slkinsey
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Posts posted by slkinsey
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La Valle makes both DOP and not-DOP.
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Any mixed drink that is designed to mask the taste of the alcohol. If it doesn't at least taste a little bit like the liquor that fuels it, whats the point?
So it's important that you taste the vodka?
Vodka has virtually no taste. Certainly not one that is capable of being detected in the presence of other ingredients with a strong taste. Flavor (not the same thing as taste) is comprised of several different sensory perceptions such as taste, smell, temperature, texture (aka "mouthfeel") and something called "common chemical sense." For a fuller explanation of flavor and a discussion of how it relates to vodka, see my post here. Suffice it to say that vodka has very little taste, and indeed very little flavor -- relying on texture and "finish" (common chemical sense) for most of its distinctiveness.
This is one reason that vodka is so commonly used in modern drinks: it adds alcoholic kick to just about any combination of flavors without bringing anything else to the table. This is the exact reason vodka is not highly favored by mixologists of the "new old school" with a more classical approach. This is one reason that using an expensive vodka in a Cosmopolitan is a "crime against alcohol." When you add vodka to a mixture of lime, cranberry and triple sec, all you're really doing is adding alcoholic kick. You can do this with just about anything, Take your favorite mix of fruit juices, maybe add a liqueur to sweeten it up, add plenty of vodka for alcoholic kick -- congratulations! you have created a popular new cocktail for the twentysomething set. If you use gin or rum instead, then you're adding flavor. Tess's remarks speak more to wanting to sense the presence of alcohol rather than tasting the vodka.
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Yea, I can understand why a certain bottle might cost more or less in, e.g., Lenexa, Kansas compared to New York City. What is so odd to me is how a certain bottle can be sold at such radically different prices in the same town.
I'm also a little surprised the Marie Brizard bottles are so expensive. I would have figured them at around $15 for 750 ml rather than $20+
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I recall a dish - not sure where it is right now - that cooks anchovies in butter, then adds evoo some basil, parsley, white wine and chopped onions. I will look it up tonight.
With those ingredients, it sounds like a sure winner!
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Interesting. It proves you're never too old to learn something. Wait until I tell my mother. At 76, she'll probably never try it. In fact, when I make my next batch of gravy I'll think about using butter, but I'm sure I won't be able. I will, however, use it is a cold pan sauce - maybe a puttanesca?
To be honest, I'm not sure the cold pan method (putting everything into a cold pan all at once and slowly taking it up to a simmer) works all that great for anything other than the simplest sauce. A key part of the technique for the cold pan sauce I usually make is that the extra vegetables (the onion and sometimes a few stalks of celery) are tossed out when the sauce is ready. They're just in there for flavoring.
Puttanesca -- one of my favorites, and one I like with tons of evoo -- sort of depends on dissolving the anchovies in hot oil, doesn't it?
The nice thing about the tomato/onion/butter cold pan sauce is that it also takes very little time/effort to make -- especially compared to some of the long-simmered Southern Italian sauces. You can chuck a can of San Marzano's into a pan with several tablespoons of butter, a hefty pinch of salt and a halved onion, set the burner on medium-low and come back 30-40 minutes later to a finished sauce. This preparation, more than any other I know, brings out the sweetness of high quality canned tomatoes.
Would you include pesto in that? Hazan's recipe for basil pesto includes butter. I tried it her way once and it didn't thrill me.Afaik, Pesto alla Genovese contains some butter.
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Your body metabolizes alcohol before any other fuel source.
What is your basis for this?
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My family is/was from the Naples/Bari area and I have never seen or heard of any of them or their friends using butter in a tomato gravy. Yes, butter is used in many of their recipes, but not that one. . . Unanimously, I was told it wasn't done with red (tomato) gravy.
Well, the location may have a lot to do with it. I suspected you might have a Southern perspective when you used the word "gravy," which seems to be used almost exclusively by Italian-Americans of Southern Italian extraction.
Naples, of course, is smack in the middle of olive oil country. I have to assume that butter is only rarely used in the traditional cooking of that region. Since Naples is justly proud of its tomatoes and pasta asciutta -- and knowing the usual Italian orgoglio della zona -- it's not surprising that Napoletani/Baresi would insist on the local traditional methods of preparation and eschew butter.
FWIW, I have tried making the simple "cold pan sauce" (tomatoes, fat and a halved onion) using both butter and evoo. In fact, I once did parallel batches so I could taste them side by side. They were both good, but entirely different. Most everyone agreed that the butter sauce was better.
In your experience, what areas of Italy use butter in red/tomato gravy?The butter areas, which also tend to be the fresh pasta areas. Bologna has Burro e Oro, for example.
I wouldn't want a tomato and evoo sauce on tagliatelle.
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Sam was the one who turned me on to the recipe. Or was it Joe Bavuso?
Could be either one. Joe turned me on to the cold pan method, but I've talked about it quite a bit.
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Interesting piece. I've had an amazing burger there.
I should point out, not that it excuses their sloppiness on the occasion of Bruni's visit, that hamburgers are significantly more difficult to consistently cook to a given level of doneness (other than well done, of course), and especially when they are cooked in a broiler (which IMO is not the best way to cook a burger).
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LindyCat, I'll have to run that by my doctor friend (who also happens to be diabetic) -- but it doesn't ring true to me.
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Why on earth would you add butter to Italian gravy?.
It make such an amazing sauce! The recipe is from a Marcella Hazan cookbook.
I'm sure it tastes fine and I should have guessed it was a Hazan recipe. However, she doesn't cook real Italian, at least in my opinion. She's more of an American-Italian icon.
Marcella Hazan?!
Have you read her books? She is anything but an icon of America-Italian food. Her Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking is considered the definitive English language cookbook on Italian cooking.I'm also not sure where you get the idea that butter and tomato in a pasta condiment isn't Italian. There is a very large area of Italy for which butter is the traditional lipid of choice. In fact, I would assert that there are many pasta sauces that cannot be properly made without using butter.
I'm asking this with all due respect and out of curiosity: what is your basis for thinking that Hazan's recipes aren't "real Italian?" You've spent a lot of time in Italy cooking? Again, I mean no disrespect in asking this. It's just that I have spent a lot of time in Italy cooking, and her recipes seem plenty Italian to me. In re to the butter/olive oil thing, my perspective on this may have to do with the fact that I have spent a large percentage of my time in there in areas "on the border between butter country and olive oil country."
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So... yesterday I had some time on my hands and decided to do a little booze shopping. I've been experimenting with a lot of drinks with triple sec and orange curaçao recently, which can get a little pricey when you use the top shelf brands.
As a result I've been on the prowl for some Marie Brizard orange curaçao and triple sec. Most orange curaçao and triple sec from producers like Bols, Hiram Walker, De Kuyper, Leroux, et al. is sugary artificial crap. Marie Brizard products, on the other hand, are very high quality. Marie Brizard's orange curaçao and triple sec are often recommended as lower priced alternatives to Cointreau, etc. -- especially for drinks with enough other things going on that you are unlikely to taste the difference.
The first odd part of this story is that I have had a very hard time even finding a place that sells Marie Brizard orange curaçao and triple sec. In fact, I still haven't seen any Marie Brizard orange curaçao for sale. Finally I saw some Marie Brizard triple sec at Warehouse Wines & Spirits. Here's the thing: they were charging 22 dollars for a 750 ml bottle. I noted that they were selling a liter bottle of Cointreau for 30 dollars. Using my amazing mathematical powers, I figured out that a liter of Cointreau would only cost me about 65 cents more than a liter of Marie Brizard triple sec. Now, Marie Brizard triple sec is good... but it ain't that good. When I pointed this out to the salesperson, he offered "well, it's imported..." as an excuse (I didn't bother mentioning that Cointreau is imported too). Needless to say, I bought the Cointreau.
Was this an unusually high price for Marie Brizard triple sec? An incredible deal on Cointreau? I was expecting the price difference to be more like it is between Grand Marnier and GranGala (GranGala is less than half the price).
Oh... and here's another head scratcher: I have been looking for Charbay Blood Orange vodka. Finally found some at Park Avenue Liquor Shop. They were charging $41 for a 750 ml bottle. No way am I spending $41 on a bottle of vodka. Last night I saw the same bottle at Astor Wines & Spirits for $27, and I didn't get the impression they were selling it as a loss leader.
Any other stories of seemingly inexplicable price oddities?
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Hey Jim! Glad you like the Falk and Sitram.
I slide my heavy copper as well. In fact, it's a necessary part of sauteing. I don't think the scratches on the bottom will make a big difference over the life of the pan with normal home use. Maybe in a restaurant it would wear out the pan in 15 years. Maybe.
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Bitters...hmmm, do they sell that at the LCBO?
http://www.lcbo.ca/lcbo-ear/ProductResults...rs&ITEM_NUMBER=
cool products, but really the wrong kind of bitters. The kind of bitters one typically dashes into a cocktail are nonpotable bitters, such as Angostura Bitters, Peychaud's Bitters and the various varieties of Fee Brothers Bitters (not to mention Gary Regan's upcoming Orange Bitters).
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The main different between the Le Cruset and the Staub is the little bumps on the underside of the Staub lids. . .
I think (and shall attempt to verify) that Staub is a little thicker/heavier as well.
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These look awesome. The "soup pots" look a lot more like what I would think of as bean pots, and they also seem to hold a lot more volume for the money.
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FWIW: good description of "temperature surfing" technique here.
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Amazon is currently selling one of the 6.75 quart ovens for $130 ($155 plus $25 off any kitchen purchase over $125). What is the likelihood that I will be able to find this particular item for less at one of the outlet stores?
Broadway Panhandler, according to their ad is selling a 7.5 quart round oven for $140.
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Re hominy and grits: They are different forms of the same thing.
Hominy is simply dried corn that has been processed by soaking in lye or slaked lime.
"Grits" originally meant any coarsely ground grain (wheat, oats, corn, rice, whatever). Technically, regular coarse cornmeal and semolina are both kinds of "grits."
Way back folks said "hominy grits" when they were talking about coarsely ground hominy. But there is no escaping the fact that hominy grits is the most common kind, and "grits" has come to largely mean the same as "hominy grits." A similar thing has happened with "polenta" which has some to be understood by most people as a cornmeal-based dish when it can in fact be made with any kind of coarse grain.
"Shrimp and hominy" is probably a more accurate description than "shrimp and grits" because one could serve a dish of shrimp and grits made with regular corn (aka polenta) and it would still be "shrimp and grits." "Shrimp and hominy" on the other hand, specifies corn that has been treated with lye or slaked lime.
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It sounds like most people agree to get Gin, so thats on the list...any specific brands?? I dont want to spend too much money as I am not too familiar with Gin.
If you're not too familiar with gin, I wouldn't go too inexpensive if I were you. Gordon's is a very good gin, and a pretty good deal at about $15/liter. But it's not one I'm likely to use in a martini. Tanqueray is more expensive at around $25/liter, but you can use it for everything. It's IMO the most recommended brand if you're starting out and want to experience the classic gin flavor profile.
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Broadway Panhandler is having one of their big sales from February 16 to February 27. Great deals especially on Le Creuset, which is discounted up to 65%.
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I think it really depends on the style of cooking. The more simple the dish and the technique, the more the quality of the ingredients plays a big part.
For example, one of my standard tomato sauce recipes: 1 large can peeled tomatoes, 4 tablespoons cold butter, 1 medium onion peeled and cut in half, put all into cold pan, bring up to heat and simmer low for 30 minutes, discard onion and use sauce.
Now, this is a recipe in which the quality of the tomatoes makes a huge difference that anyone interested in food will immediately notice. If, on the other hand, I was using a can of peeled tomatoes to make something like chicken tikka masala, the quality of the tomatoes doesn't make nearly as big a difference -- one is unlikely to taste the difference between a $4 can of San Marzano tomatoes and a $1 can of quotidian tomatoes.
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I am a bit ashaimed to say, but what is Maraschino?
Maraschino is a clear liquor distilled from Marasca sour cherries, including the pits and stems. The best brand by far is Luxardo, and they use a very complex process whereby the fruit and the pits/stems are processed/distilled separately and then the results combined later to age for two years in Finnish ash vats. It's not really cherry-flavored, per se. It's... well, it's Maraschino liqueur flavored.
Maraschino is an essential component of many classic cocktails.
As well, just curious sl - What would you say are 2 of your favorite drinks to make with the listed alchohols?There are more than two:
Aviation = gin, maraschino and lemon
Pegu Club = gin, Cointreau (or curacao), lime, orange bitters, Angostura bitters
Sidecar = brandy, Cointreau, lemon
Brandy Crusta = brandy, maraschino, curacao (or Cointreau), lemon, bitters
Brandy Scaffa = brandy, maraschino, bitters
Check out this thread. There are lots of great threads in this forum that you would probably enjoy; it's fun to go through and read them.In addition to the thread on the Aviation Cocktail referenced by ludja, there is a thread devoted to maraschino that may be of some interest.
Reviewing NYC Pizza
in New York: Dining
Posted
Pan's comments, I think, come in the context of comparing Lombardi's to other NYC coal oven places like Patsy's East Harlem, not the local Ray's. Compared to typical American pizza, Lombardi's does an admirable job and is fairly sparing with the toppings. Compared to Patsy's, exactly the opposite.
FWIW, I probably went to Lombardi's around 15 years ago, and I don't get the sense that they're doing things all that differently now.