Cooking for Geeks: Real Science, Great Hacks, and Good Food (56 page)
Read Cooking for Geeks: Real Science, Great Hacks, and Good Food Online
Authors: Jeff Potter
Tags: #COOKING / Methods / General
Bitters are to bartenders what extracts and spices are to chefs: they provide flavor with minimal impact on texture, volume, or other variables.
Bitters
refers to any extract that includes a bittering agent, such as gentian, quinine, or citrus rind. Angostura bitters is the “generic” bitter — one of the few to have survived through the Prohibition era — and is what most people think of when a recipe calls for bitters. Campari is also a bitter, although not commonly described this way. Bitters come in a range of flavors: from the complex and spicy (clove, anise, cinnamon) to the bright and clean (orange, grapefruit, mint).
Bitters can be used as flavorings in things besides alcoholic drinks. Try a dash of bitters in soda water, along with a slice of lime. Since they are a subset of extracts, you can use them in any place where a bitter extract would work. You can balance out bitterness with the addition of sugar, just as is done in an old-fashioned cocktail. Bitters as an accent flavor in a chocolate truffle? As part of a dressing? Try it!
This collection of bitters shows just a small selection of the flavors available.
Bitters recipes can be quite complicated, requiring exotic ingredients and involving dozens of steps taking upward of a month. If you want to try your hand at one of the more involved recipes, try the one that follows here. For additional recipes, pick up Gary Regan’s book,
The Joy of Mixology
(Clarkson Potter), from which the recipe on the following page is adapted with permission. His recipe uses both ethanol and water as solvents. The ethanol at the beginning dissolves one set of organic compounds present in the spices. Later, the water dissolves a different set. Notice that the ethanol that contains the first set of alcohol-solvent organic compounds is never subjected to heat!
Combine in a large jar:
- 2 cups (450g) grain alcohol such as Everclear or vodka
- ½ cup (160g) water
- 8 oz (250g) dried orange peel
- ½ teaspoon (3g) caraway seeds
- 1 teaspoon (2g) quassia chips
- 1 teaspoon (2g) cardamom seeds
- ½ teaspoon (0.75g) cinchona bark, powdered
- 1 teaspoon (0.50g) coriander seeds
- ¼ teaspoon (0.25g) gentian
Make sure that the liquid covers the dry ingredients, adding more grain alcohol if necessary, and screw on the lid. Shake vigorously to mix, about 20 seconds, once a day for two weeks.
After two weeks, remove the solids, boil them in water, and then add them to the alcohol again. You can separate the liquid from the solids by straining it with a cheesecloth or fine sieve, returning the liquid to the jar and placing the solids into a saucepan. Muddle the solids with a pestle so that the seeds are broken open. In the saucepan with the solids, add:
- 3½ cups (800g) water
Bring to a boil and then simmer with lid on for 10 minutes. Turn off heat and allow to return to room temperature for about an hour. Once cool, recombine the solids and water with the alcoholic liquid in the jar.
Shake vigorously for 30 seconds once a day for at least a week. Then strain out the solids and discard them.
Next, we’ll make a sugar syrup to add to the liquid. In an empty saucepan, bring to medium heat:
- 1 cup (200g) sugar
Once the sugar starts to melt, stir constantly until the sugar caramelizes to a dark brown color.
Allow to cool for a few minutes. Add the liquid to the sugar, stirring it until entirely dissolved. Transfer liquid to jar and let rest for a week.
After a week, remove any solids that are floating and decant the clear liquid into another container, leaving behind the sediment.
You should have about 12 fluid ounces (350 ml) of liquid at this point. Add 6 ounces (180 ml) of water, shake thoroughly, and transfer to a bitters bottle (amber or other opaque bottle to prevent light from breaking down some of the organic compounds).
Notes
- Some of the harder-to-find ingredients can be procured from
http://www.kalustyans.com
and
http://www.starwest-botanicals.com
. - When using bitters, a “dash” is a solid pour from a bottle with a dash cap: bottle right-side up, rotate 180 degrees, and back. It’s not a side trickle. Your “dashes” will be larger as the bottle gets emptier due to the change in air volume in the bottle, but for practical purposes at home, it’s probably not worth breaking out the milligram scale. (But if you do, a quick check with my scale shows roughly 6 dashes to the gram.)
- A number of online sites exist for ordering bitters, in case you get taken with them but don’t want to spend the time making them. Try searching
http://www.kegworks.com
for the word “bitters” or search the Internet for “Fee Brothers” and “Bitter Truth,” two makers of specialized bitters.
Linda Anctil is a private chef in Connecticut who blogs about her work at
http://www.playingwithfireandwater.com
.
How do you think about the visual experience of food?
I approach food as a designer, but because it is food, it also has to function. Ultimately, it has to taste good. Sometimes, I’m inspired by an ingredient, a season, a shape, or a color, but inspiration can come from anywhere. I always try to include an element of surprise, whether it’s visual or stimulating to other senses.
Sometimes, I’m inspired by a serving piece. I found this great votive holder with a cup suspended inside of another cup with an empty chamber underneath. I’ve served brandies and bourbons in it and, actually, one with smoked cedar. I infused the flavor into a bourbon, then filled the bottom empty chamber with cedar smoke. The person drinking it will lift the glass to take a sip, and the smoke just pours out from it. It heightens the whole experience because you’re bringing the sense of smell into it.
Votive holder on table with bourbon and cedar smoke.
Votive holder being picked up with smoke wisps coming out.
I inverted that same votive candle holder in another post. I put clam chowder in it with small potatoes that were hollowed out and filled with bacon and clams, all the flavors you expect to find in clam chowder. It almost looked like the potatoes were floating in the broth. It should be playful. It should be whimsical as well as delicious.
Nature is a constant source of inspiration to me. I went out to the garden to pick some sage last winter, and I had the scent of conifers from my Christmas tree on my gloves. The smells became intermingled in my mind and, suddenly, conifers became something I could use as an herb. It inspired a whole series of dishes that I put together using the flavor of conifer. I did one where I layered lots of different textures and flavors together, culminating with my video “The Winter Garden” (at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bYvapNDIJw
). I think it was probably my most abstract or conceptual dish that I’ve put together, but it really captured that whole feeling of being outside on that one day with the ice and the snow and the frost and the smell of conifers. I was the only one who ate the dish in the end. I enjoyed it a lot. It was a very personal expression to me.
PHOTOS OF LINDA ANCTIL, VOTIVE HOLDERS, AND WINTER GARDEN PROJECT USED BY PERMISSION OF LINDA ANCTIL
Do you have any suggestions about how to think about presenting food?
Keep an open mind. Pick up a piece of fruit and imagine that you were an alien on this planet who had never seen it before, and experience it through that lens. How does it look to you? What does it smell like? What does it taste like? What can you do with it? Think outside of the box and enjoy the journey!
It sounds like it’s really about personal expression.
It absolutely is. You can look at any artist or chef’s food, and you’ll realize it’s a personal expression of who they are. It’s telling a story about that person’s experiences. That’s a wonderful aspect of cooking.