Another clearing-out-the-freezer lunch, peas with scallops and pork belly -
Pork belly was braised overnight in the crockpot, in duck stock, dark soy sauce, sriracha, ginger, fermented shrimp, and a little sugar. In the morning, the braising liquid reduced down while the pork crisped up on the oven. Scallops were warmed through in the sauce and then removed before I threw the peas into it.
No matter what the farm stand down the road thinks, blackberries are not black raspberries, no more than lemons are yellow limes. Black raspberries don't taste like blackberries. They don't look like blackberries. They're wild raspberries that are so dark purple they look black, and they're often (as in the case of these) less tart than red raspberries - but unlike golden raspberries, which are milder and more subtle than red raspberries, they have a deep winey-berry-y flavor. Black raspberry ice cream is a popular flavor in New England (I've found a lot of locals don't realize it isn't a standard flavor nationally).
For the pie, there's nothing between the crusts but black raspberries, sugar, and cranberries that I added both for tartness and to add some thickening.
Charbay Tequila Blanco; Charbay Whiskey Release II; Charbay Doubled & Twisted Light Whiskey.
Thanks to Jenni at Charbay, I have a small bottle of the best whiskey I've ever had. (Papa Saz is knocked to #2.)
I don't even know where to start with explaining this whiskey. Well, here's what it comes down to, I guess: whiskey starts out as beer. Not as good beer, though - it starts as a sort of lobotomized unhopped beer, because hops were added to beer as a preservative, and thanks to the distillation process there's no need for them. In 1999, the distillers at Charbay said, okay, but what if we made a good beer anyway? What if we started with a good beer - what would that do to the whiskey?
Well, it makes a fucking great whiskey, that's what.
They started with a Pilsner made from European two-row barley and hops (California, Nugget, and Eroica), distilled it in a pot still, and aged it in barrels. The first release of Charbay Whiskey was released in 2002, at 3 years old. The second release - what I have - was bottled in 2007, at 8 years old. It's bottled at 110 proof, and the hops are so unexpected that when I was giving Matt a sample of it, I misremembered and told him it was distilled from an IPA.
First of all, you can smell the beer in the nose - there's a lot of spice that I would probably take for rye if I didn't know what I was drinking, and a lot of caramel. The spice hits you right up front - again, like a good rye - and then the hops are there in a distinctive beer-like aftertaste.
I could drink this every day, straight. I can't afford to ... but I want to. It's good with bitters, especially orange bitters, and I haven't tried it in a Boulevardier (whiskey/Campari/sweet vermouth) yet but -- wait, I will stop writing this blog entry until I have done so.
Okay, it's good in a Boulevardier, but the Campari overpowers much of the spice - though not the hop aftertaste - and I think this is a spirit best in more spirit-heavy cocktails like the Old-Fashioned and maybe a Manhattan that's light on the vermouth. A little lemon and Aperol works, too. The Boulevardier would probably work better here with different proportions - maybe 2 parts whiskey, 1 part vermouth, 1 part Campari.
The Doubled and Twisted, the bottle on the far right, is labeled a "Light Whiskey," and is Charbay's unaged whiskey - unlike the Charbay Whiskey, it's distilled from an IPA and bottled at 99 proof after only a day of barrel aging. (An aged version is forthcoming.) Since the Charbay is now my favorite whiskey, it's not surprising that the D&T is one of the best white whiskeys I've had - it's neck and neck with Glen Thunder. All of the funky nose of an unaged whiskey is there, with a much more pronounced hop flavor. It's very very cool. Again, you don't want to overpower the hops - this is best in a whiskey sour or on the rocks.
The Tequila Blanco has no hops. Just to be clear. The distillers distill it in Mexico in a copper pot still, and the GPS coordinates of the distillery are right on the label. It's a very tasty tequila, very peppery and green in a way that I love - I'm not as versed in tequilas, so I don't know which brands to compare it to, but I can tell you it's better than Patron (my usual brand).
We associate them with the Mediterranean, but the leading producer of fava beans is actually China.
Originally I had in mind something like mapo tofu, which is spiced ground pork served as a sauce over tofu - but using the favas instead of the tofu - but I didn't want to go out and get anything. I didn't have ground pork in the house, but I did have a little local ground beef, and some bacon I could grind up, so I browned the two of those together until they started to crisp, and then made a pan sauce of black bean paste, sriracha, ginger, water, and a cornstarch slurry.
Of course, then I realize I'm about to put spicy ground beef over beans, and am reminded of the chili I'd just made - so I tilted towards Cincinnati chili by adding a pinch each of cinnamon and oregano, and mixing everything in with rice noodles.
Sometimes when you have leftovers - a slider's worth of ground beef, some bacon, beet greens, cooked pork skin - you make pate.
The bacon and the pork skin were ground up, mixed with the ground beef and a beaten egg and the beet greens, and seasoned with a little hot sauce, thyme, and ginger. After resting in a ring mold for a day, it was covered and cooked at 350 until cooked through - then cooled for a day in the fridge before being unmolded. A lot of the fat from the bacon was lost - the ringmold isn't water-tight - but the gelatin is what's most important. In fact, if this were made with the head of the pig instead of skin from the picnic shoulder, it'd pretty much be head cheese - the skin and the gelatin give it a bounce that's different from your usual pate.
Works cold, room temp, or seared to crisp it up a bit, though warming it up will of course melt the gelatin, so you could have it fall apart on you.
One of two not particularly serious boiling-oil scars, photos of which should probably have accompanied the deep fryer review. (Though it's not like this is a hazard unique to any model.)
