slkinsey
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Steel cut oats. Toast in a heavy copper saucepan until lightly browned. Add water at around 4:1 by volume. Bring to boil. Heavy pinch of salt! Simmer half-covered at lowest possible setting until thick, stirring occasionally. When ready, turn off heat and stir in medium knob of butter. Eat with a touch of brown sugar.
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All this talk has been surprisingly free of condemnation for the state of today's crusts. Certainly cheese quality is important, and so it sauce, but the defining characteristic of NY pizza is its crust. Death to the spongy stuff that is everywhere now!
I'll certainly agree that, to me, pizza has always been about the crust. But, leaving out the old school coal-fired places, I'm not sure NYC deck-oven by-the-slice pizza has been defined by a superior crust in a long, long time. There's only so good the crust can be with this style of pizza. Sure, there are some places like Di Fara and Sal & Carmine's that manage to turn out a better crust than usual (ableit radically different in the case of these two examples), but I wouldn't say even the best places have been head-and-shoulders above the norm.
I'd say that's both true and false. While the best crusts come from a really hot coal (or wood, or similar) oven, you can achieve a pretty good result in a standard Bari deck oven by using the principle discovered by the best french fry makers: cook it twice.
I think some places (e.g., Di Fara as I mention above) have come pretty close to the best of what is possible within the limitations imposed by a stainless deck pizza oven, and they seem to be able to do it without baking the crust twice.
I don't dispute that a "pretty good slice" can be produced in a deck oven... even a superior one. I do dispute that New York stainless deck oven pizza was ever particularly defined by having a superior crust or distinguished from other species and styles of pizza on this basis. The limitations imposed by stainless deck ovens mean that, in order to get a crisp crust -- never mind any "char" -- you need to bake the pizza for a longer period of time, which dries out the crust and makes it tougher (as opposed to the "crisp and charred yet light and pliable" effect higher temperature retained-heat ovens can create). This is especially true when the pizza is made with high gluten flour and even more true when the crust is laden with an overabundance of toppings, both of which are almost always the case with this style of pizza. Double-baking and other compensatory techniques magnify this drying/toughening effect.
This is not to say, however, that a superior pizza can't be made in this style and using these techniques. Most anyone would agree that Di Fara makes a superior pizza working in this style, and weinoo and others point out that other examples exist around the city. But superior pizza and superior crust aren't the same thing. I would argue that "acceptably crisp and functionally capable of supporting the toppings" just about represents the pinnacle of stainless deck-oven pizza baking. It's unclear to me that they're capable of making a crust so good you'd eat it on its own.
That said, I suppose I'd agree that NYC stainless deck oven pizza may have been distinguished from other regional stainless deck oven pizza by having a less common incidence of crappy sponge crust. One thing I note is that it's fairly common even in "slice shop level" pizzerie in NYC to bake the pizza directly on the floor of the oven rather than using a pizza pan, which does provide for a crisper crust. This does not seem to be the case in many other regional traditions.
Edited to add: I think it's interesting that, in order to get a great pizza at Joe's, weinoo had to specify "thin, light on the cheese, and well cooked on the bottom" -- in effect, mandating that they deviate significantly from their usual practices. I've employed similar ordering techniques at Lombardi's.
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Ultimately, however, all it takes is for one dedicated bunch to open a place in New Orleans that religiously maintains quality, tradition and innovation within the context of tradition.
I think Swizzle Stick would qualify in this respect, but it might be too embedded in a tourist friendly zone to be a regular hang out for locals.
It's hard to say, because I haven't been there (yet! - I'm going to be in New Orleans in November). But the menu isn't terribly encouraging:
The “What the hell! If you can’t avoid it, enjoy it, Hurricane” $7.50Made with Southern Comfort
The Adelaide Swizzle $6.50
New Orleans Amber Rum, fresh squeezed lime juice, bitters, a splash of soda and our secret ingredient!
Side Car $8.50
Brandy, Rum, Cointreau, sour mix, lime juice ~ served with a sugar rim
Prytania St. Punch $7.50
New Orleans Crystal and Amber Rum, fresh orange and pineapple juices and grenadine syrup
Neutral Ground $7.50
Peach Schnapps, Limoncello and sour mix served “up”
Brake Tag $7.50
Southern Comfort, Amaretto, OJ and cranberry
BellaDonna $10.50
Charbay Blood Orange Vodka, orange liqueur, sour mix, lime juice and a splash of cranberry
Bar Chef Lu Brow’s Bloody Mary $7.50
house made to be red, with a bit of a kick
Contrast that with this menu from The Zig Zag Cafe in Seattle, which is more what I had in mind:
AVIATION $8gin, lemon, marachino
BETWEEN THE SHEETS $8
brandy, rum, lemon, cointreau
BOURBON CRUSTA $8
bourbon, triple sec, marachino, lemon,orange bitters
CHAPLIN $8
bourbon, rammazotti, dry sherry, cointreau, orange bitters
CHAS $8
bourbon, cointreau, amaretto, benedictine, orange curacao
COMMODORE $8
bourbon, lemon, crème de cacao
DERBY $8
maker’s mark, benedictine, bitters
DESHLER COCKTAIL $8
dubonnet, rye, cointreau, bitters
EL DIABLO $8
tequila, cassis, lime, ginger ale
FLORIDITA $8
rum, sweet vermouth, crème de cacao, grenadine, lime
JASMINE $8
gin, cointreau, campari, lemon
LA ROSITA $8
tequila, vermouths, campari
MCCOY $8
irish whiskey, tuaca, dry sherry, peach bitters
NEW ORLEANS BUCK $8
rum, lime, orange, ginger ale
NEW YORK COCKTAIL $8
bourbon, lime, grenadine
OLD CUBAN $8
rum, mint, lime, sparkling wine
PEGU $8
gin, cointreau, lime, angostura and orange bitters
SATAN’S SOULPATCH $8
bourbon, vermouths, gran marnier, orange, orange bitter
SOUTH SIDE $8
gin, cointreau, mint, lemon, sparkling wine
TAILSPIN $8
gin, sweet vermouth, chartreuse
TRIDENT $8
cynar, akvavit, dry sherry, peach bitters
VESPER $8
vodka, gin, lillet blanc
This menu is reflective of a level of sophistication, a knowledge of cocktail history and a familiarity with the revival tradition of developing new cocktails in the classic tradition that is not apparent in the Swizzle Stick menu.
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... Perhaps the question is not why we're behind the times, but why we stopped making good drinks. Because really, the trend towards good mixology is really a return to long cast aside practices. And around here, we're really good about holding on to foodways that others have abandoned.
I suspect the desire to accomodate tourists who want to get really drunk really fast is part of the answer.
I think the decline of cocktails in NO was part of the general trend in America. You can't have a standard sink that low for such a length of time and not have it affect New Orleans as much as it does anywhere else. In terms of locals, I imagine that NO presents many of the same hurdles to the cocktail revival as other cities, things such as building interest, familiarity and critical mass. Even in a city like NYC, a leader in the cocktails movement, the vast majority of bars are turning out mediocrity. On top of that, New Orleans has perhaps some additional hurdles. For example, it seems as though beer and straight whiskey are much more a part of what is perceived in the popular imagination as "mainsteam NO culture" compared to cocktails (and I am constantly amazed the way a perceived reality can be bought into to the extent that it becomes actual reality within a generation). In terms of tourists, I wonder what percentage of NO non-restaurant alcohol-consuming tourists aren't going to the French Quarter to get sloshed on cheap sugary crap. This is another hurdle.
In the final analysis, however, I'm not so sure that the cocktails situation is all that dire in New Orleans -- the cocktails revival is still in quite an early stage. There are plenty of cities at around the same urban size as New Orleans about which we wouldn't even be having this conversation, because the going-in assumption would be that they didn't have a single great cocktail spot (e.g., Jacksonville, Kansas City, Cleveland, Oklahoma City, etc.). If we wonder why New Orleans doesn't have better cocktails, it's probably because of the historical association (awareness of which has been boosted by the Museum of the American Cocktail and Tales of the Cocktail) and also because it's known as having such great food culture. Ultimately, however, all it takes is for one dedicated bunch to open a place in New Orleans that religiously maintains quality, tradition and innovation within the context of tradition.
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All of these things, I would thing, presuppose that it isn't three-deep at the bar. No bartender who is busting ass to serve 4 customers every minute is going to be able to have a conversation with you about how you'd like your Martini other than to glean the basics (brand, stirred versus shaken, garnish, proportion of vermouth if you're lucky).
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I mean, seriously... do you know how many martini recipes there are floating around out there (in many in-house recipe guides!) that call for so much vermouth in martinis that it really does NOT matter what kind of gin or vodka you use?
I've had Martinis made with equal parts gin and (fresh) Noilly Prat probably at least 50 times. I don't know how much vermouth would overwhelm a Martini to the extent that differences between gin bottlings were largely obscured, but experience tells me that the drink would have to be at least 50% vermouth. There's no way something like a 3:1 Martini, which would be considered extremely wet by many people, subjugates the gin to the vermouth. There's also the question, of course, as to whether the Martini is supposed to be a cocktail in which the gin dominates, or rather one in which the gin and vermouth play with one another to create an impression that is neither gin nor vermouth, but something more. Assuming a non-crowded bar (in which event you always take your chances with a highly individualized cocktail like the Martini), these are the discussions that would give me confidence in a bartender's cocktailian chops.
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If you can get something qualified as "non potable" it doesn't matter how much booze it has in it. Bitters are, by and large, "non potable." Gary talks about this upthread back in 2005. Amazing it's already been around for around 2.5 years, and also amazing the huge explosion in bitters that's happened during that short period of time.
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I like Flor de Caña as well. Brugal white is not bad for this purpose either.
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My whole point was that If I am willing to pay for a better tequila, I hope my bartender goes for the Cointreau or at least asks me.
Yea, that's more or less my point as well, with respect to evaluating a bartender on cocktilian chops. Cointreau should be the defeult, unless there is some specific reason to use another (quality) brand. The bartender uses Hiram Walker, and I'm sticking with "something on the rocks."
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We are splitting hairs. To be technical so is Grand Marnier, but I was really referring to well brand triple secs (Bols, DeKuyper, etc)A good bartender should know that Cointreau IS a triple sec.Actually, Grand Marnier isn't a triple sec, it's an orange liqueur with a cognac base. Cointreau is a high-quality triple sec. I think what kills a margarita most of the time is the use of Rose's Lime and Sweet & Sour mix. If you use 100% agave tequila and fresh lime juice, Bols triple sec may be just fine.
It's not quite that simple, Marco (see this thread), although I think we all agree that GM isn't a great product to use in a Margarita.
IMO, Cointreau or another triple sec of similarly high quality (by which I mean better than Brizard and definitely better than Bols) is necessary for a good Margarita.
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Interesting article. But, really, why must people persist in calling a drink consisting of whiskey, Cynar and pomegranate molasses, or whiskey with sweetened Shiraz a "Manhattan"? Can't we agree that a Manhattan is made with whiskey, Italian vermouth and bitters? And when you add other stuff you either have a different kind of Manhattan (e.g., "dry" or "perfect") or you have a different drink (e.g., the Little Italy at Pegu Club)?
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Some of the best bartenders I've ever met couldn't mix a Manhattan worthy of a clean glass if their lives depended on it. But they can put you right at ease, show you a great time, and take your mind off your troubles, if only for a little while.
I do totally agree with this. Knowing your regulars, working the crowd, this all goes into being a good bartender.
I think the OP was fairly clear in that the "test" is to evaluate a presumptively cocktailian bartender's skill at making cocktails. Obviously, there are different bartender skills that are appropriate to different settings. For example, whereas looking great in a halter top and miniskirt while dancing on the bar are necessary skills for certain bars where the ability to make a great Martinez are not, the opposite is also usually true.
The Margarita is a good testThe problem with a margarita, is that unless you are specific in your order, most bars are going to give you crappy tequila, triple sec (maybe) and sour mix with the requisite squeeze of lime. It is what the general public expects. If you order a margarita up, you might get lucky and get lime juice but you will still need to specify the liquor.
These are all reasons why the Margarita is a good test of a presumptively cocktailian bartender's bona fides. A good cocktailian bartender in a cocktail bar is not going to give any customer "crappy tequila, triple sec (maybe) and sour mix with the requisite squeeze of lime" without at least having a discussion with the customer.
Why isn't the bartender notifying the manager that they need a new bottle if the old one is bad?Because they don't know, can't tell, don't care, hardly ever use any, or some combination of the three. Considering that the standard Martini you'll get most often these days contains barely a molecule of white vermouth (and many bartenders make, and customers expect, Manhattans on the same principle) it hardly makes any difference if the vermouth bottle was first opened 9 months ago.
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When I saw the name of this thread, I immidiately thought "Manhattan." I disagree that one shouldn't expect good Manhattans at just about any place that stocks the ingredients (great Manhattans are a different matter).
I don't know, Andy. Plenty of bars have a few token bottles of vermouth gathering dust on the back bar. And if the bottle's been sitting out there post-opening (or, worse yet, with a speed pourer in the neck) for six months, there's pretty much no way you're getting a good Manhattan.
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Other decent tests of baseline mixology would be Cointreau-based sours.
The Margarita is a good test, because everyone knows it. Do you get a glass of frozen slush or a proper up drink? Is it overly sweet? Does the bartender reach for Cointreau or crappy triple sec? What kind of tequila is used? Is it made with (in decreasing order of preference) fresh lime juice, bottled lime juice, sour mix or Rose's?
An interesting test would also be the Sidecar. A lot of the questions as to brand of base spirit, Cointreau-versus-crap, fresh citrus, balance, etc. are the same as they are with the Margarita. The first question is whether the bartender even knows how to make one.
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You need to circumscribe your expectations by first evaluating whether you are in a cocktail bar and whether it is a cocktailian bartender.
Am I being unrealistic to expect a cocktail bar to mix a decent cocktail? I don't expect a dive or neighborhood bar to do this, sure. But I would expect a swanky lounge with high prices to mix a basic drink. (And no, I don't normally hang in swanky lounges, but this is for work.)
There are lots of places that sell cocktails, but aren't really "cocktail bars." Practically every restaurant in NYC sells cocktails, but few of them are real cocktail spots. A lot of swanky places charging high prices are doing tons of business on superpremium vodka sodas, booze on the rocks and fruit bomb-style mixed drinks.
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You need to circumscribe your expectations by first evaluating whether you are in a cocktail bar and whether it is a cocktailian bartender. There are plenty of bars that have lots of bottles on the back bar and the occasional V-glass, but aren't interested in being the place you go for that really great Manhattan. A Manhattan is a relatively foolproof drink to order if you're at a place that meets minimum requirements (e.g., no dust on the vermouth bottle), but I find that I still need to look at the back bar to choose my whiskey and then say something like "three to one [call brand] Manhattan, stirred, up with a twist and a short dash of bitters if you have any" at most bars around the country.
Unfortunately, you're in a bit of a bind down in New Orleans, which is somewhat notorious among the cocktailian set for mediocre mixology (for example, I recently told a bartender friend here I was going to NO for my upcoming honeymoon and he said, "you know you have to 'bring your own' when you go down there, right?") The impression I get is that there are two or three pretty good places, but the drop off is quite steep. Hopefully I'll discover otherwise in November.
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Steven, are you talking about everyday utility-level dishes, or something nicer? For the everyday stuff, I have always had good luck going to a place like Fishs Eddy and buying lowbrow-restaurant-grade white dishes. They're not as pretty as something from Williams Sonoma, but they're indestructible and oven safe.
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All this talk has been surprisingly free of condemnation for the state of today's crusts. Certainly cheese quality is important, and so it sauce, but the defining characteristic of NY pizza is its crust. Death to the spongy stuff that is everywhere now!
I'll certainly agree that, to me, pizza has always been about the crust. But, leaving out the old school coal-fired places, I'm not sure NYC deck-oven by-the-slice pizza has been defined by a superior crust in a long, long time. There's only so good the crust can be with this style of pizza. Sure, there are some places like Di Fara and Sal & Carmine's that manage to turn out a better crust than usual (ableit radically different in the case of these two examples), but I wouldn't say even the best places have been head-and-shoulders above the norm.
...the idea that canned sauce is a major problem doesn't compute with me. As I understand it, many places have ALWAYS used canned, it's just a matter of how good the canned sauce is.The places that have always used canned "pizza sauce" have probably always had mediocre-to-crappy sauce on their pizza.
I would question whether there was a great deal of pre-made "pizza sauce" being sold in the 1970s, and almost certainly there wasn't in the 1950s. I would also question whether, in fact, there even exists a high quality "pizza sauce" sold to the restaurant trade in gigantic metal cans. Most likely such a sauce would cost more than it would cost a pizzeria to make its own sauce. Clearly most of them aren't doing that, and the huge leap in sauce quality at places like Di Fara that do make their own sauce is usually obvious. Of course canned sauce doesn't have to be poor quality, but unfortunately it almost always is poor quality. Personally, once I started making my own tomato sauce around 20 years ago, I've never been able to stomach any brand of commercial pasta sauce regardless of brand or cost. I have to assume there are even greater limitations on the quality of pizza sauce that comes in #10 cans.
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...when I walk in and see Middle Easterns or Mexicans making the pies, even if they've been instructed well by the owner, something is just missing.
Patsy's East Harlem -- certainly the best old-NYC-school coal-fired pizza in Manhattan and arguably the best in the City -- is made by Latino pizzaioli.
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The reality is that there are probably at least three distinct styles of "NY Pizza."
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I just don't care for that much cheese, so I doubt I would have liked it. But, of course I believe that the quality was much higher twenty years ago when they used much better cheese. That's the main thrust of my post.
However, the point that I'm making in the part of my post you're quoting is that today they can't use the same amount of cheese and make the economics work unless they use crappy quality Wisconsin pizza cheese. So, if they want to use better quality cheese and produce a better quality slice, they have two choices: 1. use the same gigantic amount of cheese at higher quality and raise their prices accordingly, which I don't think would work economically with their clientele; or 2. use a smaller amount of high quality cheese. Looking at the picture of the slice Steven posted above, I think you could easily cut the volume of cheese by half and still have a generous amount of cheese.
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I'd say that Steven has hit the nail squarely on the head in blaming the general decline on crappy, rubbery Wisconsin pizza cheese. Twenty years ago, I don't think the economic factors were there (massive industry consolidation combined with, until the relatively recent spike in fuel prices, ridiculously inexpensive transportation) in favor of Wisconsin pizza cheese.
Most likely, most of the NYC pizza places in the 50s-60s were getting their cheese locally, in the 70s-80s they were getting their cheese regionally, and starting in the 90s going forward they were getting their cheese nationally. This general movement away from local and artisinal/small batch to national and industrial had to have been accompanied by a corresponding decline in quality, which would be especially noticable with respect to pizza made in the "pile on the cheese" style.
Consider also that there was surely a similar shift in other ingredients. In the 50s-60s, I'm sure most pizza places were making their own pizza sauce. Nowadays, it's rare to see a "slice shop" level pizza place in the City that even has a stove in evidence. They're all getting cans of pre-made "pizza sauce" and perhaps (but not always) tweaking it with things like dried herbs and garlic powder. Continuing in that direction, I can't imagine that all pizza places in the 50s-60s were using Hormel pepperoni, which is what 95% of them use today.
Nowadays, if a place like Ray's, Original Ray's, Famous Ray's, Famous Original Ray's, Original Famous Ray's or Seriously We're Not Kidding This Is The Authentic Original Famous Ray's wanted to duplicate the quality of 1980, they would have to charge a lot more for a slice. And there's some question in my mind as to whether the jump in quality would be enough that they could continue to compete. Rather, the game seems to be: either you make do with crap Wisconsin pizza cheese and (hopefully) make up the difference as best you can by tweaking your sauce and, as Steven points out, offering an expansive array of interesting toppings, in which case you charge the going price for a slice, or you radically upgrade your ingredients, position yourself as a more "gourmet" pizzeria and charge 50% more.
Honestly, in my opinion, the best thing a place like Ray's could to to improve pizza quality would be to spend twice as much on the cheese and use half as much of it.
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OK, this is where the dash measurement really starts to bug me. Four dashes? Really? It would've killed them to actually specify 1/4 oz. or 1/2 oz. or whatever that works out to? When people argue that a dash is a "to-taste" measurement, I can accept that as long as it's one dash. Two dashes start to get to me. But four? Yeesh.
Just a thought, but I'm assuming that they would've stored some ingredients in 'dasher' bottles (like bitter bottles). Do we have any idea what sort of bottles these would have been?
Actually, I don't believe this was the case. I believe that, if one is looking at an old recipe, a dash from a bitters bottle would have been significantly smaller than a dash from a maraschino bottle or curaçao bottle, which I assume came directly from the bottle. My going-in assumption is that two dashes of liquor or juice comes in at somewhere between a teaspoon on the light side and a quarter-ounce on the heavy side -- which is significantly more volume than you'd get from two dashes out of a bitters bottle. This becomes fairly apparent when you try out some of the older recipes. Plenty of old recipes call for, say, 2 ounces of gin, 1/2 ounce of maraschino and two dashes of lemon juice. Well, if those lemon juice dashes are bitters bottle dashes, you might as well not include them at all because they won't make any difference. On the other hand, a quarter-ounce of lemon juice would make a difference in that drink.
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Ah. So you're talking about "a saute of something," as opposed to the act of sauteing something. I agree that there is usually a moist component in "a something saute" or "saute of something, but I'd argue that the act of sauteing is moving around largely chunk-shaped pieces of food in a limited amount of fat over high heat so as to brown them evenly on all sides (the act of frying being much the same except that the food isn't moved around very much). However, once one has completed the sauteing of the food items one often uses liquid and a lid, and calls the result "something saute." Many times, people are actually frying and call it "saute" for a variety of reasons.
To be more clear, I wasn't reacting to your description of using a lid in your "chicken saute." Rather, I thought I was reacting to your description of using a lid while sauteing. In my understanding, one wouldn't be able to saute (the browning stage of your chicken saute dish) unless the lid was off. The cooking subsequent to the sauteing (or frying) would be braising, if it involved liquid and a lid.
Of course, who knows... Ruhlman may entirely contradict that understanding.
INVENT THIS !
in Kitchen Consumer
Posted
How about as cast iron frypan, with low sloped sides instead of the medium-height straight "skillet" sides. And, for that matter, I'd love to see cast iron cookware at around double the thickness currently offered.