Bastardized Rum Drinks, Part 2: Emergency Mai Tais

I have an Indian cookbook called 660 Curries. It's pretty good as a comprehensive survey of Indian cooking, but the first step in every recipe should really be: "First, quit your job." I understand that this is the nature of Indian food, but I'm much more comfortable with Madhur Jaffrey's At Home with Madhur Jaffrey, which I just picked up and intend to put through its paces very soon. It's got nice-looking recipes using a human number of ingredients and only a few recipes refers to some spice mix you will have made 72 hours earlier.

My energy level and mood at the table is probably the most important thing about a dish I make. If I'm ragged from effort by the time I sit down to eat, I just won't have a good time. It took me a couple decades of entertaining to understand this.

Still, I am tempted by the prospect that an extra infusion of effort will uncover a new vista of flavor. When it works and a new technique uncovers something transcendent, it's a peak experience for me. It can stay with me for years. So every now and then, I see a recipe which, however assily complex, slips through my filters.

This mai tai recipe from the New York Times is the most recent. What, like I'm going to let big-time corporate agribusiness tell me what my orgeat syrup should taste like? Me? No way. I went ahead and made the homemade orgeat syrup before seeing the first comment:

So, the critical ingredient is perfect Orgeat syrup--specifically 1/2 ounce thereof. And to make that you start with a little over a pound of almonds... Oh, well, at least I don't need to start with planting an almond tree.

Doh. The commenter was right. I'd been sucked in again. Well, the one half of the orgeat syrup made a nice gift for a Giant Toad. I ended up throwing out almost all of my half a few months later.

Fast forward to August 25th of this year. Hurricane Irene had just driven us northward from the Outer Banks of North Carolina, where we'd been vacationing. A much-anticipated vacation had just been busted out in the middle of a perfect week. We drove back on Thursday all day, arrived home ragged and worn out, ready to brace for the hurricane, which was conveniently following us home from vacation.

Maybe only certain people know this, but hurricanes usually have awesome weather at their periphery. All the sucky weather is in close to the eye. We had one more day of sunshine before Irene descended on New York City and we decided to make the most of it.

We took our rental car out to Jacob Riis beach. I brought along refreshments in the form of Emergency Mai Tais. Provided you have the requisite cooler to transport it, the entire thing can be ready to go in 5 minutes. And if you're not picky about your OJ (i.e., you don't mind concentrated, considering all the other flavors in there), you could conceivably make this entirely from pantry and freezer ingredients, so you can technically have the makings on hand at all times.

1 can (46 fl. oz) pineapple juice, any brand.
2 quarts orange juice, frozen concentrated is fine.
1 bottle overproof rum (Lemon Hart Demerara 151 is preferred)
1/4 cup grenadine syrup (next to the bloody mary mix)
1 tbsp almond extract (yes, from the baking aisle)

Mix all ingredients with some ice in a dangerous-looking 2 gallon cooler. Ours is orange, but this red one from Amazon sends a sufficient signal to beware.

The Lemon Hart rum is really essential here.... but not for the taste. It's more the label design, which fits with the sort of 1970's supermarket groove we've got going here. This is the kind of rum that says "There's such a thing as fresh asparagus?". Seriously, though, it's very tasty, but you could substitute a bottle of almost any 151+ or two bottles of 80 proof if it comes to that. In an emergency, you have to be flexible.

Bastardized Rum Drinks - Part 1 - The Papazerac

I'm all for the classics, but I'm also completely in favor of bastardizing the hell out of them to suit your needs. This year, I've enjoyed and destroyed several classic rum drinks, and had fun doing it. Here's the first:

I love the classic papa doble or Hemingway daiquiri.

Papa Doble

2 oz white rum
juice of 1 lime
generous portion of grapefruit juice
slight dash of Luxardo Maraschino

Shake and serve on the rocks.  

When I went to Hilton Head with my in-laws this year, we spent a lot of effort punishing my father-in-law for the mistake of saying we could put anything we wanted on his open tab at Pool Bar Jim's on the beach. They do fantastic frozen drinks, but they're not classicists by any stretch. These are drinks for the Jamba Juice crowd (albeit much, much better than anything you'd get there).

Jim's recipe for a papa doble includes the cardinal sin against the purist version: substituting maraschino cherry juice for Luxardo Maraschino liqueur. Yes, maraschino cherry juice comes from almond extract, whereas Luxardo is actually made from cherries. But food scientist Harold McGee will tell you that cherries actually have a strong almond component to their flavor in the form of benzaldehyde, so what's the big deal? It's a frozen daiquiri. You've got all that ice stunning your tongue into submission. You can't taste the rum. You think you can tell the difference? And you actually care? You're on the friggin' beach and someone else is paying for the drinks! Shut up!

Now, though, just to make things easier, whenever I'm at a beach bar with frozen drinks--which is surprisingly often--I just ask for a grapefruit daiquiri and that does the trick. It's amazingly refreshing.

I discovered that the smokiness of a solid single-malt Scotch whisky makes a wonderful backstop to the flavors of a papa doble. So I came up with the Papazerac, a papa doble made with the same process as the iconic Sazerac cocktail of New Orleans, with a Laphroaig rinse.

Laphroaig is a powerfully flavored whisky, and not everyone likes it, but its power makes it come through the rum, sourness, and sugar in this drink wonderfully.

Papazerac

1. Fill an old-fashioned glass with ice and let chill while you make the rest of the drink.
2. In a mixing glass, muddle one lime with sugar to taste.
3. Add two tablespoons fresh-squeezed grapefruit juice, a dash of Luxardo maraschino liquer, and 2-3 oz white rum.
4. Top the mixing glass with ice and shake vigorously.
5. Discard the ice from the old-fashioned glass, pour a generous dash of Laphroaig into the glass, swirl, and discard.
6. Strain the mixing glass into the old-fashioned glass, garnish with a grapefruit peel twist, and serve.

Drink twenty to thirty of these and you will have gotten through your bottle of Laphroaig pleasurably without actually drinking any. As with the absinthe in a Sazerac, do not actually drink the rinse out of the glass. Control your urges and just throw it out. If you feel bad about that, just use less. If you drink it, you'll wreck your ability to taste its subtle underpinnings in the drink, which is the whole point.

If you can't bear to waste whisky, put it in a shot glass and re-add it to your drink as necessary to preserve the smoky flavor.

Next: Emergency Mai Tais

One Great Pan vs. One Great Knife

I've got a pretty well-stocked kitchen, but often get questions from folks who want to know where to spend money when they're expanding beyond the basics. Of course, the two most basic pieces of kitchen equipment are the knife and the cooking vessel. (Well, before that, the heat source, of course, but you're less likely to have much choice in that matter.) So, if you're going to spend-up on only one, which should it be? And what should you get. Well, it starts with three levels of equipment: OK, good, and great.

The OK Level


This is the province of the Ikea starter kitchen set, and the place where most people end up. It's fine for those who think more about what they're going to eat tonight than what they're going to cook tonight. Or for those who don't really think about food at all. If you're one of those, you're probably not reading this.

The Good Level


It seems like the first level of kitchen equipment hovers around $60-70. I noticed back when I got out of college that I was quickly going into debt, and most of the purchases that were sending me there were in the $60 range.  Anything in the high $70 range sort of gets rounded up to $100, and it's easy to see where an extra $100 might mean making your rent that month or not. But what's sixty bucks?

In my 20's, I accumulated a lot of cookware and other stuff in the $60 range. Here's the thing about it: It looks like the Great level of cookware, and performs at the OK level. It's almost always a waste of money. As long as what you're cooking with is not actually flimsy or poorly made, you're fine sticking at the OK level.

The Great Level


Okay, so you're going to shoot the moon. You've committed to spending $200 or more on a piece of kitchen equipment. What do you do?

Knives

Japanese. All the way.

German drop-forged knives are the standard in American kitchens, but they're usually too chunky to comfortably chop vegetables, which is the most frequent task they'll be used for. The standard chef's knives are ridiculously large and heavy for the skill level of the people who typically use them. They're also usually sold as part of an expensive set, which appears to come with a bunch of extra knives that might be useful, but really just costs money for something you'll rarely if ever use.

Misono 440 Molybdenum Santoku

Go to Korin Japanese in lower Manhattan or korin.com. Japanese knives are really amazing. They're sharpened on a bevel, so that one side of the knife cuts straight, and the other side pushes the food away from the cutting edge. Much more stability and safety. The Misono santoku is my favorite all-round knife in my kitchen. Light, nimble, but substantial enough to work with. Holds an edge forever, but is relatively easy to sharpen.



I'm also a huge fan of virgin carbon steel, too. I have two knives, a gyotou and a petty. One from a stall outside the Tsukiji fish market in Tokyo, the other from Korin. You have to be a bit careful with carbon steel, because it's brittle (no frozen food) and not stain- or rust-resistant. But, man, does it take an edge. It looks ugly, but gets sharper and stays sharper than anything else. The only downside is the marital strife it causes when my wife uses one to cut a lemon, then leaves it rusting in the lemon juice. Aaargh! (But, of course, she goes for my carbon steel knives every time because they're light and sharp and a pleasure to use.)

One of the most obvious disadvantages is that the knives need to be sharpened a specific way. Luckily, if you don't want to invest in a water stone and developing your sharpening technique, there are plenty of specialized sharpeners at reasonable prices.

What to use while you're saving up

If you're not going to go Japanese, go Victorinox. You'll spend $67, with shipping on these three knives, and they should be enough for most kitchens. Victorinox knives are priced at the OK level and they perform at the Good level.

Knife care: Invest in a block or magnetic strip to hold your knives. If you're going to put them in the dishwasher, expect to sharpen them (a pain) a lot more often. Keep them sharp to minimize accidents. Take a knife skills class; it'll save you time in the kitchen... and maybe an injury or two.

Cookware

Copper. Sorry. That's just how it is. Preferably Cuprinox. This Mauviel saucier is my favorite.

This is it. This is the desert island pan. I use mine every day. Oatmeal, sausage, marinara, steak, stew, stir-fry, braised short rib, frittatas, stuck pot rice. It just never gets put away. It stays on the stove.

I easily have a dozen other pricey pots and pans (many handed down from my Mom), and you can keep all of 'em. I almost never use them. I wish future-Rich had been around the first time I bought a piece of expensive cookware and told me to get the Mauviel saucier instead. That Le Crueset bouillabaise pot was great for my 20's, when my most frequent big cooking project was a gumbo or a big chili for a party. Now, I want something light and responsive, which copper is. I find the shape so easy to work with for many different uses. These sauciers are getting hard to find, which is a shame.

Side note: I seriously wouldn't ever have gotten this pan if it hadn't been for a mistake. I was testing out different wedding registries in 2008, and put this on my registry. My very generous and kind uncle John was searching for my registry online the same day. I put the saucier on thinking "I wish," never really intending to put it on the registry because what kind of filthy yuppie spends $300 on a single pan. Uncle John snapped it up and it arrived later in the week. Back then, it was way more gift than I'd ever have thought to ask for. Since then, I've given Mauviel copper for wedding gifts more than once.

Having owned this pan for three years, watching the Le Creuset and the All-Clad gathering dust, I'm kicking myself for not having bought one sooner. There's just nothing in my kitchen that performs anything like this pan... unless it's the oval copper roasting pan my old boss got me as a wedding gift.

It took me a long time to become a copper convert, but here I am.

What to use while you're saving up

I don't have any, but Lodge enameled cast iron is very reasonably priced and pretty much has to perform well. If you can hack the care regimen, their regular cast iron is the best deal in cookware. I had a bit of a discovery with my Fagor pressure cooker. I use the pressure cooker about monthly, usually for brown rice or chickpeas. But I use the pot that came along with it all the time. The 8 quart one is a great pasta pot and would make a very good stew pot.

So, which one?

Get a Cuprinox pan and Victorinox knives, then start saving for the Misono santoku.