Rebirth!

And from the ashes comes anew.....

Ok, whatever, right? Am playing with different fruit leather recipes and am trying to incorporate tequila, obviously... Just found out that my oven has an all-time low of 170 degrees, so am a bit miffed when I'm reading these recipes calling for temperatures of 135 degrees....

Anyways, did one today with strawberries, agave nectar, limes and tangerines.... Delish! In case you don't know, basically you puree the crap out of it, make sure there's some sweetness there and then you throw it in the oven (lined with parchment / plastic wrap)... it takes 9 hours or so, so I'm shopping for a dehydrator as we speak!

So, the margarita twist? Add sea salt before you start a-drying, right? then its the old shot then lick syndrome.... Otherwise, you lose the booze. If you're trying to dehydrate alcohol, the potency will fly away, just as with the sherry angels in Spain....

GONNA HAVE TO THINK ABOUT THIS..... is there a chemical which dehydrates, but saves the potency? HMMMMM....

See, agave nectar is the best

Unless you want a cheap hangover and are laying on the beach...
http://cookingissues.wordpress.com/2009/06/26/margaritaville-with-science-agave-nectar-vs-simple-syrup/

Warning! This is an experiment. Warning!

What the heck, right? The premise has never changed, but here's a thought. Why is it when you see a "flavored" tequila, its been morphed into a "flavored" margarita? The obvious exception is that horrible bastardation of a cocktail, tequila rose. But, hey, whatever floats, right?

Ok, so I've been playing with infusions. The first was something I've wanted to do for a while.

I wanted to make a bloody mary-esque infusion. So, I grabbed: habanero, garlic, grape tomatoes, celery spears. Was interesting but, not so much.

Then I went back to thinking. Could I infuse enough citrus into the tequila so that I'd just need to add agave nectar to make a "margarita"? If it works, it would be a great basis for a margarita orb some serious concentrations. And, if it works for vodka, why not, right?

The trick here is don't cut the fruit, stab it! So, I grabbed 3 limes, 2 tangerines, and a lemon. I stabbed them with a skewer 30-84 times (lost track with the one lemon. long story). Then I placed them in a jar and filled with 2 bottles of platinum tequila. We're on day 3 so .... I'll let you know.

Blue Agave

hmmm..... weird

Recently I had the opportunity to sit in on a cocktail planning session for a fairly successful restaurant in Miami.  Immediately I zeroed in whenever a bottle of tequila was picked up, right?

Usually, though, it was to move the bottle out of the way of the uber-popular St. Germaine or something of the like.  But, before all my hopes were dashed, the bottle of tequila was actually used in a cocktail!

Hip Hip Horray! Right?  Well here's the snip:  the restaurant hired some fancy bartender to come over and make six drinks that he thought would be popular at the restaurant.  Why he knew more than some random other person?  Well its because he talks a great game and his drinks really do taste great.  And, thankfully, he used fresh fruit in almost all of them!

So, back to the tequila.  He made a classic margarita but in the end, added fresh rosemary.  What I liked though is that he used Agave Nectar.  Maybe he's read the blog??  Who knows for sure.  But here's what's pertinent.  He said if you work in a restaurant and buy tequila, you should always keep a bottle of partido around.  I guess if you buy a bottle, they will give you a gallon of Agave Nectar for Free!!

Nuff said...

South Beach Food and Wine

What a zoo!  I had the wonderful opportunity of going to the SoBe festival today.  Yes, it was under false pretenses, but who cares?  I got in!  Anyways, I was inspired after sipping on a number of horrid cocktails and one or two good ones.  There was even one made with a sparkling vodka.  

Imagine, vodka with club soda which masks any sort of presence on the vodka.  And, it eventually goes flat!  That cocktail was the most creative, but it started with the worst ingredient.  Anyways, I wanted to mention that so many people were using fresh fruit in their cocktails which brought out a tear of joy.  But, they didn't taste what they were making....  which left me with an upset stomach.  Oooooh and there was this one guy who made cocktails and insisted on grating lime zest into the cocktails at the end.  It really didn't impart any flavor, just left people with funny stories when talking about their teeth!

So, there was this one bad cocktail made with a great ingredient, Domaine de Canton ginger liqueur.  It's ginger with cognac, vanilla and honey and it begged to be mixed into one of my margaritas. Here goes:

ingredients

1/2 of an orange

1/4 cup fresh pineapple

2oz agave nectar

1oz domaine de canton

2oz decent tequila

method

muddle the fruit and agave.  Add ice and the alcohol.  Shake and strain into a martini glass. Garnish with some crystalized ginger if you want or some dehydrated pineapple chips.  Add a dash of some fancy sea salt and a pinch of pepper if you want to add some real interest.  

Marmalades

Fresh fruit, no sour mix and decent tequila.  Simple mantra, right?  but what would you say if I said that using marmalades were ok?  Would you think any less of me?

Here's this simple Cabana Cachaca recipe from a few years ago using marmalades.  While intrigued with this new fangled liquor, I had to think, why not make my own marmalades and really do something great with tequila?  First you need to start with a recipe for marmalade.  This one seems to work just fine.  Anyways - start with the fresh fruit, sliced thin.  Then add sliced citrus (orange, grapefruit, lemon, lime) and bring to a boil with equal amounts of orange juice.  Once at a boil, add 2 cups of sugar and cook down to a thick viscous liquid.  Allow to cool and you're good to go.  Throw it in a jar and add pectin to preserve or if you're like me, just invite some friends over and start to crank out some drinks.

My favorite seems to be starting with a blueberry orange marmalade.  I admit though that I used fresh blueberries, orange juice and equal parts lime and orange slices....  I really laid the sugar on thick so when it was time to do the cocktails, it was as simple as 1-2-3.

Tequila, ice, marmalade.  Shake and serve....  Easy!

You know, I heard of this one cachaca company touting their 5 second caipirinhas....  they used sprite, cachaca and ice and figured that'd be enough to fool the american consumer.  can you imagine if I said, use sprite and tequila and its almost like a margarita???  Blasphemy, right?  But, I swear, by using artisan marmalades, you can do the 5 second margarita.  

Try it, I dare you.

Margaritas in Thailand

After a long hiatus, I've been able to escape and make my way back to reality, oops there goes gravity....  Can you imagine the shock when I was searching the web for interesting spots to enjoy a fresh fruit margarita and found this?  Apparently  Holiday-Rentals.co.uk is a really cool place to find homes in Thailand to rent for short periods of time.  I clicked through a few and found one just outside of Bangkok, which seems to be home of the only Margarita Bar in Thailand

I immediately clicked on the site and before I knew it, I was on my way to a fantastic adventure.  My trip started in Bangkok where I took advantage of a wonderful 3 bedroom house.  I took advantage of some traditional cooking classes and ............  BOOORING!!  Where's the margaritas, you ask???

Ok, here's the scoop.  I met up with this 6 1/2 foot dutch guy and his wife.  We quickly bonded and I explained my dilemma.  He nodded in complete understanding, and voila! his wife pulled out a bottle of don julio!  HEAVEN!  We scrapped up some citrus thingie called yuzu, some crazy fruit and a muddler.  He had no sugar or agave, so we used honey!  Man that was good.

The next morning we set out to a small village where we heard that we could ride elephants!  Of course, we put together a flask or 3 of our margarita concoctions.  I wish someone though would have told me about local law.  I had no idea that it was illegal to drink and ride elephants.  And, so I landed in jail!  Phuket to be exact.  I just got out last week.

And, anthony bordain I am not....  My butt is staying put for the next few years!  (especially since its a condition of parole!)  GOOD NIGHT

ooh pretty

Oh Crap! Completely forgot about Thanksgiving!

Read this blog and then come back to me....

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

Ok, done yet?

Goodness.  I have to admit I used to make a killer cranberry salsa.  Ok, crash course - cranberries, jalapenos (or serranos), fresh lime juice, chopped shallots and ......  tequila!

Face forward to today, er two days ago.

Cranberry Margaritas (my way)

4oz FRESH cranberries, not frozen, ground or otherwise

1/2 of a tangerine or an entire clementine

1 jalapeno pepper

1 1/2 oz of agave nectar

1oz grand marnier (or cointreau noir)

2oz of tequila - lets go with platinum on this one, ok?

30 second prep:

muddle the clementine, jalapeno and cranberries

add nectar, tequila, the orange liqueur and 5oz of ice

shake like the dickens

and strain into a martini glass that's been 1/2 rimmed with sugar

Who knew?

Recently I had the opportunity to submit a recipe for a "low-calorie" cocktail reminiscent of the beach.  Immediately I started throwing a margarita to end all margaritas.  But, was told that they wanted, shudder, a pina colada.

Uh, low fat coconut milk? Let me just pull that one out .....  oh yeah, its over here, next to the Neverending Story book...  Whatever!  So, needless to say, I pulled it out and this is what I came up with:

Coconut water - 30 calories but fat free and we're only using 4oz.  The best way it to create ice cubes out of the coconut water but who wants to give all the secrets away, right?

Fat free vanilla yogurt -  4oz as well.  I like yoplait source but anything will work. - 17 calories and fat free.

Some fresh pineapple - 1/3 cup.  20 calories

Some rum - roughly 80 calories.....

Some agave nectar (60 calories) or stevia (0 calories)

And, voila - not too bad and its less than 150 calories and virtually fat free!

So, here's the "who knew" part.  Agave Nectar has quite a bit of calories considering how little is actually being used in a cocktail.  Regardless, stick with me and make the drinks properly and you'll cut calories and fat.  No matter how many calories found in Agave Nectar, its still less than in that pre-mixed crap...

Margarita Orbs

This was fun, I have to admit.

Here's the premise.... fresh fruit, great tequila, no sour mix and make it taste great!

As you should know, we recently purchased chemicals to keep up with the chefs.  And, while we're not quite on their level (or even close to be honest), we've been able to tinker enough to make some really cool "drinks".  Our focus on the drinks has been to use sodium alginate to a mixture, and then dropping it into a calcium chloride bath.  It started out horribly, but after getting used to quantities and such, we were able to create "orbs".  First one was just orange juice, to see if we could get it right.  Then we started actually making margaritas and straining them into a container, adding the sodium alginate, creating a "goo" and then dropping it into the calcium chloride bath and making margarita orbs!  

We found out a few things.  Gotta make them drinks strong, because some of the potency is lost in translation.  And, you need more sodium alginate than any recipe may call for since you've got the citrus and the alcohol working against it.  If you want to try this at home, here's where we got the chemicals.  Takes about a week or so, but the quantities are small enough so that you aren't buying 60 gallon drums of the stuff!

So, this is what we did:

Ingredients

3 oz of Don Julio Tequila (still gotta plug my friend from Diageo, especially with the economy the way it is).

1 lime and 1/2 lemon

2oz of agave nectar

1oz Cointreau Noir (great new stuff to play with!)

Method

Drop the fruit into a mixing cup and muddle with the agave nectar.  Add the tequila and the cointreau noir and for this, we're not using ice.  Want to keep it at room temperature.  So, then you still shake it vigorously, making sure to get all the flavor from the fruit.  Strain into a small mixing bowl.  Take 5 grams of the calcium chloride and add to 500 ml of cold water and stir.

Now add 4ml of sodium alginate to the tequila mixture and stir.  While continuing to stir, add an additional 2ml of sodium alginate.  

Take a small amount and test by dropping it into the calcium chloride bath.  If a small pearl is formed, you can remove it, drop it into a bath of plain water, and then onto a paper towel.  It should keep its form and you can eat it!  

If it doesn't work, then adjust the quantities as needed.

But, to do the orbs, you'll need a spoon.  What you do is take a spoonful of the tequila mixture and roll it into the calcium chloride bath.  This should create an orb about the size of your spoon.  Be careful and quick, so that your orbs don't have tails!

And, don't forget to "rinse" your orbs in the water bath.  Otherwise you'll impart too much of the calcium chloride into your system and you may get sick.

For service, I like putting the orbs onto a porcelain spoon and adding a dollop of my salt cloud. (for that recipe, see here).

Stupid Chemicals

We're going back in today to sort through these chemicals.  In the meantime, here's  a video using salt lime air to top a margarita

Paul Revere

The chemicals are here. The chemicals are here. Lord almighty the chemicals are here!

Now reality has set in....

I have on my desk at work a series of containers that have abbreviations for agar agar, acacia gum, soy lecithin, etc....  Now I've used soy lecithin before (see previous posts) but all this other stuff is overwhelming.  I cannot wait to get started but promised myself that I wouldn't start without my cohort who was unable to come in due to it being laundry day for him....  Wild, I know but some people actually do plan their lives around their laundry.  Me, I just buy more clothes....

Anyways, our first experiment is going to be with this orb do-hickey.  The chefs seem to think that making an orb with alcohol on the inside will be difficult, but we'll figure it out I'm sure.

Here's the thought - tequila and agave nectar orb topped with orange and lime zest.  I'm envisioning a slightly yellow orb on a spoon with orange and green shavings on top....  If we pull off the orb, then we'll top the whole thing with some salt "air".  

If it works, it will be the pre-dinner drink at our next Paradigm the Test Kitchen dinner.  If it doesn't, we'll do some fruit compressed with gin (using a cryovac dohickey) and call it a day.  But, we're hopeful..... Hasta manana

Excitement

The chefs are out of the country!  They've left their digital scale and a thermal mixer doo-hickey!

But, they locked up their agar agar, their calcium chloride and everything else.  So, we found this company that sells exactly what we were looking for in small portions so that you can easily experiment without having to buy 30 pounds of something from Dow Chemical.

The company is called DC DUBY and I've added a link here.  So our goal is to make a margarita orb similar to what you can see in the Paradigm videos.  Basically it will be a shell with a margarita on the inside.  You'd serve it on a spoon, drop it into your mouth and then bite down and instant margarita shot!

I keep checking the mail and the chemicals haven't arrived yet.  But, hopefully tomorrow everything does and we can evolve the concept of the ultimate margarita.

Blackberry and Cilantro with Stevia Margarita

Click here to learn more about Stevia.

Ok who doesn't like blackberries?  I certainly do and really love the color that they tend to impart when making a good drink.  I actually have a co-worker who's really pushing his black and blue margarita, but its lacking.  So, in the vein of trying to help a co-worker, here goes.....

My favorite thing about this now is that when you search blackberry on Google, the first page is filled with those PDA looking crack-berry thingies....  I used to have one but always called it a blueberry.  Then I was fortunate enough to move to a back-assward hotel and traded in my blackberry for a "pager".  For those of you that were born within the last 20 years, click here.

Anyways, I'm getting sidetracked.  Blackberries are great and while they are historically linked to superstition they really make a great drink.  So here goes....

Fresh Fruit - take at least 7 blackberries, 1/2 of an orange, 1 lime and a "smidge" of stevia.

No sour mix - duh!

For this one, I like Don Julio Platinum.  Mainly because I haven't purchased much from a company called Diageo at work, and I thought that I'd give them a small plug so that their sales guy Guido doesn't go by the wayside....   Ok, done with the hyperlinks.... I just figured this damn thing out so went a bit crazy... sorry.

So, muddle the fruit and stevia, add 2 oz of tequila, 1 oz of that new cointreau noir (its amazing!), 1 cup of ice and a "bunch" of cilantro.  Shake like there's no tomorrow.  Now here's the interesting bit.  Take a martini glass and rim it with blackberry sugar.  IE run a sliced lime around the edge and dip it into a mixture of blackberry juice and sugar.  (cannot figure this one out??  smash one black berry, add sugar and dip the lime flavored rim into this mix).  When its done, its a dark purple sugared rim.

Next, strain the margarita into the martini glass and boo-yah!  

She should have used the fresh fruit!

Back to the basics

Ok, for all of those sleeping out there and to those who don't quite grasp the written word:  to truly make an exceptional drink you need to start with great ingredients.  Don't use sour mix, don't use bottled lime juice from Rose's, don't use those butt-ugly "margarita" glasses that you can find everywhere.  Do use fresh limes, buy a muddler, use fresh fruit, use agave nectar or make your own infused simple syrup and get creative with the components.

So, fast forward.  Maybe you've heard of Chadzilla, 

maybe you've heard of Paradigm the Test Kitchen.  Well one day they were using Sea Beans for one of their plates.  Having never really used sea beans I was entrigued.  So, basically Sea Beans are seeds and fruits that are carried to the ocean, often by freshwater streams and rivers, then drift with the ocean currents.  We tried them and they really impart a subtle saltiness to a dish.  So, the obvious connection?  margaritas!!!  

Here's a glass filled with sea beans and Cazadores tequila.  Basically we let them soak overnight with the idea that they'd take in the tequila and basically would create a tequila shot that you'd only need to chase with some lime and/or orange.

Technically it worked, but GROSS!!  I'm glad it was only Bacardi-ish Tequila that we wasted.  

might as well get into politics since I'm on a detour

Selling OUT

So, Grand Marnier has this new drink recipe contest.  Everyone's using my Agave Nectar idea with no acknowledgement, so why should I share?

I bigger than most people, and I love the idea of SYNERGY.  So, here's a push for the sum of the parts:

Margarita Red Pepp......

So, remember, no damn sour mix...  Only the best ingredients and if you have to cheat use Perfect Purees...   

 

2 oz Roasted Red Pepper Puree (or the equivalent from Purfect Puree . com)

1 oz Don Julio Anejo Tequila

1 oz Grand Marnier

1/2 Lime

1/2 oz Agave Nectar

1 bunch Sorrel

Muddle it all and strain into a martini glass after adding a ton of ice.

BOOO YAH!