 hours ago, liuzhou said:
Indeed, there is no such recipe that I can see. However, no cookbook could possible include every dish from China, especially a book covering the whole country. It instead gives a few representative recipes from each area, with an emphasis on less well known dishes. I can think of many things which aren't included.
I cannot speak for the author, but I'd guess she felt that the red-cooked technique was already well known enough. There are certainly many, many recipes online.
Awesome, thanks for your help! I figured that might be the case, but I wanted to make sure I wasn't just missing it.
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I've been slowly working my way through All Under Heaven
and loving it, especially since my background knowledge on the cuisines of China is so limited. I do have one question though: looking at the index, I see no recipe for "red-cooked" anything. Is it included in the book under another name, or is there another reason for its exclusion? Am I just missing it?
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Interesting; I've never thought of the Godfather as an Old Fashioned variation, but more in keeping with the (as you noted) "equal parts spirit and liqueur" tradition of the Rusty Nail or Black Russian. But I suppose they can essentially be seen as Old Fashioned variations! That said, my understanding was that the Godfather is properly made with Scotch whisky. I've very much enjoyed it that way in the past, though without bitters, so I'd encourage you to give it a try.
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Not a shaker as such, but I wanted to post a shout-out to the Soukichi Glassware Company in Tokyo. We looked all over Osaka and Tokyo for good-quality Yarai mixing glasses, and found the same mediocre brand at most of the kitchen supply stores we checked out. A quick Google led to this post, which led us to the store in question. They had a tremendous array of stunning glassware, from the very reasonably priced to the outrageous. We settled on a Yarai glass that didn't break the bank, plus a beautiful new strainer to go with it (which my husband insisted on!) and a nice jigger with internal markings at 10/20/30 ml. on one side and 15/30/45 ml. on the other. (The spoon is a $3 model that I grabbed a couple of at one of the above-mentioned kitchen supply stores.) The downside to all of this is that the set is intended to be one of my Christmas gifts this year, so I won't be able to use it for a few months yet.
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Guess where I just came back from?
As everyone says, the age-statement versions of the Suntory whiskies are difficult to find (though far from impossible, especially as 50-ml. bottles). The Nikka ones are impossible, except for the 12-year "The Nikka" blend. I lucked out on the Hakushu, which I got for a quite reasonable price in a town with fewer tourists. It was pretty common to see the 17-year Hibiki, but it was a lot more expensive than the no-age-statement version. Rarest of all was the 12-year Yamazaki, but it could still be found. And, of course, the new NAS versions of all were widely available; I had a 180-ml. bottle each of the NAS Hakushu and Yamazaki while I was there. I liked the Hakushu, but was unmoved by the NAS Yamazaki. I'll be curious to open the 12-year Hakushu and see how it compares. I opened the Hibiki last night, and enjoyed it quite a lot. It's quite rich and sweet, very accessible. I'm definitely pleased with my selections.
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My reply got lost in upgrade issues, so I'll repeat: I made the Windsor Knot the other night, subbing manzanilla sherry for the dry vermouth (but otherwise working to spec). It was a very satisfying glass!
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To test he hypothesis that this effect comes from using super-fine cornmeal, I would recommend putting it in a high-power blender like a VitaPrep before cooking, not after. The VitaPrep should be able to turn it into a powder-fine texture.
Or just buy cornflour, which is already powder-fine. (The American kind, not the UK version of "cornflour" which, as I understand, is the same as "cornstarch" in the US.)
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This stuff is gold.
And, one assumes, is priced accordingly.
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No need. You should get more than enough gelatin from the veal bones.
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Nardini rocks. I wish I could get some.
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What is everybody doing for Negroni Week?
I have been trying very hard not to open another bottle of fortified or aromatized wine, because I simply don't go through them fast enough. So I made a sort-of Negroni tonight at one part Cynar, one part Aperol and two parts Beefeater. A quite decent substitute.
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I haven't tried the Cocchi VdT, but I was relatively unimpressed with Dolin's sweet vermouth, which I found thin and insipid. Next time I open a bottle of M&R, I'll do notes. From memory, it certainly isn't appreciably bitter, but in my book, that's why amari exist.
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N.B.: I'd previously been using whatever gin was lying around, and M&R vermouth. The latter, I've come to realize, is disgusting. I've found a lot of debate online about this. There may be something in it that freaks out the taste buds of certain people. Some knowledgeable cocktail folks seem to like it but mine is going down the drain.
I find this issue quite fascinating. I've gone back and forth between M&R and Cinzano for years, and enjoy both. I wonder if bottle age has something to do with it - not how long the bottle has sat open in your fridge (or on your bar), which everyone knows causes it to deteriorate, but how long it's been sitting on the shelf, and under what conditions. Because M&R and Cinzano are the only two sweet vermouth options in my local liquor monopoly (at least most of the time), I know they have pretty decent turnover. Obviously I'm just guessing here, though; it could be that you (and others) just don't like it.
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Tonight I made a variation on Chris's Lindberg's Baby, using:
1.5 oz. 66 Gilead Loyalist Gin
1 oz. Lillet blanc
0.5 oz. R&W apricot
dash grapefruit bitters
dash St. George absinthe
This gin has huge body, and some sweetness, so the result was a tad syrupy, but the flavours all meshed quite nicely, especially after it sat in the glass for a few moments. (Why does that happen, anyway? Is it just a temperature thing?) It would probably be worthwhile to explore splitting the spirituous component between gin and apricot eau-de-vie.
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Sadly, water quality is an all-too-often overlooked topic in most areas of cooking. I only really started to become aware of it when looking into modernist techniques, where it can really screw up your hydrocolloids. Not long after, I moved to a location that has some of the hardest water in Canada, if not North America. (Just mixing sodium alginate into my tap water, filtered or not, will form a lovely gel.) But it goes way, way beyond modernist cooking: water quality has a noticeable impact when preparing beans, dashi, tea and, of course, coffee. It's a factor that deserves more attention.
Anyway, Brita says on their website that their filters reduce the "taste and odour" of chlorine. Is that just marketing hype?
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Your omurice looks perfect, Anna! How did it taste?
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My rule of thumb is that if it's above about 20% alcohol, it should be relatively shelf-stable. Below that, and it should be consumed promptly and kept in the fridge in the interim. With some exceptions, anything you'd think of as a "wine" should be consumed promptly, including ports and sherries. Sugar is a good preservative, of course, which is why sweeter sherries will last longer than dry ones, but I still don't treat sherry as shelf-stable if I plan to drink it (as opposed to cooking with it). The biggest exception to the wine rule, in my mind, is Madeira. And, of course, it's not a binary; it's a spectrum. So even if something is "shelf-stable," some things will last longer than others. Bitters (potable or non) tend to have enough alcohol and sugar to be shelf-stable, but they can lose their nuances over time. Same with gin, over a long-enough time frame. On the other hand, as far as I can tell, Cointreau and Luxardo maraschino are indestructible.
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Nice looking plates, Anna. I've had a real craving for katsudon lately. That may be what I end up cooking on Monday for dinner.
As for curry, you might try taking a look at Tadashi Ono and Harris Salat's book Japanese Soul Cooking. There are several curry recipes in there, thickened using different techniques.
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Given the application and the description (buttery, melt-in-the-mouth), I would think it would be rendered marrow fat that's frozen and grated. That's how I would do it, anyway.
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What's the best way to drink this stuff?
The best way to drink anything is the way that you like it. Personally, for a bottle like this, I like it neat.
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Thanks, FrogPrincesse! A Halekulani is precisely what we had tonight, though I made it with blood orange juice instead of regular orange juice. The flavour of the oke is definitely light, but there was something to it that kept it interesting. It's probably not a spirit that I'll turn to frequently, but it's new and different, and I'm nothing if not a novelty-seeker.
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Is this the one you got? It is very light and a bit vodka like despite being cane based so presumably distilled to a pretty high proof. The Ti root does give it an interesting vegetal quality.
Yes, that's the one. I haven't sampled it yet, but it does smell quite light. Either way, I'm sure it'll be interesting in some Tiki drinks!
and loving it, especially since my background knowledge on the cuisines of China is so limited. I do have one question though: looking at the index, I see no recipe for "red-cooked" anything. Is it included in the book under another name, or is there another reason for its exclusion? Am I just missing it?
What did you buy at the liquor store today? (2016 - )
in Spirits & Cocktails
Posted
Do you mean substituted for maraschino to get a similar aesthetic? Or combined with large amounts of maraschino to balance off the sugar? Or something else entirely? Do you have an example that comes to mind?