Almond Syrup

At the grocery store I happened upon a bottle of Orzata almond syrup (by Ferrara), and I did a double take because I’ve come across a lot of, or at least a few, cocktail recipes that featured orgeat (and not just a mai tai, which doesn’t sound particularly appealing), so I put it in the cart and googled it when I got home. It seems to be the same stuff.

Tonight we found a recipe using rye (by request): something called a Pioneer Spirit that a New York-based bar created: eight parts rye, four parts Applejack, two dashes Angostura bitters and a bar spoon of orgeat. I sort of know what a bar spoon is but not really, and the recipe parenthetically notes it’s “.8 ounce,” which I don’t think is right: I kept seeing it was a teaspoon. Anyway, so I used a teaspoon. The drink is good: if you want to taste rye, you will taste it. The almond flavor is just an accent, making me wonder if they actually did mean .8 ounce (still seems like a lot). Anyway, I think it’s all tweakable, and a good start for almond syrup.

These two drinks sound like they could be promising: the Trinidad Sour and these versions of the Japanese Cocktail (and there’s a point where both links basically overlap, with one using Fernet Branca and the other Triple Sec).

New Meats

Had to scramble on Sunday to get meat because the butcher was closed, so we swung by the supermarket — like Tarzan, or at least a gibbon — to get a roast. I feel like I usually get eye of round, and this time the label said “bottom round rump roast.” So I googled it and tried to discern the differences. Lo, one of these content zombie sites actually was useful: this recipe worked well and the writer was right about the deli flavor — sear, then 250 degrees. I stabbed the roast — it had a lot of give, much more than the eye of round — and put a bunch of garlic slices, along with salt and white pepper. Used a cast iron skillet and rested the slab on slices of onions. Set the thermometer for 140 degrees. Should have made gravy but ran out of time. (This discussion is sort of bewildering and useful in an unuseful way.)

Then today Costco had veal scallopini — most meat is too much meat at one time (nine pork chops?) but not this. It was about $12 a pound, and the package was about a pound, so I made veal parmigiana. Fuckin’ A baby cow.

The Greatest Thing About Solar Panel USA Is the Mustard, Most Definitely The Marsala

Pork tenderloin happens a lot around here: it’s cheap, plentiful, looks wonderful in vacuum-sealed packs and is appealing to the boys, especially if you don’t fuck it up. For a while we did the sous-vide thing with it, which is almost foolproof except that the fat layer around the cut goes to waste. We put it on the grill tonight, looking for something simple to grill and take advantage of the waning pleasant weather. Contra sous-vide, there were some less cooked parts (we used a thermometer set to 140 degrees), but holy fucking shit, the meat was legit best pork tenderloin ever. Here’s what happened:

Four hours of marinade of miso, mirin, marsala (a break from the recipes I’d used that used sake; don’t know that there’s much difference, substantively, and we had none of the one open and two of the other in the fridge), rooster sauce, soy sauce, mustard and white pepper. Then in the last two hours or so a rub along these lines (did not use fennel or bay leaves because I wasn’t grinding stuff and mustard I skipped because it was in the first part).

At any rate, this was good, very good, best-pork-tenderloin-of-all-time good.

Witch

We always held back from Strega because, in general, it’s expensive ($35 or so for .75 l) but I had to replenish the cabinet (or the cabinet plus the sprawling excess spot next to the china cabinet on the floor where the kids, thankfully, don’t really poke around near) so it’s less of a thing to sneak in an expensive add-on. Thus, the Strega.

It’s a funny thing because you think you see an ingredient everywhere and then when you don’t have it you automatically skip over certain recipes. But then when you have it, it’s impossible to remember what’s got it. I went on to Amazon to “look inside” the PDT book and alighted on the Rye Witch (page 232): eight parts rye, one part Strega, one part sherry (it called for a Palo Cortado but I had an Amontillado, which is less sweet on the sherry spectrum), a sugar cube (used a blurp of simple syrup instead) and two dashes of orange bitters.

This was good! The Strega flavor is powerful, be warned, but the overall flavor is good.

File Under: Stuff With Gin, Limes, Rum And Crème De Cassis

Latest cocktails tried . . .

Solomon Sling (Mr. Boston, page 95): six parts gin, three parts lemon juice, two parts simple syrup, two parts Kirschwasser, one part Cherry Heering, one dash Angostura bitters. Good.

Angel’s Share (Mr. Boston, page 171): six parts bourbon, two parts Amaro, one part crème de cassis, one dash orange bitters. Overlooked this recipe in the book for a while because I don’t know why. We used Amaro CioCiaro and this old cassis sort of forgotten in the liquor cabinet. This was good, too; worth returning to.

Junior (PDT, page 154): eight parts rye, three parts lime juice, two parts Benedictine, two dashes Angostura bitters. We had a bunch of limes in the fridge so I put them to use. Was OK, if memory serves.

Romeo y Julieta (PDT, page 228): eight parts rum, two parts sweet vermouth, two parts Campari. Like a Left Hand but with more rum. Definitely didn’t add the four spritzes of diluted Aftel Tobacco Essence, though, so who knows.