slkinsey
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Posts posted by slkinsey
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I'm having a hard time understanding why anyone would want to pay 150 bucks for a cast aluminum pot from All-Clad when you can get one at a hardware store for 10 bucks.
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I believe the classic ratio for a cappucino is approximately 2 fl oz espresso, 2 fl oz liquid milk, 2 fl oz foamed milk.
this isn't really the traditional cappuccino ratio - just something of a well propagated myth.
Most Italian cappuccinos are around 5 or 6 fluid ounces with only 1 fl oz of espresso.
I agree with the myth part, but I am not at all sure I agree with this second part. As it so happens, I've got a number of friends who own or manage restaurants in Italy. And as it also so happens, I've got a Rancilio at home. Various friends in Italy have, over the years, given me matched pairs of their branded espresso and cappuccino cups (most restaurants and bars use branded cups from their espresso supplier). I just spent a few minutes pouring water into them. Most of the Italian cups came in at around 5 ounces total volume. This means an approximately 4 ounce fill, which comes out to an ounce of espresso and at most three ounces of steamed milk.
I agree with the "myth statement" above because I believe that it isn't possible to separate foam from milk in properly steamed milk. It's all just wet, thickened, expanded, heated milk that pours out together. None of this raking the dry foam off the top of the pitcher. This all lines up with what kingseven says about the foaming technique.
Another reason, I believe, is that espresso in Italy is produced with the primary idea that it will be consumed as a straight shot. As a result, it will be smoother and sweeter with none of that "Starbucks bite" to cut through too much milk. This is especially true in the North where the preference is for a lighter roast. In the South, they like a much darker roast (and much more sugar!).
Finally, there is the simple fact that people in Italy care about it more, both the consumers and the producers. There are precious few places in America where you can get a first rate espresso -- hardly any in NYC. Maybe a handful. In Italy they're not all mind-blowing, but you'll find a pretty good caffè on just about every corner. Many people in Italy drink three or four shots of coffee every day, just stopping into a bar for a quick one. If the coffee isn't good, they will simply go down the street the next time. This is also dependent on a "foot traffic" kind of society. Italians aren't driving to a strip mall for coffee in a "to go" cup. It's the same kind of thing that keeps the ubiquitous neighborhood pizza joints at such a higher level in NYC than most other American cities: if the pizza is lame, people will simply walk to the pizzeria on the next block and the bad pizzeria will go out of business.
Ultimately, if the place isn't selling espresso you'd like to drink, it's unlikely that the cappuccino is going to be very good (impossible, I'd say). So that right there tells you that there isn't much good espresso to be had over here. Who likes Starbuck's espresso? Yuck! When you combine good espresso with a proper milk foaming technique and a higher percentage of (better) coffee in the drink, you get a much better cappuccino. That's how I make 'em at my house.
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The Jack Rose is also much, much better with Laird's bonded. Laird's didn't start making the blended stuff until the 70s sometime, so I think all the traditional applejack cocktails taste closer to what they were if made with the bonded stuff.
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The winners:
The Adult Film Starr (rum category) created by Sam Ross of Pegu Club
2 oz. Starr African Rum
1 oz. Fresh Lime Juice
1/2 oz. Licor 43
1/2 oz. Simple Syrup
3 pieces of cucumber
Nutmeg
In shaker, muddle cucumber, add all ingredients except for nutmeg and shake, strain over cracked ice in double rocks glass, garnish with cucumber spears and grated nutmeg.
The 1838 (rhum category) created by Bobby "G" Gleason of Harrah's Rio All Suite Hotel & Casino
1 1/4 oz Neisson Rhum Agricole Reserve Speciale
1/2 oz Yellow Chartreuse
1 1/2 oz Pineapple Juice
Juice of 1/2 Lime
Shake all ingredients in a cocktail shaker with ice until well blended. Strain into a double highball glass over loosely packed crushed ice. Garnish with a sugar cane stir stick and a pineapple parrot.
The Moda Martini (cachaça category) created by John Mautone of Dylan Prime
3 oz Beleza Pura Super Premium Cachaça
2 oz Cruzan Banana (or Raspberry) Rum
1 oz fresh lime juice
1/2 oz pineapple juice
Chill a martini glass. Combine all ingredients in a shaker with ice. Shake and strain into a martini glass. Garnish with a large mint leaf in the center of glass.
Lots of cool ingredients like Licor 42 and Yellow Chartreuse. The cachaça drink is gigantic, though: 6.5 ounces of liquid before shaking!
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There's your problem: MB Orange curaçao is sweeter than Grand Marnier and balances the drink differently. Afaik, Pegu Club's formula isn't exactly 4:1:1 -- I think it's a touch higher on the curaçao and lime -- but it's close.
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Chris, it sounds to me like it might have been created at your local.
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If I had discovered a trove of nine extremely rare "near-extinct" single malts, the very last thing I would consider doing is blending them together. Now, I'm not a total single malt snob (Compass Box makes some amazing blends), but to my mind this is like finding an amazing rare old Bordeaux in good condition and deciding to make "the world's most expensive sangria" with it. Well, maybe not quite that bad... but that's the idea.
Of course, if you only have 75 liters of these rare single malts all told, and you can blend them together along with 75 liters of neutral spirits and still charge twenty-seven large for 750 mils -- that's a pretty good racket.
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Well... here's the thing: There are times you shouldn't have to pay attention to prevent burning. This is generally during the "low/slow" part of the cooking process. You shouldn't have to pay attention to your slowly simmering tomato sauce to avoid a burn ring on the bottom. If that happens, the cookware is flawed. On the other hand, high heat searing/browning is one of those things where you do have to pay attention. If she burned in the Staub and not in the Le Creuset it is only because the Le Creuset takes so much longer to brown.
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With all due respect to Donna Deane of the LA Times, this comparison is so horribly flawed as to be worthless. Just to point out a few of the problems:
1. She did all the braising in the oven, which does much to mitigate Staub's advantage of having a heavier construction. It also more or less eliminates the function of the "basting spikes" by making the lid too hot (how will steam condense on a 225F hot metal lid?).
2. She compares a 5.5 quart Le Creuset against a 5 quart Staub and then "rewards" Le Creuset by saying that it has more surface area. Had she compared the 4.4 quart Le Creuset against a 5 quart Staub, of course, the advantage would have gone the other way.
3. She mentions nothing about the fact that Le Creuset is notoriously poor at browning and says that "against [staub's] dark interiors, our lamb shanks inadvertently went past searing and into burn territory." I use a special technique called "paying attention" to make sure that burning doesn't occur, but I would also suggest that this demonstrates that Staub is far superior at browning compared to Le Creuset.
4. She claims that Le Creuset has a tighter/better fitting lid. Not true in my experience, but I suppose there is some variation from piece to piece.
5. No mention is made of the fact that the knobs on Le Creuset's bakelite knobs are notoriously faulty, often falling off as one is trying to pick up a hot lid. Staub's brass knobs never have this problem.
6. Finally, she didn't cook the two dishes the same way. She somehow concludes that because Staub has "basting spikes" in the lid, she would leave that pot entirely alone. She does, however, "[pull] the Le Creuset out twice to baste and once to turn over the shanks" (emphasis mine). I doubt that her basting had much effect, but turning the shanks over will definitely have a big effect, and even if she decided to not baste the Staub shanks in order to evaluate the "basting spikes" she still should have turned the Staub shanks over at the same time she did the Le Creuset shanks. Later she observes that "the exposed parts of the lamb shanks were also quite dry" as a negative. If she had turned the shanks that wouldn't have happened.
I'm not saying that there aren't reasons to prefer Le Creuset over Staub. Just that this "comparison" didn't do anything to enlighten.
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. . . the FDA has said there's no significant difference between milk from treated & untreated cows, and no test can now distinguish between the two.
This bit is interesting. I'm a little surprised that there is no test that can tell the difference. Wouldn't a test for IGF-1 show a difference, per our discussion above?
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Eau de vies? Since I am not sure where you are from you will have to tell me what you mean here. I live in the US, so to me, eau de vie usually means very expensive fruit infused liquor.Can you describe your plouot and plum liqueurs? I have made some...using eau de vies. The vodka ones were not as great...Cool looking stuff!
This is from a while back, I see, but I thought I might as well offer a little clarification. Eaux de vie are not infused. An eau de vie is, rather, an unaged distillate of fruit: the fruit is pressed to extract the juice; the juice is fermented, and the fermented juice is distilled. A feature of eau de vie is that it is colorless and unaged. So Calvados, for example, which is an aged spirit, would not commonly be called an eau de vie. Common eaux de vie are cherry, pear, strawberry, raspberry and apricot.
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Cool. Glad to see Philip Ward's drink there!
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hungry for knowledge, I think it also has to do with the "organic" milk as well.
Some organic milk comes from small, local farms where the cows are fed mostly grass, graze outdoors to the greatest extent possible, the milk is heat treated the minimum amount, etc. This milk is more costly to produce, for these reasons and also due to economies of scale, and the farmers likely need to charge more simply to stay in business.
That said, it is also true that a large number of the best local farms doing this kind of thing (e.g., Ronnybrook) are actually not certified as "organic." This is because certification is expensive and also because they their sick with antibiotics if/when they get sick (they do not, however, give subtherapeutic doses of antibiotics). This milk also costs more than regular supermarket milk for reasons similar to those given above.
There are also large organic megafarms. These places operate more or less along the same lines as conventional dairy megafarms, the main difference being that the cows eat "organic" feed and the cows are not given hormones or antibiotics. This is somewhat more expensive than making conventional milk, but with economies of scale and competitive pricing, this "organic" milk shouldn't be all that much more expensive at the grocery store. On the other hand, it also won't taste much better than the conventional stuff either.
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While the tests were done on rats and not humans, it would seem reasonable to say that according to the best scientific evidence we have before us, there is no supportable reason to suppose that the amounts of IGF-1 likely to be consumed by humans in even the most dairy-centric diet pose a significant health risk.
The data are not saying that a human would have to drink 5 liters of rBHG milk every day to approach the levels that were found to have no effect in rat studies... the data are saying that it would have to be over a million liters. Yes, I suppose we can say that IGF-1 may have some risks. But we can also say that aliens may live on the dark side of the moon. Neither one seems very likely according to the best data we seem to have (and rat studies have a long history of correlating highly with human outcomes).
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John. Maybe next time blowtorch the pork before bagging it?
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Continuing the evolution of my Thanksgiving tasting dinner, I'm thinking of something like this:
Cocktail and amuse: TBD
1st course: Raw scallop in the shell with shaved cucumber
Wine TBD
2nd course: layered soup consisting of (from the bottom up) two oysters lightly poached in butter, spinach purée with crispy shallots, cauliflower purée, LTLT "poached in the shell" quail egg, garnish of curry-infused evoo.
Wine TBD
3rd course: arctic char tartare with chive gelee and herb salad.
Wine TBD
4th course: Brussels sprouts four ways (slaw, gratin, sautéed with guanciale, Brussels sprouts crème brûlée)
Wine TBD
5th course: sorbet TBD
Sparkling Moscato d'Asti
6th course: turkey two ways: A small base of wild mushrooms simmered in butter; then shredded dark meat that has been braised in port/turkey stock and combined with a chiffonade of Savoy cabbage and foie gras; then the whole works topped with a piece of turkey breast cooked sous vide with black truffles. The plate sauced with a reduction of the braising liquid and accented with a few "tadpoles" of sage cream.
Wine TBD (but I know I like Coturri Albarello for this course)
Dessert: bourbon bread pudding, sugarless apple pie, etc.
Coffee
Dessert II: chocolate truffles
Bourbon, grappa, cognac and other postprandial liquors/digestifs.
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Admin: Split from thread on Brown Liquor for baking.
I'm thinking of making an Asian pear tarte tatin or something similar for Thanksgiving dinner and maybe a Bourbon Butterscotch sauce would be good on the side.Sounds good! I love making pear tartes tatin. This is perhaps getting away from the booze subject, but why Asian pears? Don't they have kind of a grainy/sandy texture?
Getting back to booze, I like making pear tartes tatin with a little Poire William added, and perhaps flamed over the top at the end. Just ramps up that pear flavor.
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My understanding is that "lime" isn't a very precise term. It simply describes a smallish, green, sour citrus fruit and does not necessarily mean that all limes are closely related.
The most commonly used in the Western world is Citrus latifolia, the "Persian lime." Then there is Citrus aurantifolia, the "Key lime." There are also things like Citrus australasica, the "Australian finger lime," Citrus hystrix, the "Kaffir lime," and Citrus limetta, the "Sweet lime" -- among many others.
Personally, I like Key limes for food and Persian limes for cocktails. Key limes are substantially more sour than Persian limes. Key limes are great for a salsa or squeezing over roast pork, etc. but is a problem for cocktails because the drink often becomes unpleasantly sour and rough before it has any appreciable lime flavor. Key limes also have a certain spicy flavor that I find very enjoyable in food, but not so much in a cocktail. Persian limes, on the other hand, have a good balance between lime flavor and acidity for a cocktail, and a smooth flavor that works well in a drink. I'd be interested to look into whether citrus-based cocktails came into such prominence in the US before or after 1926 when most of the US Key lime trees were destroyed by a hurricane and Persian limes came to be the main lime of America.
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Yea... I'm not sure brandy or cognac would really come through and make much of a distinctive contribution in a baked item.
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If you're going to be baking -- which is to say, actually cooking with the booze rather than soaking it in after the fact -- you want something with a strong taste, but also something that doesn't cost very much. Any subtle flavors are going to be lost in the cooking process.
So, for rum I'd suggest something like Myers. It's not very expensive and it has a very strong rum flavor.
For bourbon, I'd suggest you go with whatever is least expensive. There are laws regulating what can be sold as bourbon, and any of the cheap ones will have enough flavor for baking purposes. Although something like the Knob Creek that Katie recommends has a great depth and intensity of flavor, I'm not sure this makes up for the fact that it will be more than twice as expensive compared to the cheap stuff, and I'm not sure that a cake with Knob Creek will taste all that different from a cake made with Heaven Hill.
I wouldn't recommend baking with rye, because I don't think any of its special character would come through. That said, Old Overholt is a quality product and well priced.
If you want to use scotch, maybe to soak a trifle or fruitcake after baking, just pick up a reasonably priced blended. I like Famous Grouse.
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I would just like to point out that while Kathleen has been making drinks with my booze and cooking delicious food, I've had to content myself with a bowl of cereal after rehearsal.
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Well... don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that I'd go to Regional if it were next door to Lupa. It's clearly not in that league. Nor am I saying that they do everything well. And, yea, part of my interest in Regional is because it's in my neighborhood, which doesn't have many good restaurants. I'm not sure where the closest Italian restaurant is that's any better. Probably Celeste 20+ blocks to the South. For my money, neither Regional or Celeste is a destination restaurant.
But I'd say it's similar in look/feel and cuisine to many inexpensive trattorie I've been to in Italy, and I feel that some of their dishes are very good. Then again, my experiences may be different from yours. Most of the times I've been in Italy I was working in a city, and seeking out "special little trattorie" like a vacationer or student might do was sometimes secondary to finding a convenient and good place around the corner that knew what I liked. I like Regional's bigoli with duck ragu. Bigoli (fresh extruded pasta made with whole wheat flour) are naturally a little grainy. Like any restaurant at this level, not everything on the menu is equally good. I've found that some of their specials try too hard and don't appeal to me, and in general I think their pasta dishes are much stronger than their secondi. That said, I think someone could go there and have the piadina with prosciutto and stracchino as a starter, the casoncelli al burro e salvia or the garganelli al ragu' di vitello or the bucatini alla gricia or the spaghetti alla chitarra con ragu' d'agnello as a pasta, the involtini di vitello as a secondo (the only one I think is particularly successful), porri gratinata or carciofi fritti as a contorno, a bottle of Barbazzale Cottanero Rosso and the ricotta fritters for dessert and do very well.
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Michael, this may be going further astray from the topic and I don't know whether it describes your parents, but I have found that most people who seemed disappointed with Regional went there really expecting Italian-American food, and what they got was fairly straightforward Italian trattoria food. I can easily see how someone with those expectations who ordered, for example, Regional's cavatelli con cime di rapa, and got a dish of consisting of nothing more than small shaped dry pasta, turnip greens, red pepper flakes and evoo (no sauce, no cheese, etc.) might be disappointed. But this is actually a dish that is very traditional in the Italian aesthetic.
In my experience, the only pasta dish that is a little disappointing is their culingionis al pomodoro, which suffers from a too-sweet tomato sauce that conceals the flavor of the sheep cheese in the ravioli. That said, the secondi are mostly okay, but not at the same level as the pasta dishes. If someone went to Regional and had only a secondo, I can see how they might not be impressed. As mentioned above, they also don't seem to have their stuff quite together all the time when it comes to delivering the courses. It's not unheard of for them to try serving the primo and secondo together, or to bring the secondo out before the primo is finished. And if, for example, I am having a half-order of pasta as a primo and then a secondo while my dining partner is having an appetizer and then a full order of pasta, it is highly likely that the appetizer will come out alone, then the two pasta dishes, then the meat dish -- even though I specifically requested that my half-prder of pasta be delivered together with her appetizer and then her full pasta order be delivered together with my meat dish.
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Right. I was thinking more like 6 chopped apples to 1 liter of spirits.
Why is Italian cappuccino so good?
in Coffee & Tea
Posted
I think the whole "lighter roast for espresso/darker roast for cappuccino" idea is largely an American one. In Italy, if you're North of Rome you're going to get something lighter than what Americans think of as "espresso roast." And they sure aren't going to bother offering two different roast profiles, one for straight and one for milk. They're going to use their regular shot. Of course, the whole cappuccino thing is mostly an afterthought in Italy. Many people never take milk drinks at all.
One thing I can certainly say is that people who have cappuccino at my house appreciate the mellower roast profile I use, and seem to prefer it to what I consider the over-roasted sharp profile most Americans associate with "espresso." I would also be willing to bet that any place that makes a truly outstanding cappuccino has these things in common: 1. lighter roast; 2. coffee component smooth and drinkable as espresso; 3. larger-than-usual amount of coffee in the mix; 4. wet, pourable, integrated foam/milk; 5. reasonable sized portion. These five points are almost diametrically opposed to the typical American cappuccino aesthetic.