slkinsey

Hi freshherbs. I'm a little curious as to a) why one might want a vodka with subtle whiskey notes instead of whiskey (or, perhaps, do-it-yourself vodka with 2% rye mixed in), and b) how those notes might find their way into the vodka.

Well, you can use some kind of emulsifier to stabilize it. But you're going to get some thickening if you do, and it will go opaque. It'll become like a garlic/soy/oil mayonnaise. There's no way around that. If you want it to have the lighter, more runny texture of a salad dressing, there's no way it'll stay mixed for more than a short period. It is the nature of this kind of dressing (just like oil/vinegar salad dressing) that it separates after a while. Nothing to be done about it except to stir the bowl of dipping sauce before you dip. FWIW, separation seems to be fairly traditional. I don't recall seeing a dumpling sauce that stayed mixed. On the other hand, you may simply be using too much sesame oil. It's so strong, I don't see any need to use so much that it would even make an oil slick. A few drops on the surface will generally suffice, and this seems standard. What about adding a little bit of something like peanut butter or sesame paste? Then, if you whizz the whole thing around for a while in a blender or miniprep, it ought to stay mixed for quite some time.

I thought I'd add info to the pile with some stuff I wrote back in aught-five in response to a discussion having to do with emulsifiers. . . * * * Many people misunderstand what an emulsion is. For example, I recall hearing of a deviled egg recipe in which the cooks described the hard-cooked yolk puree as being "emulsified with duck fat." People also sometimes speak of things like béchamel as being an "emulsion." This is a misunderstanding of emulsification. What is an emulsion? An emulsion is a mixture of two immiscible liquids.* If you ain't got two immiscible liquids, you ain't got an emulsion. But that's not all. An emulsion combines the two immiscible liquids such that one liquid is colloidally dispersed in the other. These are called the dispersed phase and the continuous phase, respectively. In emulsions, the main stabilizing force is electrostatic stabilization, which is is based on the mutual repulsion of like electrical charges. An emulsifier is simply something that stabilizes an emulsion. Looking at the example of béchamel, it would be incorrect to think of this as an emulsion. I don't think starch emulsifies the fat and water so much as it thickens the whole deal. It would not be correct, I think, to describe a béchamel as "a fat phase colloidally dispersed in a water phase" because that substantially misses the point. An emulsion is, by definition, a kind of colloid. In a colloid small droplets or particles of one substance, generally between one nanometer and one micrometer in size, are dispersed in another substance. Milk is already a colloid. So is cream. So is butter. In fact, these are all emulsions -- colloidal dispersions of one liquid phase inside of another. Where does this bring us with respect to starch-thickened sauces like bechamel? Well, we said it right there: starch thickened. It's not like we can add a tiny bit of starch to butter and milk and voila! an emulsion. In fact, we don't need to use starch at all. Toss some milk and butter into a homogenizer and you'll end up with cream. Perfectly stable as long as the relationship between the fat (dispersed phase) and water (continuous phase) remains within the proper tolerances. With a starch thickened sauce, rather, it is the starch that does the thickening. The sauce doesn't become thick, homogenous and stable unless enough starch is added. I wouldn't describe bechamel as "fat (butter) dispersed in water (milk) and stabilized by starch." What we have in bechamel is a solid phase (the starch granules) dispersed within a liquid phase (water) with some other stuff in the game (fat, salt, nutmeg, etc.). This is known as a sol, not an emulsion. Bechamel is thus related to paint rather than mayonnaise in the colloidal sense. * When classifying colloids we have the following dispersed/continuous phases: gas/liquid = foam; gas/solid = solid foam; liquid/gas = liquid aerosol; liquid/liquid = emulsion; liquid/solid = gel; solid/gas = solid aerosol; solid/liquid = sol; solid/solid = solid sol. There is no gas/gas colloid, because gasses are mutually soluble.

Well, for sure they're not as good at browning. Anyone who has cooked in nonstick will tell you that. You're also limited as to the temperatures you can use (too high damages the coating).

I saw "latke chips" in the grocery store last night.

I get most of my sour cream/crème fraîche by taking Ronnybrook heavy cream I know I won't be able to finish (they're known to give out the occasional pint or two to steady customers at the greenmarkets) and innoculating it with a little yogurt of buttermilk. After that, it keeps more or less indefinitely in the back of the frigde -- just whip it up when you're ready to use it. If you want a more sour cream-like texture, thicken it before use with some strained Greek yogurt.

Right. I believe that the max you can hope for out of a still would be an azeotropic solution of 96% alcohol and 4% water.

Lupa is practically around the corner from Pegu Club.

Yea, that's why I am coveting and not gloating. Maybe Santa will be kind this year I run a couple of Cuisinart slow cookers now. I am starting to appreciate wanting to skip the brown and transfer step in the process. What I understand from reading the materials, the browning step still happens on the stovetop. It's just that it happens in the (nonstick-coated cast aluminuim) insert rather than in a separate pan. The hot insert still has to be carried over to the slow cooker and placed inside after the food is browned on the stovetop. So it's not as though the cooker is turned up to a high temperature for browning inside the unit, and then turned down to slow-cooking temperature.

Really? I've seen the odd bottle of Parfait Amour at UWS liquor stores of no particular distinction. Sherry-Lehmann does have a good selection, although their prices are among the highest and they tend to be not so great for high quality mixing ingredients. They do seem to be the place to go for things like cognac and agmagnac, though. Another expensive store with lots of high-end spirits is the Park Avenue Liquor Shop, which is ironically located on Madison Avenue. They have one of the best selections of single malt scotch in the City, and many high-end bourbons, ryes, etc.

This came up in another thread recently. Here's my response from there: You could substitute "wine" or "grape must" or "beer" or "fermented potato" or even "wood shavings" for "molasses" and the example would still hold true. Also, for the record, Ciroc is not produced from a base of grappa, which is distilled grape pomace (aka rsidue from wine-making, including mostly grape skns, but also stems, seeds and some residual wine), but rather from a base of fermented grapes (aka wine). The reason to do multiple distillation (aka rectification) is to remove the non-ethyl alcohol components of the distillate. The first time something goes through the still, it's full of ethyl acetate, ethyl lactate, fusel oils like 1-propanol, 2-propanol, butanol, amyl alcohol and furfural, methanol and other such things. There are ways to minimize the presence of these components, such as only saving the "heart" of the run and all that, but it's pretty much impossible to run something through a still the first time and end up with 96% ethyl alcohol and 4% water. So, one thing you can do is dilute the results of the first run and shoot it through the still a second (third, fourth, etc.) time. Since the distillation in the subseqent runs starts out with a much smaller concentration of "undesirable" components, the methods used to avoid these components will produce increasingly smaller concentrations. Think of it like cleaning a dirty window. The first time you spray on the cleaner and wipe down the window, there will still be plenty of dirty streaks left on the glass. The second time you spray on the cleaner and wipe down the window, using the same procedure as before, most of the dirt is gone. But there is still some left. After a total of 4 wipe-downs, the window is completely clean. In making vodka, most makers take this an even further step by running the finished distillate through a filter. Note that I put the word "undesirable" in quotations. These components are undesirable in vodka for sure, but not necessarily in other spirits. The catch-22 is that in removing these components, one necessarily also removes virtually all of the characteristic and distinctive aroma and flavor components of the raw material. There are also non-rectificatio/filtration methods of removing some of these components that actually add flavor, such as aging in wood. Vodka made from apples, for example, will not have a particularly "apple like" flavor or aroma. This doesn't mean that vodkas made from different raw ingredients don't have certain characteristics that distinguish them, but they are minute, subtle differences. In addition, many of these differences are not actually due to differences in raw materials. One extremely well-kept secret of the vodka industry is that, after all the rectification and filtration strip away virtually any distinctive characteristics of the vodka, the makers are allowed to "add back in" tiny amounts of flavoring and aroma chemicals as well as mouthfeel enhancers like glycerin. So that "heavy mouthfeel and subtle hint of vanilla" of such-and-such vodka very likely doesn't come from their use of organic fingerling potatoes, 97 times distillation and filtration through the Shroud of Turin, but rather from the chemist's bottle.

Hmmm. I wonder if I could do this in the oven in a tagine...

Sweet! Can I cut it in half to look at the bottom part?

Whoa. For that price, I think I'll stick with browning the meat on the stove and transferring to the slow cooker. As chance would have it, I've been using my slow cookers more often receltly. Turned a pork butt into ragu, cooked many kinds of dry beans, and have used it to make tinga (chicken thighs cooked with chipotle, tomato and onion, then shredded).

The best place to go in Manhattan for selection and price is the Astor Place area. You can hit Astor Wines & Spirits at 399 Lafayette (at 4th Street). Then, cross 4th Street to Broadway and go uptown a block or two to Warehouse Wines & Spirits at 735 Broadway(between Waverly and 8th). These two are close enough together that you can actually do some comparison shopping on price. Warehouse, for example, has the best prices I've seen on Cointreau. After that, if you're still shopping, go up Broadway to 14th Street, take a left and go a few blocks West to Crossroads Wines & Liquors at 55 West 14th Street (between 5th and 6th).

Tim, I don't have much doubt that they make 2.0 mm copper/0.5 mm stainless cookware. I do, however, have serious doubt that they have further slapped a 3.2 mm disk of copper on the bottom of said 2.0 mm copper/0.5 mm stainless cookware. All you need to make a pan work with induction, by the way, is a thin layer of magnetic steel. There is no reason why Inocuivre Induction would need, or benefit from an extra copper disk on the bottom in the context of induction heating. The easiest thing to do would be to slap a 0.5 mm layer of magnetic steel on the outside of the pan and have done with it.

Tim: can you provide a link to the info on De Buyer's web site? I didn't find anything like that there.

That certainly sounds right to me, although that seems to describe the perfect crumb for most any vaguely "country style" bread. More to the point, IMO you want a very open crumb with lots of big holes evenly distributed through the bread. I've just reactivated my Bahrain culture from Sourdoughs International and will be making a few no-knead boules soon.

De Buyer's Inoxcuivre line is made in a variety of weights and thicknesses, but I have never seen anything indicating the specifications you are citing. The "Inocuivre Induction" line seems to simply have an additional base of magnetic steel. It doesn't seem credible that you could have bought cookware that truly had these specifications (including a base with 5.2 mm of copper!) for what would be described as "almost nothing." Such a pan would be among the most expensive on the market, simply due to the cost of the materials. Unfortunately, a lot of cookware sellers and stores promote bogus specifications.

I would suggest that what makes vodka "vodka" is not the raw materials that are used, but rather the degree to which distinctive and characteristic flavor/aroma/etc. are removed by the extremely high distillation proof, filtration, etc. This is to say that a spirit made of fermented molasses that was distilled to an azeotropic solution of alcohol and water at 192 proof, rectified through several subsequent distillations, filtered through quartz and/or activated charcoal, and then diluted with water to a bottle proof of 40% alcohol would not be "rum" due to the fact that the raw material was molasses. It would be "vodka" due to the process used in making it and the end result.

I can't let this one pass. I assume/hope it's hyperbole, but would anyway like to point out that it's a ridiculous assertion if not deliberate hyperbole. There are plenty of peoples throughout history who have subsisted largely on food products made of white flour, so it is incorrect on its face to say that it has no nutritional value. As to whether it "destroys blood chemistry," I've never seen anything with any credibility whatsoever to suggest such a thing. Here are some interesting and relevant quotes from "On Food and Cooking" (1st Ed):

One of the most interesting tidbits from the kitchen tour was learned when I asked about what kinds of adjustments they had had to make in opening a reataurant in America and New York City as opposed to their usual UK stomping grounds. I was expecting to hear something about using different provisioners and ingredients, or changing things to account for the NYC palate, etc. No... the first thing that came to his mind was that they had to be a lot nicer to the personnel in the kitchen, that the strong language and rough-and-tumble of their UK kitchens simply wouldn't fly here.

Dude. Seriously. The next time we go to NGB, let's see if we can take a peek into the kitchen. Then let's see if we're willing to ever go back after that.

You make some interesting points, Steven. Like yourself, I have had the opportunity to see plenty of food preparation areas in your three categories. If I had to pick one as the cleanest of the three, it would be the kitchen of a well-run McDonald's. If I had to pick one as the dirtiest of the three, it would be the kitchen of a lowbrow to middlebrow sit-down restaurant. Sure, the kitchens at Per Se and ADNY look like operating suites on the Starship Enterprise, but the kitchens of $20 - $50 places are frequently appalling. And I don't know about you, but I never want to see the kitchen at, say, New Green Bo. What makes the fast food places like Taco Bell much more dangerous from a food safety standpoint compared to a "Chez Annie's Basil Grill" is that Taco Bell is likely getting all their beef from one processing plant, all their scallions from one grower, all their sour cream from one dairy, etc. -- and they're storing it all in one place as well. So, if any one of these products or processors or storage facilities becomes a source of contamination, that contamination goes out to a zillion Taco Bell restaurants and a lot of people get sick. One way to prevent this -- and if I were a betting man I'd put money on this becoming SOP within a decade -- would be for Taco Bell's storage and shipping facilities to incorporate irradiation capabilities. That way, all the scallions (for example) at the holding and distribution facility would be sealed in airtight plastic for transportation, and before they were released from the facility all the boxes of sealed-up scallions would be irratiated. That would go a long way towards eliminating a major potential contamination risk, and would have the added benefit of giving the food products a longer shelf life.

Okay, cool. Important question: What's the tannin presence like in the syrup?