Sunday, December 04, 2011

Laphroaig Triple Wood

What would be better than Laphroaig's fine whiskey aged in bourbon and then quarter casks? A final finish in European oak that formally housed sherry. For those who have savored Laphroaig before in its rawest form (usually ex-bourbon barrel aged), it is a lightly colored, but hefty dram. The Triple Wood, which is now available in the US after a time in duty free stores, is still quite a hefty dram, but it does bring some real elegance to the party. The color is still light, almost golden straw, which indicates that the liquid is not spending tons of time in the sherry casks. The unadulterated nose is richly sherried, with a mix of pungent seaweed, camp fire, and even Walkers Beef Crisps (sorry for those who don't know these, but it was a clear note on the nose and unmistakable for any other). There are some light floral notes underneath as well. The mouthfeel is full and rich, with a fiery flavor of hot cinnamon and nuts.
Once I added the water, the bourbon influence came forward and sherry-sweetness retreated. I get more vanilla, some smoke (though subtle) and cooked shrimp. I also get cedar box and old ask tray. The taste still has some fire, but a little less heft. The finish is long and somewhat tannic. A wonderful addition to the Laphroaig line.
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Thursday, November 24, 2011

The Thanksgiving wines

We opened two wines for dinner. The Domaine Drouhin was one of the remaining survivors of our 2004 trip to Oregon. It did not disappoint, with rich cherry and cedar and a long finish. I thought it had a port-like nose. The Roger Sabon had a bit more acidity that I thought balanced the heritage turkey well. Both needed a while to open up but were magnificent once they did.
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Saturday, November 05, 2011

Virginia wines

We opened a couple of bottles of Virginia wines for dinner and dessert tonight. Barboursville makes a wide array of excellent wines, as does First Colony.
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Sunday, October 30, 2011

Steam does the trick

I conducted a little experiment with my sourdough this week. The small baguette on the left was baked without steam whereas the boule on the right was treated to steam injection (I use a cast iron pan preheated in the oven and add ice cubes after putting in the dough). The difference with comparable baking times is clear. They both taste great by the way.
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Sunday, October 09, 2011

Glen Grant 16 Year Old

Glen Grant is an interesting dram -- it's normally seen as a much younger whisky, particularly in Italy where I have heard it is sold as a 5 year old and is the top seller. The 16 year old is a departure from the normal in age, but not in flavor profile. It is very much the typical Glen Grant, with sweet biscuit and orange peel on the nose. Bottled at 43% abv, the mouthfeel is very round and easy drinking. In fact, I would advise against adding water to your glass; it seems perfectly balanced to be consumed at its bottle strength. The finish is long and only slightly tannic, like the aftermath of eating a few almonds. This is a well-crafted, smooth and satisfying dram that would be ideal for those who like a lighter, yet mature scotch.
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Sunday, October 02, 2011

Fresh from the oven

I love the color on the sourdough I got this time.
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Saturday, October 01, 2011

Bowmore 17

This Bowmore is only available in duty free, which is a shame given how good it is. I can't compare it to the eighteen except to say they are comparable but different. As you can see from the pic, there's not much left in the bottle. There's sea-spray and sea salt alongside the orange peel and taffy. This is a complex but comforting dram worth seeking out on your next trip oveseas.
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Saturday, September 17, 2011

The laddie

Last Sunday was a solemn occasion, but in Scotland it was a day to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the rebirth of Bruichladdich distillery. Here's Mark Gillespie of Whiskycast on this special day.
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All alone with the pups

My wife is at the party for Chef Black's new restaurant. That means it's just me and the pups for dinner. I am having pan-seared steak with shitaki polenta and cabbage. Yummy!
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Sunday, September 04, 2011

Birthday dinner

Yesterday was dad's birthday so we pulled out all the stops. I made my go-to bbq ribs with maple glaze. The one innovation was adding a little bourbon to the sauce. To my mind, the ribs should have a little chew to them and not completely fall off the bone. We also had roasted plum tomatoes, sauteed corn and potato salad with a mustard vinaigrette. Jessica made a yummy chocolate pudding cake for dessert. We knew that was good when no one spoke for the thirty seconds they spent eating it all up.
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Sunday, August 21, 2011

Lamb shanks

It's what's for dinner. Excellent raised lamb shanks with shallots and garlic. Scrumptious!
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Monday, June 27, 2011

Saturday, June 25, 2011

Wheat germ does the trick

This past week i left out the sunflower seeds and instead used wheat germ in my sourdough. The dough ended up being drier than i've been making, which actually made it easier to shape. And the nutty flavor is excellent, giving the finished bread a wonderful depth.
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Monday, May 23, 2011

Where your daily bread begins

Check out this series of short films about wheat farmers in Kansas: www.kingarthurflour.com/ourfarmers.
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Sunday, May 15, 2011

Testing three American Rye Whiskies

Rye whisky has been emerging from a long dormancy of late. Rye whisky is as American as George Washington and baseball, and even has a connection with our first president. I have three different ryes in front of me at the moment, one from Jim Beam, another from Rittenhouse, and finally a Virginia local from Copper Fox. They all have a similar coloring, sort of a deep copper, even thought they are very different whiskies. Jim Beam's is 80 proof and has the classic, spicey nose, though it is softer than I expected. Taking it in and holding it on the tongue reveals some sweet notes swimming with a mild spice. Rittenhouse is 100 proof and has some stronger spice on the nose and that carries into the tongue. White pepper notes compete with some light background caramel. Comparing the first two, the Rittenhouse has a bit more roundness and heft to it, but both are quite good. Finally the Copper Fox, which is a middle-weight at 90 proof between the other two and is only aged about 14 months. The other significant difference is that it is only 2/3rd rye and 1/3 hand malted barley, which yields a much fatter nose with some of the rubber smell I get from their single malt whisky. The trademark spice of a rye is not there, not even on the tongue. I think the apple wood is not doing this whisky any favors.

A little more sourdough

standpauke Today I baked off some more sourdough. This time I used ice cubes in the cast iron pan to get a little more steam. The color is a little deeper this time and you can see the slashing made for some nice patterns.
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Friday, May 06, 2011

Are you an elitist?

Here's another take (from the folks at FarmAid) on why supporting local agriculture is not an elitist pursuit. It does seem a bit silly to me that one is considered elitist for supporting the very population (salt of the earth, no-kidding farmers and the like) that many laud and trumpet as "real americans". The knock on the locavore etc movement is that not everyone can afford to buy all those lovely ingredients at farmers' markets. It is generally speaking true that most patrons of farmers' markets are middle class, but I think that is starting to change. We are seeing more markets turn up in urban settings away from the trendy neighborhoods, and the road-side stand is also experiencing an upward trend. The costs at these markets of course must be compared to supermarket prices, but if we really look at food deserts, they often don't even have access to decent supermarkets with real produce and the like. On a personal note, if the high price of meat leads to more shifts in diets to vegetables and grains, I can't see that as a bad thing. Far too many Americans still go hungry, but feeding people with cheap, mass-produced, fat-heavy proteins (e.g., burgers) is not the best option. And with the growth in attention to how we eat and where it comes from, it is no longer the only option.

Sunday, May 01, 2011

Artisan Bread Course Day 4

The final day of our bread course was a whirlwind of activity as we made tons of bread, from finishing our croissants to stuffed rye fougasse, wood-fired oven baked pizza and our sourdoughs. The sourdoughs were the same dough as we had baked off on day 3, but this time with a night in the fridge to help build up acetic acid, and therefore give the final bread more tang. The fougasse involved building out our dough from the pre-ferment and letting it proof, followed by rolling out and actually stuffing it. The term fougasse comes from the Latin for "focus", which apparently implies the hearth as the focus of the home. I have made plain-jane fougasse from bread flour, but never stuffed one before. What makes it a fougasse is not so much the dough, but how it is shaped. Once it is shaped into a square or round, but flat dough, various holes and cuts are made into it, which are then pulled apart. We stuffed ours with roasted beets, caramelized onions and goats cheese, folded them over and then made ladder cuts (parallel cuts through the dough) that we pulled apart. It's a bit like a calzone, but with holes in it.

The final work on the croissants involved rolling out to a seven-inch wide piece and then measuring off four-inch lengths to cut and shape. At this point, the dough should be about a quarter inch thick. We were able to get about three or four four-by-seven inch squares out of the dough. I used one slightly irregular end to make a chocolate and marzipan-filled croissant, which is folded over itself, rather than rolled like a traditional croissant. One important note at this point is that the filled croissants should be rolled thinner than a quarter inch, which I forgot to do. Hence, I ended up with a very large croissant (not that I was particularly complaining -- it made a fantastic breakfast sitting on the porch of the Inn the next morning in the cool breeze and with my coffee). Once they had risen one more time (ideally in a proofing box at 80-82 degrees), we brushed them with an egg wash and in the ovens they went. The dough can also be spread thin and used to make a very rich flat-bread pizza or sorts with cooked bacon, onions and cheese.

Finally, we made our pizzas and got to use the large wood-fired oven. I tend to think that you can get very credible pizza at home, but the wood-fired flavor is a bit like barbecuing on real coals versus on gas -- there is a difference, though both are good. At the end of the day, we had quite a haul of baked goods. Those in my class who were locals had plenty to share with their families -- I ended up stopping at Norwich Wine and Spirits for a nice bottle of Rosso di Montalcino to sip with my pizza for dinner. Then I had to triage my bread for what I could reasonably take on board my Southwest flight in a carry-on bag.

I really enjoyed the four days at King Arthur Flour and learned a lot. Just by using the preferred dough temperature formula and what I learned about shaping and slashing dough yielded much improved baguettes this weekend. I still would like to learn a lot more about sourdoughs and baking with whole grains, but this class has given me a great foundation to build upon.

Thursday, April 28, 2011

Artisan Bread Course Day 3


Yesterday was all about sourdough, one of the trickier and unfathomable subjects in bread making. (We also interspersed our work with folds of our croissant dough, which will be ready to bake today). I have tried starters before, and even got a decent one going last summer with rye flour after the Kneading Conference lectures. We each received a small dollop of starter on the first day of the course and began feeding and building it out until we had 1 pound four ounces of starter in the morning. We put one pound in a bowl and the rest in small containers for us to take our starter home with us.

The bread we made was a sunflower sourdough that was probably about 25% whole wheat and the rest all-purpose flour. I have been a bit surprised at how much we use all-purpose flour in this course -- we have not touched bread flour, and used whole wheat and others sparingly.

The big change with the sourdough is how wet and sticky the dough is, which makes handling it tricky at times, but the kneading techniques we have learned and using the autolyse method (whereby we mix the starter, flour and water until it is only partially incorporated, then let it sit for 20 minutes to hydrate) actually makes it easy and builds structure without spending forever over the bench, throwing dough around.

After some resting and a fold, we were ready to shape the dough and retard them for a final time in some baskets (or couches as they are called). Shaping this dough actually requires a clean, un-floured board to create the friction needed to create a nice, tight ball. I have a video that I am working on uploading in the near future (Blogger for Android was not uploading video from my cell phone for some reason).

We are baking our dough today after retarding in the refrigerator over night, but we did bake some yesterday that will be an interesting contrast. Retarding in the fridge allows the acetic acids to build up, creating that sharp sourdough tang, but it also slows yeast growth, so should only be used at the end of the process.Link

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Bread pudding

Maybe it's just me, but I expect two things from my chocolate bread pudding. (At least two.) First, it must be served warm. Second, it should not look like beef stew. The other night it was bone cold and definitely looked like it came out of the stew pot. Shudder.
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Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Artisan Bread Course Day 2

Day two was baguette day! We took the poolish from yesterday and added flour, salt, and yeast, followed by mixing, kneading and preshaping the dough. Pre-shaping is basically taking the kneaded dough and making it into a log shape or small round, as you can see at the picture to the left.

While we let the baguette dough proof (sit around and feast on sugars in the dough to produce CO2), we started our croissants by creating a dough of approximately the texture of cookie dough and pounding out our butter into a quarter-inch thick square. I think I may have gotten some of the paper wrapper from the butter in there, but I don't think it will hurt the final product. The important thing is to have a standard thickness, and a reasonably standard rectangle, which involves cutting off the edges and laying them on top to re-roll into the square. Once we finished these two pieces, they went into the fridge until tomorrow.

Back with the baguettes, we shaped the dough, completed four folds and then put them in a linen couche (cloth) for a final proof, as you can see at right. Then it was off to look at the huge oven the education center has -- steam injection, inward-swinging doors, and fed by what I can only describe as a surgical gurney.

The oven is heated to about what you would use at home -- 450-475 degrees. Then we used our lame to slash the bread. The lame is basically a straight-edge razor that is either curved or straight. I hadn't realized that you use the two types for different breads. The curved razor is for slashing baguettes and batards to produce an "ear", which is a nice lip of crust that opens up as it bakes. The straight lame is for boules (round loaves) and similar breads to create a more even opening on top of the bread.
You can see in the picture at the right a couple of examples of slashed dough before going into the oven. The slashes need to be pretty deep (perhaps 3/4 of an inch) to really open up, otherwise there's also no ear.
The results of my bread, which is in the picture below, was okay, but I need more practice. My baguette is the lighter-colored one, which probably resulted from being in part of the oven that had less steam injection.

Monday, April 25, 2011

Artisan Bread Course Day 1



Today was day one of a four-day bread-making course at King Arthur Flour's Education Center in Norwich, Vermont. There are eleven of us in the class with two teachers, some students having come from far away (two from Washington State, two originally from Scandinavia, and some from just down the street). Being the first day, we focused on straight breads; that is, breads that can be mixed, kneaded, shaped and baked on the same day. We made a semolina-based dough that we later turned into both a foccacia (below) and a pane siciliano (left picture). We also made an American-style lavash. As opposed to the old world lavash (flat bread), this one had a little bit of sugar and some fat (either butter or oil) in it, whereas the original from places like the Middle East will not have either. We rounded out the day by prepping our poolish (water, flour and yeast) for tomorrow's baguettes and taking a small amount of sourdough starter and "feeding" it with equal parts flour and water. It was a great start to the four-day course, and I headed off to my room at the Norwich Inn with far more bread than I should ever eat in one week, let alone a day.

Monday, April 11, 2011

Measure twice, cut once

In cooking there is the concept of mis en place - pre-measuring your ingredients and having everything set before you start cooking. The same goes for baking. Suffice it to say I have learned a valuable lesson in mis en place this weekend. My less than attentive reading of my bread formula led me to read the amount of yeast for the amount of salt. Not a horrific error but it did mean the bread was about three teaspoons short of salt yielding a fine but bland loaf. So anyone out there on a low sodium diet, I have a couple of spare loaves.
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Saturday, April 09, 2011

Winter lager in spring


Yeah, it's supposedly spring, so why am i tasting Sam Adams Winter lager? As Normy would say on Cheers, What else are you going to do with it? This one has that gorgeous deep red color. The spices are pretty mild; in fact the nose is a little sweet. Might be the orange peel. This is a lager with some bite but is mild compared to some of the craft brew out there. It's enjoyable but not particularly reminiscent of roaring fires or holly boughs.
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Tuesday, April 05, 2011

It may not be pretty...

This week's bread is a ciabatta made with an overnight poolish. Recipe courtesy of Ciril Hitz. The shaping needs work but the flavor is excellent and internal structure is well developed.
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Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Sunday, March 20, 2011

Our daily bread

Today's bread is a light, airy whole wheat boule made with a biga and a soaker. The bread is meant to be a sandwich bread, which results from the honey and slight bit of oil in the dough.
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Thursday, March 10, 2011

When organic is not organic

The temptation when there is a new lucrative market is to rush to that market. Organic food has boomed in recent years as affluent and not-so-affluent consumers have decided that the flavor, ethics, or support to small-scale farmers was worth the extra cost. Predictably, others such as Walmart and Target have gotten into the business. However, whenever profit is involved, there is incentive for some to cheat. Apparently the USDA has actually caught some organic certifiers in the act of, well, not certifying correctly. Read more about it at the Food Politics blog.

Friday, February 25, 2011

I like oatmeal

I do, I like oatmeal. I make scottish porridge on weekends when I have time (the package says six minutes, but that's after you bring the milk to a simmer). On weekdays, I use a quicker version. I add granola, or raisins, or banana, or whatever strikes my fancy. But I could just go to McDonald's. Or you could read Mark Bittman's take on it.

Saturday, February 19, 2011

Ardbeg SN2010

I had meant to write about Ardbeg's SN2010 last year when it was released, but I have been a bit lazy, and it is also an extraordinarily difficult dram to decipher. SN2010 is the second release of the ultra-peated Supernova, bringing 100 parts per million of peat to the fight (other Islay whiskies, for comparison, will have somewhere between 25 and 50 ppm of peat). The numbers themselves are not terribly meaningful, however, since there are two methods for measuring peatiness, which can yield wildly different results. (For a quick primer on peat, read this short piece.)

Regardless of the method used, there is no mistaking the power of this whisky straight from the bottle. The smell (some might call it stench) is apparent as soon as it hits the glass. The color is very light, closer to a pinot grigio than any other wine you might compare it to. The whisky comes at 60.1% alcohol by volume, but does not have the nose burn you might expect from a whisky this powerful. The seaweed and brine are there, as well as some fruity notes (more like candied fruit than anything fresh). There's a campfire there in the background and maybe some licorice. Undiluted, it is powerful to drink. Not quite fire-water that will leave you gasping and dunking your head in a bucket of water, but it is not far off. That said, it is surprisingly smooth and well rounded.

Once the water is added, some spice comes out, but much more like Thai spices and chilies. I get a slight hint of orange peel, grass, and even a little dried pine needle. Taking a sip, I still get quite a bit of fire, but the finish is long and warming. This is a very good whisky for the peat freak, though I don't think it comes across as significantly more peaty than the 10 year old or Uigeadail. If I remember correctly, this was about 65 GBP at the distillery, but in the States I have seen it for as much as $130 a bottle. Is it worth it? Hard to tell, but I don't think you'll be disappointed even at that price.

MOO Milk

It's easy to forget that not all the big states are out west. Maine is large. In fact it is huge. Much of the highlands of Maine are owned by paper companies and investment firms. It is also very sparsely populated once you get away from Portland and the southern coast. Which makes it difficult to maintain some businesses when your potential clients are so far away. One such struggling business is MOO Milk, covered recently in this New York Times story. For those of you lucky enough to live in Massachusetts near a Whole Foods, go out and buy some of this milk and help this family get its business on a sound footing.

Saturday, February 12, 2011

Valentine's Day

A little early, but who wants to go out on a Monday night. Since Leslie is working all weekend, Saturday night was Valentine's Day dinner at home. The menu I devised is below.

To start I went simple with some farmhouse stilton and prosciutto di parma, washed down with Barboursville's Brut sparkling wine.

The main course was pork tenderloing medallions with a cherry-port sauce, accompanied by roasted herbed fingerling potatoes and charred brussels sprouts and broccoli with pancetta. We had a lovely bottle of 2005 Chambolle-Musigny from A. Chopin & Fils, an impulse Burgundy I purchased at Calvert Woodley this past summer.

Dessert was risotto di ciocolato with Cockburn's Ten Year Old Tawny Port.

As far as a decadent dinner, it was all very good, yet restrained, and certainly didn't leave us feeling like beached whales afterwards. Plus there was not long Metro ride or drive home to deal with. A perfect evening!