Cooking the book - Zero

This is a bit of a long post, as I have been writing this past week and did not know how to put in on a blog yet.

The project is to cook the entire Zero cookbook, all about non-alcoholic cocktails.

It is the first time I try something like this.

2/10 Unboxing

Just opening the book is an experience, it is beautifully presented in an outside sleeve that keeps it’s location available on the bookshelf.

The cover is washable and looks like it will hold up to kitchen use. It is embossed with a beautiful picture of a cocktail in a chiseled glass. It is beautiful and I am sure a lot of people are using the book as a coffee table book. The photography alone is worth it.

Just unboxing it was a pleasure, giving me a taste of the quality to be found inside.

The first pages are a must read, the instructions for the book are right there in ten pages max. A quick thirty minutes read and you have the base principles explained.

Right from the start, you are encouraged to explore and experiment for yourself.

2/11 Going deeper

As you start reading the recipes, you realize that you are going to have to go shopping. I have a big pantry, but not this extensive, especially the spice rack. It just ballooned up with ingredients I had never even heard of. Well, I have been a chef for 20 years and I read cookbooks for leisure, and honestly did not know some of this even existed.

But it all makes sense, if you are making whiskey,  use barley. If you are making gin, use juniper berries. Tequilla, use pineapple. And so on… The base has got to be there.

Flavors are achieved with a lot of spices, dried fruit, citrus peel. Be ready to raid Amazon for their ability to provide anything.

So, I placed my first order, and then another, and another. Some is equipment too, juicers, perlini shaker… Not too bad, thanks to the fact I own a sous vide setup and a kitchenful of equipment already.

2/12 The staff is  looking at me funny

So, I started getting some of the stuff delivered, a lot of stuff. The staff is questioning my sanity, I told them I was going to cook the whole book. They are all like ok, do your thing but why?

Ok, I am 58 and still want to continue learning and improving. Why not cook a book that does not include any food, at least I don’t have to go get rack of lamb or duck breast…

This is an investment, but it is not as much as it would with another book in which you have to provide meats, dairy and all these other costly items.

I feel like the spices I have bought can be used for other purposes and broaden my culinary vocabulary. By making broths / extracts from them I am learning how to use them, and I discover so much. Is it just justification or wishful thinking? Time will tell.

2/13 Production time

Ok, the stuff is here. Well, part of it. You know the drill, Amazon brings it, but not all at the same time. So some recipes are waiting for just one ingredient.

So, here I am doing partial prep. Missing Angelica root, darn. No Sugar cane syrup, bummer.

However, I am not going to be discouraged by such pettiness, and I prep for Gin, without glycerin because well, it’s not here yet. So we are in limbo. But wait, I can make both rums and orange liqueur. And the Tequila, thank god I am growing indoor mint at my house.

I have 2 scales, the oxo with a sous vide bag ready on it, the drug dealer scale ready for super small amounts. Yes, this is all in grams, thank you Grant!!! And thank you to all the team that created these recipes. Somehow, I can feel that each recipe started from a different person. The overall approach is similar, but the ingredients vary, and I can feel the touch of different chefs there.

You will need a lot of quart containers or even better, squeeze bottles. 32 ounce squeeze bottles, because the yield on these recipes is damn perfect. Your hear me, perfect, specially if prepared sous vide. I mean, this was meant to give you 4 cups, and it does. Wow.

2/14 Can we taste?

Exciting!! Our first cocktail, the Pavlova. Fakequila, grapefruit juice, simple syrup, lime juice. We are making it again, it was delicious.

But it’s also Valentine’s day and it is so busy.

I managed to produce a couple more of the base liquids today. The kitchen smells wonderful with all these spices and aromatics cooking.

Still ordering more from Amazon, and raiding my local grocery store. It is just steps away, so that makes life easy.

I am starting to question myself, but no way. Let’s continue.

2/15 giving it to the public

I got to use the new juicer today to make fresh pineapple juice. Use the masticating juicer…

Since I was able to make the bitter liqueur I served Jungle Bird to my cooking class clients. Seven out of eight liked it, which I guess is to be expected. The Campari bitters are bitter, after all.

2/16 hot cubes

Today, we had the margarita, which has a lot of character because of the smoky mezcal. The salt rim on the glass accentuates the flavors. Next time I am adding more lime juice, dilute the ice cubes with a little more water. The orange liqueur is a hit!

I made more of the tequila to try it as a margarita too.

Batch number 3 of Reto’s brandy came out pretty good, I think it is time to start creating my own  drinks but first I want to taste the recipes and figure out what flavors I like and how they all work together.

I also made the whiskey sour. Barley and popcorn were detectable, we tasted the roasted banana too. Maybe a touch too much spices. But that’s just me. I will try it differently next time.

2/17 Saturday is my fun day

The cinchona bark showed up late last night, so I can finish Vermouth and Orange bitters.

My pantry has grown considerably, so has my understanding of the recipes and ingredients. This is seriously awesome!

I had to simmer the cinchona bark by itself, which let me smell and taste it. I still after the aftertaste in my mouth, very much like tonic water.

As I progress through the book, I start to realize what I have bitten into. And it is more of a bear than I thought. First of all, I am a chef, not a bartender, so I don’t really know a lot of cocktails. Second, the ordering I have had to do is tremendous. The variety of ingredients used is like getting a second spice pantry.

And sweeteners pantry too, so many different sweetening agents: agave, cane syrup, and 2 more that are coming from Amazon. I am going to discover a lot about these too.

Ok so I am also making batch 4 of my Brandy recipe, because I think that’s what the book was written for, to allow us to make our own creations. I am pretty happy with it, it does a good side by side comparison.

Fruitiness:

Golden raisins 80gr

Dark raisins 80gr

Dried peaches 40 gr

Dried apricots 75 gr

Candied orange peel 20 gr

Astringency:

Japanese black tea 2gr

Dried orange peel 10 gr

Black peppercorn 4 gr

White peppercorn 2 gr

Aromatics:

Orange peel 25 gr – 1 orange

Lemon peel 18 gr – 1 lemon

Oak chips untoasted 25 gr

Vanilla bean 2 split

Dried porcini 20 gr crumbled

Color and depth of flavor too:

60 gr sugar

1500 gr water – it’s a lot but all these dried ingredients absorb

The recipe itself is simple:

Make caramel, dilute with water

Add all ingredients to vacuum bag and add caramel water

Sous vide at 195 for 1 hour

I am starting to feel like a perfumer combining aromas, a perfume that you can drink!

Oh no, now the trusted  immersion circulator died. It was well used, thank you for your services. On Amazon for a new one…

The drinks are delicious, in their own way. It is a little weird that everything is a little spicy, but that’s the way to get flavor in there. I am sticking with the recipes and cocktails as described in the book to have a baseline.

It would be valuable to do a side by side comparison with the real cocktails as they are presented here. Like the margarita with Mezcal. It is delicious and smoky, but I don’t have the ingredients to make the real thing.

2/18 Sunday is for reading recipes

Yes, I might be obsessed, working on this on a Sunday morning, but since I was waiting on ingredients and they are finally here, let’s do this.

Today Herbal Liqueur aka Chartreuse. It has mastic in it, not sure what it does, I tried it, it’s like unflavored chewing gum. Let’s see if it melts while simmering. It is my first time with mastic, is it okay to be excited?

Ah, how I miss my sous vide setup, I would be working on the next recipe already. Sous vide really makes the cooking process faster for these cocktails, as you can cook multiple at the same time.

And today I learn once again that I am supposed to read the recipes, like peel the ginger, or put a lid on the pot… When I made vermouth on for my first in pot recipe, the yield was low and I was surprised since all other recipes had all yielded a quart. Well I’ll be!  I forgot to cover the pot with a lid. It just makes so much more sense, to keep the steam in, with all the aromatics. After all we are making a form of perfume. From now on, lid on.

I also went through the next 15 recipes in the book to see if I needed to purchase ingredients. Well, the pantry is going to explode with new stuff on Tuesday as my biggest Amazon order to date will come in. I am starting to think about where I can store all this.

As I need an outlet for all these creations, my cooking class guests will be the guinea pigs. We have them nearly every night so that should take care of the over stock problem. Which is already partially addressed because nearly all the “fakohols” have been stored in the freezer. It’s a lot. They defrost in 24 hours, so if I plan the day before I will have a nice mocktail ready.

I just finished Chartreuse with a lid, and the yield is 4 cups!!! It works.

A word on cooling. We cool food doing as a living, it has to be done quickly, 6 hours or less to fridge temp. I prefer 4 or less. The first step is to cool to room temp, that might take a couple hours already, then chill to fridge temp or 40 degrees in the next 4 hours, that’s where I like to make it 2 hours by using our blast chiller. It is not a luxury for a caterer to have a blast chiller, but a necessity. At home, I would chill it flat, in a metal baking pan. Liquids don’t chill fast in plastic containers.

Amazon comes through once again with a Sunday delivery. Thanks for bringing in the goodies.

And the mastic recipe is definitely a sous vide only one, the gum is all over my pot and I am on the second boil trying to get it off. Boiling chewing gum should have been my cue. Even cleaning with isopropyl alcohol is not enough, I am on the second gunky sponge and this stuff is still in there.

Galangal – oh wow, I thought It was a substitute for ginger, but no sirree. It is so strong. I am tasting ingredients, spices and so on as I go, to discover these new flavors. Of which I have a full box now…

The Fernet is on the burner, I never thought there was so much mint in it, but yes, it does smell like it.

Fernet is finished, perfect yield, 4 cups once again! I kind of expect it now. But to get every recipe right on like this is mighty impressive.