slkinsey

There is some confusion of terminology here. "Clad" simply means that the thermal/reactive material is covered with a thin layer or layers of nonreactive material. There are fully clad (often called "encapsulated") disk-bottom designs. Things like enameled cast iron could also be considered "clad." A better word for this is probably "lined" rather than "clad." The main differentiation in cookware designs is between "straight gauge" cookware, where the materials and material thickness is the same throughout the cookware, and "disk-bottom" where the thermal material is only on the bottom of the pan. Straight-gauge cookware may or may not be lined on one or both sides. This design extends from the least to the most expensive cookware. Cheapo aluminum or stainless cookware? Straight gauge. Carbon steel? Straight gauge. Stainless lined aluminum? Straight gauge. Stainless lined heavy copper? Straight gauge. For many cooking tasks, straight-gauge design is not needed. Sauté pans, stock pots, rondeaux, and sufficiently large saucepans for heating thin liquids do not particularly benefit from a straight-gauge design, and in many cases a disk-bottom design is better. Indeed, in many cases, such as pans that will be used to boil water to steam vegetables, etc. there is no need for anything fancier than cheap stainless steel. Frypans, smaller saucepans on gas stoves, and reduction pans all do benefit from a straight-gauge design.

This is a hard question to answer, exactly. One can point to certain performance characteristics that will improve in the cookware. But whether this makes much difference to you is another question entirely. After all, upgrading from a Toyota to a Ferrari comes along with some increased performance characteristics, but the Stig will still be able to drive the Toyota faster and better than I can drive the Ferrari. And it might be impossible to notice the difference between the two cars if I do all my driving on a dirt road or in heavy traffic.

In order: Rittenhouse BIB Tanqueray Laird's bonded applejack Carpano Antica Formula Cognac There are other spirits I would go through more quickly, but don't tend to either because I haven't bought enough of it and am not sure there will always be a reliable supply (e.g., Smith & Cross Jamaica Rum) or because it's priced out of the "everyday use" category (e.g., Bols Genever, Ransom Old Tom, Genevieve).

There are a number of problems with this, not least that this drink is not a Brooklyn. One big issue that jumps out is that the Brooklyn is made with rye or bourbon, dry vermouth, Amer Picon, and maraschino liqueur. So you have Cointreau that's not supposed to be in there, and you don't have the maraschino that is supposed to be in there. Or are you saying that the Ramazotti, Cointreau and bitters all together comprised an attempt at an on-the-fly Amer Picon replica? The second big issue is the use of Amaro Ramazotti in place of Amer Picon. Ramazotti can be used as the base of an Amer Picon replica (see here, but is not a good substitute at full strength. If you want something that makes a pretty good substitute at full strength, seek our Amaro CioCiaro. Otherwise, you'll need to make some kind of substitute or use a lesser amount of Torani Amer. Regardless, this can be a difficult cocktail to balance properly. It's not likely to work with a Ramazotti/Cointreau/Angostura combination in place of Amer Picon without significant tweaking.

Unfortunately, not only does this probably not do much to lower the temperature of the liquid in the mixing tin, but it also contaminates the ice in the well. There's a reason we're not supposed to use the mixing tin to scoop ice.

This is incorrect on the science, but also has been disproven experimentally by the guys at the Cooking Issues blog. For their experiments, they tempered ice in a calibrated freezer so that the entire cube of ice was at 0C. They were easily able to shake cocktails down to -10C with between 20 and 25 seconds of shaking. See: http://cookingissues.wordpress.com/2009/07/22/cocktails-the-science-of-shaking/ and http://cookingissues.wordpress.com/2009/07/24/tales-of-the-cocktail-science-of-shaking-ii/

Kohai, I don't disagree that there is an importance to nailing proper dilution. I just disagree as to whether these things can be predictable given reasonable consistent equipment, materials and technique. After all, we seem to agree that skilled bartenders are, in fact, able to nail proper dilution with reasonable accuracy. So let's ask our good friend William of Occam which seems more likely: That bartenders are able to "feel" the difference between when a cocktail hits 30% ABV and when it hits 28% ABV? Or that they have learned through experience with the equipment and ingredients to shake the drink for a certain amount of time. Yes, of course the ice from different areas of the bin may be a bit different. And the shake may not be the same at the end of the shift as it is at the beginning. The question is whether or not these variables are significant enough to be important. My guess is that they're not. This is a bit like our earlier discussion of freepouring. In plenty of contexts, freepouring's margin of error isn't large enough to be important. If you're making Sidecars and Gimlets, for example, these are drinks that don't require pinpoint accuracy to balance properly. The "proof" of this with respect to ice would seem to be the fact that bartenders need to get used to the ice and equipment in a new bar before they can reliable nail dilution. For example, a bartender coming from Dutch Kills, where they shake with single fist-sized lumps of block ice that are stored in the freezer, won't be able to step into a bar that shakes with wet shell ice and nail the proper dilution with the same level of accuracy until he works with it for a bit and figures out how it behaves.

I don't know that you have to control dilution by feel. At a bar you should be able to work with consistent ingredients and equipment. These are the shakers you have. This is the booze you're working with. This is the ice you're working with. Ambient temperature should be fairly stable. Etc. So, at some point, you figure out that if you fill the shaker up so far with ice and give it so many shakes, you will reach the amount of dilution you want. Once you have that figured, it should be a simple matter of training in consistency of technique.

I should hasten to mention that quality and consistency certainly went up at FL after they brought in the K-D machine. I just wanted to point out that it is possible to make very good cocktails even with crap ice.

Zabar's has Monin. It's on the right hand side of that little passageway leading into the coffee area. Right across from the escargots (of course!). Buon Italia has the Torani stuff, I think. Fairway at 72nd Street has a ton of syrups over in that side-aisle between the coffee area and the cheese area. Not sure what brand.

The real-world solutions will depend on the bar. If there is no extra freezer space, no possibility of getting in a better ice machine, etc. Then there is very little that can be done to help with the problem of crappy ice. Most ice in the vast majority of bars (the Petraske group's bars being a notable exception) is stored in unrefrigerated ice bins. This means that the ice is effectively at 0C. As they guys over at the Cooking Issues Blog demonstrated fairly convincingly, a large part of the observed difference in dilution between larger pieces of ice and smaller pieces of ice has to do with the water on the surface of the ice. The larger the cube is, the smaller the surface area to volume ratio is. If you have a 1-inch cube, it will have a surface area of 6 and a volume of 1, so the ratio is 6:1. If you bump that up to a 2 inch square cube, you now have a surface area of 24 and a volume of 8 for a SA:V of 3:1 -- half that of the 1 inch cube ( a 3 inch cube will have an SA:V that is 2:1, and so on). Eight 1-inch cubes have the same volume as one 2-inch cube, but double the surface area. That means that it's carrying double the amount of surface-water into the drink. How to solve this is not easy. If it is not possible to increase the size of the ice, then the only thing you can do is get the temperature of the ice sufficiently below 0C so that there is no surface water on the outside of the ice. The small ice may still dilute faster than the larger ice (hopefully the Cooking Issues guys will test this) due to having a much larger SA:V, but starting off with sub-zero ice should make a notable difference. However, if you can't get your ice and keep your ice that low... well, then you're SOL. Shalmanese is not entirely correct in his thinking about warm ice. The reality is that, even with freezer-cold ice, the vast majority of chilling is achieved by melting. This is because the energy required for phase change is far, far larger than the energy required for simple warming of the ice. So, for example, the energy required to take a piece of frozen water from -1C to 1C is way more energy than what is required to take a piece of frozen water from -3C to -1C. Most of his other suggestions (using higher proof booze, somehow spinning the water off of the ice before use, etc.) seem either impractical or uneconomic, and unlikely to be employed in a real-world bar environment. Chilling glasses is always a good idea. All they would have to do is keep a bunch of glasses on the back bar filled with ice. There is really nothing your friends at Proof can do that won't cost money or involve the installation or use of some machinery. Either they have to get a machine that makes bigger ice, or they need to refrigerate the ice they're already using. Potentially they could toss a few chunks of dry ice into the bottom of the ice bins? This might have some safety concerns, though. The reality is that it's absolutely possible to make high quality drinks even with crappy wet shell ice. Flatiron Lounge had crappy ice for years (they didn't get their Kold-Draft machine until after Pegu opened), and the cocktails there have always been quality. What you need to do is adapt your techniques to the materials being used. So, for example, pack the shaker with ice and get used to shaking for only a short period of time. For some drinks, literally only 6 vigorous shakes, and then quickly into the glass. These are the sorts of things you can do to minimize watering the drink. For rocks drinks... harder to say. Make them boozier? Keep some "rocks ice" in a freezer?

I would actually suggest that NYC has it pretty good compared to most other locales when it comes to the liquor market. Between Astor, Warehouse, Union Square, Crossroads, Sherry-Lehmann, Park Avenue and one or two others, the selection is not bad. And it's pretty outstanding in some areas. That said, there are some notable locales that are better. California, in general, seems to have a much better liquor market, for example. There are likely a number of reasons why the selection isn't overall better in NYC. Liquor laws and the distributors are certainly part of it. But more than anything else, it has to be simple economics. Commercial rentals in Manhattan are incredibly expensive. And that means it's prohibitively expensive to have a gigantic "liquor warehouse" type store with shelf upon shelf of every conceivable kind of booze. The stores here have to do a very careful calculus to determine whether it is worth their rent money to give the shelf space to a third brand of creme de cacao, or instead to give that shelf space to a 23rd brand of high end vodka. On a pure dollar basis, the vodka will always win, but some liquor stores make the decision that having a broader selection is enough of a "draw" to justify the shelf space for three different kinds of creme de cacao. In other cities, and especially those built around car culture, it is far less expensive to rent (or buy or even construct!) a huge warehouse store, at which point the shelf space becomes a less important economic decision. This is true of, for example, Spec's in Houston. They have an aisle of tequila that's larger than the average NYC liquor store. But there is one Spec's warehouse store in the city of Houston. That's where you have to go (in your car) if you want to buy some obscure liqueur. And if they don't have it, you're out of luck. They get it from the distributors. Bars aren't buying their booze from Astor Wines. It gets a little complicated. In order for a given bottling to be sold in New York State it has to be on a distributor's list. Just getting a distributor to add something to their list can be a bit of a hassle. But that's only the first hurdle. After that, they have to actually stock some of that booze in their warehouse. If they don't think they can make money on it, then they won't stock it. And that means no one in the state can buy it. We went through this several years ago in trying to get Laird's bonded applejack into NYC. The good news is that, sometimes if enough bars are able to go to the distributor and tell them that they will reliably go through a certain volume, they can convince the distributor to bring in a stock of some kind of booze for them. This doesn't mean that liquor stores can get this stuff, though. The distributor has to be willing to let them have some of it (and the store has to want it as well, of course), and that might depend on whether or not the stock they have in the warehouse is already committed to the bars. If there is any kind of shortage, which happens from time to time, the distributor is probably going to give product to the bars that are burning through cases of the stuff on a weekly basis than some liquor store that sells a few cases a year. So, there will always be certain products that are much more available to bars than liquor stores. So, there has to be a stock of a certain booze in the distributor's warehouse and that booze has to be available to liquor stores, and then the liquor stores have to make the economic decision as to whether they will stock it. If no liquor stores decide to stock it, or if there simply isn't enough to go around once the bars take their product, then effectively the only place to get that booze is in a bar. That said, most good liquor stores will be willing to pull out the book and special-order you just about anything available in the state.

I guess Alton and others need something to justify their examination of the drink, and of course Alton also has to do his usual schtick of reinventing whatever it is (I found his recipes for pasta bordering on bizarre) that he's looking at. And I suppose it's not so interesting or self-validating for them to simply say that, if you think of the Margarita as a syrupy alcoholic lime slurpee, you might try the simple 2:1:1 mixture of 100% agave tequila, Cointreau and fresh-squeezed lime juice shaken and strained. But that wouldn't fit in with Alton's well-worn model of telling people that there's a better way of doing something. The very idea that muddled orange and agave nectar represent improvements over Cointreau seems laughable, and his drink seems more like something that would show up on the cocktail menu at Bennigan's. I always find myself scratching my head over things like this and the Bittman video on the Margarita. I wonder, did these guys consider talking to an actual cocktail expert about these drinks before filming? It's not like they're hard to find. And maybe, you know, someone could have explained to Alton how to properly rim a cocktail glass.

Kalustyan's surely has Angostura bitters (be aware that we are in the midst of a temporary shortage of Angostura, so it's possible you may have some trouble finding it). One large bottle, or perhaps two to be safe, should be more than enough for 150 champagne cocktails. If you figure on, say, 2 dashes per cocktail it shouldn't be too terribly difficult to simply dash 300 dashes into your batch container.

I just LOVE it when people who don't really know anything about cocktails (Mark Bittman, Alton Brown, etc...) do misinformed shows about cocktails and talk about their "improvements" on a classic. Muddled oranges and agave nectar does not equal a Margarita. It may be good (although it doesn't sound that interesting to me), but it's not a Margarita. And, frankly, I don't think that a properly balanced Margarita made with tequila, Cointreau and lime juice needs improvement or reformulation from the likes of Alton Brown or Mark Bittman. I wonder why it is that the Margarita is so frequently chosen as the cocktail that food-but-not-cocktail people "improve." It would be like Dale DeGroff doing a show about boeuf bourguignon and explaining that it should be made with pork.

There is no indication of kosher certification on my bottle of Aperol.

Pisco is a grape-based product (under another name it could be called "Peruvian brandy") so that's not a surprise. Steven, I'd count on 3-4 ounce pours depending on the size of the glass. I just filled an 8 ounce tumbler with ice and poured in measures of water. 3 ounces looked a little bit light, and wouldn't have wanted to put in any more than 4 ounces. 3.5 ounces might have been perfect. Ice takes up plenty of room.

Since these drinks are on the rocks, why wouldn't you just use standard small rocks glasses? If by "stemless Martini glasses" you mean something with a "V" shape -- this is terrible for drinks with ice.

This is for several reasons... First, chicken legs are, in the poultry world, a "braising cut." While one would normally want a chicken breast "just barely cooked through," a chicken leg cooked this way would not be appetizing and would probably be a bit chewy. This is why chicken legs are traditionally braised or baked or otherwise cooked until they're hammered through. Indeed, you can braise a chicken leg for an hour and it's still pretty good, and a chicken leg cooked confit-style might be at a light simmer for many hours. Second, your temperature is quite low for chicken leg meat. It's only a few degrees higher than the usual temperature for breast meat. So it seems likely that the "tough" quality of leg meat combined with your lower-than-usual temperature combined to give you a good result. This is not the same thing as leaving in a tender cut, such as pork loin or fillet mignon, for a long period of cooking.

For rocks drinks, I don't think you need to pre-dilute. The chances are that you're going to be using crappy, wet shell ice and the drink will dilute out pretty quickly just from sitting on the ice. Especially if you're planning on pre-pouring a bunch of them and having them sitting out on a table for people to pick up, or if people might be circulating with trays of pre-poured drinks, there is more a danger of over-dilution than there is under-dilution. A 3:2:1 drink made with 80 proof booze, 60 proof liqueur liqueur and zero proof citrus won't be all that boozy to begin with, and should dilute down pretty quickly on the ice. If you find that they're not diluting enough, it's better IMO to add the water on-site than it is to add it beforehand and risk that the drinks will turn out watery. Pre-diluting bottled cocktails is really mostly important for "up drinks" that are served with no ice and won't be shaken or stirred out on site, but rather poured directly from the bottle.

What would be an alternative to Cognac, which is difficult to find kosher? Whiskey of some sort? Anything but vodka, really. Here's the reality: In a champagne cocktail, it's not going to taste any different with vodka in it than it would with no vodka in it. So the only difference will be the amount of booze in the cocktail, and in this case more booze = bad. You don't want people sipping multiple glasses of something that drinks like fruity champagne but packs a hidden punch. So, if cognac is a problem, I'd think you could make something pretty good using whiskey. In particular, there is a brand called Old Williamsburg that's a kosher whiskey. It's usually in stock at Astor Wines. Rather than garnishing with pomegranate seeds, which will be a gigantic pain in the butt and also not particularly pleasant for the drinkers, I suggest you use the Pom more as a garnish. You could do a standard French 75 formulation (gin, lemon juice, sugar, champagne) substituting Old Williamsburg for the gin. Call it a "Landsman's 75" or something like that. Then you can make a "pomegranate syrup" by shaking the Pom in equal amounts with sugar, and put that into a squirt bottle. The Pom syrup then becomes the garnish... you put the batched whiskey, lemon and sugar combination into the bottom of the glass, top with champagne and then squirt in some of the pomegranate syrup. Or, if you want a more layered effect, you could just keep the Pom as-is and float it on top of the drink. A minor amount of experimentation would reveal the best aesthetic effect.

I think you'd need some lime or lemon juice in there to provide acidity. I tend to find drinks with only pineapple juice a bit insipid. Looking at Chris's earlier idea, I wonder if Fresca is certified kosher? If it is, tequila, lime, pineapple, ginger syrup and Fresca should work (the sugar in the ginger syrup should provide enough mouthfeel to make up for the fact that Fresca uses aspartame).

Well, it's got chicken in it. And I guess those are dumplings, although I'd be more inclined to call them some kind of gnocchi. But that's not chicken and dumplings, in my book. I'd expect to see that on a menu with quotation marks around it.

The only chicken and dumplings I've ever known were my grandmother's. Elaine Mills Kinsey was born in Canton, Texas in 1902, and lived in the State of Texas every year of her life until she passed in 1999. She was a schoolteacher for her entire professional career. As you may imagine of anyone who grew up and started her teaching career in Texas during those extremely lean and rugged times, she was quite expert at cooking something very good with very little. Her chicken and dumplings, as well as her chicken fried steak, were among a list of dishes for which her versions defined the category in my culinary lexicon. I have neither made nor consumed either one since 1999. Well, now I'm going to start. I'm going to start with chicken and dumplings because, upon reading this thread, I noted any number of recipes made with what appear to be biscuit-like, quenelle-shaped dumplings. Knowing this to be an Abomination before the Lord, I quickly fired off a missive to the paterfamilias of the Kinseys with a request for the Ancestral Chicken and Dumpling Recipe. Herewith, my grandmother's recipe, in her own words: Stew a chicken in plenty of water Strain off about a quart of broth and bring to a boil Measure 2 cups flour + salt + pepper to taste Add enough boiling broth to make a soft dough Knead a few times Roll out like piecrust Cut in about 1 inch strips, then into about 3 inch segments Drop dumplings one at a time in briskly boiling broth Simmer around 12 minutes When done, add about 1/2 cup milk + chicken pieces My father adds that it's important to make sure that the dough is rolled out thinner than you think, as it is easy to have them too thick. He also adds: "I think there is a whole chapter of Leviticus about what the Lord is going to do with anyone who makes chicken-and-dumplings with dropped biscuit-like objects. Not for the faint of heart to contemplate." I would add that you need to make sure you have a very flavorful chicken. That's it. No fancy herbs and spices; no onions, carrots or other vegetables; no broth other than what the chicken makes for itself; no leavening; no quenelles; no browning of the dumplings; no bolt of lightning coming down from above to punish chicken and dumpling heresy. Simple and one of my favorite foods as a child. I hope to make some later this week. What's amusing (to us anyway) is that my grandmother didn't like chicken. Her very first teaching job, straight out of high school, was all 12 grades in a one-room schoolhouse, to which she transported herself on horseback. Part of her compensation from the town (if you could call it a town) was room and board. But the lady of the house had a habit of undercooking her fried chicken, which put my grandmother off chicken for the rest of her life.

Right. I think it's worth noting that there are radically different dumpling traditions. My grandmother, who lived just about the entire twentieth century in Texas, made her dumplings in the unleavened "thick noodle" style. As I recall, they were made with a dough comprised of flour, cracked pepper and some boiling chicken broth from stewing the chicken. The starch from the dumplings was the only thickener. My grandmother's C&D, along with her chicken fried steak, was one of my favorite dishes from the Texas side of the family. I think she made it just about every time she came to visit us in Boston. There was a little milk added to the broth, as I recall.