Yesterday came out with a really nice dish worth of recording: scallop and smoked whitefish pilav:

On my favorite F&W site i stumbled on the smoked fish jambalaya but while the fish part fo the dish sounded nice i didn’t care much for the flavoring. Instead i decided to make a celery battuto for a base. Here’s the final recipe:

1.5 cup of long grain rice (high quality is important so the rice doesn’t turn into mush – i used Lundberg organic)
0.5 lb of smoked whitefish flaked into large chunks
0.75 lb of scallops halved
4 small stalks of celery; 1 jalapeno, 1 poblano (seeded), whites of bunch of scallions, bunch of parsley and some dill finely chopped in the food processor for battuto.
Heat the olive oil in a large ovenproof pan and let the battuto sizzle for a while. Add rice to coat and then add 1 cup of clam juice, 1 cup of chicken stock and 1 cup of water. Stir in scallops and fish, bring to a simmer, cover and put into a 375F oven. Check in 15-20 mins – if the rice absorbed all the liquid turn the oven down to 200F for 10 mins and then fluff rice carefully so not to break the fish. Serve.

These days i’m on the look for cocktails including pisco, and the F&W magazine website is always a great start. I chose some nice sounding recipe: Vermouth Sin Nombre for tonight but Wegmans had only blood oranges. I hesitantly picked one but actually it was a perfect choice!
With just one more change – cinnamon infused agave syrup instead of a simple one i ended up with one of the most sophisticated and tasty drinks in my life… so much so that it deserved a new name

I guess using Carpano Antica for vermouth didn’t hurt either adding to the overall complexity of the drink…

My variation on the Ryan Magarian’s Love Unit theme resulted in a truly great concoction: after careful consideration of different basic formulas i modified his recipe using yellow bell pepper instead of red, creme de cacao instead of vanilla rum, changing some ratios and skipping sugar syrup altogether – creme de cacao is sweet enough…
Now i never met a creme de cacao cocktail i didn’t like but this one came out truly amazing! And so harmonious, each of the ingredients contributing to the final complexity of the drink. You can probably discern their flavors only if being told of the contents.

* 3 yellow bell pepper rings, sliced 1/4 inch thick
* 4 basil leaves
* 2 oz white rum (Havana Club is amazing)
* 1 oz creme de cacao
* 3/4 ounce fresh lime juice
* 1/2 ounce fresh grapefruit juice

1. In a cocktail shaker gently muddle two bell pepper rings and 3 basil leaves. Add remaining ingredients. Fill shaker with ice and shake vigorously until very cold.
2. Pour drink through a fine mesh strainer into a chilled cocktail glass. Float a basil leaf atop drink. Balance a bell pepper ring on rim of glass.
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Ok so i’m officially on the roll today. Great success with my Love Unit drink and now this.
Or maybe all the cooking and reading of Kennedy and Bayless finally comes to fruition

So here is my shepherd’s pie variation.

My main ingredients were tri tip and jersey white sweet potatoes. Now couple of words on these two ingredients. Tri tip is my beef meat of choice – this is such an excellent cut. Very versatile – i make it into fajitas or use it in various braises. White sweet potato is quite dry, holds its shape well, less sweet than the regular sweet one and very aromatic.
There were several ideas i used in this dish so it’s not exactly original but on the other hand what recipes are? I already modified once Kennedy’s bisteces rancheros using tomatillo sauce instead of tomatoes with great success. This time i decided to add to further transform this dish adding shredded potatoes from Bayless’s version of tinga.
So here’s the final version.
1.5lb of tri tip.
2 med sweet potatoes.
3/4lb tomatillos.
cloves from about 1/2 head of garlic unpeeled.
2 bunches of scallions.
2 poblano chiles.
1/3 cup of creme fraiche.
Broil tomatillos and garlic. Char poblanos. Separate scallion whited from greens. Chop both. Pulse skinned poblanos, tomatillos, garlic, scallion greends, some cilantro to get a coarse sauce, pulse in creme fraiche.
Cut the meat across the grain into 1/2″ steaks. Brown in hot oil, for 2mins on each side, adding scallion whites. Shred the white potatoes – i like to use food processor to get nice even threads. Top the meat with the sauce and put a layer of potato on top, cover and roast in 375F for 30mins. Decrease the temp to 325F and roast for probably 45mins-1hour more until cooked. Uncover and put under the boril to brown the top.

A while ago i was infatuated with making various infusions. One of the results was grappa infused with chamomile and dried apricots.
So when i stumbled on a recipe that sounded nice and involved grappa i decided to give it a try.
Well this was one of the tastiest drinks i ever made! Crazy aromatic… Intoxicating… Over the top…

The original recipe is called Corleone and comes from the Robert Hess’s book. 6 white white grapes muddled; 1.5oz Hendrick’s gin, 3/4oz homemade chamomile apricot infused grappa, 1/2 oz lemon juice, pinch of sugar, dosh of orange bitters.

IMHO fregola is the tastiest version of couscous. For the dinner tonight the point of departure was couple recipes in Bugialli’s “Foods of Sicily and Sardinia” book.
Took me less than half an hour to come up with a great dish!

Serves 4.

1lb of shrimp, peeled.
1-1.5 cups of fregola cooked al dente.

tiny dice (i pulsed the stuff in food processor) – leaves from a bunch of parsley, white part of 2 bunches of scallions, 4 celery stalks, 2 plump garlic cloves.
in a large skillet sauteed the battuto in olive oil with 4oz of very small cubes of pancetta on med heat. Increased the heat, added shrimp, roasted for couple of mins turning once, mixed in fregola, covered and put into 375F oven for 10mins.

As one might notice i’m into unusual ingredients in cocktails. And what can be more unusual than snap peas! Introducing tarragon snap-pea irinha: a smart riff on caipirinha:

The original recipe didn’t call for any herbs but to me pea just called for either mint (classic) or tarragon. Here is my formula but all credit for the initial idea goes to very talented mixologist Adam Seger!

1 lime cut in eighths, center pith discarded
¼ cup spring snap peas plus couple for garnish
1/2 oz agave nectar
1.5 ounces Hendricks gin
small sprig of tarragon and one more for garnish
Crushed ice
Cracked black pepper

In a heavy rocks glass, muddle lime, snap peas and tarragon sprig until pods are crushed and limes juicy. Add agave syrup and gin. Fill with ice and stir. Finish with fresh cracked pepper.

Still in a state of fascination with basil-flavored drinks.
Also a sudden urge to use some raspberry vinegar (artisanal no less!), half-empty bottle of it collecting the dust in my pantry (well, how many beet salads one can make).
The point of departure was Sangre de Fresa from the excellent Art of the Bar book. And it worked like a charm!

5 raspberries, two lemon wedges, 5 basil leaves, tsp of sugar, 1/2 oz vinegar, 1.5 oz tequila blanco, 1/2 oz Cointreau, splash of lemon juice. Over the crushed ice in a pilsner glass, topped with soda.

Miso as a secret ingredient. Not necessarily a japanese or fusion dish. Straightforward south-western flavor – hot hatch chiles powder, oregano, roasted garlic, but with some white miso mixed into a marinade.

Irresistible!

ok so the truth is that lovage is not the only herb that survives in my backyard – basil does well too and here’s the proof:

now somewhere along the way i got tired of basil as a ubiquitous salad herb: that’s why it was such a relief to discover its great flavor value in cocktails!
I’ve mentioned rum-based Companero in some previous post and plan to play with the recipe soon but tonight i mixed another drink.
Its main appeal (besides the basil) was an opportunity to finally use a hibiscus-rose infused vodka i made sometime ago while being on a serious infusion spree.

Quite savory, and i’m surprised again how well basil matches sweet flavors (like rose in this case or cacao before).
And now i have a hope for my infusion – it seems working with orange as well as herbs flavors. Something to think about – i have almost 500ml of this stuff