The Malty Falcon

In the early 1990’s I was fresh out of college, looking for a job, ready to take on the world and living at my parents’ house. Rather than spending time in job interviews I often found myself with my friends at a place called City Pub in Redwood City. These were the early days of so-called microbrews and City Pub sold several on tap. My favorite was a beer from Canada called McNally’s Extra Ale. In the world of wine there are fruit bombs - McNally’s was a malt bomb. The heavy use of malts made it almost sweet. For some reason it disappeared from bars and restaurants in California in the mid-90’s, although the brewery and beer still exist.

The trend in craft beer now is India Pale Ale (aka IPA) with each brewery in an apparent competition to see who can squeeze more hops into each bottle. I appreciate the bitter grapefruit taste of hops and have enjoyed this trend but I’m getting burned out on these over hopped beers. I want to move forward and go back to the past with a nice malty beer but they seem to be hard to find.

However, the Mendocino brewing company produces a thick beer ca

lled Eye of the Hawk that is a salute to the salad days of malty beers. A bit hefty at 8% alcohol, it’s readily available at Trader Joe’s. It’s not as sweet as McNally’s but it’s a ‘classic’ malt-oriented beer and reminds me of the good old days when I made no money, had no girlfriend and drove a 25 year old car with a mashed in front.

Happy Birthday Old Forester

A couple years back I purchased a bottle of bourbon from a large beverage store that I will refer to as RevHo to protect their anonymity. I wanted to try something different so I asked the gaggle of employees at the register if anyone had any knowledge of bourbon and could give me some advice. Not a single employee looked old enough to purchase alcohol legally so I was immediately pessimistic, and with good reason. A peach fuzzed kid accompanied me to the whiskey section and quickly it became clear that I knew more about bourbon when I was 17 than this squirt. I thanked him for his "help" and decided on Old Forester's Signature Bourbon for about $20. Over the course of the next year I would dip into the bottle but never really enjoyed it. Finally I decided that I should let the company know because perhaps I got a flawed bottle.

Old Forester Signature - A screw cap and mediocre flavor pushed me to complain

To make a long story short, I e-mailed Old Forester and they were very courteous and compensated me without me requesting it (btw, RevHo never responded to my e-mail). While researching the company I had noticed their "Birthday Bourbon" on their site and was intrigued. It is a limited annual release bourbon that had some nice reviews from independent websites (for more info see: http://www.oldforester.com/better/birthday.aspx). I put my name in at a good liquor store near my parents' house, realizing my rural community would probably never get an allocation, and was pleased to get a call in January informing me that my bourbon had arrived. On a recent trip my parents brought the bottle with them and we enjoyed a tipple before dinner. Here is my tasting report: A refined, classy bourbon. It's not thick and sweet like some of my favorite bourbons but more restrained, almost like a good rye. Perhaps this is due to its more modest 94 proof than the flamethrowers like Old Grand Dad 114 and Booker's (approx. 126). It actually tasted much better a day after I opened it than the first night. I got distinct toffee notes with secondary notes of apple, spice, vanilla, leather and wood. It's not as syrupy as some other rich bourbons but it's smooth and has complexity, like an old world wine. Overall I'd say it's a very nice bourbon. My parents paid $33 for it and at that price I'd say it's worth it if you want a sophisticated sipper. Of course there are several other attractive offerings in that price range. They presented this bottle to me as a birthday gift so not only is it truly a Birthday Bourbon but it was definitely worth the price. Attractive "I Dream of Jeannie" bottle and a classy bourbon turned me around on Old Forester.

Side Dish - Roasted Tomatoes and Onions

A recent evening I had two beautiful pork rib chops slated for dinner but really didn't know what to serve with them. The wife was dead set on making polenta with a tomato mushroom ragout to go with them, but that was almost a standalone dish. I wanted something to complement the pork chops without being too heavy-handed. Taking a cue from mother, I used what I had on hand - a pile of marginal tomatoes and an onion. I simply halved the tomatoes and sliced the onions in slivers, tossed them all with olive oil, salt and pepper and roasted them at 400 degrees while making the pork chops. I seared the chops in a cast iron pan and finished them in the oven with the tomato/onion mixture.

The sheet pan may look like hell but look at those stunning chops.

I pulled the tomatoes and onions when they were clearly caramelized and let them rest while I finished the chops. The chops were done when I pushed on them with my finger and they stopped yielding. Nothing is worse than a dry pork chop. I placed a bed of arugula on the plate for the chops to rest on and topped them with the tomato-onion mixture. The juices the chops yield while resting wilted the arugula and made an additional sauce that went great with the tomato-onion topping. Mother would be proud.

This would also be good with a chicken breast or firm white fish.

Shrimp Cocktail

We hosted a dinner party the other night and roasted a whole tenderloin roast. I had cut off the narrow tail end of the roast that would have been overcooked and was planning on making it for dinner tonight. It was pretty slight, making me think I needed to fortify the meal so I bought some small shrimp from the grocery store. These weren't high grade shrimp but I had no choice - we don't have a Whole Foods in our area. The wife didn't like the "surf 'n turf" entree idea (good call - it's kind of a white-trash-with-money menu item anyway) so I decided to make Ina Garten's shrimp cocktail. I was interested in her technique of roasting the shrimp in olive oil, kosher salt and pepper rather than boiling them. It seemed like the flavor would be more intense and it was. As an added benefit, the production was easy. Large shrimp take about 10 minutes in a 400 degree oven while these shrimpy shrimp took about 6 minutes. The cocktail sauce was good but I think a remoulade sauce may have been even better. I tweaked Ina's cocktail sauce by using lemon zest in addition to the juice. Here is her recipe for this: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/roasted-shrimp-cocktail-recipe/index.html

A square plate makes everything look better.

Homemade Pasta - The Next Frontier

The wife wanted to go to a garage sale up the street "first thing" Saturday morning. I agreed. Pinned down by cats on our bed that morning, as we are every morning, we finally managed to head out at 9AM (unshowered of course) with a strong cup in hand. Garage sales can be treasure troves of history, nostalgia and good deals but are more often a tour through a neighbor's debris with price tags attached. I'm amazed how some people can actually post signs and ask money for things that belong at the curb. The last few garage sales we've been to felt like we're walking through mini-landfills so I didn't have much hope for this one. Sure enough, there was a lot of neatly arranged junk so I was in a strict 'no buy' mode. While browsing, a box with an image of a pasta maker caught my eye. To my amazement, inside was a pasta maker. It was an Atlas, made in Italy, with a $3 price sticker. I stuck to my principal of not buying anything and everything else was worthless and/or depressing so we headed out. On the way to the car we stopped by the next door neighbor's ersatz yard sale. A passerby would have assumed they had knocked their trashcan over. We quickly left but on our way out the wife brought up the pasta maker. "It's $3! If we don't end up using it we can just give it away." She made perfect sense so we walked back to the original sale and forked out three singles for the Atlas.

The Atlas in action - the first stage of rolling out the dough

I've thought about making homemade pasta for years but have always been somewhat intimidated, I imagine in much the same way people are relcuctant about making a pie crust. The thought of buying a pre-made pie crust is anathema to me so it felt like the right time to take on pasta. I referred to a few of my cookbooks and it looked fairly straightforward. I followed the recipe from Cook's Illustrated's "Everyday Italian" book that uses flour, eggs and water and a food processor. After mixing it requires some kneading and resting. Now it was time for the $3 pasta machine. Not only was rolling the pasta through easy but it was strangely satisfying. The first dish we made was a strand pasta (i.e. spaghetti) in a vodka-tomato-cream sauce. I didn't snap any photos but I can tell you that the texture of the fresh made pasta compared to dried pasta is like cotton compared to polyester. Next we made ravioli stuffed with prosciutto, basil and cheese (ricotta and parmesan). This was a little trickier to assemble and we learned the hard way that you must roll the pasta thin enough or it will be too thick and tough.

The final product, in a basic cream sauce, was excellent and will only be better next time when we roll the pasta thinner.

In summary, I definitely recommend homemade pasta with a roller type pasta maker if you have the least amount of interest. It's not very difficult to use and the results are worth the little trouble. I had been tempted many times to buy Kitchen Aid's pasta roller attachment but never wanted to fork our $120. A new Atlas (or the other Italian one that is readily available) is about $60. Probably worth it but at $3 it was an especially easy decision (with a little help from the wife).

Bourbon Review - Old Grand Dad 114

A few years back, when we lived in L.A., I held a blind bourbon tasting with some friends (and one person I wished didn’t show up). The winner by a Floridian margin was Booker’s followed closely by Elijah Craig (12 Year Old). At 125 proof and uncut, Booker’s is more like bourbon concentrate. The price is equally as hefty ($55 a bottle) while ‘best buy’ Elijah Craig was only $15 at the time (currently $22). Over the next few years I’ve tried several bourbons but nothing has quite reached the height of Booker’s.

The spirits cabinet was getting a little thin on bourbon and I enjoy the occasional tipple so yesterday I stopped by Beverages & More to restock with a nice but not extravagant bottle. Nowadays it seems you need to be north of $20 to get a decent bottle of this satisfying American invention. I wanted to try something I’d never had so I passed on reliable offerings like Elijah Craig and Elmer T. Lee (another excellent choice) and bought Old Grand 114. At first glance of the label you may think it’s Senator Robert Byrd’s private label whiskey and the 114 signifies his age but any likeness to his wrinkly visage is purely coincidental. The 114 stands for the proof, which is nearly the strength of Booker’s.

While making dinner I poured a jigger over a glass of ice and took a sip. Wow. I could practically chew it, it was so dense. Tons of flavor, very heavy and pretty intense at such a high proof. As the ice melted it softened and still tasted great. Essentially this is a poor man’s Booker’s – same basic profile but $26 instead of $55. Interestingly, they are both Jim Beam products. Regardless, Old Grand Dad 114 is a winner. I will be respecting my elders into the future.

I reacted similarly to Old Grand Dad look-alike Senator Byrd after my first sip of OGD 114

They don't make print ads like they used to.

Steak Confit

What else can be said about how to cook a steak? Throw it in a hot pan, flip it once, serve it up, right? Not so fast. The home cook can employ a few techniques to elevate the home-cooked steak to a level that competes with steakhouse offerings. I'll use tonight's steak as a case study. Last night I stopped into our local market, which is more of an alky stop than a legitimate store but they have surprisingly high quality meat. Much to my surprise they had some USDA PRIME rib eye/spencer steaks. I violated my rule of thumb - when you see a great piece of meat buy it and worry about when to cook it later - and bought some prawns instead. I wanted to eat "light" last night. Over dinner I told the wife about the prime steaks and she chided me for not buying a couple. I thought about my missed opportunity the entire next day so I swung by the market on my way home that evening. They still had some prime steaks in the case but I ended up following my other rule of thumb - trust your eye when evaluating steaks (per earlier post on marbling). A couple steaks were as beautifully marbled as the Prime grade steaks so I snatched them up. My current technique with rib eyes is to surgically remove most of the big ribbons of fat that separate the eye from the "ring of heaven" and then use cotton string to tie up the steak in a tight, plump medallion. With such quick cooking,the large pieces of fat between the muscles do nothing to enhance the tenderness or juiciness of the steak but they make eating more cumbersome and awkward. I especially recommend this technique if you are preparing rib eye steaks for guests. No sense requiring your company to become amateur surgeons just to eat their dinner. The other technique I'm employing lately is salting meat prior to cooking. I do not pretend this is an original concept. Every one from the French to troglodytes (technically two different groups) have advocated salting meat and fish for preservation and flavor, but with the advent of refrigeration it is not utilized as it once was. I have no idea what the ideal time frame is but one cooking magazine stated that a minimum of twenty minutes is required to get any benefit. My barbecue cookbooks have you season the meat the night prior to smoking in order to get full benefit. A couple weeks back I salted a couple steaks prior to a weekend trip and cooked them when we returned. Four days of salt curing resulted in very tender and flavorful meat that was not excessively salty. The steaks in this article had about an hour and half of salt exposure, sitting out at room temp, prior to cooking.

The third technique I'm employing when pan frying steaks, and the point of this subject, is using the fat trimmings of the steak for the cooking oil. Rather than using a vegetable oil to sear the steaks I use the fat I've trimmed off the steaks. I put them in the cast iron pan and slowly render the fat while I prepare other elements of the meal then cook the steaks in their native fat. Why not vegetable oil? Perhaps the question should be "why vegetable oil?". Several of them have low smoke points and oils like canola smell nasty when they get too hot. Cooking a steak in its native fat results in beautiful browning and unparalleled flavor. From a health perspective I'm not too concerned because the steak isn't going to absorb much (if any) of the cooking fat, whether it's a trendy vegetable oil or rendered beef fat. Tonight's steaks were, and I don't say this lightly, New York steakhouse quality. I started with good quality steaks but I'm sure the salting and the cooking in their own fat (a la confit) made a difference. Trimming the excess fat and cinching them up with string created a fat steak that didn't overcook before the exterior was browned. The Catena Malbec from Argentina was a perfect compliment.