Cooking with Wine, Beer and Spirits.

In my latest blog I gave up some of my top secret cocktails recipes.  In the spirit of sharing recipes I have decided to share a couple more recipes.  After all, cocktail recipes are all well and good, but what do you EAT with the cocktails?

The answer, my friends, shall herein be revealed.

First up, Wine.

Now wine is a classic ingredient in many of my signature dishes.  Marinades and sauces and glazes, oh my!  Wine I use primarily for flavor.  This dish though, features the wine much more prominently.  The wine is really what makes the dish what it is.  This dish is very summery and is a personal favorite when I want to cook to impress, mostly because the dish is surprisingly easy to make!  Now as for the wine I recommend you choose a wine that’s going to compliment the dish, something you would want to drink with the meal, because you will be drinking the wine you don’t use in the recipe!  What I’m saying is don’t cheap out, get a nice bottle.  Chardonnay works well because it is buttery like the dish itself.

White Wine Garlic Mussels

4 lbs live mussels

2 cups Chardonnay

 4 large shallots, finely chopped

 4 cloves garlic, finely chopped

 1/2 teaspoon salt

 1/3 cup mixed fresh herbs, parsley or basil, chopped

6 tablespoons butter, cut into pieces

Rinse and scrub mussels under cold water.  In a large pot over medium heat, combine wine, shallots, garlic, and salt. Simmer 5 minutes.  Add mussels.  Cover and increase heat to high.  Cook until all mussels are open, about 5 minutes.  Stir in herbs and butter.  Remove from heat.  Divide mussels and broth among four bowls.  I serve mine topped with fries, because the fries are wonderful with the broth as well.
 

The following recipe was kindly given to me by a customer here at BottleJockey.  It truly proves that sometimes the simplest dishes are the best dishes of all.  A simple marinade for barbequed steaks containing two ingredients, Jack Daniels and Blue Cheese.  I’ve also tried this recipe with bourbon and found it to be even better!

Bourbon & Blue Steaks

In a mixing bowl or Ziploc bag combine:

Jack Daniels or bourbon whiskey and Blue Cheese

Mix until smooth.  Add steaks and let marinade.  Marinating over night is preferred but if you’re in a rush just as long as you have time for will do.

Barbeque steaks to desired tenderness and voila!

The sweetness of the bourbon and the richness of the blue cheese really balance each other out and the result is total bliss of the senses.

The final recipe I will give is my beer based recipe.  Now I was just going to give a simple recipe for beer battering but  I decided to share a recipe I recently discovered.  Prepare yourself, because your life will NOT be the same after you taste this.

Guiness (that’s right, Guiness) Eggs Benedict

The easy way (using packet of hollandaise mix)

Simply replace ½ of the milk called for in the instructions on the packet with Guiness.

Poach your eggs, fry your ham or back bacon, toast your English muffins and stack ‘em up.

Top with the Guiness hollandaise.  Sha-bam!

 

Or for all you gourmets out there:

The hard way (making hollandaise from scratch)

You will need

4 egg yolks

3 1/2 tablespoons lemon juice

1 pinch ground pepper

1/4 cup of Guinness

1 cup butter, melted

1/4 teaspoon salt

On medium low heat reduce ¼ cup of Guiness to 2 tablespoons or so.

Fill the bottom of a double boiler part-way with water. Make sure that water does not touch the top pan. Bring water to a gentle simmer. In the top of the double boiler, whisk together egg yolks, lemon juice, pepper, and 1 tablespoon reduced Guiness.

Add the melted butter to egg yolk mixture 1 or 2 tablespoons at a time while whisking yolks constantly. If hollandaise begins to get too thick, add the remaining reduced Guiness a bit at a time. Continue whisking until all butter is in there. Whisk in salt, and then remove from heat.

The rest is the same!  Enjoy!

 

Hope you all enjoy these recipes as much as I do.

Stay Classy,

Jordan

 

 

Jordan's Top Secret Summer Cocktail Recipes

I consider myself more or less a purist on the cocktail front, I love the classics.  Old Fashioned’s, Dry Martini’s and Rusty Nail’s are a few of my personal favorites.  And while these cocktails can be enjoyable at any time, a summery and fresh cocktail on a hot summer’s day is just what the doctor ordered.

Now normally I wouldn’t consider anything like this, but for the purposes of “spreading the love” I have decided to share with you a few of my own personal top secret recipes for great summer cocktails.

I love to experiment and try new and different methods and recipes and the following recipe is definitely a bit out of the ordinary.  After reading many an enthusiastic blog about infusing vodkas, I decided to try the one I had been most curious about.  Bacon Infused Vodka.  That’s right, Bacon.

To make this is an involved process requiring a couple days of prep.  First you must dice a pound of bacon fine and fry it up real crispy.  Drain all excess fat and lay cooked bacon out on paper towel.  Pat dry the excess fat still clinging to the bacon with some more paper towel.  Next pour bacon into a large metal mixing bowl and pour in a 40 of the vodka of your choice and let sit, the longer you let sit the more bacony the vodka.  Using cheesecloth, strain the bacon from the infused vodka and into a couple of mason jars.  Freeze overnight, this will cause any remaining fat to freeze and become separated from the vodka making it easy to scoop off the top.

And there you have it.  Bacon Vodka.  Also works very nicely with bourbon.  I forgot to mention that the vodka soaked bacon bits that remain are delicious as well.

Jordan’s Bacon Caesar

Rim glass with celery salt and finely crushed bacon bits and fill with ice.

2 oz Bacon Infused Vodka

1 dash Tabasco Sauce

1 dash Worcestershire

Fill with Clamato and stir. 

Garnish with a slice of crispy bacon, a slice of lime and two spicy pickled green beans.

 

Caesars are a great drink for a summer brunch, barbeque or beach day.  For those that like a savory cocktail this is the one.

 Next up is my version of the Mojito. 

A little interesting side note, the Mojito is Fidel Castro’s favorite drink.  Cool, huh?

Anyways…  My Mojito differs from the traditional in two ways.  First I do NOT use sugar.  For sweetener I use Triple Sec.  I find it adds another dimension of citrus and tropical flavorings to the drink.  Triple Sec I consider my secret weapon when it comes to cocktails.  So versatile, and at 35% alcohol it adds a bit of a kick of its own. 

Secondly I prefer to use authentic Cuban rum.  Havana Club 7 year is preferred, but white rum works too.  I personally like the nice iced tea colour the drink comes out when using aged rum as opposed to white rum.  Also, aged rum is more flavorful.

The Jordan Mojito

In a tall glass muddle several mint leaves, and squeeze the juice of a quarter lime into the bottom.

Fill glass with ice on top of the mint and lime quarter.

2 oz Aged Rum

2/3 oz Triple Sec

Fill with club soda and stir.

Garnish with slice of lime and mint leaves.

 

The last recipe I’ll share with you is one that I invented myself.  This one is another result of infusing liquors.  For this I infused my own raspberry gin.  The process is very simple, fill a mason jar 1/3 full of ripe raspberries and pour in a 26 of gin.  Let sit, a week is good, two weeks is better.  My uncle starts the infusion in the summer and doesn’t drink it until Christmas time, but I find after two weeks it’s as good as any time after that.

As for the name of the drink, don’t ask.  You don’t want to know, trust me.

 

The Frosty Williams

In a rocks glass muddle three ripe raspberries and a basil leaf. 

Crack in two grinds of black pepper (optional).  Fill glass with Ice.

2 oz Raspberry Infused Gin

2/3 oz Triple Sec

Fill with club soda and garnish with a basil leaf and a raspberry.

That’s it for now, depending on how generous I’m feeling I may share a few more in a later blog, but I guess you’ll just have to check back and see.

Stay classy,

Jordan