Mike's Cooking, Brewing and Recipes Page
Cooking
Useful websites
I came across The Cook's
Thesaurus I forget how many years ago, and still refer to it many
years later. It's a set of descriptions of a wide selection of
common and uncommon ingredients. And, invaluably, each description
includes what other ingredients can replace that ingredient. The site
is both searchable and laid out in a sensible tree of links. This is
easily the best cooking reference I've found online.
Tips
Measuring ingredients. I picked up a small scale at a farm
stand's going-out-of-business sale. It's made parts of my
cooking a lot easier: weighing is substantially quicker than volume
measuring for various things, and is usually more accurate. The
volume-to-weight conversions that I use most often (and yes, my scale
does measure in both ounces and grams):
| Ingredient |
Volume measure |
Weight equivalent |
| Flour (all-purpose, white) |
1 c |
4 oz |
| Flour (cake, white) |
1 c |
3 oz |
| Sugar (brown) |
1 c |
220 g |
| Sugar (white) |
1 c |
220 g |
| Raisins |
1 c |
200 g |
Brewing
Tips
- Cleaning beer bottles. When I make beer, eventually the
batch finds its way into 12 or 22 oz beer bottles I've
accumulated. I've found that I store empty beer bottles long
enough that it's unpredictable what might be inside of them:
I've found mold, dead bugs, dried-on beer, grit, and
I-don't-want-to-know-what-that-is. Whenever I bottle a batch of
beer, I end up putting the bottles in a solution of warm-to-hot water
and B-Brite, or some other active-oxygen cleanser, for at least 1.5
hours to get the crud out of them. After rinsing and letting them
dry, I also give them a quick rinse in a sanitizing solution of
Iodophor (an iodine-based sanitizer) just to kill off anything that
may have decided to take up residence while the bottles were sitting
around. (I can only B-Brite 12 12 oz bottles at a time, and each
batch of beer requires about 48 bottles, so the first batch through
the B-Brite sits out for quite a while.)
- Removing labels from beer bottles. B-Brite and its
active-oxygen cleanser cousins will remove nearly any beer label from
bottles. I've only had it fail on one label so far.
- Cooling the wort. If you are an extract brewer,
you'll usually find yourself boiling about two gallons of wort
and leaving the other three gallons of water unused until it's
time to put everything in the fermenter. A simple way to crash-cool
your wort: refrigerate your water for 24 hours ahead of brewing, and
pour those nicely chilled three gallons into the fermenter
simultaneously with the two gallons of hot wort. They'll mix
together, cooling the wort down to pitching temperature. As always,
if your fermenter is glass, put a few inches of cold water into the
fermenter first, so you don't inadvertently crack your fermenter.
Recipes
Entrees
Recipes I invented
Recipes I helped invent
Recipes I like on the net
- Chinese
Style Beef in a Star Anise and Soy Marinade, which I've
only made with ground anise and ground cinnamon, 1/2 t each.
- Baked
Salmon and Wild Rice Casserole,
from Foodness
Gracious. Nommy even with canned salmon.
- Beef
Stroganoff. Unlike the recipe in Joy of Cooking, this one
is braised, and came out wonderfully. I drastically reduced the
butter — it calls for a whole stick!
- How
to Roast Pork Loin Perfectly
and How
to Roast Pork Perfectly, both from
Cook the Story. Best
pork roast — or pork loin — I've made. Highly
recommended.
- Goetta,
from The Daring
Gourmet. Goetta is described as "Cincinnati Sausage
Grain Patties", which is accurate as far as it goes. A
better but less appetizing description is "meaty savory
oatmeal", as the recipe involves making a big pot of oatmeal
with savory herbs and spices in it, then throwing in two pounds of
ground meat. (This is a big recipe; I made it in my Dutch oven.)
Cook it until the meat is done, chill it, slice it, and fry it. I
reduced both the cloves and mace by half, and am glad I did. I
also omitted the onion and garlic, though I did pour in an extra
cup of water to make up for the missing liquid from a
disintegrating onion. My cooking time in the initial preparation
was much less than specified in any of the recipes. I
was done in under 90 minutes; if I'd left things in step 1
to cook for 90 minutes, I would likely have had oatmeal charred
onto the pan. Finally, for the frying step, either use a nonstick
pan (like it says in the recipe) or fry it in some butter in a
well-seasoned cast iron pan. It'll stick, butter or no, to a
plain steel pan.
Mincemeat Pie
This is not the usual mincemeat pie you'd have for dessert. Notably,
it includes beef, and contains no candied fruit or peel.
Ingredients for one pie:
- 3/8 c golden raisins (I use 75g)
- 1/4 t allspice (ground)
- 1/4 t nutmeg (ground)
- 1/4 t cinnamon (ground)
- 1/8 t cloves (ground)
- 3/8 c brown sugar (I use 80g) (3/8 c = 1/4 c + 2 T)
- 2 T brandy
- 2 medium onions
- 10 oz beef (sirloin tips work well)
- salt
- pepper
- 2 medium apples (baking, such as Northern Spy, Braeburn, or Cortland)
- 1 double pie shell, either commercial or homemade (I've had good
luck with Pillsbury)
Mix the raisins, allspice, nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves, brown sugar, and
brandy together in a bowl; set aside.
Cut the beef into small (15mm x 15mm x 5mm) pieces. Coarsely chop the
onion; saute until it turns transparent. Add the beef; salt and
pepper lightly. Brown the beef while preparing the apples.
Peel, core, and slice the apples. Add the apples and brown sugar
mixture to the pan with the beef. Coat the apples and beef well with
the brown sugar mixture. Set the filling to simmer; stir
occasionally.
Preheat oven to 450 F. Fit one crust into a 9" pie dish. Once
the oven is hot, use a slotted spoon to transfer everything but the
liquid from the pan into the the bottom crust in the pie dish. Boil
the remaining liquid until reduced by at least half (or more if
there's a lot); pour the liquid over the filled pie.
Wet one finger and wipe it around the edge of the bottom crust. Put
the top crust on and pinch it down. Trim the excess. Poke holes in
the top crust with a fork.
Bake at 450 F for 10 minutes; reduce the heat to 350 F and bake for
another 35 minutes. Shut off and open the oven, and let the pie cool
in the oven for 10 minutes. Slice and eat. Serves 4.
Notes:
This recipe scales well.
See below for my comments on apple peeling.
Most mincemeat recipes call for canning the filling and leaving
it for at least two weeks before using it in a pie. I don't
have a canning setup, nor do I particularly want one, so I've
omitted this step. If you try canning the filling, let me know how
it turns out.
If you use dark raisins instead of golden raisins, reduce the
amount, as their flavor is stronger.
I've had mincemeat pie like this in a restaurant with walnut gravy
on top. I have yet to find a recipe for walnut gravy, nor do I know
where to begin in inventing one of my own. I'd welcome any pointers
you might have.
I've since become intolerant of alliums, which makes the onion
in this recipe problematic. A surprisingly good replacement for the
onion is finely sliced cabbage. I use 1/4 head of green cabbage, cut
lengthwise into two eighths, then sliced thinly. Replace the onion
with cabbage in every step.
Chili
Warning: this recipe makes a ridiculous amount of chili. I had to
cook it in a 4 gallon stock pot, as it wouldn't fit in a 1.5 gallon
Dutch oven. There is no tomato in this chili; there are both meat and
beans.
Ingredients for a whole lot of chili:
- 1 lb dry small red beans (or whatever beans you like)
- 8 c water
- 6 strips bacon
- 2 medium onions
- 4 cloves garlic
- 1.5 lb stew beef
- 1.5 lb boneless pork chops
- 1/2 t smoked salt
- 6 cubes chicken boullion
- Water
- 1 T ancho pepper (ground)
- 1 T chipotle pepper (ground)
- 1 T smoked paprika (ground)
- 1 t Mexican oregano
- 1/2 t coriander (ground)
- 1/2 t cumin (ground)
- 1/2 t celery seed (ground)
- 3 bay leaves
- 6 stalks celery
- Salt to taste
Soak the beans in the water for 12 hours.
Cut the beef and pork into 3/4" cubes. Coarsely chop the onions.
Mince the garlic. Fry the bacon in whatever pot you're using. Once
it's crisp — or it will be once it cools — take it out and
let it cool on paper towels. Do not drain the fat. Saute the onions
in the bacon fat until they start to turn translucent. Add the
garlic, saute briefly. Add all the beef and pork. Sprinkle with
smoked salt. Saute until browned on the outside.
While the meat is browning, drain the beans, reserving the soaking
liquid. Top off the soaking liquid to 6 c with water and dissolve the
boullion cubes in it.
Pour the chicken broth over the meat. Add the beans. Stir in all
spices. Crumble the bacon into the pot. Chop the celery; add it to
the chili. Set the pot to simmer for at least two hours.
Salads
Recipes I invented
Recipes I helped invent
Recipes I like on the net
- Summer
Macaroni Salad In Lemon-Thyme Dressing,
from The Cozy Apron. The
recipe is readily modifiable. In my most recent batch, I used a
mix of equal parts red wine vinegar and limoncello in place of all
the lemon stuff, diced pickled carrots in place of half the peas,
chopped green olives in place of the pancetta, and skipped the
salt and the sugar. I make the dressing in a blender. I've found
that putting the mayonnaise in last of the liquid ingredients
— using the rest as a displacement liquid — makes for
much easier measuring, with a bonus of much better motion in the
blender.
Cucumber-Pecan Salad
Ingredients:
- 2 small Japanese cucumbers
- 2 paste tomatoes
- 1 fresh cayenne pepper
- 1/4 c fresh basil
- 1 T fresh parsley
- 1/2 c raw unsalted pecans
- 1/2 T olive oil
- 1/2 t sushi vinegar
Cut the cucumbers into 5-8 mm slices. Quarter the tomatoes; cut into
5-8 mm slices. Finely dice the cayenne pepper. Coarsely chop the
basil, parsely, and pecans. Add all ingredients to a salad bowl.
Toss. Serves 2.
Notes:
All measured numbers are estimated.
This was an experimental salad, mostly made on the “what's
available now?” theory. It came out amazingly tasty.
Carrot tops make a fine substitute for fresh parsley.
The Wrong Fruit Salad
Ingredients:
- 1 cucumber
- 4 paste tomatoes
- 1/2 lb sugar snap or snow pea pods
- 1 yellow bell pepper
- 1/2 lb green or black olives, pitted
- 1/2 T olive oil
- 1/2 red or white wine vinegar
- Black or cayenne pepper
- Coriander
- Cumin
Cut the cucumbers into 5-8 mm slices. Quarter the tomatoes; cut into
5-8 mm slices. Cut the pea pods in halves or leave whole if small.
Cut the bell pepper into 16 mm squares. Cut the olives in halves or
thirds, or leave whole if small. Toss together in a salad bowl.
Mix olive oil, vinegar, and one or more of black pepper, coriander,
and cumin to taste. Dress salad and re-toss.
Notes:
This recipe was inspired by the many things which are used as
vegetables or spices but are botanically fruits. Everything in this
recipe is, or derives from in the case of olive oil, a botanical
fruit.
Side Dishes
Recipes I like on the net
Breads and Quickbreads
Recipes I like on the net
Additions (toppings, sauces)
This requires a bit of explanation. These are recipes for things that
get added to (such as sprinkled, poured, or spread on) other things.
One classic example is streusel — a mix of cinnamon, brown
sugar, and butter — that can be sprinkled on top of baked goods.
Streusel has its own recipe, and the things it gets sprinkled on are
complete without it. These are ingredients with recipes.
Recipes I like on the net
Recipes I've altered
Quick Tonkatsu Sauce
A de-alliumed version with other adjustments, derived from
the tonkatsu
sauce recipe found
at Keyingredient.
Ingredients for about 3/4 c of sauce:
- 1/4 c ketchup
- 1/4 c worcestershire sauce
- 1/4 c soy sauce
- 2 T apple butter
- Dash of ground cayenne pepper
- Tomato paste as needed
Whisk first five ingredients together. As needed, add small amounts
of tomato paste and whisk until the back of a spoon stays coated when
held wrong way up. The finished sauce should pour and stay put where
it's poured rather than soaking in or running off.
Serve on any sort of breaded cutlet, or anything else that strikes
your fancy. Does well on rice, raw or cooked vegetables, tempura, and
other similar dishes.
Jams and jellies
Recipes I like on the net
Desserts
Recipes I invented
Recipes I like on the net
Apple Pie
Ingredients for one pie:
- 1 double pie shell, either commercial or homemade (I've had good
luck with Pillsbury)
- 1/2 c (110 g) brown sugar
- 1-2 T cornstarch
- 2 1/4 t cinnamon (ground)
- 1/8 t nutmeg (ground)
- Four large baking apples (Northern Spy or other), or six normal
apples (Cortland, Granny Smith, other; avoid Macintosh and the
Delicious varieties as they turn to mush when baked)
- White sugar
If you're dealing with a refrigerated commercial pie shell, take it out
and let it warm on the counter. Put the bottom crust in an ungreased
pie pan. Set your oven to 450 F.
Mix the brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cornstarch together in a
bowl. (The cornstarch can vary by how wet the apples are. Err on the
side of too much if you're unsure; it'll keep the bottom crust from
getting soggy.) Set aside. Peel, cut, and core the apples; put the
pieces in a bowl. Add the brown sugar mixture, stir to coat, making
sure there are no large lumps of brown sugar.
Pour the filling into the bottom pie shell, try to pack it as densely
as reasonable without damaging the pie shell. Wet one finger and wipe
it around the edge of the bottom crust. Put the top crust on and
pinch it down. Trim the excess. Poke holes in the top crust with a
fork. Wet your hand and wipe it over the top crust, just enough to
get the top damp so the sugar will stick. Sprinkle a good-sized
silverware spoonful of white sugar on top. Put in the
oven. After 10 minutes, reduce the oven temperature to 350 F, bake for
another 35 minutes. Let cool on a rack.
Notes:
A mechanical apple peeler-corer-slicer is an
amazingly handy device to peel, core, and slice the apples. Spike the
apple on the end of the threaded rod, turn the crank, and you have a
spiral-cut, peeled, cored apple. Clean up the bits of peel it missed,
check the center for seeds, cut the apple into quarters, and you're
done. Quick and easy.
I'll usually make a large number of pies at once. My largest
mixing bowl is just big enough to easily stir one pie's worth of
filling without slopping everywhere. I'll mix up one batch of
filling, load the pie shell, put the pie in the oven, and immediately
start the next pie. (Yes, I have lots of pie pans.)
This pie recipe inspired the Spiced Apple Pie in the game
Asheron's Call.
Non-pudding
Ingredients:
- Yogurt, full-fat, plain, about 1 cup per person; try to avoid
the sourer yogurts
- Honey
- Nutmeg, about 1/8 tsp per person
- Dark or baking chocolate, about 1/4 tsp grated per person
Pour the yogurt into a mixing bowl; add honey, stirring well, until
the yogurt is slightly sweet. Pour the sweetened yogurt into shallow
dessert bowls. Sprinkle nutmeg evenly over the top of the yogurt,
until there is a substantial amount of nutmeg on top. Do not mix in.
Grate chocolate on top of the yogurt, so that it mostly covers the
nutmeg, but no more than double the amount of nutmeg. Again, do not
mix in. Cover tightly, put in the refrigerator for at least an hour,
preferably overnight, before serving.
Note:
I've never tried this with cocoa powder; if you do, let me know how it
comes out.
Ice Creams and Sorbets
All the following recipes require an ice cream maker of some sort. I
have a Kitchen Aid mixer with
the manufacturer's
ice cream
maker attachment. A friend gave me a
Cuisinart
ice
cream maker that I swap off with, so I always have a freezer bowl
in the freezer.
At minimum, freeze the freezer bowl according to manufacturer
instructions. I've gotten best results when I chill everything I can
beforehand, including putting the mixing bowl in the refrigerator and
freezing whatever container I intend to store the finished ice cream
in.
Recipes:
Bourbon Vanilla Chocolate Chip Ice
Cream
Ingredients for about 3 cups:
- 2 c heavy cream
- 1/2 c superfine sugar
- 1/4 t vanilla
- 3 T (one shot) bourbon
- 2 T mini chocolate chips (or chopped up regular chocolate chips)
Mix all the ingredients except the chocolate chips together until the
sugar has dissolved. Pour into the ice cream maker and freeze
according to the manufacturer's directions. In the last minute of
freezing, add the chocolate chips.
Transfer ice cream immediately into your chilled storage container and
put in the freezer for at least two hours, preferably overnight.
Notes:
After much experimentation, one shot of bourbon in this much ice
cream is the most that can go in and have the ice cream still freeze
mostly solid. Alcohol acts as antifreeze; more alcohol leaves the ice
cream semi-liquid even when frozen overnight.
This recipe inspired by
Bourbon Sugar Cookie Crunch Ice Cream at Not Eating Out in New York.
Raspberry Cocoa Nib Ice Cream
Ingredients for about 3 cups:
- 2 c heavy cream
- 1/2 c superfine sugar
- 1/2 c raspberry dessert wine
- 2 T cocoa nibs
Dissolve sugar in dessert wine. Pour dessert wine mixture and cream
into the ice cream maker and freeze according to the manufacturer's
directions. During freezing, chop the cocoa nibs into small pieces.
In the last minute of freezing, add the chopped cocoa nibs.
Transfer ice cream immediately into your chilled storage container and
put in the freezer for at least two hours, preferably overnight.
Notes:
If you don't have a local supplier of cocoa nibs, you can
mail-order
them from Taza
Chocolate.
Honey Honey Mead Ice Cream
Ingredients for about 3 cups:
- 2 c heavy cream
- 1/2 c honey
- 1/2 c mead (honey wine)
Dissolve honey in mead. Pour mead mixture and cream into the ice
cream maker and freeze according to the manufacturer's directions.
Transfer ice cream immediately into your chilled storage container and
put in the freezer for at least two hours, preferably overnight.
Lavender Ice Cream
Ingredients for about 2 cups:
- 2 c heavy cream
- 4 T lavender buds
- 1/2 c honey
- 3 T (one shot) Domaine de Canton ginger liqueur
Infuse the lavender in the cream — in the refrigerator —
for about five days. Strain the cream into a mixing bowl. Do not
press the lavender to get the last cream out, as the whole mix will
turn bitter. Stir in the honey until it is dissolved. Add the
liqueur. Pour cream mixture into the ice cream maker and freeze
according to the manufacturer's directions.
Transfer ice cream immediately into your chilled storage container and
put in the freezer for at least two hours, preferably overnight.
Notes:
I get my lavender at the local
Penzeys store. They keep it in
back; it's not on display, so make sure to ask for it at the counter.
This lavender ice cream takes well to chocolate chips. For a
chocolate chip variant, add 2 T of miniature chocolate chips to the
ice cream maker during the last minute of freezing.
Ginger Ice Cream
Ingredients for about 2 cups:
- 2 c heavy cream
- 8 oz fresh ginger
- 1/2 c honey
- 3 T (one shot) dark rum
Coarsely shred the ginger and infuse it in the cream — in the
refrigerator — for about five days. Strain the cream into a
mixing bowl. Press as much cream and juice as possible out of the
ginger for extra flavor. Stir in the honey until it is dissolved.
Add the rum. Pour cream mixture into the ice cream maker and freeze
according to the manufacturer's directions.
Transfer ice cream immediately into your chilled storage container and
put in the freezer for at least two hours, preferably overnight.
Notes:
I've found that a ricer is a good first-pass sieve for the
ginger. It also does a fine job pressing the last cream, and a fair
bit of juice, out of the ginger.
This ginger ice cream takes well to chocolate chips. For a
chocolate chip variant, add 2 T of miniature chocolate chips to the
ice cream maker during the last minute of freezing.
Mimosa Sorbet
Ingredients for about 2 1/2 cups:
- 1 c orange juice (no pulp)
- 1 c champagne or dry white wine
- 1/2 - 3/4 c superfine sugar
Mix orange juice and sugar, heat until dissolved. Thoroughly chill
sweetened orange juice and champagne.
Pour champagne and sweetened orange juice into the ice cream maker and
freeze according to the manufacturer's directions.
Transfer sorbet immediately into your chilled storage container and
put in the freezer for at least two hours, preferably overnight.
Notes:
This recipe inspired by
Berry Mimosa Sorbet at
Cooking for My Peace of Mind.
Guinness Chocolate Chip Sorbet
Ingredients for about 2 cups:
- 1/2 c superfine sugar
- 1 draught (widget) can Guinness
- 2 T mini chocolate chips (or chopped up regular chocolate chips)
Mix Guinness and sugar until dissolved. Pour the sweetened Guinness
into the ice cream maker and freeze according to the manufacturer's
directions. In the last minute of freezing, add the chocolate chips.
Transfer sorbet immediately into your chilled storage container and
put in the freezer for at least two hours, preferably overnight.
Notes:
I initially tried this recipe with no sugar at all. It was far
more bitter than I expected, so I melted it, added sugar, and re-froze
it. Turns out, cold dulls sweet more than bitter.
Dark and Stormy Sorbet
Ingredients for about 2 cups:
- 14 oz ginger beer (I use Maine Root Ginger Brew)
- 2 oz dark rum
Mix ginger beer and dark rum. Pour ginger beer/rum mixture into the
ice cream maker and freeze according to the manufacturer's directions.
Transfer sorbet immediately into your chilled storage container and
put in the freezer for at least two hours, preferably overnight.
Notes:
Maine Root
Ginger
Brew is a high-test ginger beer. I'm a big fan of it. However, if
your taste runs to something less potent than "I will kill you
now with ginger", you can try others, such as
Gosling's.
If you want a stronger sorbet, this will still freeze with a ratio
of 12 oz ginger beer to 4 oz dark rum.
Lemon Sorbet
Ingredients for about 2 cups:
- 1/2 c sugar
- 1 c water
- 2.5 lemons
- 3 T (one shot) limoncello
Dissolve 1/2 c sugar into 1 c water. Zest the lemons into the sugar
water. Juice the lemons; pour the juice into the sugar water. Add
the limoncello to the sugar water. Top up with more water to just
over 2 c. Pour the lemon/sugar/water mixture through a strainer into
your ice cream maker and freeze according to the manufacturer's
directions.
Transfer sorbet immediately into your chilled storage container and
put in the freezer for at least two hours, preferably overnight.
Notes:
I initially made this with the juice and zest of four lemons,
which made for a ridiculously strong lemon sorbet.
Soft Drinks
Home Brewed Ginger Beer
Ingredients for one gallon:
- 1 gallon water (preferably with 1 quart chilled)
- 1 lb unwashed (turbinado) sugar
- 1 T cream of tartar
- 8-10 oz fresh ginger
- Three large lemons
- An empty one-gallon container
- A fermentation lock, or a lid for the container that can fit
loosely
- 1 envelope beer yeast (Not the brewer's yeast you find in health
food stores! That stuff has been killed, and won't ferment a
thing. Find a homebrew shop. Failing that, you can try bread
yeast, but I don't know how it will come out.)
- Four one-liter plastic soda bottles, with screw-on caps
Clean any excess dirt off the ginger; slice 1-2 mm thick. Zest the
lemons. Put the ginger slices and lemon zest into a blender with one
quart of water. Set aside.
Pour two quarts of water into a pot; add sugar and cream of tartar.
Remove the white pith from the lemons (you need not get it all, but
try to get most of it). Slice the peeled lemons 1-2 mm thick, add the
slices to the pot. Cover and put the pot on high heat.
Blend the ginger and lemon zest until the ginger is no more than small
chunks, the largest 2mm on a side. Do not puree the ginger into pulp;
if you do it will end up stuck in your teeth later.
Once the pot boils, pour in the ginger mixture. Return to boil; let
boil 15 minutes. Take the pot off the heat and cool to below 100 F.
While waiting for the pot to cool, rinse and sanitize the one-gallon
container. Pour the chilled quart of water into the gallon container.
Proof the yeast according to package directions; use some of the warm
liquid from the pot instead of sugar water if you like. Once the
liquid in the pot is at or below 100 F, filter (a standard kitchen
strainer will do) the contents of the pot into the container, add the
yeast, top off with water to make up for what was lost in boiling, and
fit the fermentation lock.
Let the ginger beer ferment 4-24 hours to multiply the yeast. The
time depends on how much sugar you want left and how active your yeast
is. If you're using a brewing fermentation lock and getting more than
one bubble per second, you have enough yeast. (Also note that you may
never get one bubble per second!) Your ginger beer will be cloudy
throughout the fermentation; that's normal.
Rinse and sanitize the soda bottles. Remove the fermentation lock,
fill the soda bottles from the gallon container. Don't filter the
ginger beer; in addition to catching all the ginger, the filter will
also get rid of a lot of yeast. The glop suspended in the bottle
should settle in the refrigerator. Close the bottles tightly. Let
stand for 2-12 hours to carbonate, until the bottles no longer give
easily when squeezed. Put the bottles in the refrigerator. Drink
within 4 weeks to avoid exploding bottles.
Open bottles carefully; they are under a lot more pressure than any
normal bottle of soda. You may want to bleed off some of the pressure
occasionally, though note that this can cause the bottles to erupt
unless you're quick to reseal the bottle. Bleeding off pressure will
almost always bring the settled yeast off the bottom as the
carbonation comes out of solution. The cure for this is multiple
bleedings off, until there is little to no yeast dislodged from
released carbonation.
Notes:
Chilling one quart of water ahead of time makes the quart in your
fermenter much colder, so it can help counter the remaining heat from
the liquid in the pot. It also protects your fermenter from thermal
shock if you pour too soon into a glass fermenter.
If you don't want carbonated ginger beer, this makes a fine ginger
drink without carbonation. Leave out anything to do with the yeast.
Instead, put the ginger beer into your storage containers straight
from the pot. The advantage: no exploding bottles. The disadvantage:
no carbonation.
I've never tried this with bread yeast; I have no idea how it will
turn out. It should work; the purpose of the yeast is to provide
carbonation, rather than alcohol. Whether the bread yeast will leave
off-flavors is an open question.
Despite the presence of yeast fermenting sugar, this is a
non-alcoholic drink. Refrigerating the ginger beer after such a short
time arrests the yeast before it makes much alcohol. The yeast has,
however, made enough carbon dioxide to carbonate the ginger beer.
Important: the yeast will keep fermenting in the refrigerator, but a
lot slower than it would at room temperature. Eventually the ginger
beer will turn alcoholic; similarly, the pressure in the bottles will
keep increasing until the sugar runs out or the bottles explode.
I'll try a longer boil with this recipe to see how the ginger
flavor changes.
You might consider adding a bit of lime
syrup to a glass of ginger beer, either carbonated or still.
Limeade
Ingredients for one gallon:
- 2 lbs limes
- 1 1/2 c granulated sugar
- 1 quart water
- Water
Wash the limes. Zest each lime into a quart of water. Let the zest
soak in the water in the refrigerator for a few hours.
Meanwhile, juice the limes. Strain the juice into a container; mix in
the sugar. Put the sugared lime juice into the refrigerator.
Strain the lime-zested water into the sugared lime juice; discard the
zest. Top up with enough water to make one gallon. Refrigerate
overnight. Serve.
Notes:
This recipe scales easily.
A microplane grater makes an excellent zester.
Lime Rickeys
Ingredients for one rickey:
- 1 lime
- 1/2 c lime syrup (see below)
- 3 ice cubes
- Carbonated water
Wash the lime, cut in half. Juice each half into a pint glass. Drop
one of the juiced halves into the glass, discard the other half. Pour
in the lime syrup, stir. Drop in the ice cubes, fill to 12 oz with
carbonated water. Stir briefly to mix, drink immediately.
Notes:
I've made an alcoholic lime rickey by adding one or two shots
(1.5-3 oz, 3-6 T) dry gin or vodka to the mix, and reducing the
carbonated water.
Lime Syrup
Ingredients for about 3 1/2 c:
- 4 limes
- 2 c white sugar
- 2 c water
Wash and zest the limes. Juice the limes. Mix the zest with the lime
juice, water, and sugar in a pot. Put the pot on high heat until it
has boiled for five minutes. Pour the syrup through a strainer to
remove the lime zest. Chill.
Notes:
This recipe makes enough syrup for about 7 lime rickeys. The
actual quantity depends on how much juice you get from each lime and
how much water boils off.
You might consider adding a bit of lime syrup to a glass of home-brewed ginger beer, either carbonated or
still.
This recipe scales well: mix the zest and juice of two limes for
every cup of sugar and cup of water.
The leftover lime zest is candied! If you have any use for
candied citrus peel, save the leftover zest. It also tastes fairly
good eaten straight.
Alcoholic Drinks
Recipes I invented
Recipes I like on the net
Limoncello
Ingredients for 500 mL limoncello:
- 250 mL 100-proof vodka (or stronger if you can get it)
- 4 lemons
- 250 mL simple syrup
- 1 storage jar for infusing vodka
- 1 storage bottle big enough to hold 500 mL
If you're using low-quality vodka, run the vodka through a Brita
filter at least three times. This filtering will remove a surprising
amount of the bad flavors in the vodka.
Zest and juice the lemons; put the zest in a jar and cover it with the
vodka. Seal the jar. Store out of the sun at room temperature. Let
soak for at least a month.
Save the juice in the refrigerator if you're going to make simple
syrup based on the juice. In a sealed container, it'll keep for a
month or more.
After you're done soaking the zest in vodka, pour the vodka through a
strainer into your storage bottle. Discard the zest. Pour in simple
syrup, leave sit for another month or more.
Drink small quantities over ice.
Notes:
There are lots of useful limoncello-making details at
Limoncello Quest.
Since my first batch, I've filtered my vodka, no matter what the
quality. It makes less difference with a good quality brand like
Smirnoff (which is what I usually use) than it does with a
bottom-of-the-barrel brand like Cossack (genuine Somerville vodka!),
but every little bit helps.
If you're using stronger alcohol, the limoncello will need to sit
longer to mellow after mixing in the simple syrup.
Use fat, fresh fruit for the zest. H-Mart seems to have excellent
citrus no matter what time of year.
A microplane grater makes an excellent zester.
Get the zest into the vodka fairly quickly: the stuff in the zest
that provides the flavor is volatile, and zest has a lot more
surface area to evaporate those volatiles.
The simple syrup is the detail that makes a
surprisingly big difference in the result, especially if you
substitute four limes for four lemons. Simple syrup is easy: equal
parts water and granulated sugar, heated until the sugar dissolves,
then cooled back to room temperature. But the limoncello comes out
much better if you use at least some fruit juice for the liquid
instead of water. (I suppose it's no longer “simple
syrup” if there's fruit juice in it.)
You will almost certainly need more juice than what the initial
set of lemons or limes provide if you're going with a 100% fruit juice
syrup. You'll need even more if you're going to try to avoid the
cloudy solids. Juice that fruit at the same time as the stuff you
take the zest from, and save it to let it settle as well.
For lemon-based limoncello, a simple syrup of half lemon juice,
half water or straight lemon juice goes over quite well.
For lime-based limoncello, far and away the best flavor came from
a simple syrup of 100% lime juice (when compared against one that was
half lime juice or contained no lime juice at all). Lesser quantities
of juice in the syrup had a flat, bitter flavor.
If you're using lemon or lime juice and you've saved it from
juicing the fruit, you'll have cloudy solids mostly settled to the
bottom of the juice. While they don't appear to taste like anything,
or have any texture, they settle out and look odd in the bottle. I've
yet to find a way to filter them out in any reasonable time (they're
fine enough that they clog coffee filters, and a strainer is way too
big), so I've worked around the issue by having more fruit juice than
I need, and using a turkey baster to draw off the clear juice. I use
the cloudy juice for something that doesn't need the look of things,
or which takes kindly to being shaken up before drinking, like
lemonade.
Glühwein
Ingredients for about 1.8 L glühwein:
- 1.5 L red wine
- 1 lemon
- 2 oranges
- 1 c water
- 1 c sugar
- 2 cinnamon sticks
- 2 cardamom pods
- 20 whole cloves
- 1/4 c brandy or vodka
Put the wine into a minimum 2 qt pitcher. Zest the lemon and oranges
directly into the wine. Juice the lemon and oranges into the wine.
Add the water, sugar, spices, and liquor. Stir and chill until sugar
is dissolved and you want to serve it. Stir again every day until
sugar is dissolved; this should only take a day or two.
Pour through a strainer to serve by 8 oz cup. Heat before serving:
for each 8 oz cup, microwave 1 minute or until warm. Do not boil!
Notes:
Box wine does just fine for this recipe.
I've also covered it, turned off the stove, and let it cool
on the stove overnight, then strained it into bottles with a funnel.
Microwave a wine glass of it for a minute to heat to serving
temperature.
Cold-infusing this recipe does wonders for the flavor. The citrus
acidity and oils come through much better when it's never
heated except in the microwave immediately before serving. Make it
a couple days in advance so that everything has the chance to blend
together. Much better than heating it to begin with. Note that the
sugar will settle out and requires stirring a few times before it
fully dissolves.