Scandinavia Sling

Last week's TDN was themed "Rumless Tiki" and I decided to try out a variation of the Singapore Sling for my submission, but using Aquavit and Kirsch instead of Gin and Cherry Heering.

Scandinavia Sling

• 1½ oz aged aquavit (O.P. Anderson)
• 1 oz cognac
• ½ oz kirsch
• ½ oz lime
• ½ oz lemon
• ¼ oz Bénédictine
• ¼ oz Grand Marnier
• ¼ oz TraderTiki Hibiscus grenadine
• 2 dashes angostura bitters
• soda to top

Shake and dump into tiki mug, top with ounce or two soda, mint garnish

I added the Grand Marnier and Grenadine to add some of the richness I lost when I swapped the clean kirsch for the deep Cherry Heering.  Those components added some depth, but the drink it still a bit lighter than the base drink.  It has a hint of bright cherry, and a different botanical background flavor due to the aquavit gin swap.  I found it light and refreshing, but still with some warmth from the herbal aquavit and Bénédictine.

Masa still great, and still lots of truffles this time of year

As I tweeted, I had the pleasure of dining at Masa for the second time last week. It remains the best Sushi experience I have had in the US; only in Tokyo have I had better, even then by just a slim margin. It is not just the sushi that elevates the experience, but some of the more composed dishes are sublime as well. On this visit, my favorite was a dish, new to me, of sliced triggerfish with truffles, gold leaf, truffle sauce, herbs, and a couple other components I do not recall:

Note that I took a bite before realizing this was so good I wanted to snap a memento; the presentation was prettier before I dug in.  As a dining companion commented, the fish had a very nice texture on the bite, almost reminiscent of quite al denta pasta. The flavor was very clean, and as you chewed the firm fish you continued to enjoy it. The truffle was very present, but did not overwhelm the fish, the truffle complemented it rather nicely.

One comment about the truffles. I think they are generally overrated. Don't get me wrong, I quite love them, but rarely enough to justify the expense. And it might seem that one must love truffles to enjoy Masa given several of the dishes I'll highlight contain them, but this is not the case. As evidence, I'll offer my wife as an example. She does not like truffles and on our first visit we simple had them left out of her dishes, as they are normally simply grated on top or perhaps dotted with a spot of sauce. Only the "truffle sushi", which is simply rice rolled in shaved truffles, did she miss out on. The several other bites were still excellent for her sans truffles, if perhaps slightly less gilded. Sure, it helps if you love truffles, but in my opinion there is plenty of consumer surplus to go around even if you don't to make it easily worth trying.

And now more truffles. This time we were offered as an option an additional appetizer of wagyu beef.  Naturally we said yes.  This dish was a very slight disappointment, but not because it wasn't awesome.  It was awesome.  It was just as good or better than other really great wagyu I've had.  The lone reason it was a let down was because it did not stand up to the similarly prepared Ohmi beef from my first visit.  Still great, just not mind blowingly indescribably great.  I'll still always get whatever additions are offered, but I just wanted to let you know that apparently it is not always as stupendous as I described previously.

It occurs to me now looking back at the post about my first meal, I went about this time of year, which may explain the proliferation of truffles.  I will endeavor to make my next visit in the spring to see what different bounty the season provides.  I assure you that most of the courses are not truffle laden, but I poorly chose the three pics I took if I was trying to illustrate that fact.  I believe, other than the aforementioned "truffle sushi", the only other truffle was a piece of octopus sushi with a dot of truffle sauce on it.  But I suppose it might behoove truffle haters to go some other time of year.  I'll let you know next spring.   Here is the truffle covered uni risotto, which I believe is something of a signature dish, though I could be mistaken: 

UPDATE: I meant to mention this originally, but forgot.  Masa no longer has the confusing automatic 20% service charge added to the bill, which they claimed was not a tip but to help cover expenses or something.  I hadn't seen this reported elsewhere so figured it is worth mentioning.

Ok, now for an addendum of embarrassing indulgence, but I'll share (once again) for the sake of a funny story.  For a variety of reasons, including but not limited to a proposed hamburger bet over a decade ago back in college, after our extravagant luxury at Masa, we left the Time Warner Center and headed downtown to Corner Bistro.  (I was dining with three college buddies, who also are coworkers.)

Now, I had no intention of getting a bistro burger, planning on just having a McSorley's Dark (or three), but old habits die hard and when the waiter came by before I knew it the phrase "Four Bistro Burger's, rare" passed my lips.  And man, if that wasn't a tasty burger.  I know, it's disgusting, and I'm ashamed, but it was a fun night. But wait, it gets worse.

After we each downed our burgers, one of us bet another of us a large sum of money that he couldn't eat two additional bistro burgers! Yes, Masa then followed immediately by three significant bacon cheeseburgers.  I was not party to the bet, although for the record I did agree to accept a share of the blame should hellfire rain down upon the proposer of the bet should the betee's wife be upset that we made him eat three bacon cheeseburgers after Masa.  Which, also for the record, he did.  We never doubted him.  And his wife took it quite well.

Check out the spiders guarding our house in CT

These guys are sweet:

Pork Secreto for sale at The Meat Hook!

UPDATE: 20120419 I did some more sleuthing and put up a post with some more details about the location of the secreto cut on the pig.

At long last, my years long quest may be nearing its end.  The Meat Hook (here's its blog) in Brooklyn has started selling the secreto [UPDATE 4/2012, just realized that last link was broken, now fixed], the mysterious cut of pork I had only encountered in Portugal and Spain, way back in 2007. What I specifically tried was secreto Ibérico, from the famed black footed pigs, and we had it several times over the course of the trip, and each time was fantastic. It is a highly marbled cut of pork, but not too fatty; the veins of fat are small and well incorporated into the meat, in a similar fashion to kobe beef and not large streaks of fat like a typical belly. You simply grill it quickly over very high heat, and the surface gets crispy while the interior fat melts and leaves the meat moist and bursting with flavor. It also retains the texture of a nice steak.

picture credit http://camillenatzke.blogspot.com/2007/01/celler-de-tapas-barcelona.html

I returned from the trip determined to find if there was something equivalent I could get here, but I was utterly stymied. Even when overseas, I asked every time to get an explanation of where on the pig the cut came from, but between the language barrier and my host's uncertainty, I never got far. I figured I could always ask google, and even he was stumped. I found a handful of pages in Spanish which google translated but left me still confused, and there were some blogs (some with with pictures) proclaiming how great the stuff is (here, here, here, here, here, and here).  There were a couple discussion boards with some info but mostly leaving me in a wash of other terms for Spanish cuts. I even found a site that had a diagram with the cut labeled, but it was cartoony and didn't help. I asked a Portuguese waiter I had at an excellent meal at Cru one rainy evening when most every reservation had canceled and Chef Shea Gallante was really showing off for us.  I asked anyone and everyone who I thought might know, but I was still at a loss for useful info. I asked the butcher Tom Mylan at one of his early pig butchering classes in the back of the Brooklyn Kitchen store in 2008.

He too had no idea.  It was time for me to give up.  But two long years later, Tom Mylan has come through for me.  I read about it in Time Out last week:

We didn’t think that pork belly could get much better, but leave it to the Spanish to prove us wrong—turns out they’ve been hiding the best part of the pig for years. Fortunately for us Yanks, Tom Mylan, of artisanal Brooklyn butcher The Meat Hook (100 Frost St between Manhattan and Meeker Aves, Williamsburg, Brooklyn; 718-349-5033), has done some sleuthing abroad and returned with a little-known porcine gem: The secreto—literally “secret” in Spanish—is a tender strip of pork hidden beneath a thick layer of belly fat...In Spain and Portugal, where he first tasted the cut, butchers traditionally carve out the meat and save it for themselves, eating it seared with garlic and herbs.

Miracle of miracles!  I can almost taste it. I have not gotten a chance to get over there to get some yet, but I intend to soon. As luck would have it, Mylan was serving some tasty bacon sausage at the Bid Against Hunger event I attended on Tuesday so I mentioned the secreto and how I had asked him about it years ago, fulling expecting that he had no recollection and his new find was a coincidence, but it turns out he did remember and my query it was what got him on the trail at first. Like, me, he first tasted it in Portugal, but he was able to figure it out. And then bring it to me. Sweet.

If you have not tried the butchering classes, I recommend them; very fun. I did a lamb class as well. Since I can't find, or apparently neglected to take, pics of my secreto dishes, I've leave you with some butchering pics from years ago before my blog was born.  Someone else claimed the head:

 The final display:

From the lamb class, I got some belly and shoulder, as well as the tounge and the sweatbreads which I took home and cooked:

 Blanching these guys:

 All peeled and sliced:

 Mmmmmm:

City Harvest's Bid Against Hunger

Tuesday night we returned to Bid Against Hunger, the annual charity event benefiting City Harvest. We had an awesome time last year, where we won at auction a package consisting of a cocktail class with Eben Klemm, a spread of caviar, and a private cooking lesson with Tom Colicchio. (We've actually yet to use those last two, but we finally scheduled the cooking class for a couple weeks from now, stay tuned.) This year's event was no less fun. While we didn't end up winning any of the bidding this year, I did bid up several items so I like to think I did my little part to help. Other than the auctions, the draw here is the excellent food from over 60 of the top restaurants in the city, along with stations pouring wine and cocktails, including Le Bernardin's sommelier extraordinaire Aldo Sohm pouring some truly delicious wines in the VIP room.

The event raised over $1 million, not too shabby. If you want to get in on the action there are still some items still running in the online auction, auction runs until Nov 3rd I believe. I was too busy stuffing my face to take more than a couple token pics, but you can find lots at metromix or guest of a guest. Off the top of my head, among some of my favorite bites were Ripert's poached shrimp with foie gras, Le Cirque's Craig Hopson's escargot brochette skewers, short rib tacos from Stanton Social, a smoked trout on blini from Telepan, the luscious foie gras from Hudson Valley Foie Gras, sliced duck from Seäsonal, L'Artusi's lamb slider, SHO Shaun Hergatt's hamachi tartare, anyway, you get the picture. Good stuff. There were many more I don't recall, and more still I missed. It's impossible to even try half of the offerings there was so much good stuff.

Here are my token pics. These are the guys from Sweet Afton served up pickled martinis and pickleback shots (although we had drank them out of whiskey for the picklebacks and were relegated to vodka for the last one of the night.)  There was also a cocktail station from Ward III pouring old fashioned's and a tasty cucumber, vodka, and cocchi americano cocktail. I unfortunately neglected the painkiller table.

This was the early scene before most people arrived, it got much busier but not so crowded that lines were a problem.

Stanton Social's tacos:

Gramercy Tavern's offering:

This is the Hudson Valley Foie Gras's quite generous serving, topped with cured ham.

Coq Au Maïs

After my first drink for the "A-Maize-ing" Thursday Drink Night (TDN), I still had an ounce of corn water to use so I tried a variation of my Yardbird cocktail.  Since most people don't have White Dog, I swapped it out for another corn whiskey, Bourbon of course. However, I noticed I had some bacon infused bourbon stashed in the back of the fridge and figured the savory bacon would pair well with the corn.

Coq Au Maïs

• 1½ oz bacon-infused bourbon
• 1 oz corn water
• 1 oz egg white
• ¼ oz maple syrup
• 1 dash Bitter Truth Celery bitters
• 1 dash Angostura bitters

shake and strain

This was similar to the previous drink, but a bit richer and more savory, and it had some more flavors going on other than the strong corn note.  I used maple syrup to stick with the breakfast theme I was getting from the bacon, eggs, and corn.  I also wanted to stick with the bird name, and somehow my mind wandered to Coq au Vin.  Perusing Alton Brown's recipe, I had the chicken (via the egg) and some bacon, so for another note echoing the dish I grabbed the celery bitters for a dash.

Yardbird

I'm a bit slow posting this, but a few weeks ago the theme for Thursday Drink Night, or TDN, was "A-Maize-ing", calling for drinks using ingredients made from corn.  I had recently read about Jim Meehan's Imperial Silver Corn Fizz, and was intrigued.  So I decided the occasion called for me trying to whip up some corn water to play around with for TDN.  I took some fresh Jersey corn off the cob and threw it in the blender, and then strained it through cheesecloth.  It seemed to work, yielding about 2 oz of bright yellow sweet liquid with a bright aroma.  While I was borrowing ideas from Meehan, I kept the egg white component, and decided to up the corn factor by using some moonshine and reached for the Buffalo Trace White Dog Mash #1, which has an aroma also redolent of fresh corn.

Yardbird

• 1 oz Buffalo Trace White Dog Mash #1
• 1 oz corn water
• 1 oz egg white
• ¼ oz gomme syrup
• 1 dash Fee's Whiskey Barrel-Aged bitters

shake and strain

This certainly made for an interesting drink. It had a full mouthfeel from the gomme and the egg white, and lots of corn flavor. Between the corn's sweetness and the fact the corn water lent the drink a creamy quality, it was almost like a dessert drink. It did have a bit of an uncooked flavor that I'm not sure how I felt about, but was interesting enough to keep me going back for another sip to figure it out.