Last Crumb

Having no special connections in the spirits industry, I’ve been waiting patiently to get my bottle of Lucid absinthe for several months. The first true absinthe to reach the U.S. market since the drink was banned nearly 100 years ago, Lucid has caused quite a stir in the spirits world. But so far it’s only distributed in New York and New Jersey. And according to the friendly folks at John Walker Co., who I went and pestered recently, it won’t be available for another month or more. They did let slip, however, that St. George Spirits is about to release an absinthe of their own – did I hear that right?! Reason to check back next month, but not good enough right now.

After a little sleuthing online, I discovered that Drink Up NY not only carried Lucid, but it was $5 off, and they offer free shipping on all orders of $50 or more. Done. My bottle was delivered to the office yesterday, and Andy and I cracked it open for a tasting last night.

I haven’t tried any of the absinthes available on the international market, but for what it’s worth, I was impressed by the crispness, balance, and complexity of Lucid’s flavors. Though it is not as thick or rich looking as some of the varieties I’ve seen pictured online, it has a pleasant, silky mouthfeel and an excellent aftertaste. Even as other quality absinthes arrive on the market, the accessibly and reasonable price of Lucid will probably make it my default absinthe for cocktails.

How to Drink Absinthe

Absinthe should be prepared very slowly. Though you can omit the sugar, and even the water, this is the most traditional method and brings out the flavors beautifully.

1. Pour 1-1.5 ounces absinthe into a glass. Rest an absinthe spoon – or a common kitchen fork :) – on the rim of the glass and place a sugar cube on top.

2. Very slowly, drip ice cold water over the sugar cube until it dissolves. You may need to continue adding water until you’ve reached a ratio somewhere between 3:1 and 5:1 of water to absinthe.

3. As the sugar dissolves and the water drips into the absinthe, observe the liquid as it begins to grow cloudy. Eventually the whole drink will be opaque.

4. Stir a few times with the spoon and enjoy.

Notes: For a charming demonstration on preparing absinthe, take a look at this video clip. For more on the legality of absinthe, here’s a good article from the Washington Post.

Posted by: Rose on September 18th, 2007 © Filed under: Cocktails & Spirits | 8 Comments »

I have a beautiful, unexpected day off today, and am spending it in the kitchen, drying, preserving, mixing dough, thinking. Invariably it happens – someone close or far, a friend, a relative, a colleague, visits this blog and asks the same question. Why make bitters, or butter, or vermouth, or ketchup from scratch? Usually, the answer seems so clear to me, I needn’t even consider before answering. But last night I wondered aloud if it wasn’t just a little petty maybe, or a little silly, a grown up way, maybe, to play with my food.

No, Andy (my beloved, my better, more humane and just self) said, it’s a search for authenticity, for the authentic experience. Indeed. We are so far divorced from the way our food is made or grown, we often have trouble recognizing the real thing.

What, for instance, would real grenadine taste like? We have the “false” version on our bar (ingredients: high fructose corn syrup, water, citric acid, natural and artificial flavors, sodium citrate, sodium benzoate, red 40, blue 1.), but I’ve been thinking of making some from scratch, out of real pomegranates. How about mayonnaise, granola?

I’m reading And Then, You Act, a collection of essays about making art, and more specifically, theater, in an unpredictable world. In her introduction, Anne Bogart suggest that as Americans in the 21st century we are the objects of “constant flattery and manufactured desire.” “I believe,” she says, “that the only possible resistance to a culture of banality is quality.” I believe that to be true of art, but I feel the same way about food. In many ways, quality and authenticity are synonymous. Eat, Michael Pollan suggests, food that your great, great grandmother would recognize as food. So today I peeled and sliced pears, cut apples into rounds.

Dried fruit is so easy, it hardly deserves a recipe. If you don’t have a food dehydrator, you can dry fruit successfully in the oven, but it will take a bit longer.

Dried Pears or Apples

• 4-5 lbs ripe apples or pears, peeled if desired
• 1-2 cups lemon juice (optional) or
• 1 cup honey (optional)

1. Cut fruit into uniform slices or rounds, about 1/8 – 1/4 inch.

2. If desired, treat with lemon juice (to help preservation), or honey (to sweeten). Place fruit on drying rack or cookie sheet with room enough between slices to allow for air circulation.

• To treat with lemon juice, mix 1 part lemon juice to 1 part water in a large bowl and place fruit into it. Allow to soak 10 minutes, drain well and place on drying rack or cookie sheet.
• To treat with honey, mix 1 cup honey with 1 1/2 cups warm water and stir to dissolve. Add fruit and soak 3-5 minutes. Drain well and place on drying rack or cookie sheet.

3. Set dehydrator to 135 degrees or oven to the lowest possible setting (or 140 degrees) and set racks inside. If using an oven, leave the door open slightly and, if possible, point a fan in to increase air circulation.

4. Dry for 6-12 hours depending on temperature and humidity, checking frequently when fruit is close to being ready. To test for doneness, cut several piece in half. There should be no visible moisture and fruit should not stick to itself when pressed together. The dried fruit should have about 20% moisture content.

5. Allow to cool and pack tightly into clean, dry, well sealed containers. Store in a cool dry place. Fruit will keep for up to one year.

~
Apple-Pear Sauce

Making apple or apple-pear sauce is just as easy as drying fruit. The sweetness of ripe pears works perfectly with tart, ripe apples. I used a variety of both – McIntosh, Granny Smith, and Cox’s Orange Pippin apples, and Bosc and Comice pears.

• About 20 medium apples, or a combination of apples and pears, cored, quartered, and peeled if desired
• 2-3 cups water
• 1 tbs honey
• 1 tsp almond extract

1. Place fruit in a large, heavy pot with about an inch of water and simmer, stirring regularly, until soft. Crush any remaining chunks against the side of the pot.

2. Stir in the honey and almond extract. The sauce will probably be sweet enough without the honey, but I like to add it for the flavor. Orange and vanilla extracts are also excellent, as is cinnamon.

3. Pour into sterile jars and process 15 minutes in a boiling water canner. Or transfer to a glass container and store 2-3 weeks in the refrigerator.

Yields about 5 pints.

Posted by: Rose on September 13th, 2007 © Filed under: Food for Thought, Preserves | 2 Comments »

Beer bread isn’t really the first thing I might think of making. In fact, as I was mixing up a batch last night I wondered what I was doing baking bread when we had two loaves in the bread basket and 8 grocery bags of apples and pears that need preserving (please post your favorite recipes to the forum!)

But the folks over at A Year in Bread had posted a recipe a couple of weeks ago, and last night we opened Andy’s latest batch of beer. It wasn’t the best beer he’s made. A bit thin, a bit one-note, with too many molasses overtones. Certainly drinkable, but “what else can you do with beer,” Andy asked. And I knew.

I mixed together flour, salt, sugar and baking powder. Stirred in some of the beer. Added handfuls of raisins and walnuts and put it in the oven. The whole thing took less than 5 minutes, not including the baking time. And in the morning, we had this fresh, moist loaf of raisin-walnut bread. It’s perfect with a big slab of fresh butter.

Raisin-Walnut Beer Bread

• 3 cups flour (use any combination you like)
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tbs baking powder
• 2 tbs brown sugar
• 1 1/2 cups beer (more as needed to achieve a thick but pourable dough)
• 1/2 cup raisins
• 1/2 cup walnuts

1. Preheat oven to 375. Combine flour, salt, baking powder and sugar in a large mixing bowl. Pour in beer and stir until just combined. Fold in raisins and walnuts.

2. Pour batter into a well buttered loaf pan and bake about 45 minutes, or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean. Let rest for 10 minutes before removing from pan.

Note: Feel free to experiment with other flavors – herbs, cheeses, nuts – this recipe is very flexible.

Posted by: Rose on September 11th, 2007 © Filed under: Baking, Bread | 2 Comments »

Several months ago I had to drop off some equipment at a colleague’s house not far from where I live in Long Beach. It was late in the afternoon when I arrived, and after transferring the goods into my co-worker’s truck, he and his wife invited me to join them on their poolside patio for a glass of wine. I had a funeral I was supposed to be getting dressed for, but I couldn’t turn down an offer like that. Once inside Tom’s kitchen he asked me if I would like red wine or some vermouth on the rocks. He informed me that his family is of French descent and that they always drink vermouth on the rocks. He also let me know that the last time he was over there in the old country visiting his family he had made a habit out of drinking the stuff as well.

I politely declined the vermouth and opted for the red wine.

Since that day I’ve been asking myself why I didn’t go for the vermouth. Was it because I like to stick to the tried and true, or was it because I’d been brain washed by our “vermouth=the devil” cocktail culture. I’ve always heard vermouth referred to like a toxic substance or something to be used so sparingly in drinks that one could hardly taste it. Why would I want to drink a whole glass of something like that, and what is it anyway?

Turns out vermouth isn’t so scary after all, and is actually quite drinkable once you open your mind to it. The sweet (and original) version of vermouth is an aromatized wine which was developed by an Italian named Antonio Benedetto Carpano in the late 1700′s. It was named after the word “wermut”, which in modern German means both vermouth and wormwood. Sweet vermouth was originally produced by infusing any number of herbs and botanicals in a fortified white wine and adding sugar to sweeten it up and counteract the bitter flavor.

Not long after sweet vermouth came along, dry vermouth followed. It was invented by the French about 14 years later, utilized their dry white wines, and rarely had any sugar added. This is the primary vermouth used to make martinis these days.

The following recipe creates a fairly dry vermouth. If you wish to create a sweet vermouth simply caramelize some sugar until deep brown and add it to the vermouth once all is said and done. Add a little at a time until you reach your desired sweetness.

–Homemade Vermouth:

Ingredients:

• 5 pinches coriander
• 1 pinch spearmint
• 1 pinch sage
• 2 pinches burdock root
• 3 juniper berries
• 3 pinches dried orange peel (bitter preferred)
• 1 pinch scullcap
• 2 pinches Pau d’Arco bark
• 1 pinch oregano
• 2 pinch dandelion root
• 1/2 stick cinnamon
• 1 star anise
• 1 pinch cardamom seeds
• 2 pinch ground nutmeg
• 1 pinch sweet basil
• 1 pinch rosemary
• 2 pinches chamomile
• 1 pinch angelica root
• 1 piece gentian root
• 1 small pinch quinine
• 1 pinch Marjoram
• 2 pinches fennel seeds
• 2 pinches ground ginger
• 1 pinch bay leaf
• 4 cloves
• 1 pinch saffron
• 1 red chili berry
• 3 black pepper corns
• 5 drops wormwood extract
• 1/2 vanilla bean
• 2 tsp. white sugar
• 1 bottle dry white wine
• 150 ml. Cognac, or cheap brandy depending on your budget
• Extra 750 ml. bottle with screw cap
• Funnel
• cheese cloth or coffee filter or tee shirt

Method:

1. Measure out all the herbs and the sugar into a small sauce pan.
2. Open the bottle of white wine.
3. Cover the herbs in white wine, about 200 ml.
4. Simmer for about 10 minutes with the lid on, stirring occasionally, then let cool.
5. Add 140 ml. of Cognac to the empty bottle.
6. Add the remaining wine to the new bottle leaving a couple of inches at the top for the infusion.
7. Fit your filter material into your funnel and filter the cooled infusion. Make sure to squeeze out all of the juice.
8. Add the wormwood extract to the filtered infusion.
9. Add half of the infusion to the new bottle and shake it up to mix thoroughly.
10. Taste the concoction to see if it’s strong enough. If it’s not, add the rest of the infusion to the mixture.
11. If you think it needs more of a certain herb, simply add some more of that herb to the sauce pan, cover it with a dose of the vermouth mixture, boil, filter, add back to bottle.
12. Refrigerate the bottle after you’ve finished taste testing and adjusting the vermouth to your personal tastes.

Notes:

1. Any mixture of herbs and botanicals can be used. The ones I listed are just suggestions, most of which are easily available at Whole Foods or similar stores. You may need to mail order herbs like: gentian, angelica root, and quinine from a place like this.
2. This (or any alcoholic) beverage shouldn’t be consumed by lactating or pregnant mothers.
3. Thank you Darcy at The Art of Drink for giving me some guidance and inspiration on this project.

Posted by: Will on September 6th, 2007 © Filed under: Cocktails & Spirits | 7 Comments »

We’re brimming with heirloom tomatoes from our farm CSA box, but somehow none of my usual uses for tomatoes have seemed appealing lately. The tomatoes this year have been so good that they mostly beg to be eaten straight – sliced with a bit of sea salt and good olive oil, or layered into a caprese salad with basil and fresh mozzarella. But there are only so many fresh tomatoes we can eat, and I came home tonight to find a couple handsome heirlooms on the verge of decline. It seemed a good night to try and put together a real ketchup.

Commercial ketchup, like commercial mayonnaise, bears little resemblance to the real thing. Raised like everyone else on the supermarket formula consisting mostly of high-fructose corn syrup, tomato paste and celery powder, it never occurred to me that ketchup could be anything more than a fast food side. But a little breakfast joint on our old neighborhood happened to have a fantastic homemade variety, and I’ve been meaning to make a batch ever since.

This recipe lends itself well to experimentation – all of the spices can be adjusted to taste, and many others would be worth playing with. For a spicier sauce, add a few (or many) dashes of hot sauce. It also turns out a delightful golden orange color if you use a mix of different colored tomatoes.

– Heirloom Tomato Ketchup

Ingredients
*2 tbs olive oil
*1 medium onion, finely diced
*1 red jalapeño pepper, seeded and diced
*4 cloves garlic
*3 lbs assorted heirloom tomatoes, peeled and seeded
*1/3 cup + 3 tbs apple cider vinegar
*2 tbs dark brown sugar
*1 cup water
*1 tsp cardamom
*1 star anise
*1 tsp celery seed
*1/2 tsp cloves
*1 tsp cinnamon
*2 tsp smoked paprika
*1 tsp chili powder
*2 tsp salt
*freshly ground black pepper to taste

Method
1. In a non-reactive sauce pan, sauté the onion and jalapeño in the olive oil until golden and very soft, about 20 minutes. When the pan starts to dry out, add 1/2 cup of the water. Add the garlic and cook for another minute, then stir in tomatoes, 1/3 cup vinegar, and the sugar.

2. Place the cardamom, star anise, celery seed, and cloves in a spice bag, or tie in a bit of cheesecloth, and add to the tomato mixture. Add the cinnamon, smoked paprika, chili powder and salt and stir well.

3. Cook the ketchup until thick but not completely dry, about 2-3 hours. Adjust seasoning to taste and transfer to a blender. Puree until very smooth. You may need to add the other 1/2 cup water if the ketchup is too thick. Pour in the additional 3 tbs vinegar (or to taste) and pulse to combine. Transfer to sterile jars and refrigerate, or process 15 minutes in a boiling water canner. Homemade ketchup should last about 2 months in the refrigerator.

Yields 2 small jars.

Posted by: Will on August 30th, 2007 © Filed under: Condiments, Preserves | No Comments »