If You’re Bored Of Negronis, This Is Good

It diverges quite a bit from the 1-1-1 recipe, but the Continental cocktail herein is quite good: six parts gin, three parts Cynar, two parts dry vermouth, and some stuff with lemon zest.

(This was the alternative, had we gone in that direction: 1-1-1 Aperol, dry vermouth and gin; dry vermouth is the curve ball here.)

This Week In CSA: Chelsea Dagger Discovers Broccoli Leaves And The Correct Way To Cook Mustard Greens

So the thing to remember with mustard greens is that even though they seem very wiltable/sauteeable/spinachlike (in other words, three consecutive words that don’t really exist), most recipes blanch them for about five minutes. Then you cook them in whatever junk you want for two or three minutes. [Holy shit, some fucking cat in heat outside is moaning in that horrible cat-in-heat way.] And the weird broccoli you get in the CSA load that has just a few florets and a bunch of leaves? Well, I googled it and learned you can cook them — not that it didn’t occur to me to do this, but the leaves in the CSA variety are just so big and inviting that it made me wonder: what are we supposed to do with this strange item?

Anyway, I cooked the whole thing in some chicken fat and it was good and whatnot.

Skin Is Cracked And I Realize That I Hate The Sound Of Chickens, A Thousand Grudging Young Fryers

We eat a lot of chicken — it’s something the boys will eat — so I’m always on the lookout for new chicken recipes, except that I’m kind of not, but that said, whenever I happen upon one from the Times on my Twitter feed, I’ll definitely click on it. Here are two I tried lately.

Sam Sifton immodestly tweeted that his three-cup chicken was “an easy, awesome recipe to cook weekly for, like, the next two years”. Of course I clicked on that. The recipe is pretty straightforward. (Notes: I correctly guessed that it was probably OK to substitute sake for rice wine though I’m pretty sure regular “soy sauce” — i.e., what I used — is “dark” and “light” means something different, and I went way light on the chili pepper flakes because I wanted the boys to eat the dish.) It was good; not sure it’s weekly good, but it was good, and I’d try it again.

Meanwhile, Mark Bittman’s Stir-Fried Chicken With Ketchup was as advertised. I feel like it’s somehow cheating to rely so heavily on ketchup, but the vinegar in the ketchup deglazes the pan so well that, when you think about it, the ketchup is kind of like an umami-rich dishwasher soap: you’re wasting time not finishing the chicken in a cup of ketchup. Suffice it to say, it tastes very good. Jen thought it might have been tomato paste. She was surprised, and in a good way, when told it was ketchup. I have no idea how I stumbled on the recipe: it’s from 2004 so it’s not new, but it was new to me. This is an extremely simple recipe that guests would be very into.

Bebop-A-Reebop

Last year we enjoyed — and used — all the rhubarb we got from the CSA. And since my understanding of rhubarb begins and ends with strawberry-rhubarb pie, that meant we had many strawberry-rhubarb pies. We got backlogged with rhubarb, and eventually we froze the filling. Several large ziplocs of filling. Many, many pies’ worth of filling. It’s all still in the freezer, actually. Which is why I was a little discouraged to see four lovely stalks of 2015 rhubarb in the CSA share this past week.

Since we also got three quarts of strawberries, it seemed sort of obvious to make a strawberry-rhubarb pie. We didn’t do that. Instead, I remembered — or thought I remembered — seeing a cocktail recipe of some sort in one of the books that used a rhubarb syrup. I found this recipe for rhubarb simple syrup. This is a good way to use rhubarb. It almost — almost — makes me want to get more rhubarb.

In part this is because this Rhubarb Gimlet cocktail is really good: two parts gin, two parts rhubarb syrup, one part lime juice. I was hesitant to use that much sugar in a cocktail, but it actually tastes really good.

Like Fucking Robert Palmer Or Something

Jen’s been on a rum kick — last night we didn’t have cocktails at the Tiki-themed Chinese restaurant, so we resolved to have them at home. Now I don’t know the first thing about festive tikiness, and I much prefer the tang of bourbon to the treacle of rum, but I’m assuming I just haven’t had the right cocktail. Last night it was the time capsule cocktail the Unisphere. Not very tiki. Tonight it was the Irresistible (Mr. Boston, page 117): Six parts white rum (I was told this rum was probably not white), two parts sweet vermouth, one part Benedictine and one part lemon juice. It was complex tasting — the secondary ingredients melted into each other in a pleasant way.

As sweet as this tasted, it was surprising there wasn’t any sugar. Must be the the rum. I mean, I guess? I’m determined to make a month’s worth of rum cocktails, just as a challenge.