Happy Mutants food and drink topic (Part 1)

Onions are way too sexy, apparently.

8 Likes

Meyer lemon goodies-to-be. A few more weeks with lots of sunshine…


From previous years’ harvests I’ve made mostly sweets (lemon curd, pies). Salt preserved lemons weren’t a hit though. Kiddo wants me to make jam (marmalade?). Any other suggestions?

ETA can’t seem to fix the orientation from my phone, sorry

13 Likes
10 Likes

"Add some rum, if you want. "

5 Likes

10 Likes

” Butt Nugget ” is a new one on me.
” Cackle Fruit ” is another.
:egg:

7 Likes

Candied citrus peel is a great cocktail garnish and the remaining syrup/sugar can be used as a cocktail ingredient as well.

Lemoncello, lemon vodka. The juice can be subbed in for citrus in any cocktail recipe. The peel can be used to make bitters.

7 Likes

@Ratel experimented around with this earlier this year. Did it improve with age?

I’ve only had commercial lemon vodka, fairly low-grade stuff, and it tasted like Lemon Pledge furniture polish smells. Using real fruit would have to get better results than that., so I might experiment with a small batch.

8 Likes
14 Likes

Not sure that’s how eggs work…

4 Likes

I sure didn’t…

Haven’t cracked it in a long time. It’s now very cloudy and stringy. If it were anything else I’d assume it was mold, but at about 150 proof I’m guessing it’s sugar. I’ll make a point to break it out tomorrow. And maybe stir it.

5 Likes

The commercial stuff is typically made with flavorings or lemon oil for the sweetened kind. Better ones tend to be made with actual fruit, but many use only the peel. A lot of them are made from citron, which is basically just peel. All are heavily filtered. for clarity.

Doing at home you can use whole fruit and get all the bits up in there. It’s worlds better.

I’d recommend separating the peels from the fruit, and using a sharp knife to fillet off as much of the pith as you can. With any citrus the pith will get insanely bitter with a long soak in booze, the lemon pledge taste comes from that. Or using only zest. Pledge smells like that because it contains actual lemon oil, which is what zest brings to the table.

Soak the flesh for about 3-5 days. Then add the zest for the last day or so. Fruit vodkas don’t take long to infuse, and they’ll get weird after a week or so. Send it through some cheese cloth and park it in a bottle. It’s best to keep it in the fridge or freezer.

Limoncello is the exact same idea. But with sugar and more time. And it’s got the same problem, the peel will make it to bitter if there’s too much of it around. But lemon oil from the zest is in part what you’re after, especially with limoncello.

Traditionally you toss the lemons in whole. But there’s a bunch of different methods. Some use only peel, or even only zest. Some slice the fruit. America’s Test Kitchen/Cooks Illustrated did a comparison a few years back.

And the result was take the peel off, fillet off as much of the pith as possible and use both peel and fruit. It’s always what the Italian cooks I’ve worked with told me to do as well.

At least I think it was ATK.

Some advise using the highest ABV grain alcohol you can find. Either leaving it strong or watering it down after. I’ve found regular 80 proof vodka or clear whiskey works best. The end drink is more palatable. Slightly over proof base (90-110) works well if you want the final ABV to land in the 80 range.

There’s also a weird old Italian trick where the lemons are hung in cheese cloth, above the booze in an air tight container. Where they just sort of drip in the alcohol fumes.

Limoncellos tend to soak for a month or more. And they’re specifically meant to be intensely flavored by the zest.

8 Likes

I am SO GLAD someone wrote this article. Thank you for posting :clap:t2:
I always auto-correct when I see the 7-minute time in a recipe to caramelize onions in a recipe.
And in the before times, it was always so disappointing to order something from a menu that bragged “caramelized onions” only to get limp, soft white onions instead. I’ve had a couple awkward conversations when a server asks me how things are and I answered that everything was fine, but that’s not what caramelized means… feels so bougie even when being nice. Cringe.

12 Likes

The liquor store in my complex has a ridiculously wide assortment and will have unusual types at bargain prices.
Last week it was Pisco and Cachaca for under $15. This week it’s raki/ouzo/arrak on special.

I picked up raki. It’s anise based like sambucca (with a similar taste) and meant to be drunk with cold water and ice (which turns it from clear to milky white).

Pretty tasty and has a kick.

4 Likes

I recall that, in the end*, they do.

*(Pun fully intended)

6 Likes

They’ve gone almost beetrooty.

10 Likes

Huh… TIL !

4 Likes

If you like anise flavor, may I recommend this cookie recipe for Sambuca Chocolate Crinkles? It was a finalist in the Minneapolis StarTribune’s 2006 cookie recipe contest. I made some and they were a hit at a New Year’s Day open house that I took them to. As the contestant who submitted the recipe says, “They have a really nice crunch on the outside. But inside they’re tender and m​oist, like a brownie.”

(I’m not sure if the raki would substitute well for the sambuca, because sambuca is sweet and I believe also contains fennel. Just mentioning it for when they have sambuca on sale!)

https://www.startribune.com/sambuca-chocolate-crinkles/70377987/

5 Likes

I can get sambuca in pint or half pint bottles for cooking. Now all I have to do is wait for my wife to get off her current keto diet. I am not making these cookies just for myself.

6 Likes

Onions are certainly the worst victims at places that call themselves restaurants. I’ve also had vegetables that have been thrown into a pan, but not even seared, let alone cooked. Raw egggplant? I wanted to slap the cook.

8 Likes