Category Archives: Entertaining

  • Bonus Cocktail: The Lani-Honi

    July 25, 2012

    19 Comments

    Lani-Honi Cocktail.

    Some cocktails we expect to be good. They are famous, they are everywhere, people write songs about them, name bars and casinos after them. Yes, I am talking about Margaritas, but the same can be said for Martinis, Mai-Tais and Manhattans. These cocktails are icons. And they are (mostly) great drinks.

    But then there are surprises. Cocktails you would never think of, often with somewhat esoteric ingredients, but that just taste great. This week’s bonus cocktail, the Lani-Honi is one of the surprises. And a very pleasant surprise, at that.

    The Lani-Honi has only three ingredients and is easy to make.

    The pleasant surprise is that the Lani-Honi is, technically, a tiki drink, but it includes just three ingredients: Benedictine, white rum and lemon juice served on the rocks. It tastes like a rich, lemony and slightly herbal punch- a simple drink but a good one. And it goes down very, very easy. And not only is the Lani-Honi an easy drink to like, it takes almost no effort to make, and you can make/serve it in batches. The Lani-Honi’s only real downside is that it could be a “dangerous” drink. And perhaps one extra downside is that you need some Benedictine.

    A good excuse to get some Benedictine.

    Benedictine is a French herbal liqueur that’s been around (depending on who you believe) since the 16th century. The provenance and the recipe are somewhat in question, but we do know that Benedictine was mass-produced (and well-marketed) starting in the 1860’s. With sweet, spicy and herbal notes, that some liken to cola, Benedictine became a very popular cocktail ingredient until the middle of the 20th century, when it started lose favor. But many home bars will have a bottle of Benedictine gathering dust somewhere, and the Lani-Honi is a good reason to break it out, or even buy a bottle.

    We found this recipe in Jeff “Beachbum” Berry’s iPhone Tiki Drink app. We bought a bottle of Benedictine for some classic cocktails, but we didn’t find anything we loved (yet), so we started to look at other uses and searched the Tiki Drink app for Benedictine. More famously, Benedictine is in the Singapore Sling, but the Lani-Honi looked tasty and easy to make. And it was. Carolyn and I both loved the Lani-Honi and we plan to serve it at a few summer parties. We think almost everyone will enjoy it, the Lani-Honi just feels like a cocktail that will please a crowd. Continue reading →

  • Memphis-Style Barbecue Ribs

    July 16, 2012

    21 Comments

    Memphis-style ribs (with our house-made pickles)

    There are few American foods that elicit more passion than barbecue. Questions like pork vs. beef (even lamb), “wet” vs. “dry”, ribs, butt or brisket, mustard or vinegar in the sauce all make for dozen of varieties of barbecue. Depending on where you are from, passions can run very, very high. Particularly in the American south if you ask for the “wrong” thing in some areas you may get the “around here we serve “real” barbecue and we use…X”.  The only thing most aficionados will agree on is that barbecue may be the perfect summer meal.

    As a Californian, we don’t really have a regional style (unless you count Santa Maria-style Tri-Tip, which is more of a roast), so we get to “pick and choose” a bit. We will cop to a preference for Carolina-style pulled pork– the hot vinegar sauce variety, but mustard-based is good, too. But the kids and many of our friends prefer ribs, and they do take less time, so we make them pretty often. And when we barbecue ribs, we go for Memphis-style.

    Simple ingredients + time = deep flavor.

    “Mop” sauce.

    Put “rub” on the ribs and let “marinate” for 6-48 hours.

    If you are unfamiliar with Memphis style ribs, they are ribs prepared using a dry spice rub and a vinegar-based “mop” during smoking. Unlike ribs from St. Louis or Mississippi / Alabama that feature a sweet, “wet” sauce, Memphis-style ribs develop a nice dry, spicy “bark” and a very light glaze from the “mop”. Sauce is usually tangy and served on the side, although like all barbecue, opinions on sauce vary. You can use either baby-back ribs or St. Louis-cut ribs (middle of the ribcage) and get good results. Memphis-style ribs are more like pulled pork than most ribs. Good stuff. Really good.

    Get your charcoal ready.

    Let gray ash form on the coals and you are ready.

    And relatively easy to make. One of the misconceptions about making barbecue is that it is difficult. In fact, it’s easy, and requires relatively few ingredients. But the main ingredient you need is time, and there is no substitute. It isn’t an accident that barbecue mostly gets made, and consumed, on weekends. If you need an excuse to laze about with friends for an afternoon (perhaps with a beer or cocktail), making ribs will certainly do the trick.

    Add liquid to a drip pan- the extra moisture helps in smoking.

    Smoke your ribs until internal temp reaches 185 degrees.

    The steps are pretty basic. Get some baby-back or St. Louis-style ribs. Make or buy spice rub (recipe here and below) and rub into the ribs and let them rest in the fridge for at least 6 and up to 48 hours. Soak some wood chips or chunks- we like a mix of hickory and fruit woods like apple or cherry. Get you smoker or grill ready at a temperature about 210 degrees (follow the instructions for your grill or smoker). Set up your smoker with a drip pan, and it helps to put some liquid like beer or apple juice in the drip pan, and then start smoking the ribs. Meanwhile make the “mop” with some vinegar, salt, apple juice and a touch of your dry rub. Liberally “mop” the ribs with the sauce every 30 minutes or so.

    Brush ribs every 30 minutes with “mop” sauce.

    Rest for 20-30 minutes and then slice the ribs.

    Continue reading →

  • Weekly Cocktail #20: The Otto’s Grotto

    July 13, 2012

    8 Comments

    Otto’s Grotto Cocktail.

    As we noted in our previous post, we recently hosted a small Hawaiian-themed dinner party for a close friend and made macadamia nut tart. The tart was great, but we wanted to be sure to have a cocktail to match, so we looked no further than Jeff “Beachbum” Berry, probably the world’s biggest expert on Tiki drinks. We happen to have his tiki drink iPhone App (so cool) and looked for a tiki cocktail that would go with dessert. We searched on the keyword “coffee” and after browsing a few results, the Otto’s Grotto almost jumped of the screen. It sounded like a perfect summer “dessert” cocktail. So we gave it a try (of course, we tested it before we served it to our friends.. ;-).

    The Otto’s Grotto is a cold drink that features coffee, white rum, coffee liqueur (Kahlua, Tia Maria or home-made), Licor 43 and a dash of heavy cream. But this is not a syrupy white/black russian, but more of an ice-coffee with a kick and some depth. Coffee is clearly the main ingredient, but the rum, coffee liqueur and Licor 43 all add extra flavor. The cream adds a smooth note and mellows the bitterness of the coffee. While we served the Otto’s Grotto for dessert, you could serve this cocktail almost any time of day and get a very welcome reception. It’s good.

    Float cream on top for a good presentation.

    As for the ingredients, good coffee is the key here. Great coffee = great coffee cocktail, ’nuff said. As for the other ingredients, this is where you have some flexibility. And decent white rum will do, the alcohol will mainly boost the flavor of the coffee. As for the coffee liqueur, we use Kahlua (without shame), but Tia Maria will work. And coffee liqueur is one of the best DIY liqueurs you can make at home, here is a good article on the subject from Marcia Simmons at Serious Eats (they have some really good cocktail writers). Finally we have the Licor 43, a vanilla and citrus liqueur that is sometimes hard to find. We like it in the drink and it is worth having in your bar, but you could substitute Tuaca. And in a pinch, vanilla syrup and an extra dash of rum will work just fine.

    Iced coffee, just better.

    Building this drink is by no means difficult, but a few little steps will help. Firstly, when you mix the coffee and liqueurs, check for taste. Coffee is a highly variable ingredient, you may want to add an extra dash of coffee liqueur or Licor 43 to balance the flavors. And finally, when adding the heavy cream, it helps to drizzle it on a spoon just above the drink. This will help float the cream on top. While not a necessary step, it will look good. And if a drink tastes this good, you may as well rock the presentation. Happy Friday!

    Otto’s Grotto:

    (Adapted from Jeff “Beachbum” Berry)

    Ingredients:

    • 5 oz. iced coffee
    • 3/4 oz. coffee liqueur (we use Kahlua)
    • 3/4 oz. Licor 43
    • 1 and 1/2 oz. white rum
    • 1/4 oz. heavy cream
    • Mint, for garnish (optional)

    Assemble:

    1. Place all the ingredients, except the cream, and ice into a cocktail shaker. Shake thoroughly and pour unstrained into a highball glass or goblet. Float cream. Garnish with a sprig of mint, if you like. Serve.
    Related articles

  • Macadamia Nut Tart

    July 13, 2012

    10 Comments

    Macadamia Nut Tart.

    Since we eat mostly from our garden (and the farmers market), we tend to cook simple recipes that highlight the main ingredient. And, to us, that makes sense. If we just spent “x” days/weeks/months growing something, we want to actually see and taste it. But we do like “stretch our legs” every once in a while and engage in some real (read: labor intensive) cooking. And recently we did just that. And it was fun. And this dessert was the star.

    So why make a Macadamia Nut Tart? Our friend Scott had a birthday and we had him and Sydney, his awesome wife, over for dinner. Scott is a big fan of the Hali’imaile General Store restaurant in Maui (he even gave us their cookbook, thanks!) and Carolyn and I cooked a dinner from, or at least inspired by, their recipes. We started with a light seafood salad served on nori squares and a picked ginger cocktail sauce and Thai Tuna Tartare with a small salad of shiso and mizuna. Dinner was sesame crusted Opah with coconut rice and curried cabbage (recipe soon). Cocktails started with the Tahitian Postcard, then Zombies and finished with the Otto’s Grotto (recipe soon). That was all good fun, but Scott is a self-described “dessertarian” and Carolyn found this recipe to make sure we had an over-the top-dessert to close out the evening. And a chocolate crust, ringed with macadamia nuts, then filled with macadamia filling and topped with caramelized bananas seemed to fit the bill.

    Make a dough for a chocolate crust.

    Macadamia nuts and sugar, hard to go wrong.

    Process the nuts and sugar for the filling.

    The inspiration for the dessert comes from the Hali’imaile General Store, but Carolyn’s actual recipe is an adaptation of a tart from King Arthur Flour. We like their recipes, as they tend to adapt restaurant-style baking to home kitchens. And in this case, the recipe did not disappoint. While we would never call this “simple” baking, it is less work than you might think and the steps are well-defined. If you like to bake (or have a rainy afternoon to burn) making this recipe is time well-spent. And the tart will certainly taste, and look, great.

    Roll-out the dough for the crust.

    Place the dough in the tart pan.

    Line the crust with whole macadamias and then blind-bake the crust.

    The recipe has a few discreet steps. Make a chocolate crust, blind-bake the crust, create a macadamia filling, assemble, bake and then layer on and broil (or torch) the bananas and sugar. Each step is not hard, they just need be done in sequence, and you need to take your time. The only tricky step is broiling or torching the sugar into a crust on top of the bananas- it requires close attention, but is worth the effort. This tart is not an “anytime” dessert, but it is great for special occasions.

    Add the macadamia filling and bake.

    Add the sliced bananas.

    Broil or torch the top with sugar, cool and serve.

    Continue reading →

  • Chocolate Cake For A Crowd

    June 29, 2012

    45 Comments

    Big chocolate cake.

    How big? It will feed over 20 people.

    Now you may wonder, what do I do with a cake that big? And what does a small family do with all of these baked goods? Well, in our case the answer is little league baseball. The season just ended, but we just spent a full spring feeding 12 hungry boys. They eat a lot.

    Happily, this is a real labor of love. After each game a few of the families cooked for the team, coaches and parents. As the weather got warmer and everyone got to know each other the meals morphed from take-out pizza to full 3-course spreads. By the end of the season we brought pre-made margaritas and corpse reviver #2’s to weekend games (the parents often had more fun than the kids ;-). We made pulled pork and brisket, which was a hit. But the big winner was Carolyn’s chocolate cake. This cake is “chocolatey”, moist, rich and delicious. The kids (and parents) loved it and kept asking for the cake and the bigger she made it, the more they ate. Sometimes it’s good to be 12 and eat all the cake you want. Sometimes it would be nice to be “X” and eat all the cake you want…

    Grease and dust your pans with cocoa.

    Mix your batter.

    Bake the cakes.

    Let cakes cool completely.

    The recipe for the cake and frosting comes from many sources, Carolyn makes this often enough to adapt the recipe on her own. The recipe isn’t complex, but like most baking it does require that you follow some specific steps. The bonus with this recipe is that you get an extra dessert as well (more on that later). This recipe is for 20+ big servings, but you can halve the recipe, if you like.

    As for the recipe itself, it is mostly standard cake making. The chocolate all comes from cocoa powder (a lot) and the moist texture from a combination of buttermilk and sour cream. And, of course, a touch of coffee that amplifies the chocolate flavor. The frosting is simply a lot of high quality chocolate, butter, sugar, milk and a pinch of salt. And as with all baking, the better the ingredients, the better the flavor.

    Chocolate for frosting. Continue reading →

  • Sushi Balls: Sushi At Home

    June 21, 2012

    28 Comments

    Sushi balls. Fun sushi at home.

    When we started writing this blog, one of the promises we made ourselves was to use the blog as motivation to cook new things at home. And so far we are making progress, but mostly with new tools like sous-vide and using “molecular gastronomy” ingredients in baking. But the next step was for us to explore new cuisines, and we went right for Japan.

    We love Japanese food and have a favorite local sushi bar and are even members in a Sake tasting club (great fun), but rarely cook anything other than tempura at home. But we decided that needed to change. So we bought Debra Samuels’ “My Japanese Table”, a cookbook with Japanese recipes adapted for the American kitchen. Samuels is a well-regarded food writer for the Boston Globe and lived /cooked in Japan for ten years, so we took the plunge. So far the cookbook is a good read, with plenty of simple recipes for Japanese basics like teriyaki and tempura. But we know what we wanted to do at home, sushi. And this recipe is why we bought the cookbook. Sushi balls are very pretty sushi that you can make at home. And its fun…really.

    Smoked salmon, salmon roe, seared ahi, shrimp, cucumber and shiitake mushroom.

    Usually the big issue with making sushi at home is actually constructing the rolls. Sushi rice is super-sticky and the shaping tools are uncommon for most home cooks. Without constant practice, home sushi can look like a train wreck. And while the flavor of the sushi can be good, the presentation is a big part of the dish. One way to handle this challenge is to simply prepare the rice and ingredients and then present them with nori as a buffet for hand-rolls. But with Sushi balls, anyone can make an attractive individual piece of sushi. You can even have fun and experiment with presentation.

    The trick is to simply place the fish or veggie on a square of plastic wrap, then place a tablespoon or so of rice on top (be sure to keep your hands moist with water when handling the rice).  Then bring up all the corners of the plastic wrap and twist tightly into a ball. When it unwinds, you have a well-shaped sushi ball. It only takes a few tries to get the hang of it, and then you can experiment with different combinations of ingredients. Samuels suggests cooked shrimp, lightly salted cucumbers and smoked salmon. We added some seared ahi, salmon roe and browned shiitake mushrooms. Cooked crab or scallops would also be very good additions. But feel free to experiment based on taste and budget (and this is an inexpensive dish).

    Rinse the rice and drain.

    Ingredients for Sushi-zu seasoning

    Cooked rice, sprinkled with Sushi-zu seasoning.

    Now that shaping the sushi is less of a challenge, the real effort goes in making the sushi rice. While in sushi bars “mastering” the rice can take years, it is something you can do well at home- on the first try. The trick is to buy the correct rice and follow all of the steps. For the rice you need short grain japonica rice, which is available in most supermarkets. Don’t substitute long grain rice. As for the steps, you must rinse the rice and then either soak it for cooking or use a rice cooker- the recipe deals with both. While the rice is cooking you make the Sushi-zu seasoning of rice vinegar, sugar, salt and mirin. When the rice finishes cooking, you place it in a bowl and then gently sprinkle and mix the Sushi-zu seasoning with the rice. Then fan the rice to cool it down. The rice should stick together but not be mashed or “gluey”.  But if you use the right rice and follow each step you will get consistent, tasty, results.

    Slice cucumbers, sprinkle with salt, wait for 5 minutes and drain. Done. Continue reading →