Infusing...This Time With Wine

For those of you who are familiar with Bermuda, you are also familiar with that most wonderful of Bermudian condiments: Sherry peppers. Since I have been cooking regularly, I have found that I am almost unable to cook without my secret ingredient, the aforementioned sherry peppers. They are quite hard to come by in the States, and I didn't get to Bermuda this year.

What to do? Well, I could just get off my lazy butt and, you know, make them. In addition, Outerbridges, the only company which makes sherry peppers commercially (as well as rum and sherry-rum peppers) gets quite the pretty penny for them: $7 for a five ounce bottle or $23 for a fifth. On the other hand, I can make a batch of about half a liter of peppers for under ten bucks, and about ten minutes of my time. Moreover, I can then customize the sauce to my liking.

Sherry Peppers (Basic Recipe)

• 2 c. - Sherry (Amontillado, preferably, just stay away from cream sherry)
  
• 3-6 - Hot Peppers, quartered (Bird peppers or Scotch Bonnets would be traditional, but go with what you like.)

Allow to steep for at least two weeks, and up to a month, then strain and bottle.

There you go. Simple, easy, and while it takes a while, it barely takes any active time. However, I wanted to get a bit more flavour out of my sauce. If it was really that easy, the Outerbridges would be out of business. To get a bit more flavour out, I used a mix of peppers, and added a little more spice:
Scrivenal Spiced Sherry Peppers #1

• 640 mL - Sherry (Taylor Gold)
• 1 tsp - Ginger root, grated
• 1 - Scotch bonnet pepper, quartered
• 2 - Jalapeno peppers, quartered
• 25 - Cloves, whole
• 1 nut - Nutmeg, coarsely crushed
• 1 stick - Cinnamon
• 10 - Peppercorns, whole
  

Put ginger root, peppers, and sherry in airtight jar and allow to infuse for two weeks. Add cinnamon stick and peppercorns, and infuse for two more weeks. Add cloves and nutmeg and infuse for one to two days. Strain, season appropriately, and bottle.
That is the recipe I am following. Hopefully it will work out. I am hoping to get more complexity out of this batch, preferably something which I can also use as cocktail bitters.

This is the second of four posts I am presenting for Wine Blogging Wednesday. You can read the others from the original post, which you can find here.

This is the the first of several posts documenting my August Dramproject.

Well, that's all I got. Enjoy,
The Scribe

The Grape and the Grain

While the conventional wisdom is that you should never mix the grape and the grain, when I ducked into Downtown this afternoon, they seemed against that. They were offering tastes of Lowlands whisky, and Australian wine.

Sizing it up for the Scotch was Auchentoshan Select, a mixture of unspecified ages, but likely around eight years or so. This was a light whisky, as the Lowlands malts tend to be. It had more in common with Irish whiskey to my palate than to its landsmen. They were also offering Glenkinchie 12. This was a reasonably Scotch, though it was a bit rough on its own. Lastly, they were offering the Littlemill 12. This was the best of the bunch, and actually quite tasty. However, given that the pricetag is double that of many amber spirits just as fine, it's a bit beyond my budget.

In addition, a brand rep from an Australian winery was offering his product. As I recall it was either Madison or Mason Hill. However, I could not find either in an online search. They were offering their chardonay, merlot, cabernet sauvignon, and shiraz. All the wines were quite nice, and, as I recall reasonably representative of their vintages. Unfortunately, I wasn't prepared to stop in, as I just ducked in to get out of the rain, so I couldn't take any notes. The wines seemed a bit high to my sensitivities, but as a Chicagoan, I still haven't really adjusted to Boston prices.

Stay dry and drink up!
The Scribe

My Bowl Floweth Over

Last night we celebrated my housemate's 21st birthday in the appropriate style with lots of carrying on and suchlike. While we offered a full, if low end, bar to our guests, the focus was on a rum and sparkling wine punch.

Pomegranate Birthday Puncheon

• 3 L - Sparkling Wine (We used J. Roget which is "methode moderne" or gas injected. Please use better wine.)
• 1 L - Rum (Bacardi works, but something like 10 Cane or a good gold would work better.)
• 1 L - Pomegranate Juice (Bottled is, of course fine, but fresh is always better.)
• 1/3 L (1.5 c.) - Simple or invert syrup
• 1/4 L (1 c.) - Fresh lime juice
• 1/8 L (1/2 c.) - Fresh orange juice
  
• 25 dashes - Peychoud's bitters

Mix together in a large punch bowl. Chill with very large ice cubes (freeze water in a bowl) and garnish with cut up fruit from the juice, and pomegranate seeds if available.

While this punch was entirely drinkable, and masks a pretty massive kick behind a somewhat sweet fruit taste, it wasn't wonderful. For a start, the sparkling wine being cheap American stuff (even worse than Andre), not only failed to add to the taste but, indeed, subtracted from it. In addition, since sparkling wine that gets its bubbles from gas injection holds its bubbles much worse than either the methode tradicionale or the metodo Italiano, the hoped for bubbly effect was not present. My reworking of the recipe was:

Scrivenal Sparkling Pomegranate Puncheon

• 8 pt (1.5 L) - Sparkling Wine (Cava or prosecco would probably be better than Champagne.)
• 4 pt (750 mL) - Gold Rum (Mount Gay works well.)
• 2 pt. (1.5 c.) - Lime juice
• 1 pt. (3/4 c.)- Grenadine (Use the real stuff from pomegranate juice. If you find this a bit sweet, cut the grenadine with pomegranate juice reduced by half.)
• 1 pt. (3/4 c.)- Pomegranate liqueur (Pama works, but so would DeKuyper.)
• 1 dash/oz. rum (25 dashes) - Peychoud's bitters

Stir together with a generous pinch each of cinnamon, allspice, and salt in a punch bowl. Garnish with lime wedges, spent fruit shells, pomegranate seeds if available, and fruits of the season.

This, to my mind, is a much better punch, and at 27% alcohol packs an even stronger punch, while still tasting even better. In addition, by using the grenadine, or reduced juice, the taste of the juice comes through much stronger. The sweetness can be easily adjusted by mixing all of the ingredients together except the grenadine, then add the grenadine slowly, tasting as you go. Once you reach the ideal sweetness, make up the difference with pomegranate juice reduced by half. I find pomegranate juice only a bit on the sweet side, so it gives flavour without affecting the balance of the drink quite as much as grenadine does.

May good drinks and merriness follow you all the days of your life,
The Scribe

Molecular Mixology Woes and Cocktail Goodness

So, as promised, I did, indeed, attempt to create "caviar." One was a pomegranate-soy caviar and the other a ginger infused pomegranate-lime syrup. The former was supposed to be the topping for a really cool sushi-inspired dish I was working on. It was supposed to be a play on a classic caviar presentation of sour cream on a bellini topped with traditional fish roe caviar. Instead I was planning on a nori and sushi rice bellini with a bit of torro, a squirt of wassabi creme fraishe and the pomegranate-soy caviar. The second was supposed to make a cocktail I was making to go with the dish much more complex. The cocktail was supposed to be Cava (a Spanish sparkling wine), Pama (a pomegranate liqueur), and the lime-ginger-pomegranate syrup caviar. In its way it would have been a play on a Cava sour, sort of. I was hoping for the effect Jamie Boudreau mentioned with his cocktail, the Leigh's Lava Lamp with the bouncing of the caviar.

Unfortunately, I didn't quite get the solidification of the caviar that I was hoping for. I may not have added enough gelatin to the mixture. I added about a packet of gelatin to a half cup of ingredients and while it seemed to bead up nicely while sinking through the oil, when I tried to strain it, the caviars went right through the strainer. This was a bit of a problem. I'm hoping to try it again. Unfortunately, it takes about an hour per shot, and I was in the process of getting ready to plate a ten dish, nine course tasting menu, and was running a bit short of time.

Otherwise, the meal went fairly well. To be fair, I did let the grill cool down a bit too much so the tuna, while done just about perfectly, didn't get a good sear on the outside. I also forgot my camera until the last course. The sorbet that I was making ended up as a granita, and I forgot to put out water pitchers. We also didn't end up with port or coffee to end the meal since we didn't quite make our way through the three bottles of wine that went with the dinner.

Big ups go Tiarre and Forrest from the Ministry of Rum forums for their recipes for baked papaya and papaya sorbet, respectively, as well as both their and the other forumers' help in putting together the cocktail. Surprisingly, what I ended up with was exactly what was on the menu I had created beforehand, including the freezing of the sorbet into a granitta, and the simpler Cava cocktail. I present you, however:

The Grenade Royale:

• .5 oz. - Pama Pomegranate Liqueur
• 4.5 oz. - Sparkling wine (a fruitier sparkling wine like Cava or Prosecco works better than Champaign)

Chill both bottles well. Then pour wine over the liqueur, and serve. Use a lemon twist or, better yet, pomegranate seeds for garnish.

Pictures of the baked papaya to follow.

Enjoy!
The Scribe