slkinsey
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Posts posted by slkinsey
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I'm actually wondering why anyone should care what Churchill thought about how to make a Martini.
He may have been a boozer of some repute (indeed, Robert Hess has suggested that most of the people who famously eschewed vermouth were alcoholics more interested in boosting the alcohol content of their drink than crafting a properly balanced cocktail) but that doesn't make him an cocktail expert.It's actually interesting if you do some of the math about Martini-making.
Let's say you're making a 3 ounce Martini with Tanqueray gin and Noilly Prat vermouth. Proper stirring with ice will give you around 20% dilution, so you're ending up with a 3.6 ounce pour.
Let's look at two different Martini formulations.
The first one is a 2:1 Martini: Two ounces of Tanqueray ay 47.3% abv and one ounce of Noilly Pratt at 18% abv plus 20% dilution from the ice results in a drink that is 31.3% abv.
The second one is an 11:1 Martini: 2 3/4 ounces ot Tanqueray and 1/4 ounce of Noilly Prat plus 20% dilution from the ice results in a drink that is 37.5% abv.
The 11:1 Martini is only 6.2 percentage points higher in alcohol by volume.
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Little-known Munchos trivia: Because they are perfect foods, the Apollo Lunar Module was stocked with nothing other than Muchos and Tang.
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How can you vac bag a piece of watermelon with a foodsaver???If there is any liquid near the seal it does not seal...(at least mine will not)
Just make the bag extra-long, put the watermelon in the bottom of the bag and put a pleated paper towel around 2/3 of the way up.
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Durum flour/semolina, on the other hand, has the most and strongest gluten of any other wheat flour. This makes it perfect for extruded factory-made dry pastas such as spaghetti, but not so great for a soft, tender Emilia-Romagna style fresh pasta. This is especially true of semolina which, in addition to being an extremely strong flour, also imparts a somewhat granular texture. American cooks who use semolina in making fresh pasta often must resort to cutting the dough with fat in order to make it tender.
Durum/semolina flour does not have to be course-textured. But it usually is, in which case I find it to be totally unusable. If you find it finely ground, like any other flour, it makes superb pasta, firm with a distinctive flavor. But even finely ground, the high gluten level would probably make it very difficult to work by hand. I second the votes for 00 pasta flour if you are doing it by hand.
That's the point I was making: Durum flour and semolina are both made from durum wheat. "Semolina" is simply a name for coarsely-ground durum wheat. In Italy, any coarse-ground grain i s"semolina" -- what we think of as "semolina" is properly called semolina di grano duro (as opposed to, say, semolina di mais). It is not possible to get "floury" semolina, because you would then have flour and not semolina.
Notwithstanding the foregoing, it is true that some companies and in certain non-Italian-speaking countries "semolina" has come to be synonymous with "durum wheat" regardless of the fineness of the grind.
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Paul, as I said above (and especially if it's more convenient) you should try Arturo's on Houston. The crust there seems most like what you are describing. Patsy's crust is paper thin, charred/crisp on the bottom but light with soft and pliable inner layer. Thinner than the places that are trying for true Neapolitan style, but not with the structure and chewyness you seem to be after.
You might also try Di Fara in Brooklyn. In terms of the crust, I'd say it's the pinacle of the style family that has Domino's at the opposite end of the scale.
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It depends on what you mean by "NYC-Style pizza." There are probably 3 or 4 distinct sub-genres of NYC pizza.
Can you give any examples of places that are serving the style you are looking for?
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I don't think it has an "official" name. I'd say that Reinhart's "neo-Neapolitan" (which is a designation of his own coinage as far as I know) comes as close as anything else in defining what you describe.
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Not many people know that Munchos (aka: Мунчос) were originally developed by Peter Carl Fabergé as the perfect caviar delivery vehicle for exclusive use by the Tsars of Russia. In 1897, it took 237 serfs to make one Muncho.
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I'm not sure it's possible to achieve what you are looking for with a home oven.
It sounds like you might like Arturo's down on Houston. They are a coal oven place, but I think they use a lower hydration dough (including salt, which most don't) and a higher gluten flour. The result is a crust that has some lightness, but is also more crisp, strong and chewy than others.
It sounds like what you are describing is that Reinhart describes as "neo-Neapolitan" (meaning places like Patsy's East Harlem, Pizzeria Bianco, Grimaldi's, Sally's, etc.). But those places have the advantage of 900 degree retained heat ovens.
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There are traditions of fresh pasta made with semolina or durum flour (which is more or less the same thing -- semolina is simply coarse durum flour). A good example would be orecchiette.
However, the classic model that most of us think of when we think of "fresh pasta" is the Emilia-Romagna style of fresh pasta as exemplified by tagliatelle, etc. This is classically made with Italian "00" flour for pasta, which is a highly refined flour that is relatively low in gluten, producing a characteristically soft and tender noodle.
Durum flour/semolina, on the other hand, has the most and strongest gluten of any other wheat flour. This makes it perfect for extruded factory-made dry pastas such as spaghetti, but not so great for a soft, tender Emilia-Romagna style fresh pasta. This is especially true of semolina which, in addition to being an extremely strong flour, also imparts a somewhat granular texture. American cooks who use semolina in making fresh pasta often must resort to cutting the dough with fat in order to make it tender.
I think the best approximation of Italian "00" flour for pasta is a mixture of 3/4 AP flour and 1/4 cake flour (cake flour is both highly refined and low in gluten).
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The 'bottomless' portafilter is a fashionable new mod wherein the bottom of the portafilter is sliced off so there is nothing between the bottom of the basket and the top of the cup.
This gives the ShotJockey the opportunity to obsessively examine the expressed beverage for the characteristic 'Tiger Stripes' of the perfect shot.
A bottomless portafilter also makes it possible to use the La Marzocco triple basket. I'm also told that a bottomless portafilter is a lot easier to keep clean, since you really only need to worry about the filter basket.
A disadvantage of the bottomless portafilter, of course, is that you can't run coffee into two cups at once.
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I always thought (although I may be wrong) that the reason the Fairway lettuces look ragged is that they don't trim away the outer leaves for display. Once I pull away the (often slightly browned from bruising) outer leaves, I think I usually get right around the usual amount of good-looking lettuce on the inside.
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Have you thought of a bottomless portafilter?
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Anything like the picture accompanying this article?
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Finger limes come in all different colors, including green, and some of them could be described as "acorn sized." What color were the cells you saw?
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Imoya is a very good South African brandy. I think you can get it in the States, but it's possible that there are vintages and ages you can only get in South Africa. I'm sure there are other very good brandys that are only for sale in South Africa.
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Sounds like finger limes.
Rather than having the standard citrus interior, they are filled with tiny individual cells that can look a bit like caviar.
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Interesting. I wonder what the chemistry of that is? Could be interesting for a separate topic of discussion.
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Is there a good Calvados in the $20-30 range for mixing?
What do you bartender types use for cocktails?
Busnel VSOP Caovados is right around that range, and a number of bars I know use it for mixing.
I'd say it's true of calvados. I have a bottle of Coeur de Lion 1975 sitting on my bar and the aroma and top-of-the-palate flavors have interesting, albeit subtle, fruit nuances.How many years of aging does it have? 30? How would you compare the apple-specific character to, say, 6 year oldf Calvados? I'm also curious as to whether you think you would be able to easily identify that Calvados among a blind sampling of several 30 year old Cognacs and Armagnacs.
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The squash idea is interesting (even though I abhor squash). I wonder if a good technique to get flavors out of something like squash might be the gelatin method.
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Host Note: topic split from AppleJack topic.
I'll be interested to try an older Calvados or American Apple Brandy to see how the flavors develop.IMO they become less and less interesting with age. Several years of age to mellow out the rough edges and add a little color, etc. is good. But beyond a certain point, the apple brandy tastes less and less of apples and more and more of "generic aged spirit." A 15 year old apple brandy doesn't really taste of apples at all, and might as well be a grape brandy.
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A cocktail from the 30s that is apparently "close to extinction," it's a gin based libation with maraschino cherry liqueur and fresh lemon juice. The VTR's version was incredibly well balanced to the point I could not believe I was drinking a gin cocktail.
How wonderful to hear that you have such a great cocktail spot in Cleveland! I'm out that way every so often, and for sure will drop in on the VTR the next time I'm there.
As for the Aviation cocktail (eG thread here), I wouldn't say it's anywhere near close to extinction. In fact, I think it's probably more popular today among cocktailians than it was 90 years ago. It first appeared in Ensslin's "Recipes for Mixed Drinks" in 1916, at which time it included gin, lemon juice, maraschino liqueur and crème de violette (imparting a sky-blue color and thus explaining the name). It later appeared in The Savoy Cocktail Book without the crème de violette, and that has become the accepted standard recipe.
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Dianabanana, I don't think the studies were evaluating the products' effectiveness at getting rid of waxy coatings. I agree that something more than water is needed to get rid of the coating. Although, of course, one can just buy uncoated produce -- but depending on time of year and location, that can be difficult.
Maple Spirit
in Spirits & Cocktails
Posted
As mkayahara points out, getting the sap out of maple trees is a fairly costly and labor-intensive business. It's not the same thing as mowing down a field of sugar cane and pressing the juice out of it, and it's sure not the same thing as making booze out of the industrial waste from sugar refining.
Given the costs associated with obtaining maple sap and the fact that a distillate produced from fermented maple sap would most likely not have a particularly "mapley" taste, I think it's unlikely we'll ever see such a product.