slkinsey
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Posts posted by slkinsey
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That seems like a lot of fat for pasta (6 yolks + 1 egg for 1-3/4 cups of flour), and it also seems very time consuming. How does it handle? I make pasta with one egg to 3-1/4 oz. (about 3/4 C) flour, plus a scant teaspoon of olive oil; I mix it in my food processor, knead it very briefly by hand and then run it through the pasta roller five or six times on the widest slot and it handles beautifully. No resting for 30 minutes, no kneading for 25 minutes. I'd say it's 20 minutes start to finish. Is the Keller recipe worth the time and effort (and egg yolks)?I use Keller's TFL recipe (found here). So simple, but the texture is so luxurious.I use Keller's TFL recipe (found here). So simple, but the texture is so luxurious.
That seems like a lot of fat for pasta (6 yolks + 1 egg for 1-3/4 cups of flour), and it also seems very time consuming. How does it handle? I make pasta with one egg to 3-1/4 oz. (about 3/4 C) flour, plus a scant teaspoon of olive oil.
Let's compare. In order to make them equivalent recipes, we need to scale your recipe up to 1.75 cups of flour -- a multiplier of 2.4 (1 cup of AP flour weighing around 4.5 oz). So that makes your recipe 2.8 eggs and 2.8 tsp of olive oil to Keller's 6 yolks and 1 egg. As chance would have it, a large egg yolk and a teaspoon of oil contain the same amount of fat: 4.5 g. So, Keller's recipe contains 31.5 grams of fat and your recipe contains 25.2 grams of fat. The difference is only 6.3 grams of fat. Scaling back to your 3.25 ounce recipe, it would mean adding 2.625 grams more of fat (around a half-teaspoon of oil).
This is a difference, sure. The Keller dough is likely to be a bit silkier and richer. But it's not a huge difference.
I mix it in my food processor, knead it very briefly by hand and then run it through the pasta roller five or six times on the widest slot and it handles beautifully. No resting for 30 minutes, no kneading for 25 minutes. I'd say it's 20 minutes start to finish. Is the Keller recipe worth the time and effort (and egg yolks)?Whenever I use an egg white for something (cocktails, etc.) I save the yolks in a container in the freezer. When this fills up, it's time for egg yolk pasta. In my experience, egg yolk pasta is far superior in terms of silkiness, richness, tenderness, strength and suppleness to whole egg pasta. It's everything you can say about whole egg pasta multiplied. I also think that well-kneaded and rested pasta dough has properties that are not possible with the "knead in the pasta roller" technique. Also, I would prefer to add fat to pasta dough in the form of egg yolks rather than oil. This is not to say that I don't use your fast technique with some frequency. But the richer, slower technique is definitely better IMO.
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Peelzyme would do the trick.
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That seems like an internet rumor about the "plastic linkage." When I've overworked the motor, it simply cuts off for a while. No big deal. The "linkage" between the motor and the blades consists of a metal female part on the top of the motor base fitting into a metal male part in the base of the container. The female part appears to be directly connected to the blades. The metal "drive socket" which is on the top of the motor us surrounded in plastic, but I believe the metal part screws into the connection with the motor.
I have also never heard any advice to not put ice into the machine. Indeed, one of the selling points of these blenders is that their ability to make frozen drinks.
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I think there is some utility to making syrups infused with things such as lime, lemon or grapefruit peel as a way of increasing those flavors when used in addition to some fresh juice to balance. I disagree that ginger syrup or especially any syrup made from fresh herbs have a very good shelf-life or are an alternative to using fresh ingredients, but that's another subject. As are, I suppose, the above-mentioned zest-infused syrups in a thread about spice-infused syrups. Something like grapefruit syrup or pineapple syrup or sirop de citron has much broader applicability than a cinnamon-clove-cardomom (or whatever) syrup.
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I've never quite understood the utility behind making spiced syrups. Why not mix together a "spice blend" of tinctures (aka, a kind of bitters) and dash that in? The problem with spiced syrups, in my opinion, is that you're stuck in a position where in order to add flavor you have to add sweetness. I'd prefer to add my spice flavors and sweetness separately, which allows for much more flexibility in recipes and ingredients.
For a bar drink, where the spiced syrup has been titrated precisely for the specific cocktail made with specific ingredients, I imagine it's easier than dashing in a "spice bitters." But, for example, let's say you have a spiced syrup that works really well with bourbon #1. But you want to make the drink with bourbon #2. #2 is sweeter than #1, however, so you don't want to use as much sweetness. But now there isn't the amount of spice you'd like. And so on. Making that same spice infusion (or, in Chris's example, making the same blend of tinctures) into alcohol makes this easy: Just put in the amount of sugar appropriate to the ingredients or recipe variation, and dash in the spice mix until you get the presence you want.
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In my opinion, no, none of them are worth eating.
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Tom & Jerry. Sangaree. Flips.
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Well, no I wouldn't say that's a cocktail.
But, more to the point, we're not so interested in drinks simply on the basis that they are old/and or obscure. This thread is to celebrate largely unknown classic cocktails that deserve to be more widely known and consumed due to what we personally know to be their surpassing deliciousness. Hot sour beer with molasses and bread crumbs... doesn't sound like it to me.
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There is little doubt that a rice cooker or crock pot with a pid controller works, but there is an advantage to an immersion circulator. My analog circulator normally sits in it's 11 liter bath, which is a great size for a few chops or steaks. When I want to do more, such as a brisket, I can move it to a 50 liter foam cooler - still works fine. I also use it in the cooler set at 4 degrees C. to thaw pork butts or turkeys. The analog controller is OK for most SV functions +/- 0.2 degrees C. It is easy to use. My foodsaver is adequate most of the time - if I were to upgrade something else, a better vacuum sealer would be it.
The scalability of immersion circulators is a major advantage, in my opinion. I regularly use mine in an 20 gallon stockpot, a 5 gallon stockpot, and a 2 gallon stockpot. Just now, in fact, I pulled two whole pork butts and two whole briskets out of the 20 gallon water bath and am chilling them down.
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I believe it comes from The Old Waldorf=Astoria Bar Book, which says simply that the Cooperstown is a "Bronx with fresh mint."
Unfortunately, the picture is complicated by the fact that the book gives several different recipes for a Bronx Cocktail. Their "standard" Bronx formula is a 2:1:1 perfect gin Martini with an orange twist. It does not contain orange as juice found in most formulae for this drink, which formulae are given in The Old Waldorf=Astoria Bar Book variously as "original," "No. 2" and "Waldorf" variations of the Bronx.
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Just put it into heavy duty ziplocks for reheating.
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The history of the Jimmy Roosevelt can be found in Chaz Baker's book, along with his recipe.
I don't feel at liberty to divulge the exact adaptation of the cocktail they do so successfully at Pegu Club, but a general description of their adaptation may be found above. Given the variables, one ought to be able to experiment and come up with a reasonably-sized drink that suits ones tastes. To me, one crucial discovery is that it needs a touch of extra sweetening, thus the swirl of demerara syrup in the glass described above.
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I think there are a lot of ways this sort of thing can be done. Several obvious examples of "modern takes" or "tweaks" of classic cocktails come from Audrey Saunders' oeuvre. The Tantris Sidecar is a tweaked Sidecar, the Old Cuban could be seen a a tweaked Mojito, etc. The difficulty in coming up with anything really interesting is going to be the fact that most any "classic Cuban cocktail" is going to revolve around rum, lime and sugar plus some other stuff. Not too terribly much room to innovate there.
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Some of this may have to do with the fact that, as far as I know, Rittenhouse is still restricted in distribution to certain geographies due to limitations in supply. Colorado, for example, is unlikely to be one of those places. So, if one sees Rittenhouse there, it probably got there by some move involved and expensive means, and the local supply is likely rather small -- all of which militates in favor of a higher price.
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My guess is that Cinzano's "Rosso" product is similar to Martini & Rossi's "Rosato" product. They appear to be an attempt to split the difference between their "Extra Dry" and "Rosso" bottlings -- perhaps simply by blending the two.
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Nilla Wafers
Peak Freens
Almond M&Ms
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Regarding heat from the motor vs from friction: my understanding is that the 3 hp unit does not heat the contents and it has to be creating as much friction as the 2 hp unit. Can anyone clarify whether the 3 hp unit gets hot?
Yes, things in the VitaPrep 3 1005 do get hot (although the blades are not the same). This is among the reasons why, for example, it is advisable to include some ice cubes in the cannister if you would like to make a puree of fresh green herbs. The ice cubes not only help in getting the herbs into vortexable form, but also counteract any heating that might cook the herbs and reduce their bright green color and flavor.
The "heat from the motor" isn't what caused the friction, by the way. It is the friction of the food against the blades and against the interior of the cannister that heats the contents. There are some differences between the cannister and blade design for the VitaPrep and the VitaMix, but not enough to mitigate the heating effect of friction.
The differences in warranties are interesting, but I'm not sure I would be very worried about the commercial 3 hp unit breaking down in home use.The reason the warranties are so different is because the VitaPrep 3 is designed for commercial use. A heavily used blender is going to get far more use and abuse in a restaurant over 3 months than a blender is likely to get in the home of even the most avid smoothie drinker over ten years. It seems likely, for example, that a professional kitchen might actually run the motor as much as three or four hours a day making emulsified sauces, purees, soups, etc. A home user is unlikely to run the motor more than one or two hours a week at most (consider that it only takes around two minutes to make a smoothie, etc.) -- and average home use is more likely counted in one or two hours per month. And, of course, the nature of the use is also likely to be quite different. This is the rationale behind the two warranties. Also, if you look at the two warranties, the VP warranty is effectively the same as the VM warranty for three years (i.e., if anything goes wrong due to defects or normal use, they will set it right) versus seven years for the VM.
When considering warranties it's valuable to consider the manufacturer's assumptions, which are that on average nothing will go wrong during the warranty period. So, we now have a basis on which to compare the VitaMix 7 year warranty and the VitaPrep 3 year warranty. Let's assume, for example, that you run that VitaMix an hour a day, every day, for the full 7 years. That equals around 2,600 hours. Projecting that usage back to the VitaPrep, we can take those 2,600 hours and compress them into three years. That equals around 2 1/3 hours of use per day over three years. This seems pretty reasonable to me. If anything favors the VitaPrep warranty, because it is far more likely that a VitaPrep in a busy kitchen will get at least a couple of hours of use a day on average, whereas very few VitaMix owners will really use their blender for an hour a day on average. The "average assumption" for the VitaMix is further lowered by the fact that it's much more common for home users to buy a kitchen tool that hardly gets used than it is for a restaurant kitchen.
Whether you "need" the extra HP is totally a matter of preference. I chose the VitaPrep because it's designed for heavy commercial use, has a stronger motor, is the equipment specified by name in a number of high end cookbooks I have, and doesn't cost all that much more than the VitaMix if you buy it on eBay. But, for me, if I'm considering spending money on something like a very expensive blender, I am usually willing to spend a bit more for what I think is the best. To me, the price difference between the VitaMix and the VitaPrep wasn't large enough to make me choose the VitaMix. If I were going to choose something less expensive than the VitaPrep based on price, I would choose something significantly less expensive than the VitaMix.
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I'll back up my original statement that Campari isn't considered an amaro because it isn't served on it's own by saying it's a aperitif, because the company that produces it says it is. It's often like that. The marketing department decides what the product is whether it flies in the face of common wisdom and usage or not.
Why can't an amaro be an aperitif or a digestif? I understand and agree that most are digestifs, but I don't think it's aperitif-ness disqualifies it from being an amaro. I feel like I'm taking my LSATs again. I'm sticking with campari is an amaro.
There is no reason to say that amari are only digestivi in Italian culture. Cynar's own product literature, for example, describes it as an "aperitivo digestivo" -- explicitly stating that it can function as either. Given the strong similarity between the two products, I'd suggest that this opens the door for Campari as well.
I would also suggest that the reason Campari doesn't stress the "amaro" aspect of their product is that amari are in general still thought of as something that older people drink after a heavy meal, whereas Campari has long cultivated a hip, modern, younger image and the idea that Campari transcends any categorization (which is probably why they sell around a million bottles of Campari for every one bottle of Amaro Nonino, Averna, etc.).
I will further suggest that we (meaning those of us in the US cocktail culture) don't tend to think of Campari as an amaro because most of us were aware of Campari and Campari-based cocktails long before we were aware of amari as an Italian beverage category. The fact that there are those of us who hold that "amari" consists of a broad and uninterrupted spectrum extending from vermouth bianco all the way to Angostura bitters indicates that we're not thinking of these things the same ways Italians do (who could consider neither vermouth nor Angostura bitters nor Chartreuse to be amari).
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Kohai? Buehller?? Anyone? No commentary on the "cocktails in Italy" thing after several days? I'd like someone to find some source material to back up that postulation. Seems we've already cured the "must-be-grape-based" end of the matter with Cynar not being grape based.
I'll back up my original statement that Campari isn't considered an amaro because it isn't served on it's own by saying it's a aperitif, because the company that produces it says it is. It's often like that. The marketing department decides what the product is whether it flies in the face of common wisdom and usage or not.
I would assert that most Italians might not ordinarily think of Campari as an amaro for reasons which have been well-described in this thread. But if you were to ask them about it, they'd likely say, "hmm... now that I think about it, I guess it is a kind of amaro." I also wouldn't agree with the premise that Campari is most often used as a mixer in its country of origin. Indeed, there can hardly be anything called cocktail culture in Italy. Yes, it is very popular with soda. But that's as far as it goes for the most part. I would say that it is most common there to take Campari neat or over ice, and significantly less common to mix it with anything other than soda.
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There's a whole literature of savory smoothies out there, focusing in particular on "blended salads." What I've read is that, when you chew a salad, you fail to break down a very high percentage of the cellulose in the lettuce and other vegetables. Whereas, when you blend it (especially in a high-power blender), you break down the cells and can therefore utilize more of the nutrients.
This has always seemed a bit dubious to me. Especially since most of the hardcore "blender fanatics" out there promulgating this information are pursuing some fairly fringe dietary and health philosophies. Even if it is true, it seems quite clear to me that most people who can afford a high power blender and eat a normal diet are far more likely to be overnourished than undernourished. Middle class people in developed countries don't tend to suffer from undernourishment as a generality.
As I get a little closer to thinking a high-power blender purchase is justified, my mental picture of the relevant criteria comes into focus. There seem to be a few factors that influence blender performance. Horsepower is one of them. In terms of raw horsepower, the Vita products are actually not at the top of the hierarchy. The Waring Xtreme is 3.5. The Blendtec models tend to be 3. Almost every Vita unit is in the 2s, except for one that's 3. But raw horsepower is only one consideration. There's the way speed is controlled, there's blade design, pitcher design and various other things. These seem to be the areas in which the Vita products really excel.
There are two features I really like about the VitaPrep: First, there is a dial that allows you to make smooth adjustments to the blender speed on the fly. This is not only useful when you want to break down larger pieces into smaller pieces before cranking it up to full-on liquify, but also makes it possible to control for chunkier textures if desired. Then, if you really want a smooth liquid, you can switch it over to high speed which is even faster than the highest adjustment on the speed dial. Second, the VitaPrep comes with a special rubber top with a large hole in the middle into which is inserted a large plunger tool. This tool is not only useful for shoving food items down into the blades at lower speeds (especially useful when making fresh green herb purees with ice cubes), but at the highest speeds you can position the plunger in the blending canister to influence the vortex and insure rapid turnover of the material in the canister. This makes for more efficient blending and also for a more uniform puree.
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The Corpse Reviver #2 is indeed a worthy nominee. So worthy, in fact, that it's already in Doc's book.
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I think this waiter sums the "rules" up pretty well. The rules explained.
. . . in which Steve Dublanica demonstrates not only that he's not all that clever and funny, but also kind of a douche and just the kind of waiter one hopes not to get.
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The Jimmie Roosevelt is a drink that I've never thought works quite right as written but has awesome potential if tweaked (though this is sort of the rule for >80% of Baker's drinks). I had what I thought was a decent version of it worked out and we talked about putting it on our menu but decided against it in the end for a variety of reasons. But it's a fun drink to pull out on folks who like intellectual beverages. How is everyone making these?
It's interesting that you say many of Baker's drinks need tweaking. I suppose that's true. Certainly it's true for the Jimmy, not least because the original formula calls for three ounces of cognac, one ounce of Green Chartreuse and a half bottle of champagne! The Jimmy was cocktail on the opening menu at Pegu Club, which I write about here:
Besides offering her own creations, Audrey's menus often feature a few contemporary cocktails created by colleagues and forgotten classics worth resurrecting. To that end, the menu features Paul Harrington's Jasmine, Dale DeGroff's Whiskey Smash and from Charles "Doc" Baker's The Gentleman's Companion (one of the all time great cocktail books), the Jimmie Roosevelt. This last one deserves a little extra description, for it is a most interesting libation and one that is unlikely to be familiar. In the Pegu Club's version, a glass is rinsed with demerara simple syrup, then in goes some Cognac and an Angostura-soaked sugar cube; on top of that goes cracked ice, then a top of champagne and the whole thing drizzled with Green Chartreuse. Since the drink isn't mixed per se, the ingredients combine in the glass according to their own whimsy (and specific gravities, no doubt), which leads to a drink that evolves greatly, making many twists and turns on the way to the bottom of the glass. The first few sips are light, dry and effervescent; then the herbal exoticism of the Chartreuse begins to make its presence felt, lurking around the bits of cracked ice; towards the bottom of the glass the sweetness from the demerara syrup rinse and the Angostura's cinnamon come to the fore. Meanwhile the Cognac is there throughout to tie the whole thing together. It's like three or four drinks in one -- a must have.Pegu Club came to be highly associated with the drink, and to the best of my knowledge no other bar is offering it. It requires a very large coupe a lot of guys around here actually call the "Jimmy glass" for short. You can still order the Jimmy Roosevelt off-menu at Pegu Club. Lately, Del Pedro, who is now at Pegu Club, has been adding his own touch by igniting a small dish of Green Chartreuse, repeatedly swirling the rim of the glass into the flaming liquid and blowing it out, thereby creating a thin shell of burnt/candied Chartreuse around the rim.
Two other Baker drinks I think I'd nominate, and which I have been enjoying lately, are the Holland Razor Blade and the Daisy de Santiago.
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We're all ware of Doc's monumental Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails : From the Alamagoozlum to the Zombie : 100 Rediscovered Recipes and the Stories Behind Them. But I, for one, am disappointed that some of my favorite lesser-knowns are not included -- and there also seem to be some obvious candidates that aren't in there. So I thought I'd start a topic for people to nominate cocktails for possible "Forgotten Cocktail" great status.
Here are the first four that come to mind:
#1 The Jimmy Roosevelt : Quite simply one of the great cocktails of all time, from the best-written cocktail book of all time
#2 The Parkeroo : 2-to-1 sherry to tequila; infinite possibilities from the Stork Club Bar Book
#3 Remember the Main : Another nice one from Chaz Baker
#4 The Last Word : Seems like an obvious one
Sous vide turkey
in Cooking
Posted
I make stock out of the bones and scraps for the sauce.
Personally, I think their time and temp is terrible. 160F comes out to around 71C. I find that turkey breast is best at around 60.5C (aka 140F). 71C turkey breast seems overcooked to me by quite a lot. As for time, since turkey breast is a tender meat, there is no reason to cook it any longer than the minimum time required to bring it up to temperature. Douglas Baldwin's site has all the relevant thickness/temperature/time charts in one easy-to-find location.
Also, if you're going to go to all the trouble of separating the breast meat and leg meat, why treat them the same and cook them at the same time/temperature? That seems crazy to me. Treat them differently! Turkey leg meat benefits from higher cooking temperatures and longer cooking times than breast meat. The simple way to do this would be to make "turkey confit" out of it. To do this, salt/herb it overnight, then rinse it off, bag it with a small amount of fat, and cook it at 80C for 80-10 hours. Then ice it down and chuck it in the refrigerator for a while. After that, you can unbag it and crisp it up of shred it out or whatever you want to do.
This Thanksgiving, I'm going to cut up all the leg meat into relatively uniform chunks (removing all the extra sinew, etc.), mix it with some herbs and a few nuts, then bind it back together into a rectangular brick with Activa. I'll cook this at around 70C for many hours and then slice it into cubes for service (possibly browning it in butter). If I can, I'll bind the turkey skin on to the outside of the brick. I'll serve that with a slender breast meat roulade I've filled with a black truffle-and-turkey mousse and cooked to 61C.