I haven't the first clue what bitters are. I heard about them but the name itself put me off. Why in the world would anyone buy anything like that to add to a cocktail? Alcohol drinkers are weird. From the very first sip of whisky at nine years of age I could not understand why anyone would want to drink that stuff, so similar to gasoline. It literally burns your throat. Adding something bitter to that is mystifying. I concluded very early that drinker's tastebuds are shot.
Same thing with fermented foods. Why would you want that?
Over time my attitude adjusted about fermented foods. The more I realized how widespread they are, how historic, the various forms they take in different cultures, their health benefits, then the more I began to appreciate them. Such as sourdough and miso and kimchi.
Recently I bought a Napa cabbage with no particular use in mind for it. I saw it sitting down there in crisper and thought I had better do something with it. Cabbage is not a favorite vegetable. I removed a quarter of it, chopped it and fried it in butter with chile flakes. Turns out to be very good.
Soon after I fried another quarter similarly except I added fish sauce, an Asian ingredient based on fermented fish. The bottle I have tastes terrible by itself but it contributes greatly to other things. Like alcohol does. I've had the same bottle for over six years. Fish sauce fills out whatever you're cooking by expanding its flavor profile while not overdoing it, not drawing attention to itself. It just bulks up whatever you're cooking.
Toasted sesame seed oil is similar that way. It enhances other oils. So those two things added in extreme moderation changed the cabbage profoundly by enhancing it without blowing it up, by changing it dramatically in mysterious indescribable ways. 1/4 teaspoon each. Just drops.
The fish sauce must be what garum was like in the ancient Roman period. Descriptions of garum vary widely but they all include fermented fish guts. The smell of production was terrible. Production outlawed inside the city. Yet everyone put garum on everything. Somehow garum enhanced food similar to how modern Asian fish sauce does. It's a culinary mystery.
Now I cannot keep off the napa cabbage. I've added all types of things to change it. I enhance it with various additions, other vegetables, bacon, prepared chicken stock. And I love every variation that I've come up with. I use scant sugar and vinegar for sweet/sour addition. I even forgot chile flakes one time and it still turned out great. Fried napa cabbage is now one of my top favorite things to whip out.
I bet I could add bitters to cabbage and even that would taste great.
I don't have to wonder, I can ask the internet. Turns out bitters are recommended for experimentation. On everything. Not many people asked this question. There are not many videos. Only a few. The videos do not have many views either. The information on this video is not common. And the available videos are by British and other people who mangle English in odd ways. One is a Jamaican contest. These must be advertisements.
I'm going down to the bottle shop and buy a bottle of bitters. I found adding beer, wine, sake, alcohol to things makes everything better. They distribute flavors well. They help marinades. They function as part of a dressing and they add flavor.
His brownie batter is too wet. It's supposed to be stiff as cookie dough. Eh, whatever works. If you scooped the ice cream into a smooth ball then the sauce would slip right over it and pool at the bottom. I like the way his scoop has a lot of surface area that holds the sauce.
They sure use a lot of bitters for these things. For cocktails the bartenders use only a few drips.
16 comments:
Bitters are an amazing ingredient. You can make all sorts of bitters. Orange, grapefruit, chocolate, as well as Angostura types. They work in cooking. Amazing in cocktails.
Fish sauce was the condiment of choice in Roman times. People loved fish sauce but demanded it be made far from cities. Somethings never change. Worcestershire sauce has fish sauce in it. The anchovies help bring out and blend flavors.
And talking about bitters, here is Kayama-San making Campari from scratch.
Bitters are the pH counterparts of sour. So they are a basic taste flavor like sweet and salty. And Umamma. They are a fundamental taste experience and shouldn't be written off.
Love me some negroni. Negroni + Cointreau = Lucien.
From the very first sip of whisky at nine years of age I could not understand why anyone would want to drink that stuff, so similar to gasoline.
You've tasted gasoline? I confess I have not. I do enjoy the smell of gasoline, though. What a rich blend of Earth's own aromatics. A bit refined though, for sure.
@Chip: I believe that you've blogged about cooking with high pH (bitter) solutions in order to render corn and the like more palatable. Perhaps it was cooking with potash?
Bitter living through chemistry
I found adding beer, wine, sake, alcohol to things makes everything better. They distribute flavors well. They help marinades. They function as part of a dressing and they add flavor.
It's not rocket science, Chip and you weren't the first to find this. If you consider the molecular structure of ethanol, you'll realize that it is half water and half fat.
CH3-CH2-OH
The water part is the -OH part; the fat part is the CH3CH2- part. Hybrid molecule. Ethanol brings oil and water together, which don't ordinarily mix. There are other molecules which do this, but they are toxic. Our livers have an enzyme (ethanol dehydrogenase) which digests alcohol. Unless you're too Asian or Native American.
Chick, I sometimes splash Cointreau in a Negroni. I did not know it had a name.
Regarding the Japanese bartender, Campari is made with Cascarilla bark, maybe that's what the Calloway was. Cascarilla is grown in the Caribbean and almost all of it goes to Italy where it's added to Aperitifs like Campari or Apersol. Cascarilla oil is very expensive.
Interesting that he used tonka bean. Tonka bean is banned as a food additive in the USA as one of it's ingredients, coumarin, gives rats cancer if they intake 3 tons of the stuff. It is sold as an aromatic, but high faloutin chefs are playing around with it. I bought some to experiment with some liqueur I make. The smell of the tonka bean reminds me of some old time floor wax , possibly Aerowax.
Cochineal are dead insects that give off the red color.
I bought a bottle of Unicom , which is a Hungarian liqueur. Talk about bitter. I think they use hyssop, which is really off putting used in a large quantity.
Gentian is a common bittering agent. Then you blend in flavors to it.
Wormwood is arguably a bitters. Hops bitter beer and ale.
Wormwood is arguably a bitters. Hops bitter beer and ale.
Each one turns pH paper blue.
Evi, I'm curious. You seem to know a great deal about drinks and mixology. Is there a popular drink which combines tart citrus and bitters?
Old Fashioned with orange bitters is excellent. Straight up bourbon (decent but not top shelf) can benefit from a couple of drops. A splash in a Negroni works too (although the typical peel twist is how you get orange too). And then there is the Cointreau you mentioned.
A lot of Cajun and Creole recipes call for dashes of bitters.
Chick, I suspect a very sour citrus and bitter would work very well with tequila.
How about in ice cream and whipped cream?
More stuff on bitters...
At Nelsen’s Hall Bitters Pub & Restaurant on Washington Island, WI you drink it as a shot.
Interesting history!
Bitter, sweet, salt, and fat.
That's what its all about.
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