slkinsey

Well, I was speaking of the whole sous-vide shebang which, to my mind, has to include the precise temperature control. Simply boiling something in a bag doesn't seem to offer the home cook too many advantages over non-bagged methods. Puisque nous écrivons en Anglais, nous pouvons dire "quotidian," en Anglais, au lieu de "quotidien," en Français.

The point of cutting against the grain is to sever the muscle fibers into managable pieces. Otherwise the meat ends up tough and stringy.

Could you describe your turkey meatloaf procedure? I assume the point of doing it with turkey and sous vide is to make it lower in fat? Ground turkey always ends up so dry, and I've been trying to figure out a way to make turkey meatloaf that doesn't turn out like a pencil eraser.

Prices vary widely depending on condition and technology. I got mine fully cleaned and reconditioned for around $500. But they can be had uncleaned and un-reconditioned for less, and in anolog for a lot less.

The only curcumstance in which a salt mill makes any sense at all is to dispense superfine sea salt when seasoning to individual tastes at the table. Preground superfine salt has a tendency to clump in the shaker unless it is combined with an anticaking agent like sodium alumino-silicate. These anticaking agents are not usually used in superfine salts (they're usually found only in regular table salt size), and also some people don't like the flavor of the anticaking agents or the added potassium iodide. Also, it is very easy to control the "dose" of salt with a salt mill whereas salt shakers can be extremely variable in that regard, being especially prone to pouring out too much superfine salt per "shake."

Hmm. I always thought "boar taint" was what they made sausage out of.

Now that we have a number of home cooks who have invested in various levels of sous vide technology, I'm wondering how often we use our machines and for what purpose. Sure, it's great that we can make those 48 hour short ribs and salmon mi cuit and all that, but these aren't the kinds of projects one is likely to do on a weekly basis. Lately, I've been using my rig (Lauda digital recirculating water bath heater, 5 gallon stock pot, FoodSaver Professional III) to make lunchmeat for the week. I'll pick up a turkey or chicken breast, a pork loin, a brisket, beef roast, or whatever looks good and is on sale, vacuum bag it with salt and whatever other flavorings suit my fancy, cook it in the water bath as appropriate, toss the bag into an ice bath to cool down and then into the fridge. I usually do this on Sunday evenings, and on Monday morning I pull the bag out of the fridge, slice up the meat, and I have incredible sandwich meat for the rest of the week. This is not only a huge savings over buying sandwich meat at the deli counter, but there's just no way Boar's Head can ever compete with what I can make at home. What's nice also is that it's a complete snap to do sous vide -- easier than any other method, really. Anyone else use their sous vide setup for mundane everyday stuff like that?

While this is often true, I wouldn't say that it's universally true. For example, the music critic for the Boston Globe more or less ran conductor Erich Leinsdorf out of town. I suppose one could also say that Mimi's right, if her point is that Bruni has the last word with respect to his validation of Chodorow's work.

Of course he's in it for the money. Ultimately, they're all in it for the money. If there's one measure that the culinary arts haven't reached the same level as the classical arts, it's that people aren't willing to do it as a money-losing venture just so it can be done. I'd say that what's reasonable is whatever one plans to make on these ventures. I'm quite sure that Chodorow has charted out what he feels would be an reasonably good return on this investment.

While we're taking exception to points, I'd like to point out my disagreement with this last one: This is the kind of nose-thumbing closing of ranks I've always found distasteful in reviewers of all stripes. No, in fact, the press do not always have the last word. If that were true, then the highly-reviewed restaurants and movies and musicals and novels (etc.) would be the ones to succeed while the lower-reviewed ones failed. Needless to say, this is not, nor has it ever been the case. All too frequently, it is exactly the opposite. If Kobe Club maintains reasonably good profitability for a reasonably long lifespan for this type of restaurant, Frank Bruni will not have had the last word.

Or, rather, Jerry Thomas said it was invented by Santina and we accept this. Since I think the JT recipe is the earliest of which we are aware, I'm not sure what basis you have for asserting that it does not reflect the formulation and practice of crafting that cocktail at the time Jerry Thomas set it down, other than your own supposition. If you have other evidence, then by all means trot it out and let's talk about it. Questioning is good. But just because one has questions doesn't mean the JT recipe should be tossed aside and disregarded. If it's the best we have, and we have no meaningful or contemporaneous contradictory information, claims or practices, I don't see why we wouldn't go with this recipe. I also don't quite get your assertion that Thomas's Crusta formulation and instructions had little influence on subsequent authors. On the contrary, most of them seem remarkably in line with Thomas's formulation and instructions, especially with respect to the frosted rim and the use of a large piece of lemon peel lining the inside of the glass, except for the introduction of maraschino. Didn't you yourself add information to your beloved webtender wiki with a 1941 recipe which specifies "peel the rind in one piece ... then fit the lemon peel inside the glass"? Have you ever had a Crusta made this way? Having had many with the full lemon peel, I can attest that it is a different experience altogether compared to the drink without -- and yes, this does include flavor, although that is by no means the only difference. You mean this stuff? A linoleum-like decorative wall covering invented in 1877? Why?

Notwithstanding Embury's opinion, I have always preferred younger apple brandies. The younger ones taste more of apples, whereas the older specimens taste more of "aged spirits" and wood.

What Dave said. That the lemon peel is an important and integral part of the Crusta seems self-evident from the instructions and illustration in JT's book. I hardly see how anyone could think otherwise.

There's nothing wrong with buying a reasonably cheap nonstick or French steel omelette pan. They make great omelets and they're cheap. I prefer a straight gauge design for frypans.

Exactly. The flavor is completely different. That's why pomegranate molasses is not a good substitute for grenadine.

Steeping/boiling tobacco tends to kill the people who drink the water due to nicotine poisoning. Eating tobacco tends to produce a very upset stomach, and can also kill you in fairly small amounts. With either way, its pretty easy to take in enough nicotine to make you very sick.

Heh. I can remember hearing about some friends of the family who returned from a trip in Italy and remarked, "it was a good time, but the Italian food was unrelenting."

Hmm. That's true, I guess. Although I'd argue that rye and cognac have much wider applicability in cocktails compared to cachaca. I also don't think it makes much sense to make a Manhattan or Sazerac with, e.g., Rittenhouse 21 except as a "once in a blue moon" special treat. They're awesome, but not that much better than the same drink made with the regular bonded version. If you're interested, you can get a bottle or Busnel, which is the calvados with which Audrey created the drink, for around 25 bucks. Hmm. I think it has a whole lot more "applejack flavor," which I suppose isn't quite the same thing as "apple flavor." But there is unquestionably a huge difference in intensity of flavor between the two. Anyway, I'd be interested to see how you think the bonded applejack shows in your typical blended applejack cocktails if you make your own "blended" by using half bonded applejack and half vodka. Yea. Most of those ones, if I am not mistaken, were formulated back in the days when you could only get the blended version. They work great, so no reason to reformulate. But I wonder how many people with access to both are developing new recipes with the blended stuff. I know that back when I was playing "Johnny Bonded Applejack-Seed" and giving out bottles of the then-unavailable bonded stuff to my NYC 'tender friends, they tended to disappear in very short order. This is not to say, of course, that there aren't any possible applications where the milder blended stuff isn't better. Similarly, I prefer the less emphatic profile of Old Overholt over Rittenhouse bonded in certain cocktails. But I guess I just love bonded applejack so much I've never had a cocktail with blended that I wouldn't prefer with bonded.

I've tried the Bitter Truth OFW at Pegu, and the general consensus seemed to be that it tasted like soap. Or was it bath beads? Bathroom cleaner? I can't remember. Something having to do with the bathroom, I think. Anyway, "this tastes good" or "I'll start using this over Monteux" was never heard. I know that. Besides, I'm not sure why you'd want to move away from Monteux, which is a great product that kind of defines the standard.

Having made many of these in my time, I'd have to disagree. A caipirinha made with Fazenda Mae de Ouro is about fifty times better than one made with Pitu (and for not that much more money per bottle either, in absolute terms). Not that much more money per bottle? Pitu is something like 13 bucks for a liter. Fazenda Mae de Ouro is something like 28 bucks a liter. That's a pretty big difference in my book. Now, I do agree that MdO is far superior, and that Pitu is pretty rank. I'd love to do a side-by-side tasting of caipirinhas made with $28/liter MdO and $15/liter Velho Barreiro to see if there really is a 13 dollar difference. In my book, anything up to 5 bucks a liter is a small enough difference that it really doesn't make sense not to spend more money if the more expensive spirit is higher in quality. Anything over a $10/liter price difference, and I'll do some serious thinking about whether the difference in quality is worth the difference in price in the context of the cocktails I am likely to make. This consideration is, obviously, also affected by absolute price below a certain price point. I am not likely to think twice about buying a 17 dollar bottle of whiskey over a 6 dollar bottle of whiskey. But I am likely to think twice about buying a 28 dollar bottle of whiskey over a 17 dollar bottle of whiskey, if the 17 dollar bottle is already pretty good. I might have to disagree with that too. (Contrarian I am today!) I keep both around for drinks, because I actually tend to think the bonded packs a bit too much oomph for certain cocktails. The Jack Rose? No question; the bonded's edge is practically required to balance the drink correctly, and its assertiveness is nicely showcased. For various other cocktails (especially for substituting applejack for VSOP calvados in, say, a Tantris sidecar) I find that the regular bottling works better. Hmm. I can think of very few applications for which I would prefer the blended Laird's, and fewer still I couldn't do a little better than blended by tempering some bonded applejack with vodka. As for your Tantris Sidecar example, that makes some sense to me. But that's because this particular cocktail really needs the suave cognac-like smoothness of calvados instead of the rough whiskey-like bite of applejack. By going with the blended Laird's, you're dialing way back on applejack's whiskey tendencies. So it's a better fit in that regard. But, you're also losing out on a lot of apple flavor. Neither one is a very good solution, IMO. To my mind, it's use calvados or just don't make the Tantris Sidecar. I'm curious as to what other cocktails you like better with blended Lairds?

A common problem in America is confusing real Italian (or Chinese, Mexican, etc.) food with Italian-American (or American Chinese or Tex-Mex, etc.) food. When one goes to an "Italian" restaurant in America, the chances are around 99.9% that it is actually an Italian-American restaurant. Since so many Americans have come to associate "red sauce Italian-American" cooking with "Italian food," it's understandable how they wouldn't appreciate Tuscan cooking as "Italian food." Italian-American food is no more Italian cooking than Cajun food is French country cooking. They have evolved into something else. Something good, but something different.

A lot of this, I believe, stems from the vodka marketing campaigns that associate price and a fancy bottle with prestige and quality. But, if this thread is about anything, it's about the fact that price doesn't always equal the best quality when it comes to cocktails. Rather, it's about determining the right price point for cocktails. I wouldn't use Rittenhouse 21 (at $150 a bottle) in making a Brooklyn Cocktail. On the other hand, the dramatic quality difference between using Rittenhouse Bonded and Jim Beam Rye more than makes up for the trifling $3-per-bottle price difference. Then again, as I mention upthread, the quality difference between Laird's Applejack (80 proof and blended with only around 30% apple brandy) and Laird's Bonded (100 proof and 100% apple brandy) is so striking and obvious that it makes the roughly $4-per-bottle price difference a no-brainer. This is perhaps the largest four dollar jump in quality in spirits.

This is, I think, an instance where the instructions don't quite tell you how to make the drink the right way. The whole point of the Crusta is that it has a) a sugared rim, and b) that the spiral cut of lemon peel goes all the way around the inside rim of the glass. Here is a picture of a modern Brandy Crusta from the good folks at the Museum of the American Cocktail. I think it shows how the lemon peel should be deployed. Over here is a good look at the image of the Brandy Crusta from JT's book. eG has a thread on the Crusta here. Not sure when people started adding Maraschino to the Crusta. It isn't in the recipe JT gives.

In what world are Gordon's and Old Overholt considered bad, unbalanced spirits? In my circles, they are considered absolutely first-rate spirits. If they made higher proof versions (say, 95 proof Gordon's and 100 proof Old Overholt), I'd probably use them both as my primary brands -- and I wouldn't be alone. I'm not really aware of any truly deplorable rye bottling. Probably Jim Beam rye occupies the lowest rung of that ladder, but even that is pretty good. As for gin, you've got to go a long way down from Gordon's before you get near the bottom. I'd like to see you make an outstanding Martini or Aviation with, say, Llord's Gin.

No, no, no! The Bitter Truth orange flower water is terrible! Stick with the Monteux brand. It is by far the best. For those of you who don't have any, the bottle looks like this. The French style is stronger, IMO (1.5 ounces seems like a lot -- 2 drops is normally enough for a Ramos Fizz). And the flavors are also somewhat different.