Drink of the Week: Paris Manhattan

I found the recipe for this cocktail in a St. Germain recipe book. For me, the challenge with St. Germain is its flowery sweetness. I prefer a less-sweet cocktail and for my palate, St. Germain works best in light and refreshing cocktails. I was pleasantly surprised by the bourbon's place in this cocktail. I was concerned it would overpower the St. Germain, but the St. Germain holds its own.

This cocktail is one of many that has reminded me that I need to try to make some of my own vermouth. I find that dry vermouth has a "cottony" mouthfeel that really comes through in lighter drinks like this one. Anyone have a vermouth method they'd like to share? Pretty please?

Paris Manhattan
Stir together in a mixing glass:

• 2 ounces bourbon
• 1 ounce St. Germain
• 1/2 ounce dry vermouth
• dash of bitters
  

Stir until very cold. Strain into cocktail glass and garnish with a cherry.

BBA Challenge Bread: Artos, Bread #2

The second bread in the BBA challenge is Artos, a Greek celebration bread. I was raised Greek Orthodox church and while I guess I ate a lot of Artos, I never knew its official name. Artos is a leavened celebration loaf. A number of breads fall within this category: Vassilopita (eaten at New Years'), Tsoureki (at Easter), and Christopsomo (at Christmas). They are all variations on the same spiced, enriched dough. They are shaped into different loaf styles, depending on the holiday.

This is a Christopsomo, baked for Christmastime (due to the glaze, from certain angles I thought it looked like a big roasted chicken). The bread is decorated with a gothic cross. The spices in the bread are mahleb (or mahlepi) and cloves. Mahleb is a spice used a lot in Greek and Middle Eastern baking. It's actually the inner pit of a cherry and has a slightly sour-cherryish fragrance (very slight). I didn't have any mastic on hand, if so I would have subbed it in for the cloves. Mastic is a resin, harvested from a Pistacia lentiscus tree. These trees are found only on the Greek island of Chios. I've seen the harvest process and it's painstaking and low-yield.

The bread is further enhanced with dried cherries, raisins and toasted walnuts. Good quality dried fruit is so nice in breads like this one. Don't fall for the plastic nubbins of dried "fruit" at the supermarket. Get good stuff.

Anyway, the bread. The fragrance of the dough and baked bread immediately brought me to the holiday table; I was shocked by how strongly it evoked memories for me. The dough behaved beautifully. It's enriched with eggs and so the rise was a little slower. In fact, I am experimenting with doing extra-slow rises with most of my breads. I let this one proof in the fridge overnight before shaping and final proofing.

Changes for next time:

• Split off the dough for the cross before I add the fruit and nuts for a neater result.
• Make two smaller loaves. The final loaf is huge, well over 10" around. For two people this was overload and too much to eat.
  

Of note:

• As a number of bakers noted, this bread makes great French toast.
  

Week of May 24

Hello all. Hope everyone stateside had a great Memorial Day weekend. Our major accomplishment this weekend was getting all our potted plants out onto the deck. It's important to wait until we're safely out of frost-warning time and while it was 42 this morning, 42 isn't 32!

This happy family has decided to take on the task of mowing our lawn for us. I have to say that they aren't doing a great job, but they don't charge much.

Menu for the Week
Sunday
Souvlaki (Greek-style kabobs)
Grilled Vidalia onions
Vinegar-boiled potatoes (strangely successful - from the latest issue of Martha Stewart Living)
Greek salad with feta

Cherry bread pudding (with the remains of my Anadama bread)

Monday
Tostadas with picadillo (think flat tacos)
Guacamole
Pico di gallo
Black beans

Tuesday
Asparagus avogolemono soup
Huge salad

Wednesday
Pasta with asparagus and mushrooms and lots of herbs
Salad

Thursday
Kimchi soup with tofu and greens (We'll see about this one. My supermarket had no kimchi in stock and the shelves were also devoid of a suitable Chinese-style cabbage for a homemade version.)
Rice noodles

Friday
Breakfast for dinner: Eggs and hash (and probably a salad)

BBA Challenge Bread: Anadama, Bread #1

So because my live isn't busy enough (what's it been, like two weeks since I posted?), I have joined a group of bakers who, led by the fearless Nicole of Pinch My Salt, are baking their way through the Bread Bakers Apprentice by Peter Reinhardt. (Run on sentence much, Mary?)

The BBA Challenge group is 200 bakers strong. The group is really enthusiastic about getting though the book and has been so supportive of the newer bakers. We're working through the book in order. What's fun about that is the book is laid out alphabetically, so we jump from Anadama to an enriched Easter bread (Artos) to bagels to brioche. We aren't publishing the recipes from the book, so you'll have to pick up a copy if you want to follow along (most libraries carry it if you want to look before you buy).

The first bread we baked is Anadama. The [I am guessing apocryphal] story is that Anadama bread was invented when a man, left behind with no dinner and just a pan of cornmeal mush, cursed his wife, Anna, as he threw some bread together: "Anna, damn her!" I prefer to think differently: that after his lovely wife, Anna, made a lovely bread for supper, the man said: "Anna, damn that's some good bread!" Because it is.

Anadama is a yeast bread that includes cornmeal and molasses. The pictures make it look as if the bread contains whole wheat, but the darker tint of the bread comes from the molasses. The bread isn't too sweet, so it makes great sandwiches, but it has enough sweetness so that it's fabulous with a pat of butter too.

I'm A Hero!

Hey all! Here's my first instructional video: filmed and produced by the great folks at How 2 Heroes, it's my first foray into film. Agua frescas are really easy to make and are super for summer. Cheers!