I’m back! Last week I found myself in the position of deciding between studying for an accounting final or getting the videos done. I had to pass the class to get into MBA school, so as much as it pained me, it really wasn’t a decision.
This week I’m featuring Benedictine, a classic herbal liqueur. Watch for this bottle to start showing up at more bars and on the drink menus at your favorite haunts!
Okay, I’ve talked about being interested in modern cocktails and nontraditional presentations, namely solid cocktails. Here’s an example of something I’m working on: Deviled Egg Nog.
How did I do it?
I broke out my “new edition” (no, not New Edition) Betty Crocker Cookbook tonight for this one and adapted three recipes: One for deviled eggs (duh), one for egg nog (duh) and one for panna cotta (huh?)
Panna cotta is most easily described as an eggless creme brulee. It’s a cream and gelatin mixture sweetened and flavored with vanilla (or whatever flavor extract you care to use - get creative). If you can make Jell-O, you can make panna cotta. And I’m not kidding. Heck, I’ll post a quick recipe here right now:
Panna Cotta
2 cups cream
1 packet unflavored gelatin (or 1 1/2 tablespoons)
1/4 cup sugar
Vanilla extract
Salt
Mix gelatin into cream in saucepan. Let stand 10 minutes. Add sugar, vanilla extract to taste and a pinch of salt. Heat to light simmer, do not boil. Divide into four serving cups and chill 4 hours / until set.
See what I mean? If you can make Jell-O, you can make this stuff. Now go forth, impress your lady friends and multiply.
Your traditional egg nog recipes call for whipping the egg whites to peaks (google it) and then folding that into your mixture of yolk, cream, sugar, vanilla and (most importantly!) booze.
For the “deviled egg” part of this recipe, I pretty just hard boiled the eggs, shelled them, cut them in half and spooned the cooked yolks into a bowl. Simple. I’ve separated the “peaked egg whites” permanently, but the element is still there in a new form.
I bloomed my packet of gelatin in a cup of half & half for ten minutes. I also added the seeds from a mexican vanilla bean, about half a cup of powdered sugar and a touch of vanilla extract. Using a fork, I mashed the yolks into small particles and folded them into the mixture. I then heated this mixture to activate the gelatin.
Wait! Where’s the booze?
Since I was heating this “panna cotta” mixture (now an egged eggless custard…I didn’t say this “cocktail” wouldn’t confuse you) to just before boil, I didn’t want to heat the alcohol as well. Alcohol boils off at 73 degrees Celsius, water at 100 degrees. I’m not sure of the boiling point of half & half. I just knew that I didn’t want the liquids to pass 70 degrees with the booze in it. So I let the liquid cool a bit before adding a half cup of Michter’s Single Barrel Rye whiskey.
Rye? What about rum? Or brandy? Or bourbon?
This rye is very smooth… To my palette it’s like a more-focused bourbon than it is a spicy rye. So far as brandy, it would have been an equally good choice. Rum… Well, I have opinions about rum that we’ll cover later.
After pitching the whiskey into the mixture, I put it in the fridge for about four hours to set. Once that was done, I stirred it up with a spoon and filled each half egg-white, then topped with nutmeg.
How’d it taste?
For a first attempt: pretty good! It’s a solid start but needs some tweaking. What didn’t I like?
A half cup of booze was too much for this, and it needs to be a touch sweeter (and this is coming from someone who tries not to oversweeten his drinks and loves his big boozy flavors.) I’ll probably use cane sugar instead of confectioner’s next time. I ended up with about 5 times more filling than the egg whites could hold (not terribly surprising, but more excess than I’d planned). So I need to reduce the proportion of booze to half & half, increase the proportion of sugar, and then shrink it all down to reduce waste. Finally, the filling mixture was a bit more “wet” than I’d prefer. I didn’t quite heat the half & half mixture as well as I should, but I think I might need a higher proportion of gelatin as well to really make that component a bit more solid once chilled.
Note: The flavor of egg is now present due to the egg whites. I don’t mind this, but permanently separating the whites from the rest of the mixture made this inevitable. If you don’t like so much “eggy” flavor in your egg nog… well… heck, if you wanted REAL egg nog you wouldn’t be considering making this for yourself anyway.
I’m looking forward to playing with this in the weeks leading up to the holidays. I’m fairly close as it is, so I’m excited about getting this one dialed in. I’m pretty experienced in the kitchen and this was my first time making deviled eggs… everything here took me about 45 minutes to prepare, so this is something that shouldn’t be *too* difficult for the culinary-impaired aspiring molecular mixologist. When I get everything right, I’ll post a proper recipe.
Cheers! (Chews?)
Ken
On Relationships @ PonderAbout.com
This has inspired a very personal post I’m looking forward to sharing here. I’m writing it now. I don’t like to do so many teasers, but I want you all to see this first. And if you’re not already, do follow this comic/blog regularly. It’s routinely inspiring and thought-provoking.
Café de Paris (via Pastis (or Absinthe) Cocktails on GumboPages.com)
1 1/2 oz Dry Gin
Splash Absinthe
Splash Half & Half
One egg white
Shake and strain into cocktail glass.
First: It’s the Café de Paris. Not Creme. I was thinking back to last week’s Absinthe Flip as I was making the drink because of the included egg component.
This drink, like Tuesday’s, didn’t do so much for me - both seem very close to a gin martini to my palette, a drink I’m not so in love with (yet). Where Tuesday’s was reminiscent of a dirty martini, this one reminded me of a normal dry martini.
SO! If you’re a martini fan, you’ve ended this week with two drinks that I highly encourage you to check out. If not, you have the Chrysanthemum and Good & Plenty to explore what absinthe can do in drinks that aren’t so dry. I think I covered my bases this week!
Don’t forget to respond to any video with a name for the show - you could win a copy of Gary Vaynerchuk’s Crush It! Why Now is the Time to Cash in on Your Passion.
This was a fun one! I didn’t expect such a simple drink to be so complex and rewarding.
Good and Plenty (from Doug Biederbeck via Bixology)
1 1/2oz Absinthe (original calls for Pastis)
3 oz Fresh squeezed grapefruit juice
Combine ingredients in a highball glass with ice (WHOOPS! I was on autopilot and did the shake and strain to a cocktail glass in this video… need to pay closer attention!)
Using absinthe instead of pastis gives this drink a very interesting flavor quality. As shown here, I didn’t think sweetening it much was a good idea - a shot of absinthe and the grapefruit juice were plenty interesting and refreshing to my palette.
Cheers!
Ken
Chrysanthemum (by Camper English)
Splash absinthe
1 oz Benedictine liqueur
2 dry vermouth
In cocktail shaker, stir together absinthe, Benedictine liqueur, and vermouth. Add ice and stir for one minute, then strain into martini glass. Squeeze orange peel over drink, making sure oils fall into glass, then drop peel into drink and serve.
Quoted from epicurious.com.
First things first: Do yourself a favor and don’t be lazy like I was in this video. Get yourself a nice, ripe orange and put the danged peel in the drink. It will improve it tenfold and add the elements I was missing and hypothesizing about with the bitters. Garnishes are something I don’t emphasize enough and should be - they’re more than just showpieces.
Definitely an inspiring turn from yesterday’s letdown, for me at least. Camper is a fantastic cocktail blogger and I look forward to every post of his over at Alcademics. Finding a recipe of his featured on epicurious, I had to give it a go. For those of you who have been trained that vermouth is a terrible, evil liquid: TRY THIS DRINK. Yes, too much vermouth can ruin a cocktail like a Manhattan or Martini, but too much gin or whiskey can easily overpower a drink as well. Good vermouth (that hasn’t spoiled! Keep your vermouth in the fridge after opening and toss it after 2-3 months, tops) is a beautiful thing, and in most places aside from America is frequently drank by itself.
Have a great Wednesday!
Ken
I found this recipe on The Wormwood Society website here, where it is attributed to the Savoy Cocktail Book of 1930.
Absinthe (Special) Cocktail
1 1/2oz Absinthe
3/4oz Gin
3/4oz Filtered water
1 barspoon sugar
1 dash orange bitters
1 dash Angostura bitters
Obviously this drink didn’t do much for me. I’m still warming up to dry gin after my four-year long quarrel, and this was not the drink to make me “come to Jesus” as it were. I might try it again with a bit more sugar, but my hunch is that the combination of gin and absinthe just doesn’t work for me. However, this does remind me of a dirty martini (not as brine-y) so if that’s what you dig, this might be worth checking out.
Don’t forget to come up with names for the show and post them below for your chance to win Gary Vaynerchuk’s Crush It! Why Now is the Time to Cash in on Your Passion. You have until 24 December 2009 to submit your ideas. I’ll pick the winner Christmas day and all will be revealed when I launch the new site design on 1 January 2010! Get to commenting!
Here’s your Monday intro to…
Absinthe week!
A few notes: Forest Collins (@52martinis on Twitter) is a lovely and supportive woman in Paris who shares my passion for cocktails. I cannot apologize enough for getting myself confused when mentioning her today… I had Forest Whitaker and Forrest Gump on the brain for some reason. She’s blogging her way through the bars of France, putting bartenders to the test by expecting the best martini she’s ever had. Check her out here: http://52martinis.blogspot.com/
Don’t forget to comment below with names for the show so you can win Gary Vaynerchuk’s Crush It! Why Now is the Time to Cash in on Your Passion. Only a few weeks left! And seriously, my dear friends, please use the comment box HERE instead of my Facebook profile so everyone can join in the conversations we’re having!
Cheers!
Ken
Your Thanksgiving cocktail - Absinthe Flip
1 1/4oz Absinthe
3/4oz Filtered water
Splash Benedictine (only if your absinthe lacks bitter herbs!)
1 whole egg
1 barspoon sugar
Combine all ingredients in mixing glass, shake over ice and strain into cocktail glass. Garnish with star anise (or anise seeds) and ground clove.
Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving - what was the best part of your big meal?
Tomorrow’s episode is going to be completely different. I like bringing out different techniques that won’t always work in the lessons, and tomorrow is going to feature a special pepper and fruit syrup. Don’t miss!
Orange Cognac Flip
1 3/4 oz Royale Montaine Orange Cognac Liqueur (or similar light-bodied orange cognac liqueur)
3/4 oz Grand Marnier (or similar heavy/dark orange cognac liqueur)
1 bar spoon sugar
1 whole egg
Combine all ingredients in mixing glass and shake until tin frosts completely. Garnish with ground cinnamon.
This one will be great when you’re winding down festivities on Thursday! I really enjoyed the way the two cognac liqueurs complemented one another here. Both were present without dominating the other.
I will be posting our last flip for the week tomorrow, so don’t miss out! I get a little intimidated by it just before tasting.
Cheers!
-Ken
