the nytimes reminded me to use rose water in cooking/cocktails. frankly, my bottle of rose water tends to sit rather unused next to my bottle of orange flower water, which waits for the next time i muster up the courage for 10 minutes of shaking to deliver a ramos gin fizz.
some rose water rice pudding sounds spot on to me...wiki has more if you want it.
Entered on 08.31.2010 at 22:16
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(conscious protest of 'n' in the title here)
my wife and i have dark and stormy's all lined up for a happy hour this week; the kids are even excited to have some ginger beer with us. serendipitously, the nytimes covered dark and storm's today, even throwing a homemade ginger beer recipe into the mix.
Entered on 08.23.2010 at 12:34
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internet rumor predicted that kfc was testing a new sandwich consisting of 5 layers of fried chicken skin, bacon, and cheese...the skinwich. turns out to be a hoax, but the chicago tribune went for it anyway.
they loved it.
Entered on 08.19.2010 at 21:20
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i've been wanting to eat a blt lately. in my head, i have everything thick sliced. thick sliced sourdough bread (i don't usually like thick bread on a sandwich), thick slices of tomatoes, some mayo, leaf lettuce, and lots of peppery bacon. this guy's rundown looks pretty fantastic, though i confess some suspicion over his use of canola mayo (i think canola oil tastes...bad).
Entered on 08.19.2010 at 7:02
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esquire has a filler piece (and not a great one) on how to drink on an airplane. the author recommends drinking before you get on the plane, says that he usually orders two of those micro bottles of scotch, and then says that he is considering making cocktails on a plane.
that's where i'm jumping in. in general, we can probably agree that most cocktails on a plane are excluded due to the lack of necessary ingredients/tools (are you really going to juice a lime on the plane for your oh-so-clever-becuase-we're-actually-flying aviation?). however, on a recent emirites flight i realized that their little carts were stocked with campari, gin, and sweet vermouth. that worked out well, as you don't even have to shake a negroni for it to work.
i ended up with a severe nut allergy soon after, so my first negroni didn't have a happy ending. but a second leg of that trip worked out better.
Entered on 08.07.2010 at 11:59
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got a nod for tomato pie from my beat dropping friend. tomatoes, corn, cheese, and mayo (?) in a biscuity pie crust - i'm assured it's amazing.
Entered on 08.06.2010 at 11:20
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i am a bit of a whiner about ice cream; most of the brands park guar gum, carrageenan, and other oddities in their flavors that make the taste/texture less delicious. haagan-dazs is the only major maker i've found that leaves it out, which makes up for the made up stupidity of their name (it was supposed to sound scandanavian or something; they made it up).
anyway, i'm quite happy to report that the nytimes taste compared a bunch of 'super-premium' ice creams (comparing strawberry, as nearly all the brands had it), and haagan-dazs took the top two spots. number one was their '5' strawberry; number two was their regular strawberry (which also has just 5 ingredients, just mixed in slightly different proportions).
Entered on 08.04.2010 at 7:59
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spending the week in the mountains, away from our usual baking goods, which means that we are eating fewer sweet and more savory breakfasts. as is tradition for my family, that means breakfast burritos nearly every day. we prepare the potatoes ahead of time by boiling large cubes until they're soft, then pan frying them in some butter to brown them. then, in the morning, we heat the potatoes with some sausage, add some beans, scramble some eggs, and tie it all together with some green chile and cheese in a tortilla.
incidentally, breakfast burritos is what you eat in new mexico. breakfast tacos is what you eat in texas. in texas, you eat a handful of them (they're smaller), whereas in new mexico you get one giant burrito.
Entered on 07.28.2010 at 9:09
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there's a story about the process of a pig roast in the nytimes, starting with an aborted attempt to roast the pig in nyc (the fire department called it off for them). i've never roasted a pig luau style however; we did ours over coals, and covered the thing with some roofing metal to increase our radiant heat. on the bright side, we didn't have to cook it for 20+ hours either; it was done in 5 or 6. feasible to do in a city too...get a fire pit, build a good charcoal fire, put the pig over the fire on a grate (ok, a really large grate), and cover the thing on almost all sides to keep the heat in.
Entered on 07.21.2010 at 9:15
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how to open a bottle of wine with a shoe.
might come in handy someday.
via metafilter
Entered on 07.13.2010 at 8:36
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the ol' nytimes pour blog posts on 12 unusual grapes to try, assuming you can find wines made from them. several of them are worthwhile for their names alone, from grignolino (i think that's aspanish for small white guy) to the starbucks sounding frappato.
Entered on 07.13.2010 at 8:08
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for reasons i can't remember, we recently ended up with a large quantity of mashed potatoes in our fridge. so, for breakfast today, my partner in crime made some potato pancakes by mixing some egg, flour, and diced mushrooms into the potatoes, and frying them in some butter. fantastic enough to make us wish we had mashed potato leftovers around all the time.
a few recipes: julia child's Gallettes de Pommes Duchesse (you'll have to scroll towards the bottom to find it).
basic old mashed potato pancakes.
and, with a nod towards leprechaun land, irish boxty.
Entered on 07.08.2010 at 7:39
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the big green egg is an expensive grill, accused by a friend of being "yuppie grill gear", but i bought one and love it. there have been lower priced options available that are available for a while (at academy sports this weekend i saw an egg knock off for $600, cart and everything), but now there is an even more expensive option. presenting the viking c4 grill. for $3,225, you can have what looks to be a big green egg that has been coated in stainless steel. think of it as a battle grade egg, ready to reflect lasers and deflect small arms fire.
Entered on 07.06.2010 at 6:21
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ok. i am going to be treading on some thin ice here. some of you are going to be sorely offended, but i am gonna come right out and say this: Carolina style bbq just doesnt cut it. now, i'm not saying that i don't love me some pulled pork with some nice yellow mustard sauce. but really... it's idiot proof. a monkey could make a seriously killer pork shoulder. in the oven even. could a chimp churn out a respectable brisket? HECK NO! brisket is totally technique dependant. pork? you cook it with enough salt for enough time and people will be thinking you are some sort of BBQ divinity or something. brisket on the other hand... it's a different story. all that to say that i made some perty respectable carolina BBQ yesterday. i'm gonna let you in on all my secrets so you can follow along at home: (after the jump-)
(more inside)
Entered on 07.05.2010 at 10:39
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summertime, it's rhubarb crisp time. not sure rhubarb grows to well in texas, but in wisconsin it grew fantastically, and was eaten pretty regularly throughout the warmer season. mark bittman has one, the style blog has a rhubarb syrup recipe (an interesting sub in the bramble cocktail maybe?), and food and wine has one. don't eat the leaves though, they're poisonous.
Entered on 07.02.2010 at 12:58
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ristretto hits it right again with a post that starts by following all the super coffee geeks over to penny university (if you haven't yet heard of it, commit it to memory) before focusing in on penny's uber boiler, a tap that produces water dialed to a specific, controllable temperature.
as the owner of a hot water tap that i use for coffee, i am often wish i could set the temp on my boiler to be exactly where i want it - different teas and coffees do better and various temperatures. apparently the concept of a variable hot water tap is gaining steam (ha! get it?), as there is a project in the US to produce something similar, the luminaire.
Entered on 07.01.2010 at 12:48
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bittman has posted one of his giant 101 ways to do ___ articles, and this time it's 101 fast recipes for grilling.
always useful for some ideas.
Entered on 06.30.2010 at 6:25
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walking through the cheese section yesterday morning, the fondue cheese setup had me planning to make some. i grew up eating fondue made in an electric skillet with an extension cord draped from the outlet over to the kitchen table, where we'd all gather around and poke our bread and apples in the cheesey goodness.
the basic recipe is pretty simple. get 1/2 lb of gruyere and 1/2 lb of emmenthaler, cut the cheese into cubes. we'd coat the cheese cubes with 2 tbsp of flour and a little pepper; you need the flour anyway, and this way the cheese cubes don't stick together. heat 1/2 a bottle of white wine up, and add your cheese slowly once it's hot enough to melt the cheese; the only thing to watch is the heat, as you don't want it to boil. it's traditional to add a splash of kirsch and maybe some lemon; garlic is often present as well, but not too much.
Entered on 06.28.2010 at 13:16
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recently took the family up to visit some extended family in milwaukee (with a stop in chicago). besides the chance to eat cliche foods like chicago dogs, deep dish pizza, brats, and cheese curds, we ended up eating at solly's grille (link is to an egullet thread), a wisconsin burger place i'd eaten at as a kid.
their shtick is to slather about 2 tablespoons (honestly, sometimes more than 2) of butter onto an otherwise ordinary burger. it's a pretty good gimic honestly, and a very wisconsin one at that. wisconsin, the dairy state, is very butter happy; so much so, that when margarine was first introduced, a state law was passed that prohibited it from being dyed yellow so that no one could confuse it for butter.
my wife and i both loved the burgers; my kids were unable to finish theirs, and were frankly a bit overwhelmed by the sheer buttery abundance (i'll be working on them). assuming you have what it takes though, this is worth doing at home - make burgers, gently toast your buns, then pile an obscene quantity of butter onto the patty and close it up.
note: picture is of a real solly's burger
Entered on 06.26.2010 at 6:57
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nytimes again, this time covering the bramble. basically, a gin sour with blackberry liquor; kind of hard to go wrong there... a gin sour with nearly any accent flavor tends to work pretty well.
Entered on 06.16.2010 at 9:50
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the wsj has a fluff piece on eben klemm, the sr manager of wine and spirits for b.r. guests restaurants, which at least provides some entertainment value. the article helpfully points out that, "he takes two ounces of white rum, 3/4 ounce of fresh lime juice and 3/4 ounce of simple syrup (a boiled sugar-water blend) and shakes it all up with ice, adding a herb sprig or two as a garnish. "I make sure to slap [the sprig] between my hands to break up the oils" before adding it in, he notes. "
which is to say that mr klemm makes a daiquiri, then adds a garnish. if i ever get interviewed by the wsj, i'm going to talk about how i like to pour glasses of tonic water, then add some gin and lime slices. also i like to slap the limes first.
Entered on 06.05.2010 at 12:42
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we roasted a leg of lamb with a lemon/herb mixture this week, but bittman's leg of lamb thoughts have me wanting to do it again, this time with parsley and garlic.
i'm a bit biased towards lamb; it's my favorite meat, and the leftovers make fantastic sandwiches. i sliced ours up super thin, and am planning on eating it on a baguette with brie, horseradish, and veggies.
Entered on 06.05.2010 at 7:11
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recently made some grapefruit bitters that i left un-bitter enough to sip, assuming you have at least a mild tolerance for the bitter. the bitters came out well, and has fit nicely in a few drinks lately (esp the the hemingway daiquiri). mixed with some soda water it makes a sort of grapefruit tonic that is pretty grand as well.
the basic process i followed is that i peeled a grapefruit, then ate the fruit while the peel toasted in the oven at 250 for an hour. i cut the peel into strips and dropped it into a tupperware with 2 tbsp of rosemary and 2.5 cups of vodka. after letting this soak for about 8 hours, i added 2 tbsp of gentian root (gentian is one of the common bittering agents in bitters. if you live in austin and would like a few tbsp, let me know.) and left it for another hour.
at this point, i strained everything out (squeezing the grapefruit with my hand to get all the liquid out), added sugar (to taste - start with 1/3 cup and go from there), shook the sugar in to mix it, then bottled it up.
Entered on 06.02.2010 at 8:52
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business week shouts out guigal's cotes du rhone as an amazing value. extensive quoting ahoy - "to make a wine of this quality, age it for two years, bottle it, ship it to the U.S. (and other markets), pay duty, distribution costs, wholesaler and retailer markup, and still sell it for $15 is not only extraordinary—it's an act of winemaking genius."
"The wine itself is a blend of syrah, which brings weight and spice to the show, grenache, which brings a fresh fruitiness; and mourvèdre, which brings a silky elegance. Here all three work seamlessly and gloriously together, resulting in a rich and earthy wine of huge seductive appeal."
wine.com has the 2006 available.
Entered on 05.25.2010 at 8:58
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cocktail culture has bickered about the effectiveness of the 'hard shake' trumpeted by japanese bartender kazuo uyeda. he recently gave a two day seminar on japanese bartending, and based on the tmagazine overview it appears that the fascination with japanese bartending may be over.
back to our usual american style then; for better or worse, we tend to value creativity over precision, bold flavors over subtle tones, and anyone who pushes blue curacao and bunch of artificial colorants is gonna get unfollowed.
Entered on 05.19.2010 at 11:30
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nytimes (again), this time noticing that the younger wine crowd doesn't drink bordeaux. they note that it is perceived as stuffy and corporate, and that it's...expensive. some might even say overpriced.
personally, i don't drink bordeaux, have never had a first growth wine, and am unlikely to drop that kind of cash on a bottle of wine.
Entered on 05.19.2010 at 5:55
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the nytimes covered moonshine, as in unaged whiskey. as it hasn't had any contact with wood (no barrel aging), it's clear, and tastes like the base grain (corn, barley, whatever).
i'm thinking about picking up some death's door white whiskey while i'm in wisconsin next month...
Entered on 05.18.2010 at 5:54
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evidently, people in austin spend more per capita on groceries and on eating out than everyone else in america. almost twice the national average in fact.
it's all those locally grown organic humanly raised free range sprouts we're eating.
Entered on 05.14.2010 at 10:36
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looking for a small hibachi style grill? the bodum frykat looks pretty slick ($49.95).
Entered on 05.11.2010 at 13:43
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i happen to love rice pudding; my wife tends to find it disgusting (same situation for horchata). the kids are a bit unsure how to think about it, despite my best efforts to win them over to the pro-rice-pudding team.
my wife does like risotto however, means that she often buys arborio rice, which i then proceed to steal and put into delicious rice pudding. i strongly recommend that you try arborio rice in your next rice pudding, as this chow recipe. i like to eat it with some raisins soaked in rum and a caramel sauce...
Entered on 05.11.2010 at 12:02
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i'm a sucker for roasted vegetables, so i was pretty much in from the picture alone on this nytimes bit on roasted radishes. i mean, come on: (describing the radishes) "instead of spicy, crisp and crunchy, these radishes were sweet, succulent and mellow, vaguely like turnips but with a softer bite. "
Entered on 05.08.2010 at 8:11
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bkoffie, an african coffee shop in new york, serves their coffee in to-go cups that are mini-presses. crazy; african coffees are my favorites, and a press is my favorite brewing method, so two giant points there. seems a bit heavy on the waste though, though i guess it's probably not much more than the whole disposable coffee cup / sleeve / carrier system.
Entered on 05.08.2010 at 12:58
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poking around the web to find a reasonable chole / chana masala (tomato and garbanzo curry, one of my favs) for a friend, and i ended up clicking through quite a few recipes on this site. i'm not indian, and honestly my allergies can prevent me from eating quite a few 'real' indian recipes, but the cauliflower and red lentil recipe looked good (minus the sugar), as did their chole (note: the tancom in the recipe is a brand of tamarind paste), as did a few other random things i looked at.
Entered on 05.07.2010 at 12:48
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el jefe was poking around about 'the last word' and turned up 'light my fire' - there are a few cocktails that bear this name, but the one in question is this cocktail by cocktail king jamie boudreau. it's a riff on the last word, with last years 'it' spirit st germain subbing for the maraschino. also it has flame, which is always fun.
LIGHT MY FIRE, by jamie boudreau
1 oz gin
½ oz St. Germain elderflower
½ oz lemon juice
¼ oz green Chartreuse
place green Chartreuse in a cocktail glass
place remaining ingredients in a shaker with ice and shake
light Chartreuse on fire with a Chartreuse mister and flame extinguish with the remaining ingredients (use a strainer).
Entered on 05.07.2010 at 8:53
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bobby heugel of anvil fame on the papa doble, better known as the hemingway daiquiri. those of you who hear the word daiquiri and think of over 21 slurpees need to purge your minds and make a real daiquiri; they're simple concoctions of lime, sugar, and rum. the hemingway daiquiri follows this base and adds grapefruit and maraschino.
Entered on 05.07.2010 at 11:39
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the last word, originally created in the detroit athletic club during prohibition, was rediscovered by seattle bartender murray stenson of the zig zag cafe, and is now considered by many to be 'the' seattle cocktail. the ingredient list is a bit counter-intuitive at first glance; gin, lime, green chartreuse, and maraschino liquor. the chartreuse and maraschino is what might give you pause, but it kind of makes sense if you think about it as well...
Entered on 05.06.2010 at 11:32
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micro batch craft brewed...
i love the experience and chemistry of home brewing. unfortunately, it takes a lot of time and tweaking to turn out a superior product. couple that with the equipment intensive nature of brewing on a large enough scale to meet our beer needs and you can see why we have given up on home brewing. recently though, our friend don mentioned that he wanted to try brewing en casa. serendipitously, i came across this chow article on small batch brewing. we are talking small batch here- a couple of gallons max. this really sounds like more of a home-school chemistry experiment, but there are some upsides: you likely have all the equipment; this is an all grain recipe that you don't have to worry about having a separate mash and sparge vessel... this is one pot brewing. so if you have wanted to try home brewing and didn't want to shell out for a bunch of equipment that you will likely never use again, this is for you. give it a shot and let us know how it turns out.
Entered on 05.06.2010 at 7:41
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reposting on the cold oil + potatos == fries deal after a request for how to do that. we posted on it a while ago, but bittman had something more recently.
Entered on 05.03.2010 at 10:57
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ever wondered why non-fresh-squeezed orange juice is so...not all that good? well, apparently it's so bad after all of it's storage/processing that they have to add flavor packs to try to get some taste back.
Entered on 04.29.2010 at 12:36
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