slkinsey

Here's a link to the NYT article. It's mostly a description of the Julep as made by Chris McMillian at the Ritz-Carlton hotel's Library Lounge in New Orleans. In fact, I'd say the article is really more about McMillian than it is about the Julep, per se. He is a bartender of the (good) old school, and apparently given to reciting J. Soule Smith's ode when preparing a Julep at a leisurely pace. His Julep recipe is for a peach bourbon Julep: <blockquote>12 to 15 leaves : fresh mint, 1 oz : peach syrup (Monin is recommended) 2.5 oz : bourbon Superfine sugar and mint sprig for garnish Gently muddle mint leaves and 1/4 ounce peach syrup in a julep cup or old-fashioned glass, working the leaves up the sides of glass. Pack the cup or glass with finely crushed ice, add bourbon, drizzle with remaining peach syrup and garnish with mint sprig lightly dusted with sugar.</blockquote> There's also a mint Julep recipe in the current issue of New York Magazine, featuring a recipe from LeNell Smothers. LeNell's Julep is also a whiskey Julep, but strays quite a bit further from the accepted Julep orthodoxy with the inclusion of bitters and an unusual sweetener. <blockquote>LeNell Smothers's Granny's Whiskey Julep 1 tsp: Granny's Not So Simple Syrup* or Pedro Ximénez cream sherry 2 dashes : Fee Brothers whiskey barrel-aged bitters 5 leaves : fresh mint 2 oz : 100-proof bourbon or rye Splash : Prichard's Tennessee rum * Add pound of golden raisins to a quart jar, cover with gin and wait two weeks. Gently muddle the mint leaves together with the syrup and bitters in a julep cup or old-fashioned glass, then remove and discard the mint. Fill most of the way with crushed ice and add the whiskey, stirring until frost appears on the outside of the glass. Fill up with crushed ice and top with a splash of rum, then garnish with sprigs of mint. Optionally, dust with powdered sugar.</blockquote> This sounds interesting. I like bitters in a Julep. I wonder if her "Granny's Not So Simple Syrup" is missing an addition of sugar, however. Unless the raisins give off a lot of sugar (anyone?) it doesn't seem like it would be very syrup-like to me.

That's for two big slushy drinks. Not so much, when you consider that low temperatures inhibit perceptions of sweetness.

FWIW, Lucy Brennan is no slouch. Here is her bio and here is the drink menu from her place in Oregon.

I have to assume she calls it a Daiquiri because it includes rum and is a slushy ice drink (which is what 99% of America thinks a Daiquiri is).

The hidden gems in Manhattan, if there are any, are all above 96th Street. And they're hidden precisely because blogs like Eater (and most of eGullet, I should hasten to add) aren't paying attention to what's going on up there. Granted, there are good reasons for this (like the fact that there is much less of interest).

Yea, a number of weird things there. What's the deal with lemon-lime juice? Is it her version of "fresh sour mix" once combined in equal parts with simple syrup? (This is, by the way, a good fresh substitute for sour mix should you come across a recipe that calls for it.) Why not use lime juice for the Margarita and lemon juice for the Sidecar? I agree with Nathan that lemon in a Margarita probably wouldn't be a deal-breaker, but lime in a Sidecar? Bleah. What I don't understand is why she minimizes the role of orange liqueur in those cockails. Orange liqueur is an important part of both. One way to think about these recipes is to combine the triple sec and simple syrup into what would be an ounce and a quarter of low intensity, low alcoholic strength, shitty quality "triple sec." If you think of it that way, the ratios aren't horrible. They're both just a bit sweeter than 2:1:1. THe problem is that they're both missing out on the orange. Do you suppose this is the author's attempt to "focus the drink on the base spirit"?

Great article! And great to see that they actually tasted a spirit intended for chilling and mixing, well... chilled and mixed. I'll have more to say on this once I have a few more minutes, but there's one thing that puzzles me. The author makes a point of mentioning the higher proof gins, noting that Old Raj comes in at 110 proof and then saying that "Tanqueray and Tanqueray No. 10 at 94.6 proof were the next highest." Except he forgot Junípero, which is 98.6 proof. This must be an error in his notes, because the ratings section has it at only 86 proof. I was happy to see Plymouth and Junípero rated so highly, although I was surprised that Tanqueray wasn't more appealing. I was also quite surprised to see Old Raj rating so highly. I may have to try that one again.

The Webtender Wiki entry I linked to gives a recipe from 1895 for the drink with simple syrup instead of either maraschino or curaçao (but calls for orange bitters), and another 1895 recipe that specifies curaçao. I'm not disagreeing that we know of this mostly as a drink with maraschino, I'm just pointing out that the versions with curaçao instead of maraschino predate the 20th century. I wouldn't assume that the cocktailDB recipe dates from a time when maraschino was scarse in US bars (indeed, I assume quite the opposite). And I don't think the option was added editorially by them. To the best of my knowledge, they indicate substitutions and options only where they are found in the source recipes (they unfortunately don't give source information in their entries). If you would like to make a substitution in a recipe where none was indicated in the source material, you have to click the link for that spirit and read the entry to see their suggestions. With respect to maraschino, I think it's worthy of note that the best they can do is an "imperfect substitute."

Peas, mint, butter lettuce, chicken stock. Cook peas in just enough chicken stock to cook them through (fresh peas take a lot more cooking), reduce chicken stock until it is almost a glaze, add mint and lettuce, wilt, eat. Spring on a plate. Peas with béchamel, the meat of your choice, a little grating cheese and some undercooked ziti baked together in the oven is very nice.

Oh, it's an even larger difference than that, IMO. Several years ago, Fat Guy and I did a hamburger experiment where we were trying out different fat contents and different mixtures of beef cuts. We ground everything to order in my meat grinder. We also had bought one package of high-quality preground beef that had recently come out of the grinder as a "control." When we tried a bite of that burger, after having tried small bites of maybe a dozen different burger iterations we had ground to order, we both immediately spit it out and started laughing. Once we were used to the flavor of the fresh ground beef, something tasted horribly off about the preground stuff. It was a familiar taste (the taste of oxidation) that ordinarily wouldn't have bothered us. But the contrast was striking.

Actually, I think some of the oldest recipes don't call for maraschino, and some of them do call for curaçao. JT's recipe calls for 2 ounces of (red) vermouth, one of Old Tom gin, 2 dashes of maraschino (let's call that a teaspoon) and a dash Boker's -- this is interesting because it is a vermouth drink, not a gin drink. Other recipes (see here for some historical examples) call for equal parts of (London dry?) gin and vermouth, a few dashes of bitters and either simple syrup or, you guessed it, curaçao. In some recipes (like this one) it's maraschino that's given as the optional liqueur, and curaçao that's given as standard.

Not exactly. It's not the temperature control that makes it sous vide. You could cook a piece of beef at 54.4C for by simply having it sit in the water bath. This would not be sous vide. What makes it sous vide is that the food is cooked in a sealed container usually a plastic bag) from which all the air has been evacuated. It just so happens that precise temperature control is one of the things that makes sous vide cooking so interesting, but it's not required. You could vacuum-seal food into a bag and cook it in simmering water on the stove if you wanted to. This would be sous vide cooking. There are other things we may sometimes do with our sous vide equipment that are technically not sous vide cooking (for example, pre-cooking vegetables in an open container at a precice temperature to deactivate a certain enzyme). The big difference is that the contents of the crock pot are not under vacuum. This means that certain flavors will be created/eliminated/not retained due to the exposure to oxygen and relative open-ness to the air. In practical terms, crock pots simply do not have the temperature stability, precision and range of temperatures that we would like to have to do the most interesting things with sous vide. There is no cooking tough cuts of beef for 48 hours at 55C in a crock pot. With respect to heat-transfer, if the food is in a container, then heat is only being transferred into one part of the food item. Relatively little heat is conducted into the part that is not touching a surface of the container. When the food is vacuum-sealed in a pouch, heat is conducted into all parts of the food item.

Yea, that's what I'd be likely to do with a thicker cut of beef. Skirt steaks are so thin and cook so fast that there wouldn't be any time for basting (they probably spend 2 minutes in the pan).

It was smokey, sure. But there's smoke when I'm cooking steaks no matter what. What I did was toss in the frozen chunk of duck fat and then almost immediately drop in the steaks. This seems like a good technique to avoid burning the fat. There were no burnt flavors.

The other night I was making dinner for the future Mrs. slkinsey: pan-fried skirt steak, baby carrots glazed with homemade beef glace, scallion mashed potatoes. As is my wont, I slapped a heavy copper skillet on the old Crapmaster 9000 NYC apartment stove, turned it up full blast and left it there for around five to seven minutes to get screaming hot. The idea is to blast a nice crust on the outside of the steaks while keeping the inside nicely rare. Ordinarily I'd drop in a little grapeseed oil, because it has a high smoke point. For some reason, I decided to reach into the vast collection of rendered animal fats I have in the freezer and toss in a chunk of duck fat instead. Holy crap, what a difference! It wasn't so much that the steaks tasted like duck, but rather that they tasted even more beefy and savory somehow. Using duck fat and other rendered animal fats with vegetables is relatively old hat, I know. Roasted potatoes, sauteed greens, even biscuits made with duck fat are familiar uses. But I hadn't thought that using duck fat as the cooking medium for even short-term cooking of meat would make such a dramatic difference. I've since experimented with using duck fat to cook other meats, and so far it has always been a success -- even with fish, which I've tried both in the pan and sous vide with duck fat. Right now I'm long-cooking a beef foast sous vide with nothing in the bag but beef, salt and a tablespoon of duck fat. The result should be interesting. Who else likes cooking with duck fat?

A few points: Kirschwasser is not an acceptable substitute for maraschino Maraschino is a distilled spirit of the whole cherry. Luxardo pits the cherries, distills the pits and fruit separately, combines them later, ages for 2 years in larch wood vats, adds sugar and dilutes to bottle proof. I don't know whether Maraska has a similar or equivalent process. I wouldn't say that the main difference between kirschwasser and maraschino is that one is a distilled spirit and one is a liqueur. They are both distilled spirits. Maraschino is sweetened and diluted, and maraschino also uses the pits. Kirschwasser is dry and high proof, and I'm not aware of any kirschwasser that actively distills the pits as is done for maraschino. Erik, I see where you're going by likening the difference to the difference between scotch and Drambuie, but it's really a different kind of difference. Drambuie starts off with scotch, then it is infused with herbs and sweetened. Maraschino starts off as a completely different spirit (I don't think an unaged, unsweetened maraschino would taste like kirschwasser), and is simply sweetened without the any flavorings being added. Unfortunately for those who can't get it, there really is no acceptable substitute for maraschino liqueur. Fortunately for those of us who can get it, this is because it is such a distinctive and unique product.

1. Sea salts and salt grinder/mill Sea salt can be found most anywhere. Zabar's, Kalustyan's, Citarella, Fairway, etc. Salt mills, I'd check Zabar's. 2. Montasio cheese Fairway, Murray's, Zabar's 3. Chestnut flour I think you can get this at Citarella. Also possibly at Fairway or Zabar's. I'm sure you can get it at Buon Italia in the Chelsea Markets (more on this below). 4. Specialty bakeware Bridge Kitchenware and JB Prince (both aimed at the industry), Zabar's. It's funny that you say this because the last time I was in Buon Italia, I also wondered the same thing. I did find chestnut flour there, but the reason I decided to ask for another source is because I didn't really care for the overall "feel" of the market - it just didn't seem "fresh." I did, however, check the sell-by date on the back of the package to make sure the flour wasn't overdue or near-overdue.I'm not sure I'd buy produce or a perishable cheese at Buon Italia. But in terms of perishable items, I've bought plenty of flour there (both 00 and chestnut) and I've bought plenty of salumi there (guanciale, etc.), and it's always been in good condition. Mostly, however, I use Buon Italia to buy non-perishable items like dry pasta (they have the best deals in the City on artisanal dry pasta) and jarred goods. I avoid the cheese case anyway, because I can do so much better in other shops. It's not a fancy place, but don't let that put you off.

With aluminum you'll eventually get some pitting from the dishwasher. This is largely cosmetic, but will also make the cooking surface more sticky.

I agree it's a very low risk. But why pay all that extra money for the privilege of finding out?

That's my own expanded definition from one of my posts above. I mean, what makes heads and tails "offal"? (I'm actually not sure I think oxtails are offal. Pig tails, yes. But there's plenty of muscle meat on a big oxtail.) Why is the head offal and not the neck? Well, because the head is comprised mostly of connective tissue, skin, sinew, and little bits of meat that can't easily be eaten. If you're eating tête de veau, you're picking at little bits of stuff. On the other hand, if you can pull off a piece of the cheek in one relatively large "steak" you've got a nice big piece of muscle meat, no picking required. It just requires a little flexibility in thinking about what goes into these definitions. In a way, it goes back to the earlier "waste" idea of "offal." The muscle meat was considered the "best part" of the animal that went to the people with money. If you were the owner of the pig or cow, you probably didn't care what happened to the other stuff. Throw it away for all you care. The "secondary products" consisted largely of the organs, but would also include blood, skin, and the portions of muscle meat that were considered unacceptably low in quality because they were full of tendons and cartilage, tough, full of fiddly little bones, had to be picked off of the skull or boiled away and made into a terrine as a way of using every last bit of the animal, etc. To a rich person in those days (and, hey, to a lot of people today in any socioeconomic class) those parts would all be considered "waste." This pretty much accords with the OED definition you quoted above: "parts which are cut off in dressing" being the "greasy picky bits" of the carcass, and entrails and organs being... well, entrails and organs. However, to continue exploring the definition, if the beef cheeks are cut off and reserved separately, they are not "cut off in dressing." I can't imagine that Larousse, if presented with a stew made of beef cheeks and another made of beef chuck would, upon tasting them, proclaim the former "offal" and the later "not offal."

I can't figure out where you're getting that from, in terms of any of the definitions above. The way I read it, OED seems to be saying pretty much what Larousse is saying. Because, when the cheek is prepared part of the whole head, I would call it a "hard to get greasy little bit or otherwise challenging small pieces of muscle meat associated with lots of connective tissue" because that's what the head mostly is made of. Similarly, although veal neck isn't considered offal, if the head was boiled together with part of the neck and presented at the table, I'd consider it to be an offal dish. When it is a cow or large pig it is possible to remove the cheek meat in one relatively large piece. Beef cheeks, in particular, can be quite large and steak-like in aspect (look here for a picture of a beef cheek, and you'll see what I mean). In my opinion, there is nothing offal-like about a braised beef cheek stew, and I wouldn't consider this an offal dish. Braised beef head stew, on the other hand, is offal-like, and I would consider it an offal dish.

The OED says that the oldest meanings had to do with scraps, chips and refuse (as in wood shavings or metal filings). Here's what they have next: One of the earliest reference quotes they give (c. 1420) refers to "tho offal and tho lyver of a swan," supporting their observation that the term originally referred to the intestines (entrails) only. Their modern definition would seem to support my idea that offal equals non-muscle meat and "hard to get greasy little bits" or otherwise challenging small pieces of muscle meat associated with lots of connective tissue. That would mean, for example: Pig cheek as part of a whole boiled pig's head? Offal. Separated and cured/fried or braised pig cheek? Not offal. (I'm not sure I personally agree with their inclusion of the tongue with offal, but accept that it is often considered such.)

I think that if you cooked a beef or pork cheek, or a tongue, and sliced it up for someone... most people would not consider it offal. I think very few would even be able to tell you that it's any different from "regular meat." Some people may not like it or might be squeamish about it, but some people are squeamish about chicken thighs. I mean, if pork cheeks are offal, then what about pork belly? Does turning a pork cheek into guanciale make it no longer offal? Does turning a pork belly into bacon make it no longer offal?

I'm not sure I agree that it changes with the times. Fundamentally you have two parts of the animal: muscle meat and other stuff. The other stuff is offal. So, for example, there was a time when skirt steak wasn't eaten much in America. Then, as America discovered fajitas, and now it's very popular. But it was always meat. An expanded definition of offal might also include "little greasy bits of muscle meat that are hard to get out in one appetizingly large piece." To make a few examples: Tongue? Not offal. Beef and pork cheeks? Not offal. Trotters? Not offal. Marrow? Offal. Sweetbreads? Offal. Liver? Offal. Mousse de foie gras? Offal. Here are some things I've written in other threads that are pertinent to this discussion: <blockquote>I'd say that the easiest definition of offal would be the "fifth quarter" -- which is to say, all the stuff that's left over after the animal is separated into the four primary quarters of muscle meat. This would include the organs and glands, of course, but would also include things like tendons, blood, ears, nervous tissue, etc. -- and, of course, the products made from them, like scrapple, blood sausage, haggis, pate, pölsa, etc.</blockquote> I had originally included feet and head in the above, but I'm not sure I agree with that anymore. The meat that comes from feet and heads is all just meat, and not offal. I wouldn't consider a boiled pig's trotter to be offal. Products made by boiling whole feet or a whole head, known by names like testa, head cheese, souse meat, etc., might be considered offal under the expended definition. <blockquote>The 1828 Webster's dictionary defines offal as: "Waste meat; the parts of an animal butchered which are unfit for use or rejected." The current (10th) edition of Webster's has it as: "1 : the waste or by-product of a process: as a : trimmings of a hide b : the by-products of milling used especially for stock feeds c : the viscera and trimmings of a butchered animal removed in dressing : VARIETY MEAT" The Online Etymology Dictionary gives the word origins as: "1398, "waste parts, refuse," from off + fall; the notion being that which "falls off" the butcher's block; perhaps a translation of M.Du. afval."</blockquote> I think it's entirely possible for a food to be both offal and an expensive luxury ingredient.

The 1828 Webster's dictionary defines offal as: "Waste meat; the parts of an animal butchered which are unfit for use or rejected." The current (10th) edition of Webster's has it as: "1 : the waste or by-product of a process: as a : trimmings of a hide b : the by-products of milling used especially for stock feeds c : the viscera and trimmings of a butchered animal removed in dressing : VARIETY MEAT" The Online Etymology Dictionary gives the word origins as: "1398, "waste parts, refuse," from off + fall; the notion being that which "falls off" the butcher's block; perhaps a translation of M.Du. afval."