Curious Cook

Curious Cook in the New York Times: For more aroma, just add water

In my July 28 column I write about water as an ingredient that can enhance the flavors of strong spirits, cocktails, high-alcohol wines, and coffee. Added water has little or no flavor of its own, but it boosts the aroma of alcoholic drinks by diluting the alcohol and loosening its hold on aroma molecules, and makes delicate coffee aromas more noticeable.

Audrey Saunders of Pegu Club in New York has created a number of "inverted drinks" in which a spirit plays the supporting role to a lower-alcohol wine-based ingredient, rather than the usual other way around. Try her Intro to Aperol and also her Madeira Martinez, which is now one of my favorite cocktails.

Curious Cook in the New York Times: Distilling fresh flavors in the cold

In today's Curious Cook column in the New York Times, I write about a distillation method for concentrating aromas that keeps them especially fresh. Vacuum or cold distillation is being used to manufacture distinctive new gins, and chefs and bartenders are adapting a tabletop lab device called a rotary evaporator to create startling new dishes and drinks. This exploration is going on in Europe and Asia, but not openly in the U.S., where distillations involving alcohol are effectively illegal. David Arnold, leading rotovap jockey and director of culinary technology at the French Culinary Institute in New York City, describes the virtues of vacuum distillation and why he thinks it should be legal.

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Arnold, D. Rotary evaporation in the kitchen

Greer, D. et al. Comparison of a novel distillation method versus a traditional distillation method in a model gin system using liquid/liquid extraction. J. Agric. Food Chemistry 2008, 56: 9030-36.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/jf801308d

Curious Cook in the New York Times: Vodka in the fish fry

My column in today's New York Times Dining section is about a batter for fried fish developed at The Fat Duck, Heston Blumenthal's restaurant west of London. I first enjoyed the very crunchy crust it makes last spring, when Christopher Young, the restaurant's research manager--yes, they do enough research at The Fat Duck that it needs managing!--demonstrated it at the Greystone campus of the Culinary Institute of America. The key ingredient is alcohol.

Curious Cook in the New York Times: Of mice and wine, and rice

In today's dining section I write about the surprising connection between an obnoxious off-flavor in wines and the prized flavor of aromatic rices.

Check back in a couple of days for more news about rice.

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Snowdon, E. et al. Mousy off-flavor: A review. J. Agric. Food Chem. 2006, 54, 6465-74. http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/jf0528613

Progress in sparkling wines: bubbles and flow

A progress report from Gérard Liger-Belair, the world authority on wine bubbles, and his quest to define the ideal glass for enjoying the effervescence of champagne. Bubbling really stirs up a glass of wine, and if you're going to etch a glass to generate bubbles, you'll need to adjust the pattern to the glass shape.

In the dark: olive oil, milk, butter, and beer

In my last post I mentioned that olive oil is best stored in the dark. The same is true for milk and butter and beer. It's turning out that all these foods are sensitive to light for similar reasons.

Curious Cook in the New York Times: Absinthe and champagne

In today's dining section I write about a recent analysis of the fact and fiction surrounding absinthe and its distinguishing ingredient, wormwood. And about the latest from the bubble laboratory of Gérard Liger-Belair, deep in champagne country. And what happens when you mix absinthe and champagne.

Anyone who enjoys sparkling wine will love Professor Liger-Belair's informative and poetic book Uncorked: The Science of Champagne, published by Princeton University Press in 2004.

Lachenmeier, D.W. et al. Absinthe: a review. Critical Reviews in Food Science and Nutrition, 2006, 46: 365-77.

Liger-Belair, G. et al. Modeling the kinetics of bubble nucleation in champagne and carbonated beverages. J. Physical Chem. B 2006, 110: 21145-51.

Liger-Belair, G. Et al. Champagne experiences various rhythmical bubbling regines in a flute. J. Agric. Food Chem. 2006, 54: 6989-6994.

Cognacs contain more dissolved taste substances than other spirits

In a French study of the solids content of various spirits, cognacs and other brandies turned out to be more than 1% by weight polyphenols, carbohydrates, and caramel materials, all of which the spirits extract from the wood barrels in which they're aged. Armagnacs and rums contained about half the solids of cognacs, bourbons about a fifth, and whiskies a tenth. From 4 to 51 samples of each spirit were tested. These are large differences, and indicate that brandies should often seem more astringent, sweet, and full-bodied than their distilled cousins.

Picque, D. et al., J. Agric. Food Chem. 2006, 54 (15) 5220