FrogPrincesse

For dinner tonight we had pan-roasted local corvina seabass with roasted cauliflower. The fish was basted in plenty of butter flavored with fresh thyme, and finished with fleur de sel. It was served with cauliflower that had been roasted in the oven with some olive oil.

A few ml of Fernet Branca could go nicely in this. Great idea! Ginger and Fernet, always a good combo.

This one is really simple, a twist on the Canadian club and ginger ale. It's delicious and refreshing. Ginger and Rye 2 oz rye, 3 oz ginger ale/beer (ratio from The Joy of Mixology)

I made the Warning Label tonight: Demerara rum 151, Cynar, Punt e Mes, orange bitters, grapefruit bitters (made by a friend), Campari rinse, lemon twist. It is a well balanced cocktail, quite bitter as expected but the 151 helps tone it down somewhat with some caramel notes. You can smell and taste the grapefruit at the end with the Campari/grapefruit bitters combo. I feel it is a little on the syrupy side. Its flavor is very typical of most cocktails in the book.

Beautiful handmade orecchiette, Franci. Is your daughter your pasta-making assistant? Mine loves to roll pasta with the Kitchenaid (she thinks it's a lot of fun), but we haven't tried making orecchiette yet.

That looks like an interesting book. I have seen it on amazon but there is no preview, so it's hard to get an idea of the contents. Can you please tell us a bit more about it? What recipes have you made so far that you liked?

No, for some reason it took me a while to understand the full potential of the Amer Picon. Now that found a few drinks incorporating it that I really like, this type of side-by-side comparison sounds like a fun project, as long as the substitutes in question are reasonably easy to track down. The substitute from post #108 suggested by David Wondrich was 15 ml Everclear and 1 ml Angostura orange bitters for every 100 ml Amaro Ciociaro. It sounds simple enough, however the Amaro Ciociaro is not something I remember seeing locally. I am intrigued by Bittermens Amère Nouvelle and almost picked up a bottle when I was at Hi-Time a few weeks ago. Does anybody have it and what do you think of it?

Hi Rodzilla! Good to see you here and welcome to eGullet. It was my first time making tesa, however I've been curing bacon regularly since first doing it about a year ago for Charcutepalooza. It has a tendency to disappear very quickly even though I make 5 or 6 pounds at a time - I give most of it to friends and family. For the tesa, I used Paul Bertolli's recipe from Cooking by Hand. The process wasn't very different from curing bacon but the taste is completely different due to the red wine and spices that are used in the cure.

Rico - your brisket looks fantastic, especially that closeup shot. I am enjoying your blog so far, thanks for sharing your week with us!

The Hoskins Cocktail: 2 oz gin, 3/4 amer picon, 1/2 maraschino, 1/4 cointreau, dash orange bitters, flamed orange peel. A very interesting cocktail with the picon, maraschino and cointreau creating layers of flavors. It's a little on the sweet side but very good overall, and a great use of Picon.

Very nice. All these are great products. The Cocchi is especially nice in a Corpse Reviver No. 2. The Lemon Hart 151 is an essential for tiki drinks of course. The Batavia Arrack is great for punch - the O'Doherty's Arrack Punch in David Wondrich's book is a great one. I have been using the Xocolatl bitters quite a bit as well. I am not too familiar with the falernum bitters (are these the ones from B.G. Reynolds/Cocktail Kingdom?) so I will be curious to see what you do with them.

You are welcome. Regarding Specialty Produce: they sell to a large number of restaurants in San Diego but are also open to the public from 8 to 4 (more information on their website here). You may remember that I talked about them in my eG foodblog last year (see here for a few pictures of their facility). They are very friendly and their selection is quite overwhelming. It's definitely worth a visit. After using this book for a few years now, I would say that it is really solid. I made about a quarter of the recipes in the book so far (there are a lot that I made but haven't posted about on eGullet) and there is nothing that I did not like. The instructions are always very precise. Sometimes there are a lot of steps and pots & pans to clean afterwards, but the results are always great. For people who live in Southern California it's an excellent book because the recipes incorporate a lot of seasonal produce.

Specialty Produce has them. Pea shoots or tendrils regularly make an appearance in their farmers' market bag (CSA program). I imagine that they are pretty easy to grow.

Orecchiette carbonara with English peas and pea shoots (page 80) Suzanne Goin's twist on the classic carbonara is nothing short of delicious. First she uses a mix of bacon and pancetta cooked until slightly crisped. This was great for me as I had just finished curing some fresh bacon and tesa (similar to pancetta but flat) and wanted to find a dish to showcase them. Onions, garlic and thyme are added to the bacon/pancetta and cooked for a short time, and then mixed with fresh shelled peas (which I happened to have from my CSA). The pasta cooked al dente is added to this mixture, together with salt and plenty of black pepper. The pasta is transferred to a large bowl containing a mixture of eggs, egg yolks and parmesan. Pasta water can be used as needed if the sauce is too thick (I had to use about a tablespoon). Lastly, parsley and pea shoots (I used baby spinach) are mixed in and more parmesan is grated on top. I really liked how the orecchiette acted as a receptacle for the sauce, peas, and bacon/pancetta dice. Also including greens in this dish was a nice change. The peas were particularly great in this recipe and added a little pop of flavor. Recipe here on google books.

Paul - It's an egg poached in plastic wrap, aka Arzak egg. Brush plastic wrap with oil (I used grapeseed oil because it's neutral), place inside a cup or small bowl, crack an egg into the plastic wrap, season with salt and pepper, tie into a bundle with kitchen string, cook in boiling water for ~ 4.5 minutes. Carefully unwrap.

Beautiful pictures of asparagus and egg combinations (mm84321, SobaAddict70, Paul Bacino). Here is my version: asparagus wrapped in crispy Parma ham, poached egg, and crostini with homemade whole-milk ricotta.

To celebrate the first day of spring (and because I have an abundance of mint), Audrey Saunder's Gin Gin Mule. I really like this Bunaberg ginger beer, it has a great taste. For some reason the Beefeater got lost in this drink so I would use something different next time.

Dinner a couple of nights ago. Lobster ravioli with green garlic and saffron cream sauce. The ravioli (store-bought) was pretty, but the filling disappointing with no distinguishable pieces of lobster to be found. The green garlic made the dish. The sauce was a reduction of white wine (Sancerre) with fish stock and heavy cream, finished with butter. Saffron was infused into the white wine and the green garlic (plenty if it - I used three stalks for two plates) was cooked slowly before being added to the sauce.

SobaAddict70, it's also my experience that his recipes are pretty solid. With the guanciale I made Pasta all'Amatriciana. I did not have bucatini so I used spaghetti. The guanciale is cooked over medium-low heat to render most of its fat. It's not supposed to become crispy. With the store-bought guanciale that I was able to find in the past (only rarely), generally the whole guanciale was quite thin and mostly fat, with just the tiniest streak of meat, and there used to be little left after this first step because the slices were quite small. With my home-cured guanciale this was definitely not a problem, although I sliced it very thin (by hand). The guanciale became light brown when cooked with the onions, garlic and red pepper flakes. Then it was simmered in the tomato sauce (I used the tomato sauce recipe from Babbo which is my go-to recipe). The pasta was boiled and then finished in the sauce, served with chopped parsley and a heavy dusting of pecorino. What can I say... This is the most delicious comfort food and was gone in no time. The texture of the guanciale was slightly crunchy which was great, and its taste porky and rich. It's worth curing the guanciale just for this dish, for sure.

Last night before dinner we had various little snacks with our cocktails: a slice of Wagon Wheel cheese from Cowgirl Creamery (love the name, but it tasted pretty blend/rubbery to me), salmon rillettes tartines, and goat cheese truffles. The salmon rillettes are the fresh and smoked salmon rillettes in The Cooking of Southwest France by Paula Wolfert. The goat cheese truffles were dipped in poppy seeds or pimenton (my favorite) and the recipe is from Babbo.

I was in the mood for a French Pearl tonight. It's funny because I don't really care for Pernod, but I always loved this drink. Combining the Pernod with mint and lime was a stroke of genius. I used Pernod pastis and Beefeater gin.

Two of my favorite cocktails with allspice dram are the Lion's Tail if you want something bourbon-based, and the Ancient Mariner if you are in the mood for something tiki.

He has joined TAPS Fish House & Brewery.

We had dinner last night at Bali Hai to say goodbye to chef Chris Powell, who is unfortunately leaving for Orange Country. We ordered a few of our favorites including the plank-smoked albacore with seabeans and pickled mustard seeds, the dynamite steak roll with pickled baby mushrooms, the char siu duck with lup cheong sausage, and this kobe beef carpaccio with a touch of truffle oil and layers of delicate flavors (courtesy of the chef). It was great as always. Hopefully the new chef will be able to fill his shoes!

We went to the Bali Hai restaurant last night and had a couple of classic tiki drinks: their take on the Zombie (on the left in the picture, which the menu describes as "three rums, peach brandy, guava, pineapple juice & Lemon Hart 151 for a touch of spice") and my favorite which is one of their signature drinks, the Goof Punch (Lemon Hart Demerara rum, Coruba Jamaican dark rum, light rum, passion fruit syrup, and a blend of fruit juices) - dangerously smooth.