This Is Just To Say: Tomato and White Pepper

I have to say, I’ve felt guilty about not using enough white pepper. I first learned about white pepper from The Frankies Spuntino Kitchen Companion & Cooking Manual, which talks about using that instead of black pepper because of their French culinary this or that (a partial explanation here). White pepper has a weird, specific flavor that sort of reminds you of a closet but will also be immediately recognizable if you eat Chinese food. I’ve wanted to appreciate it. I’ve forced myself to use it. I’m not sure I always like it.

But then I had this piece-of-shit out-of-season takeout salad tomato the other day — the kind that Jen would never touch and which she usually throws away. I was just goofing around with and decided to eat it — dutifully using white pepper, of course — and, holy moly, the flavors worked really well together. I googled it to see if I could see why and couldn’t find anything, so then I saved this draft and forgot about it. Anyway, it’s really good. If anyone can explain it, let me know.

Pork, Too

I went into Niki Segnit’s The Flavor Thesaurus for ideas for a rub and used this: Anise seed, red chili flakes, clove, coriander seed, cumin, garlic, and ginger, while adding the rub standbys — paprika, salt, pepper (white this time) and brown sugar. It was good. Why it cooked in five hours and the thing the other day took 16, I have no earthly idea.

Mint-Based Cocktails

Jen felt like a cocktail with mint, which we had in the fridge, so I googled it, looked no further than the first two results, and found basically the same kind of recipes you’d imagine people make with mint: julep, mojito, that which is tiki-inspired. This link led to this Pimm’s-based cocktail, something with Pimm’s, Fernet-Branca, ginger ale, lemon, mint and cucumbers (I’ve not yet broached the cucumber realm at home; not sure I ever will). I hate topping things off with ginger ale or club soda or anything else because it seems impure. Also, we don’t have any Pimm’s. And then there’s the cucumber thing. So here’s what I made:

2 ounces gin
.5 ounce lemon juce
.5 ounce simple syrup
.25 ounce Fernet-Branca
mint (like 4-6 big leaves)

I muddled the mint and combined the rest in an ice-filled shaker. Serve.

This was good; I’d make it again.

When A Negroni Is More Like A Syrupy Manhattan

We tried the negroni proportions (1 part-1 part-1 part) with rye whiskey, Amaro CioCiaro and sweet vermouth. It was good but I’m just now realizing it’s sort of like a really whiskey-light Manhattan, isn’t it?

Manhattan Creeps Up On You

The Lafayette, recorded for posterity in David A. Embury’s The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks is one part dry vermouth, one part Dubonnet, six parts whiskey and one dash Angostura bitters.

You know, now that I’m rereading that it’s possible I screwed up everything. Maybe the whiskey shouldn’t have been Evan Williams green label cheap bourbon. Maybe when they say “Dubonnet” they mean the white kind (which I’ve never even seen and which is supposed to be gross) and not the red kind. If so, sorry.

It tasted like a variation on a Manhattan, which it said it was going to be. It was in the “Whiskey Cocktails of the Aromatic Variety” section. I still can’t believe this guy wrote this book. It’s huge and ridiculous in its breadth. Did he actually drink all this stuff? Could anyone?