Definition: Schnapps vs. Liqueur

I noticed that we have both peach schnapps and peach liqueur in our home bar, and they taste pretty different.  What's the difference between schnapps and liqueur?  I was still a little confused by the Wikipedia definitions below so found this answer on a couple of websites.

Schnapps are fermented and distilled; liqueurs are simply fruits steeped in an alcohol which has already been fermented and distilled.

From Wikipedia:

Schnapps
In general, it refers to any kind of strong alcoholic beverage.

American schnapps are alcoholic beverages that are produced by mixing neutral grain spirit with fruit flavors or with other flavors. This mixture is then bottled with added sugar and (usually) glycerine, producing a smooth, syrup-like drink. Their alcohol content can be between 15% and 50% ABV (30–100 proof).  These drinks technically fall into the category of liqueurs because of their added sugar content.

Liqueur
It's an alcoholic beverage made from distilled alcohol that has been flavored with fruit, cream, herbs, spices, flowers or nuts and bottled with added sugar. Liqueurs are typically quite sweet; they are usually not aged for long but may have resting periods during their production to allow flavors to marry.

In the United States and Canada, where spirits are often called "liquor", there is often confusion over liqueurs and liquors, especially as many spirits today are available in flavored form (e.g. flavored vodka). The most reliable rule of thumb is that liqueurs are quite sweet and often syrupy in consistency, while liquors are not.  In parts of the United States, liqueurs may also be called cordials or schnapps.

Definition: Mirepoix

Mirepoix

Pronounced meer-PWAH. 

A culinary preparation created in the 18th century by the cook of the Duc de Levis-Mirepoix, a French field marshal and ambassador of Louis XV.  It consists of a mixture of diced vegetables (carrot, onion, celery);  raw ham or lean bacon is added when the preparation is au gras (with meat).

A mirepoix is used to enhance the flavors of meat, game and fish, in the preparation of sauces, and as a garnish for dishes.

When a mirepoix is used in braised or pot-roasted dishes, it should be simmered gently in a covered pan until all the vegetables are very tender and can impart their flavor to the dish.

Source:  Larousse Gastronomique

Bon Appetit's 20 Most Important Restaurants in America

Bon Appetit has announced it's 20 Most Important Restaurants in America.

Here, Andrew Knowlton (Bon Appetit's The Foodist columnist) explains it all.

The 20 Most Important Restaurants in America

1. Momofuku, multiple locations
2. The Restaurant at Meadowood, Napa, CA
3. Husk, Charleston, SC
4. Alinea, Chicago, IL
5. Manresa, Los Gatos, CA
6. Roberta's, Brooklyn, NY
7. Eleven Madison Park, New York, NY
8. Pok Pok, Brooklyn, NY and Portland, OR
9. Mission Chinese Food, New York, NY and San Francisco, CA
10. Uchi/Uchiko, Austin, TX
11. Animal, Los Angeles, CA
12. Avec, Chicago, IL
13. Le Bernardin, New York, NY
14. Cochon, New Orleans, LA
15. The Walrus and the Carpenter, Seattle, WA
16. Shake Shack, multiple locations
17. Franklin Barbecue, Austin, TX
18. Balthazar, New York, NY
19. Primo, Rockland, ME
20. Swan Oyster Depot, San Francisco, CA 

He mentions these as Hall of Famers:

• Daniel, NYC
• Jean-Georges, NYC
• WD~50, NYC
• The Spotted Pig, NYC
• Zuni Café, SF
• Chez Panisse, Berkeley, CA
• Frontera Grill, Chicago
• The French Laundry, Yountville, CA
• Canlis, Seattle
• Blue Hill at Stone Barns, Pocantico Hills, NY
• Craft, NYC
• Spago, Los Angeles
• Babbo, NYC

 

Do you think his list is missing any restaurants?

 

 

 

Chipotle testing a new vegetarian menu item "Sofritas"

Chiptole plans to test a new vegetarian menu item called "Sofritas" in seven San Francisco Bay Area restaurants starting today:

• 525 Market in San Francisco
• 121 Fourth St. in San Francisco
• 126 New Montgomery in San Francisco
• 2019 Chess Drive in San Mateo
• 251 East 3^rd Ave. in San Mateo
• 180 El Camino Real in Palo Alto
• 135 El Camino Real in Millbrae.

What are Sofritas?  They're shredded tofu braised with chipotle chilis, roasted poblanos and a blend of aromatic spices made with organic, non-GMO tofu from Oakland's Hodo Soy.

Sofritas will be available in burritos, tacos, burrito bowls and salads and can be combined with other signature ingredients, including white or brown cilantro-lime rice, pinto beans or vegetarian black beans, house-made salsas and guacamole, and cheese or sour cream.

The test may be expanded to additional markets in the future.

I'm curious to taste these so-called Sofritas.

Definition: Bisque vs. Chowder

I think I'm going to have Mondays become "Definition Days" here on the blog.

Today's words are:  BISQUE and CHOWDER.

What is the difference between a bisque and a chowder? 

bisque
A seasoned shellfish puree flavored with white wine, Cognac and fresh cream, used as the basis of a soup.  The flesh of the main ingredient (crayfish, lobster, crab, etc.) is diced as for salpicon and used as a garnish.  The shells are also used to make the initial puree. 

It is thought the name is derived from Biscay, as in Bay of Biscay, but the crustaceans are certainly bis cuites "twice cooked" (by analogy to a biscuit) for they are first sautéed lightly in their shells, then simmered in wine and aromatic ingredients, before being strained, followed by the addition of cream.

In case you were wondering what "salpicon" is:
salpicon
Ingredients that are diced (often very finely), then bound with sauce (in the case of vegetables, meat, poultry, game, shellfish, fish or eggs) or with syrup or cream (for a fruit salpicon).  The word comes from Spanish sal (salt) and picar (cut).

So. . . Tomato Bisque is probably a misnomer unless there's shellfish in it.  It likely should be called a Tomato Soup or Tomato Cream Soup.  I guess "bisque" just sounds fancier.

chowder
A seafood or vegetable stew (or thickened soup), often served with milk or cream and mostly eaten with saltine crackers. Chowder is usually thickened with broken up crackers, but some varieties are traditionally thickened with crushed ship biscuit. New England clam chowder, perhaps the best known chowder, is typically made with chopped clams and diced potatoes, in a mixed cream and milk base, often with a small amount of butter. Other common chowders include Manhattan clam chowder, which substitutes tomatoes for the milk and cream and typically omits potatoes; corn chowder, which uses corn instead of clams; a wide variety of fish chowders; and potato chowder, which is often made with cheese.

The origin of the term chowder is obscure. One possible source is the French word chaudière, the type of pot in which the first chowders were probably cooked. (This, if true, would be similar to the origin of casserole, a generic name for a set of main courses originally prepared in a dish called a casserole.)

Source: Larousse Gastronomique, Wikipedia.com

The World's Most Expensive Cocktail

The Guinness Book of World Records has a new "World's Most Expensive Cocktail."  The cocktail cost $12,916, and the anonymous buyer apparently only took a few sips, paid for it and left!

The cocktail has 2 shots of 154-year Croizet cognac as well as Grand Marnier Quintessence, Chartreuse Vieillissement Exceptionnellement Prolongé and a dash of Angostura Bitters.

A bottle of the cognac has a $157,000 value and it goes for $6,000 per shot.  (That makes Louis XIV look cheap!)

Here's the article from the Wall Street Journal:  A $13,000 Cocktail Goes to Waste

Recipe: Arugula, Grape and Almond Salad with Saba Vinaigrette

We made the Arugula, Grape and Almond Salad with Saba Vinaigrette recipe in the Nov 2012 issue of Bon Appetit (p.108) this past week.  This is now my FAVORITE salad ever.  So easy to make, and the flavors just meld and complement each other so nicely.

Tips:

• Make sure the grapes are seedless and sweet.
• We used a spring mix of lettuce that included arugula.
• Since we didn't have saba which is a "cooked grape juice,' we used aged balzamic vinegar as the recipe suggested.
• Manchego and sliced almonds worked quite nicely.

You must try this recipe!!!

Make room for Champagne!

I was reading an article in Food and Wine Magazine by Ray Isle "A Wine-Buying Strategy for Every Personality" (Jan 2013, p. 70).  I love how he ends the article:

And one final note:  No matter what kind of life you lead, leave room in your fridge for at least one bottle of Champagne.  Bottles of Champagne are like umbrellas:  The day you don't have one on you is always the day that you absolutely, positively need one.

I second that! 

Send your loved one a chocolate heart for V-Day. . . or maybe not

This is just weird and a little creepy.

Dude, Sweet Chocolate, a chocolatier in Dallas is taking orders for a chocolate (anatomically correct?) heart.

2 lbs. of South American Chocolate Love... Studded with Cocoa Puff Marshmallows, Crack in The Box & Crumbled Waffle Cone.
$45.00

They are taking pre-orders now if this floats your (or your significant other's) boat.

http://dudesweetchocolate.com/main.sc

Recipe: Classic French Onion Soup

I cut the bread a little too thick.
Cut them into 1/2 inch slices.

This past weekend, I made America's Test Kitchen's Classic French Onion Soup recipe. 

So flavorful.  So delicious.  But it took a lot of time. . . 3 1/2 hours.  (Active cooking time was only about an hour and a half.)  It was worth all of the time and effort.

The soup was a great winter dinner and wasn't that unhealthy as I usually think French Onion Soup to be.  For a large pot of soup (6 servings), here were the ingredients:

• 3 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into 3 pieces
• 6 large yellow onions (about 4 pounds), halved and cut pole to pole into 1/4-inch-thick slices
• table salt
• 2 cups water, plus extra for deglazing
• 1/2 cup dry sherry
• 4 cups low-sodium chicken broth
• 2 cups beef broth
• 6 sprigs fresh thyme, tied with kitchen twine
• 1 bay leaf
• ground black pepper
• 1 small baguette, cut into 1/2 inch slices
• 8 ounces shredded Gruyere cheese (about 2 1/2 cups)

TIP:  How to prevent shedding tears while chopping onions
I have The Complete America's Test Kitchen TV Show Cookbook, and on p.251 "Behind the Scenes," it says that if you light a candle near where you're cutting the onions, the flame changes the activity of the thiopropanal sulfoxide (the volatile compound that causes tearing) by completing its oxidation, and you won't tear up.  I lit a tealight candle, near my chopping board, and it worked!  I didn't "cry" at all.

Floaties

 

 

I think that if we bought these pool floats (each $18 at Urban Outfitters), I'd be hungry all the time in the pool. 

How would you describe your wine knowledge?

I just read a blog post asking readers what their level of knowledge is and also the average price they pay for a bottle of wine at home.  I loved the acronyms:

CC = casual connoisseur
IKMTPM = I-know-more-than-Pinot-Merlot
IWBMSWIGU = I-wannabe-a-master-sommelier-when-I-grow-up

So, I'll ask the question. . .  how would you characterize yourself? 
I'm a IWBMSWIGU but have a long way to go.

The Anti-Loneliness Ramen Bowl

This is really funny. . . until you accidentally knock your phone into your bowl.  It's actually ingenious.  Designed by Miso Soup Design, the bowl will be available by May.  For more info on the bowl and how to pre-order it, here is the PCMag.com commentary.

Hunger and Food Waste

I think this is so disturbing . . .

A few excerpts from the article New report: as much as 2 billion tonnes of all food produced ends up as waste :

A new report 'Global Food Waste Not Want Not' by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers reports that as much as 50% of all food produced around the world is never eaten due to issues as varied as inadequate infrastructure and storage facilities, to overly strict sell-by dates, buy-one-get-one free offers and consumers demanding cosmetically perfect food, according to a report from the Institution of Mechanical Engineers. The report,Global Food Waste Not Want Not, also found that between 30% and 50% or 1.2 billion to 2 billion metric tons of food produced around the world each year never reach a human stomach.

With UN predictions that there could be about an extra three billion people to feed by the end of the century and an increasing pressure on the resources needed to produce food, including land, water and energy, the Institution is calling for urgent action to tackle this waste.

Dr Tim Fox, Head of Energy and Environment at the Institution of Mechanical Engineers said:  "The amount of food wasted and lost around the world is staggering. This is food that could be used to feed the world’s growing population – as well as those in hunger today. It is also an unnecessary waste of the land, water and energy resources that were used in the production, processing and distribution of this food.

“The reasons for this situation range from poor engineering and agricultural practices, inadequate transport and storage infrastructure through to supermarkets demanding cosmetically perfect foodstuffs and encouraging consumers to overbuy through buy-one-get-one free offers.

Champagne Only Comes from France!

'Champagne' Set for Obama Dinner Has French Wine Lobby Miffed

 Source: NewsMax 1/9/13

 

Summary and thoughts. . . 

 

The White House will be serving "Korbel Natural, Special Inaugural Cuvée Champagne, California" with its dessert course at the inaugural dinner.  Sam Heitner, the director of the Champagne Bureau, says that the description violates U.S. law because Champagne only comes from the Champagne region of France.

 

The Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies (of course, there's a committee for this. . . there's a job for everything!) says that the wine is labeled in accordance with U.S. law.  Apparently, U.S law is more flexible than other countries.  The law prohibits the term for newer sparkling wines but preserves it for those produced before 2006 - and only if their origin is spelled out in their name.

 

I always wondered how Korbel could have the word 'Champagne' on their bottle label.  It really should be called Korbel Sparkling Wine.  

 

 

Patrick Dempsey Wins Bid to Buy Tully's

I just thought this was interesting and wanted to share. . .

Actor Patrick Dempsey Wins Bid to Buy Tully's Coffee Stores
"Grey's Anatomy" star Patrick Dempsey beat out Starbucks and others with a winning bid of $9.15 million for the Tully's Coffee chain. Starbucks warned that a winning bid won't be finalized until it's certified during a bankruptcy hearing this week.

Recipe: Spicy Pear Cookies

I love spice type cakes . . . and pears . . . and walnuts, so combine them together and voila -- a delicious winter cookie.  I like that these aren't super sweet, and in fact, they have almost a scone-like texture that they could be the perfect cookie to bring to a brunch or to tea.

This Spicy Pear Cookie recipe is from allrecipes.com and is oh so easy to make. 

Few tips:

• I had to bake them 5 extra minutes to get them golden brown.
• I didn't add the raisins to the batter.
• The lemon icing was ok -- taste it, you may want to go with a different lemon icing instead.

Wine: Who Owns What and Does It Matter?

Just as PepsiCo owns Pepsi, Gatorade, IZZE Sparkling, Tropicana, Ocean Spray, Mountain Dew, etc., and Coca-Cola owns just as many beverage brands, such is the world of wine.

Michigan State Professor Philip Howard has illustrated how a handful of companies own the multitude of wine brands on the market today.

Zoom in to see the names of the wine producers and the companies that own them (they look like small dots/blobs if you don't zoom in):
http://www.businessinsider.com/philip-howard-msu-wine-map-2013-1

Does it matter who owns what?  As a consumer, I don't think so.  Thoughts?

Recipe: Thomas Keller's ad hoc chicken pot pie

This evening's pot pie (1/2/12)

 

UPDATED 1-2-13

Original Post on 3/3/12
Success!!!  This evening, I made Thomas Keller's recipe for chicken potpie (he doesn't capitalize the name of his recipes in his ad hoc at home cookbook, and he has "potpie" as one word), and the 2 hours of cooking was totally worth it.  If you like chicken pot pie, you MUST try this recipe.  It's the best chicken pot pie I've ever had.  The crust (which is perfectly flaky and buttery) and the bechamel sauce make the dish.

Notes:

• I didn't have any shredded chicken on hand and so cut up 2 chicken breasts and sauteed them.
• Blog contributor 'the woman who ate everything' gave me a tip to add frozen peas to the dish which was a wonderful idea. 
• Cooking each vegetable separately was a pain. 
• UPDATE:  Cook all of the vegetables in the same pot.  Start with the potatoes, carrots and onions and simmer for about 8 minutes.  Then add the celery and peas, and cook for 2 minutes.
• UPDATE:  Put 4 bay leaves, 4 thyme sprigs and about 32 peppercorns in a cheesecloth sachet so it's easy to discard.
• I didn't need to move the dish to the middle rack to finish baking it (per the recipe).
• UPDATE:  The full 50 minutes may not be needed for baking.  This evening, it was done in 40 minutes.
• If you're making this on your own (without any help) for the first time, allot 3 hours (1 1/2 - 2 hours for prep and an hour for baking).  This is a recipe where it'd be nice to have a helper.

If you want to try this recipe and don't have Keller's cookbook, I found the recipe on another blogger's site:
http://www.friendsfoodfamily.com/friends-food-family/2011/02/thomas-kellers-chicken-pot-pie.html

Recipe: Farro with Wild Mushrooms and Herbs

Happy New Year!

Start the new year off right with a healthy dish. (This is a great side dish.)

Farro is making a comeback.  It's an ancient grain that is finding itself on menus and in more and more recipes like those featured on the Huffington Post or the recipe we made the other night -- Farro with Wild Mushrooms and Herbs found in Bon Appetit Magazine's October 2012 issue (p.113).

I had never tasted farro until two months ago when our friends made this dish at a dinner party.  I loved the flavor and the texture and 'bite' of the grain that I wanted to make the recipe myself.  Seeking out farro wasn't so easy;  I finally found one and only one brand and type of farro at our local Central Market grocery store.

The recipe is quite easy to make.  Here are some tips:

• Farro is like risotto in that it expands and absorbs a lot of liquid.  If you're making this dish for 2 people, half the recipe, and you'll still have plenty of leftovers.
• I couldn't find semi-pearled farro, so just used the Central Market branded type as mentioned above.
• I made the farro according to the instructions on the package -- I didn't cook it in boiling salted water as noted in the recipe, but instead cooked it in chicken broth.
• I added extra mushrooms.