Irish Cream

Cream, rich as an Irish brogue;
Coffee, strong as a friendly hand;
Sugar, sweet as the tongue of a rogue;
Whiskey, smooth as the wit of the land.

-a traditional toast accompanying Irish coffee


There are two drinks that we go through in unholy quantities this time of year.  The first without question is rum, as it is used in all kinds of preserves, baking, and cocktails.  The second is Irish cream, consumed on its own, or diluted with a bit of milk or coffee.

For years my standby has been Bailey's, but this year I decided to make my own.

Irish cream is comprised of cream, sugar, and Irish whiskey, usually but not always flavoured with coffee.  It is around 20% alcohol by volume, and has a rich, viscous mouthfeel.  It is basically an Irish coffee (whiskey, sugar, and cream stirred into a cup of coffee) with the ingredients in different proportions.

If you plan on consuming Irish cream in coffee, there's probably not much point in flavouring it with coffee.  I'm after a drink to be enjoyed on its own, so I've included strong coffee in my recipe.

I've come across some recipes online that use condensed milk to approximate the thickness of commercial brands.  The truth is that it's not the thickness of condensed milk that gives the final drink a rich mouthfeel, it's the sugar content.  Sugary liquids have a high specific gravity and give the impression of viscosity on the palate.  Granulated sugar and cream therefore work just as well as condensed milk.

The following recipe is a reasonable facsimile of commercial brands, though with a more distinct coffee flavour.  Obviously you can adjust the whiskey content to suit your taste.

Irish Cream
a working recipe

Ingredients

• 4 egg yolks
• 50 g granulated sugar
• 1 pinch kosher salt
• 70 mL strong, high quality coffee, chilled
• 33 mL heavy cream
• 140 mL Irish whiskey, preferreably Jameson's
• 1.25 mL vanilla extract

Procedure

1. Whisk the sugar and salt into the egg yolks.
2. Whisk in the remaining ingredients.  Let stand in the fridge overnight.

Yard of Flannel (a het pint...)

Yard of flannel is hot ale, laced with rum and spices, and thickened with egg.

Though there's a surprising number of beer and cocktail blogs that have tried out old recipes of yard of flannel, there's very little information on the history of this drink available online.

I've found no documented link between these two drinks, but yard of flannel is nearly identical in recipe and preparation to an old Scots cocktail called het pint (literally "hot pint").  The only difference is that the Scots version typically uses whiskey instead of rum.

Het pint was once an important part of Scottish celebrations, especially Hogmanay, the Scots New Year.  In the 17th and 18th centuries, public houses made het pint on New Year's eve, and villagers would buy a copper-kettle's-worth to take home for the festivities.

Kettles of het pint would also be carried through the streets by "first-footers."  The first person to enter a house on New Year's day was said to be a foretoken of the prosperity of the coming year.  The first-foot was ideally "a man, tall with dark hair... carrying gifts, including whisky, tea, coal, or salt, symbols of good health, good fortune, good luck, a warm home, and a full larder."^[1]  In some traditions the first person to cross the threshold is a more or less random event.  In others young men would travel from house to house with gifts.  These first-footers often carred pots of het pint with them as they walked through the town, offering the drink to passers-by.

Het pint was consumed at many other celebrations, notably rural weddings on Orkney.^[2]

Not only are recipes for het pint and yard of flannel consistenty nearly identical, they both use the same technique to develop a tall foamy head on the drink.  When agitated, the egg proteins develop a head that is much more stable than that of beer alone (think: meringue).  The head on het pint and yard of flannel is traditionally produced by pouring the drink back and forth between two mugs in a tall cascade.

Ale makes up the bulk of the drink, so the choice of ale to be used is the most important decision made by the cook.  Nowadays "ale" refers to a beverage that undergoes a warm fermentation with a top-fermenting strain of yeast, typically producing an aromatic, fruity, floral beer.  It's counterpart, "lager," goes through a colder, longer fermentation with a bottom-fermenting strain of yeast, resulting in a cleaner, crisper drink.

Until atleast the nineteenth century, in Great Britain the word "beer" referred exclusively to hopped beers (a Bavarian invention), while "ale" was reserved for the traditional, unhopped, British drink.  Therefore the "ale" called for in old het pint recipes refers to this ancient style of British beer.  Many contemporary beers made in the UK are reminiscent of these older styles, though they do contain some hops.  Here's a description of modern Scottish ale:

Scottish Ales traditionally go through a long boil in the kettle for a caramelization of the wort. This produces a deep copper to brown... brew and a higher level of unfermentable sugars which create a rich mouthfeel and malty flavors and aromas. Overall hop character is low, light floral or herbal, allowing its signature malt profile to be the highlight.^[3]

This style of beer makes perfect sense for het pint, as the malt and caramel flavours compliment the rum or whisky.  The pronounced hops flavour of most contemporary beers would probably be out of place.

I've hear that the "yard" in yard of flannel refers to the yard-long glasses in which the drink was once served, and the "flannel" refers to the rich, soft mouthfeel developed by the heated eggs.  I can't find a reliable source for that information.

I don't imagine this drink will be everyone's cup of tea, as the modern man doesn't like the thought of drinking hot eggs, but I have to say it's a well-balanced cocktail with a fantastic mouthfeel.


Yard of Flannel (a het pint...)
adapted from Back to Basics

Ingredients

• 1 large egg
• 1/6 cup dark brown sugar
• 1 pinch of salt
• fresh grated nutmeg to taste
• 341 mL your favourite English pale ale, Scottish ale, or possibly brown ale
• 1/6 cup golden rum

Procedure

1. Whisk together egg, sugar, and salt.
2. Gently heat ale and nutmeg in a heavy-bottomed pot.  Do not let the ale boil.
3. Once the ale mixture is starting to steam, slowly pour it into the egg while whisking.  Adding the ale too quickly may curdle the egg, which would be bad.
4. If you're a stickler for tradition, you can develop the head by pouring the mixture back and forth between two mugs.  As you can probably imagine, this quickly cools down the drink.  You can get just as good a head by whisking vigorously while the flannel is still in the bowl.

1. Duncan, Dorothy. Feasting and Fasting: Canada's Heritage Celebrations. ©2010 Dorothy Duncan. Dundurn Press, Toronto, ON. Page 313.
2.  McNeill, F. Marian.  The Scots Kitchen.  ©2010 The Estate of F. Marian McNeill.  Birlinn Ltd, Edinburgh, Scotland.  Page 309.
3.  Beer Advocate.com

Towards a Theory of Eggnog

 
For the last two years I've been using this method to make eggnog:

• whisk egg yolks with some sugar until pale and foamy
• whisk egg whites with some sugar until soft peaks form
• fold the two egg foams together and stir into milk and cream
• add rum and nutmeg

The problem with this method, first of all, is that if it sits for even five minutes, the eggy foams separate from the milk and cream. I wouldn't mind a bit of head on the nog, but the foams make up about 90% of the volume.  Even during the brief moments in which all the ingredients are properly incorporated, the light and airy texture of the nog doesn't seem appropriately robust and nourishing.

So I've done some experimenting with my nog method.  First I tried simply whisking all the ingredients together, by-passing the egg separation and foaming.  This version also separated, which absolutely baffles me, as whisked eggs don't separate if you leave them in the fridge.

Out of sheer curiosity I tried cooking out a mixture of milk, cream, and yolks, à la crème anglaise.  It was a bit thick, even once thinned with rum, but before repeating the process with a lower yolk content I decided that the cooked-egg taste is also inappropriate to the ideal nog.

For now I've settled on using just yolks.  Somehow this isn't as satisfying a concept as drinking whole eggs, but it's tasty.


Eggnog: A Working Recipe

Ingredients

• 4 oz egg yolks
• 8 oz granulated sugar
• 1 pinch kosher salt
• 16 fl oz whole milk
• 4 fl oz heavy cream
• 16 fl oz golden rum, I use Appleton's
• nutmeg to taste

Procedure

1. Whisk sugar and salt into egg yolks.
2. Add all remaining ingredients and whisk to combine.

The final important piece of information I came across this year was that properly boozed nog can be made well, well before consumption, and aged in the fridge.  Michael Ruhlman has successfully aged eggnog for two years, if you can believe it.

I put up a large jar of eggnog on the first of December, with the intention of cracking it open on the solstice or Christmas.  It lasted maybe fours days in the fridge.  A replacement batch is currently ripening on the bottom shelf.

Coffee in Austria

I was surprised to learn that Austria has a strong, distinct coffee culture.  I probably shouldn't have been, as the adoption of exotic goods like cane sugar and coffee beans was the hallmark of European imperialists, and Austria, as the granddaddy of European imperial powers until the First World War, has been roasting, grinding, brewing, and drinking coffee for centuries.

The story of how coffee came to Austria was told to me several times during my stay.  In 1683, the Ottoman army, led by the Grand Vizier, besieged Vienna.  A Polish soldier named Jerzy dressed in Turkish garb and left the city to contact Duke Charles of Lorraine and ask for assistance.  Jerzy snuck back into the city, bringing a promise from the Duke.  With this information, the Viennese city council decided to resist the siege until reinforcements arrived.  The Turks were later defeated in the Battle of Vienna, and forced into a hasty retreat, during which they left behind several bags of coffee beans.  Jerzy is said to have been awarded, among other things, many of these bean sacks, with which he opened the first coffee house in Vienna.

Another version of the story has the Turkish beans discovered and brewed by a Capucin monk who, finding the drink too strong, dilutes it with milk, thus founding European coffee culture, and inventing what we, with most of the world (but not Austria!) call the capuccino.  That was the most complicated sentence I've ever written.

I have no idea if these stories have any historical merit, but the very fact that they are widely known and repeated speaks to the pride Austrians take in their coffee.  To further appreciate Austrian coffee culture, let's talk a bit about our own.

North Americans tend to distinguish between "normal coffee" and "espresso," sometimes erroneously pronounced "expresso."  Many think that these are two different types of beans.  They're not: they are two different methods for extracting the flavourful oils from a roasted, ground coffee bean.  The same beans are used in both methods.

"Normal coffee," that is, the coffee brewed in most homes before the morning commute, is drip-brewed and filtered.  Hot water is slowly poured over ground coffee beans.  Under the force of gravity it seeps through the grounds, absorbing the flavour of the beans.  A paper filter ensures that none of the grounds get into the final cup.

"Espresso" is made by forcing hot water under pressure through compact coffee grounds.  This method of extraction produces a very different drink than drip-brewing, as it extracts and emulsifies components of the beans that are usually left behind.  It yields an extremely flavourful liquid that can have an almost viscous mouthfeel.  This method also produces a bit of foam on top of the drink, called crema.  (Here's an interesting article on the formation of crema.)

In many parts of Europe, including Italy and Austria, almost all coffee is "espresso-style" coffee.  In my experience, drip-brewed filtered coffee was only available at a few touristy rest stations and hotels.  The reason I keep puting "espresso" in "quotation marks" is because much of the world uses this style of brewing, but doesn't drink anything called an espresso.  It's a bit like calling braised meat "coq-au-vin-style" meat.

Anyways.  Food historians now refer to three waves in the marketing and consumption of coffee in North America.  The first wave was the establishment of large coffee importers like Folgers in the nineteenth century.  The second wave was started by small coffee houses that made espresso-style drinks and categorized much of their coffee by country of origin and roast. This movement culminated in the proliferation of franchises like Starbucks and Second Cup that popularized a style of coffee loosely based on the Italian caffe.  I say "loosely" because the language is largely Italian (grande, venti, espresso, capucino, latte, americano, macchiato, ad infinitum...) but many of the practices (like the irresponsible use of foamed milk) are not.

The third wave, still going strong, emphasizes coffee bean roasting, grinding, and brewing as an artisinal trade.  Roasters and vendors are developing ways to categorize and discuss coffee that is similar to wine.  They sell their brew with detailed aroma- and flavour-profiles.   Their coffee us usually presented simply, without the elaborate, sweet, foamy accompaniments associated with the second wave.  Even so, ordering in a third wave coffee house can be an alienating experience to the uninitiated.  (If you don't know what I mean by that, go to the Garneau Transcend and try ordering "a coffee.")  Third wave vendors promote fair trade, and often develop lasting, mutually beneficial relationships with coffee bean growers and their communities.

Coffee culture in Austria has been much more static over the past hundred and fifty years.  Most of the classic cafés in Vienna were established in the late nineteenth or early twentieth century.  They have a fixed style of brewing and serving.  Ordering "a coffee" in an these cafés is a bit like ordering "beef" in an American steakhouse.  Here are some of the common drinks:

• Brauner - Black coffee, served with a small dish of milk to be stirred in.  At one time it was available as either a Grosser Brauner (bigger) or Kleiner Brauner (smaller), though the smaller version is now more or less extinct.
• Verlängerter - (Literally, "lengthened,") A Brauner pressed with a little hot water.
• Melange - (From the French, literally, "mixture") Coffee with steamed milk, and often whipped cream.

Coffee drinks containing liqueur:

• Maria Theresia (a famous eighteenth century Habsburg) - coffee with orange liqueur and whipped cream.  I can't say for certain, but oranges might be associated with Maria because one of her residential palaces, Schönbrunn, in Vienna, is famous for its orange groves.
• Fiaker - a Verlängerter with rum
• Masagran - ice coffee with Maraschino cherry liqueur

The coffee is served on a silver tray with a glass of water, a small chocolate, and, if appropriate, a small pitcher of milk.

Hard Cider

Earlier in the month we pressed our apples into cider.  The juice that ran from the press was sweet and tart, with a full, milky mouthfeel, and a subtle siltiness that I think was from the skins and seeds of the fruit.  It had a cloudy, oxidated colour and was a pleasing drink in all of its many facets.

Then the cider sat in my basement for a week.  Fermentation took hold, and for a brief few days, the cider got even better.  A yeasty aroma developed, and the resulting alcohol woke up the palate.  The drink was effervescent.

I should have bottled all my cider at this stage.  Hindsight is 20/20.

As it is, I left the cider to ferment for another two weeks before bottling.  By this time not a molecule of sugar remained.  In these later stages of fermentation some marked off-odours developed, notably sulphur (rotten egg) and acetone (nail polish remover).  Some of these odours persist in the bottled cider.

Do I still drink it?  Yes.  Only when very cold.  I also cook with it.  Cabbage sautéed in bacon or lard, then briefly braised in apple cider, for instance.

It also makes a passable mulled cider, sweetened with honey and simmered with spices like cinnamon and clove.

Can't wait for next year, when I encapsulate that cider in its sweet spot.

Apple Cider

To most contemporary city-folk the word "cider" implies fermented apple juice.  My grandparents made the distinction between "cider" (juice pressed from apples) and "hard cider" (fermented apple juice).  For now I have simply made cider, and will leave the discussion of hard cider and its variants for another post.

This week we picked about 150 lbs of apples from three different trees:

• one beautiful, well-trained tree yielding large, blushing apples, which I will be referring to as "Ron's apples";
• one crabapple tree with bright red, tart fruit;
• one hideous, unkempt tree in our backyard that grows small green apples.  The tree is so large and spindly that we harvested its apples by climbing into it, shaking it vigorously, and then collecting the fallen fruit from the surrounding grass.

After harvesting, we borrowed a crusher and press from Kevin.  The crusher is a garburator, intended for a kitchen sink, outfitted with a hopper and a power switch.  You can read about Kevin's design here.  The press is a strong wooden frame with a carjack that drives a plunger onto the crushed fruit, described here.  Thank you, Kevin.

Some notes and photos from our cider day.

Here are the apples we used.  Below, left are the crab apples.  Below, right, Ron's gorgeous apples.

And here are the tiny, bruised apples from our backyard.  They don't look particularly appetizing, but apparently they make for good cider.

Some sources say to wash and stem the apples before crushing.  Others say this is unnecessary.

Here is Kevin's crusher, doing what it does best.  The apple mash comes out white, then rapidly oxidizes to the rusty colour we associate with apple juice.

With a traditional crusher the mash will sometimes be put through a second time for a finer grind.  This in unnecessary with the garburator.  It's very thorough.

The apple mash is scooped into a piece of cloth, which is twisted and squeezed to extract some of the juice.  We found that at least 90% of the juice could be pressed from the mash in this manner, without the use of the actual press.

Once the mash wrapped in cloth is shaped into a disc it is called a "cheese."  Some sources say to tie the cloth with a peice of string.  This is unnecessary.  The cheeses are stacked inside the press.  Some sources say to place wooden discs bewteen the cheeses.  This is also unnecessary.

Then the car-jack is opened to drive the plunger onto the cheeses.  The juice flows out of a spigot at the bottom of the bucket.

After being pressed, the cheese is dense, dry, and crumbly.  The left-over bits are called pomace.  In many parts of Europe grape pomace is mixed with water and sugar, fermented into a weak "wine," and then distilled.  The resulting liquor is called grappa in Italy (especially famous in the provinces of Friuli and Piedmonte), marc in France, and tsipouro in Greece, to name only a few of the regional variations.  I suspect a similar drink could be made from this apple pomace.

We crushed and pressed the three different apples separately so we could taste the juices on their own.  Tasting notes:

• Ron's Apple Cider - A good balance of tart and sweet, with a hint of almond extract, probably from the seeds and skins.  Slightly silty mouthfeel.  Reddish brown.
• Crabapple Cider - Very tart, but still surprisingly flavourful and pleasant to drink.  Brilliant pinkish red.

• Our Backyard Apple Cider - This was the real surprise for me.  They are by no means choice eating-apples, and most were battered and bruised by our harvesting method.  Their juice, however, was fantastic.  A great balance of tart and sweet, and a distinct grassy finish.

The three types of cider were then mixed together.  While "single variety" may be popular with coffee and wine, apple cider and any of its fermented and distilled derivatives are always made from a blend of several apple varieties.  Half the work of the cider producer is in finding the right mix of sweet, tart, and aromatic apples to create a balanced drink.

Once mixed, the cider was syphoned into carboys to clear over night.  The roughly 150 lbs of apples made 40 L of cider.

 
This really is one of those epic, rewarding, seasonal "chores," like tapping maple trees and slaughtering pigs.  There's lots to be done with the cider, yet.  Stay tuned.

Raspberry Leaf Tea

This is a quick one.  I just learned that raspberry leaves make good tea.

Pick the leaves, dry them in a low oven, and store in an airtight jar.

To serve, steep in hot water for 4 minutes, as you would any other tea, and strain.

I'm not good at describing the subtlties and complexities of something like tea.  To me, raspberry leaf tea tastes a bit like green tea...

It's good.

Austrian Charcuterie

For starters let me say that Austrians don't use the word "charcuterie."  To some of you that may seem obvious, as Austrians speak German.  Yet for some reason most of the English-speaking world uses the French term "charcuterie."

While French words do weasel their way onto fine dining menus in Austria, they are nowhere to be found in descriptions of butchery or cured meat.  For these, Austrians have their own, precise way of speaking, belying the strength and individuality of their traditions.

In contrast, the charcuterie renaissance in North America uses of grab-bag-blend of terms from across Europe.  Bresaola (northern Italian), is mentioned in the same breath as saucisson sec (French), and jerky (Plains Indian).

Despite all this, I still use the term "Austrian charcuterie," in the hope that North Americans curious about Austrian cured meat will be more likely to stumble across this page.

Anyways.

Charcuterie has a very special place in the Austrian diet.  Breakfast, for instance, invariably consists of bread, cheese, coffee, and some form of cured meat or pâté.  The larger cities are dotted with würstlstände (sausage stands, which will be discussed in a future post).  To my mind, the greatest place to sample Austrian charcuterie is at certain taverns called heurigen.

Heurigen ("HOY-ree-gen," singular heuriger)

Austria produces a lot of wine.  Most of this wine is consumed within the country while it is relatively young, (which is why Austrian wines are very rare in this part of the world).  The word heuriger literally means young wine, but the term usually refers to a special kind of tavern.  Winemakers will open up shop for a couple of weeks so that guests can come to drink the young wine, which is served with plates of cold food such as cheese, spreads, bread, and charcuterie.  The word for these savoury accompaniments is brettljause ("BRET-tel YOW-ze").  Brett means board, as the food is usually spread out on a wooden board.  Brettl, I think, is some kind of dimunitive form, though I'm not entirely sure. Jause means snack.

While heuriger usually implies wine, there are also most heurigen.  Most is a type of cider, usually made from apples, though sometimes pears are used.  Most is quite different from the commercial ciders we know.  It has a pronounced sourness, and in my brief experience it is usually not heavily carbonated.  Sometimes it's straight up flat.

Since heurigen are open irregularly for short periods throughout the year, the owners will hang an evergreen bough (busch "BOOSH") over their door or signpost so that passersby will know when they are open.  For this reason, in the province of Styria, heurigen are called buschenschänken (singular buschenschank).  Schank means bar, as in the place where the bartender stands.  The implication is that the wine, intended to be drank young, is stored in barrels and poured from the bar, instead of being bottled for long storage.

I suppose the star of the heuriger show is supposed to be the wine or most, but for me the main attraction was always the charcuterie.  So, without further warbling I would like to introduce you to the main players of Austrian charcuterie, as they are served in traditional heurigen.

Blunz'n ("BLOON-tsin") - Blood Sausage

This is the infamous blood sausage, which we have toyed around with a couple times here on Button Soup.  In Germany it is called blutwurst.  In Austria it is called blunz'n.  Austrian blunz'n is a very different creature to English black pudding or French boudin noir.

I attribute the success of my last attempt at blood sausage to the inclusion of a panada, a mixture of milk and bread.  Austrian blunz'n is very heavy on the bread content.  In fact, the first piece I ever had was riddled with white cubes that I assumed were pork fat, but turned out to be bread.  While English black pudding has a pronounced blood taste, and a pastey texture, blunz'n is subtle and light, somtimes more like a dumpling than a sausage.



My favourite blunz'n so far had a pleasant acidity to it.  I'm not sure whether this was from added vinegar, or if maybe rye sourdough was used in the panada.

Besides being sliced for cold platters, blunz'n is surprisingly common in the kitchen.  There is a traditional dish called blunz'n gröstl, which is a blood sausage hash.  We also had blunz'n baked into an eggy bread:

Grammel ("GRAM-mel", plural grammeln) - no translation

This is a weird one, as you may have guessed by the fact that there is no satisfactory English translation.

The first time I had grammel was in a dish called grammelschmaltzbrot.  It appeared to be rendered pork fat spread on rye bread, with tiny, crunchy flakes that resembled bacon bits, only much smaller, maybe the size of kosher salt crystals.  I asked a handy Austrian what exactly I was eating.  She said, approximately, that when pork fat is rendered and then "pressed" (strained?) you are left with grammel.  I wondered aloud. Bits of skin?  Bits of meat?  She wasn't sure.

When searching the internet, I came across this explanation, which is well-written, but I think entirely inaccurate.  The author says that grammeln are mineral deposits in the fat of Mangalitzas, an Austro-Hungarian heritage pork breed renouned for its eating quality.  I don't buy this, simply because I ate plenty of grammel that was not from Mangalitzas.

By Occam's razor I'm more inclined to believe the sources that say grammel is a form of connective tissue in the fat that cooks out in the rendering process.  Whatever it is, it's crisp, golden brown, and sinfully savoury.  Its existence is all the more surprising to me because I have rendered a lot of pork fat in the last couple years, but hadn't thought to skim through the residue to look for something as small and delicous as grammel.

Grammel is also used in the kitchen.  When there is a bit of residual lard on the grammel, it binds to form a paste, which can then be rolled into a knödel (roughly, "KNUH-del," a dumpling).

Hauswürstel - ("HOWS-voors-tel", literally "house sausage," in fact just dried sausage)

Similar to French saucisson sec, this is an essential component to any heuriger spread.  The most interesting version I had contained the delicious green pumpkin seeds common in Styria.

Preßwurst - ("PRESS-voorst," headcheese)

Austrian preßwurst is very similar to our headcheese, though I would say the meat is packed much more densely (ie. there is less jelly between the pieces of meat).  Even so, it holds together extremely well, and can be sliced very thin.  It's usually doused in vinegar, then called "saure preßwurst."

Kümmelbraten (roughly "KOOM-mel-BRAT-en," literally, "caraway roast," roast pork belly)

This was a pleasant surprise: pork belly, usually lightly cured, roasted with caraway seeds, and served with the skin on.  A fantastic crunch from the crackling, which splinters into little nuggets during the slicing.

Schweinsbraten - ("SHVINES-brat-en," roasted pork shoulder)

A simple roast, sliced and served cold, is a very common brettljause.  Sometimes the meat is cured, sometimes not.  Somehow the only picture I got of a cold pork roast was this haggard slice below, which I had already prodded with my fork.

Bratlfettnbrot - ("BRAT-tel FET-en-brot," approximately "roast drippings, with bread")

One of the fantastic byproducts of roasting meat is the drippings.  They are comprised of two parts.  First is the highly gelatinous meat juices.  Second is the fat rendered from the meat.  There was a time not so long ago when every housewife would pour the hot pan drippings from a roast into a jar and keep them for later use.  The fat can been scraped off and used to sear meat.  The juices, which solidify when refrigerated, can be used to fortify pan sauces.

In Austria the whole mix, that is, the partially solidified meat juices and the rendered fat, are served as a spread.  It is called bratlfettnbrot, which is possibly the most amusing word in the Austrian language.  Or any language.

In the picture below you can see the bratlfettnbrot in the plastic jar on the right, with the spoon sticking out.  The picture is not from a heuriger, but rather at Dominik's house.  Dominik was the student Lisa and I hosted last summer.  You may remember him from the fantastic Austrian dinner he and his friends cooked for us while staying in Edmonton.

Some photos.

Heuriger meals are finished with mehlspeisen ("MAYL-shpeye-zen," literally "flour food," baked desserts) and schnapps.  Austrian baking and distilling will be covered in future posts.

Button Soup St. Patrick's Day Dinner

The Button Soup St. Patrick's Day Dinner was a North American-style observance of the holiday: a celebration of Irish heritage, generally, and not a commemoration of the saint. Even so, there were no cartoon leprechauns, no buckled top hats, and no green beer. Instead there were four courses based loosely on traditional Irish dishes, lots of alcohol, music, and some readings from Irish writers.

By chance, I was cooking four dishes that I have posted about in the past. Descriptions follow. All "Hipstamatic photos" are courtesy of Andy Grabia, a true son of Erin (his aversion to brawn notwithstanding). Thank you, again, Martin Kennedy, for playing host.


Brawn, Clover, Buttermilk

Brawn is the British word for headcheese, the preparation of which I wrote about here. In that post I mentioned that the brawn would look much, much better if the meat were first brined; it would be rosy pink, instead of questionable grey. This time around I did a proper brine of kosher salt, curing salt, and brown sugar.

I cut the jowl and tongue into tidy cubes that were white and red, respectively, while shredding the rest of the head meat. I enjoyed this incarnation of the headcheese much, much more than the last. Unfortunately the dish wasn't received enthusiastically. The modern eater has a serious problem with meat jelly.

The brawn was garnished with clover shoots. I thought serving clover on St. Paddy's day was a fantastic idea. Besides the obvious Irish connection, it seemed appropriate to serve sprouts at a time of year when we we're sprouting our seedlings indoors, waiting for the snow to melt (see left). Judy bought a bag of red clover from a seed vendor, who was mildly disgusted when she found out we were going to eat the sprouts ("Clover's cow food!"). The shoots are almost indistinguishable from alfalfa. They taste fine on their own, but honestly they didn't add much to the dish.

Sprouting is dead simple.  Just soak the seeds in water overnight, then drain and rinse twice a day until they grow to the desired maturity.  We kept our seeds in a glass jar with a nylon stocking stretched over the mouth.  Water can be poured through the stocking to rinse the sprouts, then the glass can be inverted to drain the water away.





Headcheese is beautiful - visually and conceptually - and it pains me as a professional cook that I will probably never be able to prepare this to an appreciative audience.

 
The sauce was mayonnaise made with egg yolks and cold-pressed canola, thinned out with buttermilk for a bit of tang, and spiced with cayenne and mustard.
 


 
Potato Broth, Dumplings

I first wrote about potato broth here. The basic idea is to steep potato skins in vegetable broth to infuse the liquid with the distinct flavour of potatoes. This particular version didn't work out too well.  The broth didn't take the flavour of the skins, possibly because I boiled the potatoes before peeling them, instead of roasting them as I did last time.

Black Pudding, Colcannon, Apples

Black Pudding is the British word for blood sausage, the preparation of which I wrote about here. In that post I mentioned that the filling didn't bind properly: the cooked sausages crumbled when sliced. This time I tried a recipe from the Au Pied de Cochon Cookbook. My only departure from Picard's recipe was using oat flour instead of chestnut flour. The major difference between this recipe and the last is the inclusion of a panada, which is bread soaked in milk. The final sausages held together beautifully, and were tender and smooth to boot. This is now my default blood sausage recipe. Thank you, Martin.

Colcannon is a mix of mashed potatoes and cabbage or kale. My colcannon is mashed potatoes heated in some of the brawn cooking liquid and butter, then mixed with shredded cabbage that has been braised in cider vinegar and bacon fat.

After the black pudding rounds were seared in a skillet, slices of Granny Smith were cooked in the same pan.








Whiskied Fruitcake, Hard Sauce

My computer is trying to tell me that "whisky" isn't a verb. How frustrating. I made fruitcake for the first time this past Christmas, and wrote about it here.

Fruitcake is a very common dish in Great Britain, even outside the Christmas season.  This particular manifestation was made with orange peel, walnuts, and raisins. I soaked the baked cake in Jameson's. Though appropriate to the St. Paddy's Day theme, Irish whisky is much less aromatic than rum, and not great for flavouring baked goods.

The cake was dressed with a classic hard sauce: two parts icing sugar cooked out in one part butter, then finished with Jameson's and egg.




Other Notes from the Dinner: Alcohol and Literature

 That's protestant whiskey!
-McNulty on Bushmills, in The Wire


As you might expect, alcohol played an important part in the dinner. I was thoroughly razzed for bringing Bushmills ("Protestant whiskey"), though it was appropriate to my Orange heritage.

There's a big difference between Scotch and Irish whiskey.  The malted barley used in Scotch is dried over peat fires, and after fermenting, is twice distilled. Traditional Irish whiskey doesn't have any of the smoky, peaty notes of Scotch, and is thrice distilled for a smoother taste. Mel Priestley recently wrote a brief but informative article for Vue Weekly on the history of Irish whiskey.  Thank you, Mel.

The real star of the show was Redbreast Irish whiskey. Very, very smooth.  Heavy on the butterscotch.  Delectable.

Obviously there was Guinness.

I can't imagine that Joyce was a willing celebrant of St. Patrick's Day, but he still made an appearance at our dinner.

Now, at the name of the fabulous artificer, he seemed to hear the noise of dim waves and to see a winged form flying above the waves and slowly climbing the air.  What did it mean?  Was it a quaint device opening a page of some medieval book of prophecies and symbols, a hawklike man flying sunward above the sea, a prophecy of the end he had been born to serve and had been following through the mists of childhood and boyhood, a symbol of the artist forging anew in his workshop out of the sluggish matter of the earth a new soaring impalpable imperishable being?

 
Welcome, O life! I go to encounter for the millionth time the reality of experience and to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race.

Burns Supper - First Courses: Barley-Broth and Scots Rabbit

Some would think this is the inside of my compost bin, but it's actually the inside of my stockpot: roasted lamb bones and vegetables, as well as all the darkly caramelized bits scraped from the bottom of the roasting tray. These flavours formed the soul of the Burns Supper, as the resulting stock was used not only in the soup, but also in the haggis and the clapshot. They were the mellow, earthy foundation of the entire meal.

Making a pot of stock the night before a large meal has become a very fond tradition. The house fills with the aroma first of roasting bones, then of the simmering stock, while excitement for the coming meal slowly accrues.

Some specifics on the stock. First I roasted lamb bones from Four Whistle Farm. It's hard to come by good lamb femur bones, I think because of the popularity of leg roasts and shanks. A touch of tomato paste was smeared over the bones for the latter half of the roasting. Then onion, carrot, celery, and garlic were baked. The pans were deglazed with water, and bay and rosemary were added. Finally the whole lot was covered in cold water, brought to a simmer and left overnight.
 
 

Barley-Broth

Vegetable-wise the soup contained onions, kale, and carrots.

Pearled barley was cooked in a separate pot so that it wouldn't cloud the stock.

The final garnish was lamb neck. Neck is a variety-cut that sounds a lot grosser than it really is: the meat is indistinguishable from that of the shoulder. The necks were seared, braised in some of the lamb stock, cooled, shredded, and added to the soup.

Rabbit

This dish is most commonly called either "Welsh rarebit" or "Welsh rabbit." "Rabbit" is the original name, though no one knows the origin of the term. Some say it was originally derogatory, suggesting that if a Welshman went out to hunt rabbit, he would end up eating cheese for dinner.  The dish is currently experiencing a revival, and modern authors and cooks prefer to use the corruption "rarebit," as it avoids the obvious confusion with the hopping mammal.

At its heart, rabbit is hot cheese on toast. The best versions also include beer.I borrowed a technique from Fergus Henderson's book The Whole Beast. He makes a roux, then whisks his beer into it, creating what is essentially a beer velouté. The cheese is then melted into this sauce.

Besides serving Henderson's version of "Welsh" rabbit, made with Guinness and cheddar, I also developed a Scots version using Innis and Gunn and a mild gouda. If you are unfamiliar, Innis and Gunn is a Scottish beer that is aged in oak barrels, and is really one of the most remarkable beers I've ever tasted.

Scots Rabbit
Adapted from Fergus Henderson's recipe for Welsh Rarebit

• one tablespoon butter
• one tablespoon white flour
• one cup Innis and Gunn


• one pound mild Sylvan Star gouda, grated

Melt the butter in a saucepan. Add the flour, and cook until starting to colour. Whisk in the beer and bring to a simmer. Add the cheese. Stir the mixture until the cheese is thoroughly melted and a uniform sauce forms. Pour into a shallow dish and allow to set. This can be done the day before the meal.

To serve, spread onto pieces of toast and broil until the cheese browns.

The rabbit goes very well with a glass of the beer you used to prepare it. Actually it goes well with alcohol of any kind.