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Vodka w/ Fresh Lime and Mint
The cocktail. It’s a mysterious thing. A concoction in a glass mixed by a guy behind a barrier who fiddles with bottles and beakers and measurers and a variety of tools. You’re at his mercy, for once the drink passes over the bar and into your hands the situation is irreversible. You can’t pick through the lima beans or fork out the anchovies.
Which is why, if we’re at Aurora Soho I get the pomegranate martini. Anywhere else, including home, I play it safe and get a vodka tonic. Or, if I’m feeling extra daring, switch over to gin. Hence my avoidance of hip cocktail bars with their $20 drinks and Frankenstein hybrids, booze equivalents of genetically crossing my cats with my kid.
Apotheke, whose website claims 500 bottles of liquor and 250 cocktails, is just such a place. The site also has a link to its location, often a tipoff to a high exclusivity quotient. It is, in fact, quite remote, on Doyers Street, which, if we didn’t live sort of nearby, I’d never recognize. Doyers is one of the tiniest, curviest streets in Chinatown. It’s by Confucius Plaza, if that means anything to you. The cocktails are, I imagine, equally remote, and maybe one day I’ll wander in and tell you about them.
Rather than staring at a drink coated with egg white and licorice powder, I’ll stick to something simple, a good rule, I think, when mixing drinks for guests. Most people like at least 10 or so cocktail ingredients and since-as I’ve said above-you can’t exactly extract an unwelcome ingredient, it’s a good idea to stick to those. Anyway, especially in summer, who doesn’t like a nice cold, simple drink? But though we can agree on the basics, we’re not always united in certain things: alcohol level, acidity, etc. So the following is less recipe, more guide, to an easy summer drink. And you don’t need a map of Confucius Plaza.
(NOTE: if you have a shaker, all the better, just strain the drink when you pour. If not, use a wooden spoon to hold back the solids.)
Vodka w/ Lime and Mint
Makes enough to make 2-3 people happy but not comatose
1 cup sugar
2 cups water
1 lime, quartered, each quarter cut in thirds
½ bunch mint leaves
1 cup freshly squeezed grapefruit juice (2 grapefruits)
1 cup vodka
plenty of ice
- In a small pot heat sugar and water, whisking till sugar is dissolved. Remove from heat and let the syrup cool. Refrigerate.
- Add the lime and a cocktail shaker, pitcher, or whatever you have lying around. Muddle vigorously until the leaves are crushed and the lime pieces are completely broken down.
- Add a bunch of ice, 1 cup of simple syrup, the juices and vodka and stir till very cold.
- To serve, put enough ice in the glass so it sticks out above the rim. Pour nearly to the top and serve.
Summer brunch-preserved cherries
A restaurant menu is like an anagram. Ingredients are shuffled, puzzle-fashion, from dish to dish, facilitating smooth and quick service. It’s often said the test of a chef is if he can he make a perfect omelet. Equally important, he should be a good Scrabble player.
This is especially necessary when it comes to pricey perishables. Those parsnips, tossed in olive oil, salted, and roasted to a rooty candy? Glance over at the next table; there they are, pureed with cream and butter, peeking out from underneath a braised short rib.
Brunch is the ultimate mix and match meal. Brunch dishes tend to be fatty, sweet, salty, and confined to homey tastes. It’s a time to splurge rather than strain the mind choosing between cod and calf’s liver or lamb curry and four types of dal. Hence the heavy use of a a limited number of ingredients: eggs, bread, etc.
Still, there’s brunch and there’s brunch, and the Barbuto version is exceptional: frittatas, strawberry and ricotta filled crepes, fontina and pancetta panino, spaghetti carbonara, poached eggs on crusty bread with a small salad.
Untangle the menu, you’ll discover the same 5 or 6 items woven throughout. The same wonderful caramelized onions melted into the fontina on my panino show up in the spinach frittata. The same fontina oozed like a warm blanket over the charred brick oven pizza. Not to mention the crusty bread and arugula salad, which lands on every table and plate in one form or another.
Behind the scenes lies a truly utilitarian universe. Celery trimmings, onion peels, meat and fish scraps: all chucked into a vessel for stock, sauce, flavored oils, preserves, and so on.
It’s possible to construct a similar, miniature, larder at home: condiments and sauces which cut down on food cost and complement a variety of foods.
Only three people occupy our apartment, one of whom is 3 ½ and likes to dress up as Buzz Lightyear, leaving two normal (sort of) inhabitants. Pots of relishes, pickles, preserved lemons, oil-packed vegetables, multiple varieties of salt, etc. would wither and die a sad, moldy death.
One or two such items, however, prove nearly as useful as the caramelized onions in Barbuto’s brunch kitchen. Especially if seasonal, as they pair with other timely items. Right now, cherries are everywhere; preserved, they can be spooned into a small bowl and served with cheese. Or heated and arranged around slices of roasted lamb. The liquid alone can be reduced to a glaze, brushed on grilled meats for a last minute sear. Or dunk those meats and poultry into the liquid and marinate a few hours.
Toss a few cherries with vinegar and stick them in a jar. Follow your tastebuds and play around with combinations, which is a lot easier than mastering Scrabble.
Preserved Cherries
Makes 1 quart
½ cup sugar
1 cup balsamic vinegar
1 tablespoon black peppercorns
2 sprigs thyme
1 pound cherres, pitted and halved
- In a small saucepan combine all ingredients except cherries and bring to simmer, stirring to dissolve sugar.
- Pour liquid over the bowl of cherries. Let cool, pour into a container, cover and refrigerate for up to 2 weeks.
Crispy Pulled Pork w/ Ricotta
Sometimes genius comes in the tiniest of packages. You could be Joyce, write Ulysses, reinvent the novel, and confuse generations to come. But I’m a fan of tweaking (not that kind). Martha Stewart might tie up brownies in a bow or stick a painted acorn on a box. If that’s tweaking, more power to her. Culinary tweaking is more my style.
I’m talking the onion soup at Balthazar. In place of croutons they add a spoonful of toasted, buttered breadcrumbs. At Aurora Soho, the beets in the beet salad are cut in irregular shapes.
Mel’s Diner in LA (see our sushi post) crisps its fragrant, herbed corned beef hash on the flattop. In Brooklyn, Applewood does the same with its fantastic pulled pork. Courtesy The New Brooklyn Cookbook, we recreated the Applewood pork at home, to tasty results.
The Applewood recipe is quite simple: braise the shoulder in wine and stock, serve in a bowl with the reduced juices. They add a few ricotta dumplings, but to simplify, we topped with a couple of ricotta dollops, which dissolve into the sauce.
Because it’s so simple, follow the directions and try to use great ingredients, i.e. good pork, preferably homemade stock, a decent white wine, and fresh ricotta. Most important, sear the pork prior to finishing with the sauce. We’ve all had a pulled pork sandwich, a delightful product. Crisping the meat lifts the dish immeasurably, balancing the soft ricotta and braising juices with slightly caramelized meat.
Crisp Pulled Pork w/ Ricotta (adapted from Applewood via The New Brooklyn Cookbook)
Serves 4
2 ½ pounds pork shoulder in one piece
¼ cup olive oil
1 medium onion, small dice
1 carrot, small dice
2 ribs celery, small dice
2 tablespoons tomato paste
2 cups dry white wine
2 quarts homemade chicken stock or unsalted prepared broth
½ bunch thyme, preferably tied with butcher’s twine, plus 2 tablespoons chopped
thyme leaves for garnish
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
1 cup whole milk ricotta
salt and pepper
- Preheat oven to 325
- Season pork well with salt and pepper. In a large pot heat half the olive oil on high to near smoking. Sear on all sides until browned, about 10 minutes. Remove to a plate.
- Turn heat down a bit, add veggies and tomato paste and cook until lightly browned, about 10 minutes. Add the wine and boil hard until nearly dry.
- Return pork to pot along with thyme. Pour in stock. Cover with a circle of parchment paper, then the pot lid. Bring to a simmer and place in oven until meat is falling apart, about 3 to 4 hours.
- Remove meat to a large bowl and reserve. Strain braising liquid through a fine mesh strain into another pot, discard veggies and thyme bundle. Boil until reduced by half. Season well. When meat is cool, shred with two forks.
- When ready to serve, heat the remaining olive oil in a large pan over medium high heat. Add the pork, spreading in the pan. Sear on one side five minutes until crisp, season well with salt and pepper.
- Add reduced juices, scrape the pork from the bottom and toss gently.
- Using tongs, divide pork among 4 bowls and spoon juices liberally over and around. Top with dollops of ricotta and sprinkle with chopped thyme.
Beet Farro-It’s Cold Outside
If you read cookbooks from 40 years ago, you’ll notice they have one thing in common: the food is often unappealing. The desserts are probably fine: carrot cake and apple pie haven’t changed. But in general, the recipes are-not unexpectedly- dated.
In his giant New York Times Cookbook, Craig Claiborne tackles Chinese food, turning out a chapter of sad stir fries. I’ve been skimming James Beard’s Theory & Practice of Good Cooking, and the recipes seem fine, but leave you with a nagging feeling that something is a little off. His sautéed burger looks acceptable. But when you read the headnote, and his prescription for how to avoid burgers from sticking to the grill-slip an ice chip in the center-you start to worry. If I wanted a watery burger, I’d eat it in the shower.
Not that Beard does a lot of sautéing. Like a lot of cooks back then, the broiler is near and dear to his heart. We like it for last minute browning and cooking thin items. It also cuts down on dirty pans. However, Beard’s broiler is a central facet of his kitchen, down to the broiled scallops. Sticking a scallop under the broiler doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense. Unless you hold them in your palm an inch away from the blazing heat, they won’t brown well. Scallops need a hot pan and about 2 minutes on each side.
He cooks gnocchi with a cup of instant farina rather than flour, a mixture which, if I had an Italian grandma, would probably give her a stroke. Of course, most of the recipes contain massive quantities of butter. Especially the vegetables. Braised fennel 5 tablespoons butter; braised celery 4 tablespoons butter; braised lettuce 4 tablespoons butter.
Forty years ago, we wouldn’t have posted (printed) this farro recipe. Farro and other grains are relatively new here, there’s no butter just olive oil, and the beets are folded into the farro rather than being a side dish. It calls for just 2 or 3 main ingredients, but it’s of the times, when, ironically, we’ve learned that, often, simpler is best.
Beet Farro
Serves 4
3 medium beets
¼ cup olive oil
2 tablespoons minced shallots
1 cup farro
2-3 cups chicken stock
2 tablespoons thinly sliced scallions, white and light green parts only
salt and pepper
- Preheat oven to 400. Wrap beets tightly in foil and roast until tender, 1 to 1 ½ hours. Remove and when cool, peel the skin and chop. Puree in a blender or food processor with 1 cup of the stock. Reserve.
- Warm the 2 tablespoons of the oil in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Add the shallots and sweat until translucent with no color. Add the farro and mix well, coating with the oil and cooking until it smells nutty, 3-4 minutes.
- Fold in the beet mixture until incorporated. Bring to a simmer and cover, lowering heat a bit and stirring occasionally so the beets don’t scorch.
- The farro will take about 25 minutes. After 10 or so minutes it may appear dry in which case add stock along the way. The end result should be slightly thicker than risotto but still pourable.
- Divide the farro among the plates, garnish with scallions and drizzle with remaining 2 tablespoons olive oil.
If you read cookbooks from 40 years ago, you’ll notice they have one thing in common: the food is often unappealing. The desserts are probably fine: carrot cake and apple pie haven’t changed. But in general, the recipes are-not unexpectedly- dated.
In his giant New York Times Cookbook, Craig Claiborne tackles Chinese food, turning out a chapter of sad stir fries. I’ve been skimming James Beard’s Theory & Practice of Good Cooking, and the recipes seem fine, but leave you with a nagging feeling that something is a little off. His sautéed burger looks acceptable. But when you read the headnote, and his prescription for how to avoid burgers from sticking to the grill-slip an ice chip in the center-you start to worry. If I wanted a watery burger, I’d eat it in the shower.
Not that Beard does a lot of sautéing. Like a lot of cooks back then, the broiler is near and dear to his heart. We like it for last minute browning and cooking thin items. It also cuts down on dirty pans. However, Beard’s broiler is a central facet of his kitchen, down to the broiled scallops. Sticking a scallop under the broiler doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense. Unless you hold them in your palm an inch away from the blazing heat, they won’t brown well. Scallops need a hot pan and about 2 minutes on each side.
He cooks gnocchi with a cup of instant farina rather than flour, a mixture which, if I had an Italian grandma, would probably give her a stroke. Of course, most of the recipes contain massive quantities of butter. Especially the vegetables. Braised fennel 5 tablespoons butter; braised celery 4 tablespoons butter; braised lettuce 4 tablespoons butter.
Forty years ago, we wouldn’t have posted (printed) this farro recipe. Farro and other grains are relatively new here, there’s no butter just olive oil, and the beets are folded into the farro rather than being a side dish. It calls for just 2 or 3 main ingredients, but it’s of the times, when, ironically, we’ve learned that, often, simpler is best.
Beet Farro
Serves 4
3 medium beets
¼ cup olive oil
2 tablespoons minced shallots
1 cup farro
2-3 cups chicken stock
2 tablespoons thinly sliced scallions, white and light green parts only
salt and pepper
- Preheat oven to 400. Wrap beets tightly in foil and roast until tender, 1 to 1 ½ hours. Remove and when cool, peel the skin and chop. Puree in a blender or food processor with 1 cup of the stock. Reserve.
- Warm the 2 tablespoons of the oil in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Add the shallots and sweat until translucent with no color. Add the farro and mix well, coating with the oil and cooking until it smells nutty, 3-4 minutes.
- Fold in the beet mixture until incorporated. Bring to a simmer and cover, lowering heat a bit and stirring occasionally so the beets don’t scorch.
- The farro will take about 25 minutes. After 10 or so minutes it may appear dry in which case add stock along the way. The end result should be slightly thicker than risotto but still pourable.
- Divide the farro among the plates, garnish with scallions and drizzle with remaining 2 tablespoons olive oil.
