FrogPrincesse

I got a gorgeous piece of California King salmon from Catalina Offshore yesterday and happened to have most of the ingredients for the King Salmon with Cucumbers and Balsamic Vinegar. The salmon is cooked on a plank in the original recipe after being brushed with olive oil and seasoned with salt and pepper. I cooked it on a cast-iron skillet, skin first. The cucumber salad accompaniment has sliced shallots, scallions (I substituted chives), mustard seeds, pink peppercorns (which I omitted), red wine vinegar and olive oil. The salmon is served on the cucumber salad with a drizzle of aged balsamic. It's a great week-night recipe with minimal cleanup needed. With fish as good as this King salmon, you don't need to do much to it other than making sure that it is cooked properly.

Nice experimentation. Out of curiosity, what didn't you like about the Suze version? Also, while I have not had a chance to try the Tempus Fugit products, isn't Grand Classico bitter a Campari substitute (while l'Avion d'Or is based on Kina-Lillet), making the third version closer to a classic Negroni?

Dry County Cocktail. A summer Manhattan with Tennessee whisky (book calls for Dickel, I used Gentleman Jack), dry vermouth, ginger liqueur, and lemon bitters (I used grapefruit). Crisp and citrusy.

What type of passionfruit did you use? Maracuyá (the big, yellow- or purple-cased ones with very intense yellow-orange arils) are very acid and don't play very well with other flavours, but I've had great success combining them with another fruit before introducing them to the spices. Blackberry/Maracuyá is an excellent combo if you want to hit the heat with it, as is Maracuyá/Mango (which makes a fantastic base for medium to hot curry type sauces). If you can source it, Granadilla (smaller, orange-yellow cases with spots, pale white arils) is a much better passionfruit to base sauces around, as it's not nearly as acid as other types. Elizabeth, This was a concentrate, not the fresh fruit. If I get fresh ones (I saw the yellow ones at the farmers' market last week), maybe I will give it another chance. Thank you for the details on the different types of passion fruit, this is great info!

We had fish last night with this black gill rockcod with passion-fruit ginger sauce and roasted cauliflower. The fish was grilled, and the cauliflower was roasted in the oven. The sauce was somewhat unfortunate despite my best efforts. The passion fruit did not work well with the other flavors.

I am a sucker for Chartreuse, although cocktails with Chartreuse as one of the main ingredients can be overwhelmingly sweet and herbal which can result in rapid taste-bud fatigue. However this one, the Vauvert Slim, does not fall into that category. It combines grapefruit juice, lime juice, green Chartreuse, mint, and egg white, and a Laphroaig rinse. It is crisp and refreshing with the amazingly long smoky finish from the Laphroaig. Plus it is very attractive in the glass.

Chris, Sorry to hear about the change; hopefully we will continue to see you frequently on eGullet. I've always enjoyed your posts tremendously. Thanks for sharing your passion for food (and cocktails) with us. Good luck with this new phase in your life.

But that is not Champagne! :-) At least get your mom a real Champagne from France. Why? Not necessarily the best for the money... Obviously taste is a very subjective matter. At that price point, I feel that you have more options with the French champagnes. Also I think that it would have more impact as a gift.

That's also available with Eat Your Books (and no, I don't work for them!). You can have access to ingredients in your recipes on your mobile device (as long as the book is indexed), which is handy when you are on the go.

If only I had a brain...

It's probably Eat Your Books that was already mentioned upthread. I use it and it changed my life. More details on this thread.

Yep. The other option is to sop up the juices with a crusty French baguette, but I prefer drinking them neat!

Lots of tasty-looking drinks on this thread. Last night I made this simple variation on a Caipirinha but with tequila instead of cachaça, the Caipirita (tequila, lime, brown sugar cube, simple syrup). I used limes from Schaner Farms that were extremely fragrant - the oils from the peel scented the whole kitchen with the most intoxicating fragrance!

Thank you rod rock!

Good catch! I find that Trader Joe's has a good selection for everyday wines.

It feels good to be back on this thread. Gorgeous food as usual - mm84321's avocado roulade looks delicate and refreshing; C sapidus' Panang curry is mouthwatering (is this hard to make? I looove Panang curry); ScottyBoy's whole seabream is rustic and refined at the same time, the type of food I always crave for. Giant backlog alert! Sorry for the flood of pictures, but here are some of my August dinner meals. Pasta alla Norma, aka eggplant sauce. Based on a recipe from Jamie Oliver. Pretty good, but the eggplant took forever to cook. Roasted Brussels sprouts from my CSA with shallots and prosciutto. Before After A little sandwich with leftover merguez, crusty baguette, garlic mustard, arugula and cotija cheese (this may have been lunch). A chopped cucumber and tomato salad with plenty of mint from the garden... ... followed by this delicious Mahi mahi with creme fraiche and Meyer lemon salsa, fingerling peewee potatoes (a slightly simplified version of the recipe from Lucques). The most succulent lamb I've had in a while - from a local butcher shop, Homegrown Meats - with a little bit of pesto, asparagus & fresh goat cheese. Opah with beurre blanc Les Halles; red chard with olive oil and garlic (a la April Bloomfield). It's been a good month!

Lemon thyme fettucine with Marcella Hazan's pesto (the food processor version). The pesto seems to keep very well in the fridge (the leftovers were still good after close to 2 weeks). I have no idea why I don't make this more often. It is so good and takes very little time to prepare.

The Tomato Salad from Les Halles. The tomatoes are liberally pre-salted, peppered and degorged to concentrate the flavors. The salad bowl is rubbed with garlic. This is the olive oil/balsamic vinegar/basil version of the dressing, but the olive oil/red wine vinegar/parsley version is also very good (and much more French). There is also a very thinly sliced red onion in there (red shallot for the French version). I love this so much I usually end up drinking the juices from the plate as a special treat once I have finished the salad.

But that is not Champagne! :-) At least get your mom a real Champagne from France.

At around $50, I like Veuve Cliquot and Nicolas Feuillatte rosé.

First, a couple of melon-based drinks from the book. Melon in a cocktail does not really appeal to me but I was curious. I did not care for the Melon Stand, a long drink with Plymouth gin, watermelon juice, lemon juice, aperol, simple syrup. It is not that it was especially bad; it was just a little one-note. I was hoping for some kind of surprise but it was not particularly interesting, the kind of drink that you get from the first sip and does not get better over time. It would probably work well for people who are afraid of Aperol though, in a way similar to the Introduction to Aperol. The Aguila Azteca on the other hand... What an improbable list of ingredients on paper: tequila blanco, melon juice (I used a very ripe cantaloupe, the recipe called for honeydew), ginger liqueur, crème de violette. Very odd. But it made perfect sense after the first sip. It is complex and a little spicy (the ginger in the background), the sweetness from the melon is balanced by the tequila and ginger. The floral notes of the violette contribute to the finish but are subtle enough to not be cloying. The melon + ginger + violette combination works really well. The Mexicano (tequila reposado, Campari, cucumber, champagne) was very good too - something to try if you like Campari. It reminded me of a Negroni Sbagliato, but the interplay between the spice of the tequila reposado and the bitterness of Campari was where this cocktail got memorable for me. And last but not least, the White Negroni that I discussed in the Lillet thread. The extra 0.5 oz of (Plymouth) gin in the PDT version makes it is a little less intense than what I am used to. Typically I use a 1.5/1/0.75 gin/Lillet/Suze ratio (PDT calls for 2/1/0.75). But since the drink is served up so the proportions make sense. It's such a great drink; with this version it makes me think of a very elegant bitter Martini.

All this talk about Lillet made me crave a White Negroni. Usually I have it on the rocks, but tonight I was looking at the recipe in PDT and they serve it up, so I decided to try that for a change. Regarding ratios, PDT does 2 oz Plymouth gin, 1 oz Lillet, 0.75 oz Suze. There is a little more gin than the recipe I am used to, and it feels more martini-like. Very nice, and the color is simply striking. In the past I tried White Negronis with various gins including Junipero for an extra kick, Beefeater or Plymouth. They each have their merits. Junipero is probably a little over the top considering that there is already a lot going on in that drink; nothing too subtle but that can be fun sometimes too. This is a good time to mention the White Negroni flights that I have done a while back with some friends. After falling in love with Cocchi Americano in a Corpse Reviver No. 2, we decided to compare Lillet and Cocchi head-to-head in a White Negroni. The ratios were the same for both versions: 1.5 oz gin, 1 oz Lillet/Cocchi, 0.75 oz Suze, lemon peel (a grapefruit twist works well too). I also included a third version, the White Negroni from Dutch Kills with Dolin blanc. This one has slightly different ratios: 1.5 gin, 0.75 oz Dolin blanc, 0.75 oz Suze. I wanted a fairly neutral gin so I went with Beefeater. The same flight was repeated at a later date with Plymouth to confirm the conclusions. We did the tasting blinded first, and then unblinded. The conclusion was not what I expected. The clear winner was the Lillet version, which was also the most balanced. It starts with some spice/funk from the Suze combined with aromas that are almost floral, syrup/honey and citrus from the Lillet but nothing overwhelmingly sweet, and then the bitter finish, with what I call the "suck on a tree branch" flavor from the Suze (which I love). The Cocchi version is more bitter and has less citrus. It is not bad but not as interesting as the Lillet version. The Dutch Kills version has a split personality and does not quite know what it wants to be; it oscillates brutaly from intensely bitter to sweet and citrusy, with nothing in the middle. I thought that it was fun but nobody else cared for it. For the sake of completeness, I should note that last year I also tried a White Negroni with Bonal (1.5/1/0.75 ratio) and this was by far my least favorite, it did not work at all. Given the fact that this cocktail was created with Lillet, the conclusion is quite logical. Clearly, cocktails designed recently with the modern Lillet do not work as well with Cocchi. More experimenting will be in order with the new Suze formula!

It was reported a few days ago by Troy Johnson and Keli Dailey that Arsalun Tafazoli and Nate Stanton, the team behind Noble Experiment and Craft & Commerce, were working on a new project. Polite Provisions will be a bar with an adjacent restaurant, Soda & Swine, located on 30th & Adams. Chef Jason McLeod (who trained under Raymond Bland and Marco Pierre White) will be the executive chef, while Erick Castro (ex Bourbon & Branch) will be working on the bar program.

Try BevMo. You can check their inventory online before you go.

Sam - Do you think that the new Suze formula (saveur d'autrefois) is inferior to the old one? And which cocktails did you use for your side-by-side comparison?