slkinsey

I can see how using Cointreau would change things -- it's triple sec, not orange curaçao. But isn't Grand Marnier orange curaçao? I thought it was more or less the "Cointreau of orange curaçao" (e.g., simply the best bottling of its type).

Pancetta can well be eaten uncooked and often is - sometimes the cured belly is rolled, then it is sold sliced, just like other salumi to enjoy as an antipasto, or stuffed in rolls. Well, like I said... I've never known of it. Doesn't mean it doesn't happen, but I can't think it's too common -- especially with 95% of the pancetta out there. If some pancetta is cured to the point where it is more edible, it's really almost a different product from the frying stuff. Here, it would likely have a different name. But you're comparing apples to oranges here. Why not compare garden-variety industrial American bacon to garden-variety industrial Italian pancetta? They are fundamentally very similar products, except that one is usually smoked. Or, compare the very best artisinal American bacon with the very best artisinal Italian pancetta. Again, other than the different approaches with respect to smoking, and some minor differences in cures, they are fundamentally similar products. But comparing a quotidian industrial product to an exceptional artisinal product just doesn't make sense. It's like saying that "the best artisan-cured bacon is just about as different from garden-variety Italian pancetta as Smithfield ham -- the real thing, raised on acorns, hickory nuts and peanuts, smoked over hickory and cured for 12 months -- is from cheapo speck."

Very cool, Robert! I'll have to give this a try myself and see what I think. What gin and curaçao did you use? I'll likely use Tanqueray and Grand Marnier, because that's what I have around. Harrington's ratios are fairly similar to Dave's at 4 : 1.3 : 1.3.

I've never known Italians to eat uncooked pancetta. Less cooked than Americans, sure. But not raw. Most pancetta I have seen is pretty similar in texture to American bacon.

Um, I'm not sure this is entirely correct. Pancetta is simply the Italian word for "bacon" -- which is to say, cured pork side meat. It just so happens that Americans tend to like their bacon cured and smoked whereas Italians tend to like theirs cured but not smoked (bacon, I should point out, is cured). I have often heard Italians say "pancetta affumicata" to refer to American-style bacon. Fundamentally there is no difference between "American bacon" and pancetta affumicata, except perhaps in the style of smoking (although, of course, there are wide differences in the style of smoking within the category of "American bacon" as well). A_Broad, if you want to go one step further, try using guanciale for your Bucatini all'Amatriciana and Spaghetti alla Carbonara.

Gary Regan's recent column in the SF Chron tells us about the Jamaica Farewell, created by Daniel Reichert. Not sure how new or different this is. It sounds to me more or less like a Hop Toad with Angostura bitters (which is how I like them anyway). But, really... anything with Apry is probably going to be pretty good. Appleton Estate VX is also a great product for the money. Here's the recipe: 2.0 oz : amber rum .75 oz : Marie Brizard Apry .75 oz : fresh lime juice 2 dashes Angostura bitters Shake with cracked ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with lime wedge.

Um... yuck. I see what you mean.

Here is cocktailDB's information page on creme de noyeau. It's an almond flavored liqueur. The bottle shown is the traditional French Noyau de Poissy.

It's interesting to look at these forumlae standardized for the same amount of base liquor. Below are the various ratios of gin:curaçao:lime 4 : 1.5 : 1.5 (Dave) 4 : 2.0 : 0.3 (Robert and cocktailDB #1) 4 : 1.1 : 0.6 (cocktailDB #2)

I should point out that it might not be appropriate to call this the "Classic" sidecar, since in my mind that would denote that the recipe is the "original", or at the very least the version as it was commonly served during the early days of the drink... which the above is not. I agree 100%. Poor choice of words. I should have said "typical Sidecar" or "representative Sidecar" or something like that. The recipe I provided was 3:2:1, so it's very close to yours. At home, I tend to go either your way at 4:2:1 or Dave's way at 4:2:2 (aka 2:1:1). It depends a fair bit on the brandy being used, as some lend themselves to different formulations depending on the inherrent sweetness. Lately my taste has been trending a little more towards the sour side of the balance. I agree, by the way, that simple sour drinks like the Sidecar are perfect for learning about balance and learning about the difference that quality ingredients can make. There aren't so many variables to deal with, and the differences are usually quite obvious when one variable is adjusted (especially in the sweet/sour balance, but also with respect to the quality of the triple sec and the bottling of brandy). The Sidecar is a drink that, while simple, is capable of so much change. It's still teaching me a lot (which is good, because I have a lot to learn ). Interesting. How do your fingers get sticky? Don't you hold the glass by the stem? The way I usually do sugared rims at home is to take a glass out of the freezer, sugar the outside of the rim with superfine sugae, and then return the glass to the freezer while I make the drink.

This is a great drink deserving of more attention. My first Pegu Club -- in what turned out to be a somewhat prophetic occasion for reasons that will become clear in the coming months -- was mixed up by Audrey at Bemelmans. I loved it and it has since become a regular at the slkinsey household. CocktailDB has two Pegu Club recipes. One is same formula you give, and their annotations indicate that they think it's 2 ounces of gin to one ounce of curaçao. The other one has 1 3/4 ounces of gin to 1/2 ounce of curaçao and 1/4 ounce of lime juice. The second recipe would be a much more tart drink, of course. It has more lime juice (1/4 ounce versus 1/6 ounce) and substantially less curaçao, which is the sweetening agent in the drink. I'll have to try both when I get home.

This is actually a different article about the same study referenced in the first post, but with some interesting additional information: Kind of takes the wind out of PETA's practice of demonstrating at the Maine Lobster Festival and giving out stickers saying: "Being Boiled Hurts. Let Lobsters Live."

For Lab 1, yes, all go in the oven. This is a vessel comparison, not a heating method comparison. In a later lab, we will do a heating method comparison between oven and stovetop. Right. But the vessel comparison in Lab 1 is only valid with respect to oven braising, yes? Because if Lab 1 shows that a certain vessel works best in the oven (or if, as I suspect, it shows that there are no meaningful differences between vessels used for oven braising), that doesn't mean that a different vessel won't prove to be best on top of the stove. Maybe you're planning on doing another vessel comparison on top of the stove, though.

Steven, forgive me if this question is already planned for the future or explained... As I understand it, for Lab 1 all the various braising vessels go into the oven? I'm asking because, as you know, one may also braise on the stovetop and what may result a "no difference" comparison in the oven might result in a "huge difference" comparison on the stove top.

This is, I assume, in response to Pan's mention of John Cage's (in)famous piece 4'33" It is unfortunately not an apt comparison. Music is all about the fundamental act of listening, although there are peripheral elements such as watching the musicians, eetc. Without listening there is no music. Music consists of periods of created sound and periods of not-created-sound. Cage's piece was designed to explode the whole concept of "what is music," to get people to "listen to the silence" and to get them to understand that silence isn't silent. What Cage did not do with 4'33" was take away the listening. I would argue, by the way, that although 4'33" is an interesting piece of conceptual art, it is not particularly interesting or successful as a piece of music. Dining, on the other hand, is all about the fundamental act of eating. It is impossible to make a "4'33" of food" because once you take away the eating it is no longer dining. It's like taking away the listening from music. Once you do that, it's not music. To directly address your point, I can very well see how art patrons would pay to go into ADNY where they would be served and consume a meal of nothing... if this "meal" were presented by a conceptual artist as a piece of performance art. But that is what it would be. Art, not dining. As dining, this "meal" would fail in much the same way that 4'33" fails as a piece of music.

Well... here's the deal, Liz: I think it's really hard for us to say what we would do if we were super rich. From my current perspective, I might think that I wold never own five homes. But, you know... people do. The concept of "value" can change a lot when $200 just doesn't seem that different from $500 to you. And for sure Masa is offering some special things in terms of service, product and prestige that can't be had for less money. Indeed, for some people, it's worth it to spend lots of money for something simply because people with less money can't afford it. Is any pair of shoes worth $500?

Sure it could work, especially with some of the Belgian ones. A true lambic of gueuze could be interesting, since it's so sour. And I could see something like Duvel working pretty well in a cocktail. There are, after all, a zillion cocktails topped with Champagne.

For me, it's hard to say what the biggest change over the last 10 years has been... but one of them has certainly been the fact that I now use way less garlic. I have a theory about a lot of American foodies: At some point, most of us who weren't lucky enough to grow up with a huge variety of intensely flavored foods "discover" garlic. And then for a while, it's "everything with a zillion cloves of garlic." Some people never leave this period, I guess. That's where all the "ooohs and aaahs" come from every time Emeril says "and then I throw in about a million cloves of garlic!" -- despite the fact that it is often a dish that doesn't require any garlic. After that, there is a slow awakening to the fact that there are other flavors out there besides garlic, that a lot of things are better without it, and that not everything has to punch you in the mouth in order to be good. Why spend big bucks on a prime strip steak only to crust it with minced garlic? These says I don't even include garlic in most of my tomato sauces. Ironically, I began this movement away from garlic in Italy where, believe it or not, they don't cook with all that much garlic.

Although I'm still not an expert on wok cooking, I thought I'd return to this subject a bit. This week's NY Times food section features an article entitled The Well-Tempered Wok by Julia Moskin. Here are some excerpts that I thought were salient to our discussion here: This is interesting, because apparently cast iron is a traditional wok material. Also, carbon steel, the other traditional material, has an even higher specific heat per cubic centimeter than iron (3.78 versus 3.53 W/cm^3 K). This means a greater heat capacity, but the poor thermal conductivity also means that the wok to be preheated for a long time before the heat evens out and the whole wok is at the correct temperature.

Eleven inches. Sure. If you were planning on, for example, making four and a half quarts of Hollandaise all at once. Or if you were cooking over an open fire. Other than things like that... not really. The tall saucepan is for things like warming/reheating sauces, soups, stews and other liquids in situations where additional reduction is not desired and as as a general-purpose pan for blanching/steaming vegetables, reheating liquids, etc. None of these things need a straight gauge design.

The definition of a "flip" has changed somewhat with the times. Back in the 17th and 19th centuries, it was a drink made by mixing sweetened ale with spices and maybe a dash of rum, and then plunging a red hot loggerhead into the cup warm the drink, thicken it and make it foamy. It's unclear to me, but I get the impression that eggs eventually began to find their way into this kind of flip at some point. As the ubiquity of ice changed the American cocktail forever into something approximating its current form, the original flip either metamorphosed into or was replaced by a cold drink made by shaking a base spirit, sugar or some other sweetening ingredient and egg with ice. As far as I can tell, the only thing these two drinks have in common is the foam and the sweetness.

I'm always interested to see the number of people who try gin for the first time -- and as often as not, are turned off -- with a Martini. This is problematic for a number of reasons. First, it's introducing the taste buds to a somewhat acquired taste at full intensity with no familiar flavors to soften the impact. Second, the usual "modern ultradry" Martini is more or less straight chilled gin. No wonder the typical vodka drinker has a difficult time trying gin! If a Vodkatini drinker is going to try the real thing, I'd recommend an early 20th century Martini recipe: a three ounce drink with equal parts gin and white vermouth plus a short dask of orange bitters. But better yet, I'd recommend something like a Monkey Gland or a Corpse Reviver or Audrey's Gin Gin Mule.

Do outfits like Dekuyper and Hiram Walker make anything good?

Hmmm... interesting. I'm not sure I agree, Tengrain. I think of both Bombay Sapphire and Citadelle as being fairly lightly flavored/scented gins compared to, say, Junipero or Boodles or Tanqueray. Try tasting Bombay Sapphire alongside regular Bonbay. Even though Sapphire is made with a larger number of botanicals, I think you'll find Sapphire has a substantially less assertive aroma and flavor. There is a persistent rumor that Sapphire was specifically developed as a "less ginny gin" to appeal to vodka drinkers. I don't have a hard time believing that, and it's clear that Sapphire used the "Absolut model" in marketing their product (with great success). This is not to say that it isn't good (it is good), but simply to say that I don't think it has a particularly strong flavor or aroma. I wonder what brands we would describe as real "gin lovers' gins." The brands often to be found at my house are Boodles, Tanqueray, Hendrick's, Junipero, Plymouth and Gordon's. Of these, I'm likely to use Hendrick's and Plymouth only in martinis or other very gincentric drinks; I'm likely to use Junipero never in martinis but rather in drinks where I want the strong presence of gin to cut through other strong flavors; Tanqueray and Boodles I'll use for just about everything; and Gordon's I use for just about everything except martinis. I'm currently experimenting with a bottle of Beefeater Wet, which has a light pear flavor in the mix.

We've already got a zillion threads on martini ingredients/techniques and the whole "gin versus vodka martini" thing. Let's not go down that path here. I should hasten to point out that there are a multitude of wonderful gin cocktails besides the martini. Some of my favorites are the Aviation, the Twentieth Century, the Corpse Reviver #2 and the Pegu Club. Gin makes a much more interesting mixing liquor than vodka, in my opinion, because you're adding flavor instead of just adding alcohol. Try a Cosmopolitan with gin instead of vodka some time. 100% better.