Not a weekday breakfast, though. Treat this one like a mimosa.
Pour into a tumbler:
6-8 ounces of orange juice
Add a shot of:
chilled bacon vodka
Mix well and serve.
I had some Bakon from Kahn's Fine Wines in Naptown, but you can also make your own--thanks to the Pinterest board from Lindsay Allen at the Editor's Taste Buds.
You can drink it on the rocks, but I always keep my fruit juice chilled and my booze in the freezer, so it didn't need it.
My experience was like first drinking a swig of orange juice to wash down some bacon, followed by the taste of having eaten some bacon after drinking orange juice, accompanied by a shot of vodka.
Eventually I will try a bloody Mary with the Bakon (also from Lindsay's Pinterest board). Not a huge fan of tomato juice, but I like BLTs and I actually had a pretty good bloody Mary at a barbecue joint in Champaign once that was saved through the liberal use of black and hot peppers.
Sunday, March 25, 2012
Saturday, February 18, 2012
Colorado bulldog
I learned this one from my brother in law, who was a showtender in a previous life; alas, it was at a now-defunct barbecue joint, and I didn't know him then. Still, he can show me a thing or two.
He actually introduced it to me and my sister at a cousin's wedding, or rather, the reception. The bartender there didn't know it but he had all the ingredients and was amenable to learning new recipes; once we had three bulldogs in our hands, the people in line behind us immediately said "Ooh, what's that?"
It is, as they say, or at least as I like to say, dangerously smooth.
Start with two shots or a larger one to one mix of vodka and kahlua. Standard black Russian so far, right?
Top off with cream, or milk if it's all you got: white Russian territory now.
The thing that sets it apart is now you add a splash or so of Coke. I've heard root beer works but I haven't tried it yet.
It's not a radically different drink, and there's not enough Coke to curdle the dairy component unless you let it sit there for a while, but the bubbly sweetness lightens the drink up so it's no longer obvious that you're drinking something that's half liquor.
When we went back up for refills, everybody was ordering them; when we went back again, the bartenders were out.
He actually introduced it to me and my sister at a cousin's wedding, or rather, the reception. The bartender there didn't know it but he had all the ingredients and was amenable to learning new recipes; once we had three bulldogs in our hands, the people in line behind us immediately said "Ooh, what's that?"
It is, as they say, or at least as I like to say, dangerously smooth.
Start with two shots or a larger one to one mix of vodka and kahlua. Standard black Russian so far, right?
Top off with cream, or milk if it's all you got: white Russian territory now.
The thing that sets it apart is now you add a splash or so of Coke. I've heard root beer works but I haven't tried it yet.
It's not a radically different drink, and there's not enough Coke to curdle the dairy component unless you let it sit there for a while, but the bubbly sweetness lightens the drink up so it's no longer obvious that you're drinking something that's half liquor.
When we went back up for refills, everybody was ordering them; when we went back again, the bartenders were out.
Sunday, February 5, 2012
So I'm in the grocery store and I see one of those little cotton candy machines...
...the ones that are also supposed to take hard candy and spin that out into dulcet, not-just-pink gossamer whenever you feel like having some.
I'm not a huge cotton candy fan, I like it but it's so insubstantial that I feel like I'd have to eat about two cubic feet of it to reach that happy place between sated and ill. Oh, I've got quite the sweet tooth, but I also like eating to be an experience, and cotton candy generally doesn't do that for me.
Spun out hard candy, though? Maybe we can do business after all.
Still, I didn't buy the thing. I'm intrigued but I'm already way out of counter space.
I'll keep it in mind, maybe there's a place for incorporating it into cake batter or frosting or something else clever, but I had another idea.
What's stopping us from using something else than can be melted and spun into thin fibers? Practically speaking I'm expecting it to be mostly a question of melting point and aperture size; chocolate or cheese might be good, but if the melting unit gets too hot and the stuff might burn or clog the thing up. Heck, even scrambled eggs might be interesting, if we want to cross over into savory territory. I'm not sure what for, but...hey, actually, I'm not sure it would be practical to do egg and cheese together, but do them separately and then spool them together for a cotton omelette.
Now that might be something.
I'm not a huge cotton candy fan, I like it but it's so insubstantial that I feel like I'd have to eat about two cubic feet of it to reach that happy place between sated and ill. Oh, I've got quite the sweet tooth, but I also like eating to be an experience, and cotton candy generally doesn't do that for me.
Spun out hard candy, though? Maybe we can do business after all.
Still, I didn't buy the thing. I'm intrigued but I'm already way out of counter space.
I'll keep it in mind, maybe there's a place for incorporating it into cake batter or frosting or something else clever, but I had another idea.
What's stopping us from using something else than can be melted and spun into thin fibers? Practically speaking I'm expecting it to be mostly a question of melting point and aperture size; chocolate or cheese might be good, but if the melting unit gets too hot and the stuff might burn or clog the thing up. Heck, even scrambled eggs might be interesting, if we want to cross over into savory territory. I'm not sure what for, but...hey, actually, I'm not sure it would be practical to do egg and cheese together, but do them separately and then spool them together for a cotton omelette.
Now that might be something.
Saturday, January 7, 2012
Adulterated piri piri turkey
I'm not sure where I first read about piri piri chicken, but I'm cribbing from Epicurious.com for the overall experience, and for the sauce, About.com for piri piri fish. It was described as having Portuguese and African roots, and I haven't had much experience with southern/western Mediterranean cuisine, so I thought the time was ripe.
I happened to have dried herbs on hand and a bottle of lemon juice, but except for the fresh lemon juice, the sauce recipe didn't specify.
My approximation of piri piri sauce:
1 T Sriracha chile sauce
5 dried de arbol chile peppers
1/2 c lemon juice
5 garlic cloves
2 T cilantro
1 T parsley
1/2 T salt
1/2 c olive oil
I should have added far less salt, like half a teaspoon, especially considering my choice of chile sauce (original recipe actually called for paste), but live and learn.
I put everything but the oil in my food processor, and when it started to look smooth, I drizzled in the oil while it was still running and let it go until it looked like it wasn't going to get any smoother.
I scooped out a couple tablespoons and put them in a zip-top bag with a turkey breast, not having a whole chicken, squeezed out the air and massaged it a bit, then put it back in the fridge. The original recipe called for four hours, some of the reviews suggested overnight. There seem to be different schools of thought on marinating; some say that that there's no point in trying to go past half an hour or a couple hours because the diffusion of the marinade drops off exponentially (more or less--don't ask), others say that you can achieve arbitrarily thorough marinating depending on food preparation and the spoilage horizon. Whether it's more effective than a couple hours or not, overnight in the fridge is going to be pretty safe unless the meat's already microbially compromised. So, I left the turkey breast whole and cut it up after marinading overnight.
You know what? The original recipe called to have a whole chicken marinated, then barbecued, and then glazed with the following:
3 T butter
3 T chopped fresh cilantro
2 minced garlic cloves
2 T piri piri sauce
2 T fresh lemon juice
I don't have a grill available currently, and I don't feel like baking this turkey breast in the oven like it's a whole chicken, so I'm not bothering with that. Here's what I'm doing instead:
After marinading adequately (or before, if you don't want to wait so long), cut the turkey into pieces convenient for stir frying. Cook in an oiled wok on high heat. I fried one serving spoonful of meat at a time to reduce the thermal load on the stove. When it got about medium well I took it off and put on more meat, until everything was equally cooked.
Then I put all the meat back in with the following and let it stew, rapidly stirring and scraping the bottom of the wok, until I was darn well satisfied:
1/2 c piri piri sauce
3 chopped garlic cloves
1 sliced shallot
1 t white pepper
1 2-inch chunk of ginger root, scraped with a spoon and grated
I let it go for a while, continuing to stir over high heat until everything was just about where I wanted it, and added a sliced red bell pepper.
When it's had enough in your estimation, take it off the heat and serve with as much of the remaining piri piri sauce on top or on the side as you wish. If you want to be faithful to the idea of barbecuing the meat, you can leave it in until the sauce and solids start to carbonize. If that's not your thing, the shallot and bell pepper should reach the cooked-yet-firm stage between 2 and 5 minutes, depending on how hot your stove gets. I like barbecue, so I tried to push it to the far end of the Maillard regime before adding the bell pepper, but not into "bark is just burnt rub, isn't it?" After I started cooking, it occurred to me to worry about the low smoke point of the olive oil in the sauce, but it was obviously far too late, and didn't end up being a problem.
Yes, I know, stir fry is just about the antithesis to barbecue, but barbecue technically isn't just cooking in your back yard, either, and like I said, I don't have a grill.
Result? Tangy, and...distinctively bright. The salt was a bit excessive, as I feared, but it didn't so much taste too salty as it made the ginger and pepper come across as perhaps too citrusy. Maybe one teaspoon of salt would have been a good balance. I might have tried serving it over rice with the remainder of the sauce, instead of just drizzling a bit over the top of the meat. The rice would have taken up the sauce well and might have taken the edge off the salt's effects.
Labeling this as "proof of concept" since I took so many liberties from the original recipe. Apologies to any purists still reading.
I happened to have dried herbs on hand and a bottle of lemon juice, but except for the fresh lemon juice, the sauce recipe didn't specify.
My approximation of piri piri sauce:
1 T Sriracha chile sauce
5 dried de arbol chile peppers
1/2 c lemon juice
5 garlic cloves
2 T cilantro
1 T parsley
1/2 T salt
1/2 c olive oil
I should have added far less salt, like half a teaspoon, especially considering my choice of chile sauce (original recipe actually called for paste), but live and learn.
I put everything but the oil in my food processor, and when it started to look smooth, I drizzled in the oil while it was still running and let it go until it looked like it wasn't going to get any smoother.
I scooped out a couple tablespoons and put them in a zip-top bag with a turkey breast, not having a whole chicken, squeezed out the air and massaged it a bit, then put it back in the fridge. The original recipe called for four hours, some of the reviews suggested overnight. There seem to be different schools of thought on marinating; some say that that there's no point in trying to go past half an hour or a couple hours because the diffusion of the marinade drops off exponentially (more or less--don't ask), others say that you can achieve arbitrarily thorough marinating depending on food preparation and the spoilage horizon. Whether it's more effective than a couple hours or not, overnight in the fridge is going to be pretty safe unless the meat's already microbially compromised. So, I left the turkey breast whole and cut it up after marinading overnight.
You know what? The original recipe called to have a whole chicken marinated, then barbecued, and then glazed with the following:
3 T butter
3 T chopped fresh cilantro
2 minced garlic cloves
2 T piri piri sauce
2 T fresh lemon juice
I don't have a grill available currently, and I don't feel like baking this turkey breast in the oven like it's a whole chicken, so I'm not bothering with that. Here's what I'm doing instead:
After marinading adequately (or before, if you don't want to wait so long), cut the turkey into pieces convenient for stir frying. Cook in an oiled wok on high heat. I fried one serving spoonful of meat at a time to reduce the thermal load on the stove. When it got about medium well I took it off and put on more meat, until everything was equally cooked.
Then I put all the meat back in with the following and let it stew, rapidly stirring and scraping the bottom of the wok, until I was darn well satisfied:
1/2 c piri piri sauce
3 chopped garlic cloves
1 sliced shallot
1 t white pepper
1 2-inch chunk of ginger root, scraped with a spoon and grated
When it's had enough in your estimation, take it off the heat and serve with as much of the remaining piri piri sauce on top or on the side as you wish. If you want to be faithful to the idea of barbecuing the meat, you can leave it in until the sauce and solids start to carbonize. If that's not your thing, the shallot and bell pepper should reach the cooked-yet-firm stage between 2 and 5 minutes, depending on how hot your stove gets. I like barbecue, so I tried to push it to the far end of the Maillard regime before adding the bell pepper, but not into "bark is just burnt rub, isn't it?" After I started cooking, it occurred to me to worry about the low smoke point of the olive oil in the sauce, but it was obviously far too late, and didn't end up being a problem.
Yes, I know, stir fry is just about the antithesis to barbecue, but barbecue technically isn't just cooking in your back yard, either, and like I said, I don't have a grill.
Result? Tangy, and...distinctively bright. The salt was a bit excessive, as I feared, but it didn't so much taste too salty as it made the ginger and pepper come across as perhaps too citrusy. Maybe one teaspoon of salt would have been a good balance. I might have tried serving it over rice with the remainder of the sauce, instead of just drizzling a bit over the top of the meat. The rice would have taken up the sauce well and might have taken the edge off the salt's effects.
It's a little prettier in person, but more importantly it's delicious. Change your room lighting if it bothers you.
Thursday, January 5, 2012
Tomato-tapenade hors d'oeuvre
I reverse engineered, or closely enough, this snack I first experienced at the wedding reception of a buddy of mine from grad school.
Start with sourdough bread medallions or cut a baguette into approximately 1/4" thick slices. You can also try cocktail bread; rye or multigrain might be best, but as usual, whatever your druthers.
If you like it crispy, put the bread slices on a cookie sheet and bake in a 300°F oven for five or ten minutes. The idea is to get them crispy around the edges but still have them chewy enough that it doesn't just shatter when you take a bite. I've skipped this step and it turns out okay.
Take some tapenade/olive salad mix, either prefab or made yourself, and mix in shredded sun dried tomatoes. I had whole tomatoes and they were just a little too dry for my taste so I put them in my food processor, first, with a little sesame oil until the chunks were more or less even and fine. Add the tapenade until your olive:tomato ratio is between 2:1 and 1:1, then blend a little more until the mixing and texture are even. It should be a little pasty but you should still be able to distinguish some individual tomato and olive bits.
Mix in a finely graded hard cheese like Parmesan or Asiago (preferably without anti-caking agents, but it's tolerable with that cheese in a canister, although then it won't melt), about the same volume you used for the tomatoes.
Smear onto the bread and put back into the oven for five minutes, or eat cold. Since this time I didn't pretoast the bread, I did seven minutes. You may want to do the same if your ingredients aren't at room temperature.
I found some sun dried tomato tapenade at the store recently so I tried it to see if it would be a grave miscarriage of justice not to do the tomatoes myself. Turned out fine, although I think next time I would try holding the baking time down to five minutes and boosting the temperature to 400°F.
A 3.5 oz bottle of the tomato tapenade got me this far. Turns out it already had a little goat cheese in it, but oh well.
Next time I might try adding finely diced chicken, or prosciutto or bacon chunks, since everything goes better with cured pork.
Start with sourdough bread medallions or cut a baguette into approximately 1/4" thick slices. You can also try cocktail bread; rye or multigrain might be best, but as usual, whatever your druthers.
If you like it crispy, put the bread slices on a cookie sheet and bake in a 300°F oven for five or ten minutes. The idea is to get them crispy around the edges but still have them chewy enough that it doesn't just shatter when you take a bite. I've skipped this step and it turns out okay.
Take some tapenade/olive salad mix, either prefab or made yourself, and mix in shredded sun dried tomatoes. I had whole tomatoes and they were just a little too dry for my taste so I put them in my food processor, first, with a little sesame oil until the chunks were more or less even and fine. Add the tapenade until your olive:tomato ratio is between 2:1 and 1:1, then blend a little more until the mixing and texture are even. It should be a little pasty but you should still be able to distinguish some individual tomato and olive bits.
Mix in a finely graded hard cheese like Parmesan or Asiago (preferably without anti-caking agents, but it's tolerable with that cheese in a canister, although then it won't melt), about the same volume you used for the tomatoes.
Smear onto the bread and put back into the oven for five minutes, or eat cold. Since this time I didn't pretoast the bread, I did seven minutes. You may want to do the same if your ingredients aren't at room temperature.
I found some sun dried tomato tapenade at the store recently so I tried it to see if it would be a grave miscarriage of justice not to do the tomatoes myself. Turned out fine, although I think next time I would try holding the baking time down to five minutes and boosting the temperature to 400°F.
A 3.5 oz bottle of the tomato tapenade got me this far. Turns out it already had a little goat cheese in it, but oh well.
Next time I might try adding finely diced chicken, or prosciutto or bacon chunks, since everything goes better with cured pork.
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
The dregs of Christmas
Was in the grocery store on Tuesday--yes, the 27th of December--to do the usual shopping and pick over the reduced price seasonal items that didn't find a happy home before Christmas. I didn't find much of interest, except this:
Note the expiration date on the jug. Fully twenty days ago.
Yeah, I don't think so.
I don't care how yummy an idea pumpkin egg nog is, unless I know it's been in the freezer for most of that time, I'm not buying a dairy product that's almost three weeks old unless it's billing itself as cheese. Okay, or yogurt or sour cream.
I've had stuff last in the fridge well past the expiration date--and, I know, it's a "do not sell after" date as much as anything--but ain't no way I'm going to attempt going through that much nog that late in the game.
I was kind of surprised there wasn't a "last minute manager's special, one dollar off!" sticker on the thing, but maybe they were afraid it would just draw attention.
Maybe there was already enough brandy in the nog to stave off lactobacillus and I missed my chance, but then, why wouldn't they have moved the date out?
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
Modified unnamed drink recipe
Yes, I still have nothing to call this drink. My brother in law came up with a salutatory modification at Christmas. Start, as before, with a 2:1:1 mix of ginger ale, chocolate vodka, and Chambourd.
Then, toss in a shot of sours.
Shake and serve on the rocks.
The sour addition brightens up the flavor respectably. Depending on how thoroughly it's mixed and how exact your ratios are, the chocolate may become a subtone or the sour may just enhance the fruitiness of the raspberry liqueur. It's all good.
Then, toss in a shot of sours.
Shake and serve on the rocks.
The sour addition brightens up the flavor respectably. Depending on how thoroughly it's mixed and how exact your ratios are, the chocolate may become a subtone or the sour may just enhance the fruitiness of the raspberry liqueur. It's all good.
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