People of the world, meet my new favourite drink! Forget the Aperol Spritz, the Aperol Gin and Tonic is a great drink for summer drinking, or really for any time of the year.
I love G&T’s and Negroni’s and the Aperol Gin and Tonic is kind of a cross between them. Or, as I like to call it, win-win.
The Aperol Gin and Tonic is slightly sweet, slightly bitter, has great citrus flavour and a lovely complexity from the botanicals in the gin. All of which is a fancy way of saying “It’s delicious…drink up!”
It’s also a very pretty drink!
Even though this is called the Aperol Gin and Tonic, there is a surprise ingredient in here which I think rounds out the flavours, ramps up the orange and adds the sweetness….
Yep! Cointreau. Which I am also partial too! If you wanted to take the Negroni-ness of this up to 11, you could, of course, sub out the Cointreau for some vermouth!
I found the recipe for the Aperol Gin and Tonic in a Waitrose magazine when I was in England earlier this year. Made it and then promptly lost the recipe. Luckily it was not hard to remember!
First up sorry for my tardiness for Cowboy Day but I have been laid low for about a week with a totally vicious cold/flu. But, just like that ChumbaWumba song from the 90’s, I get knocked down… but I get up again. (But only for a few hours at a time because this thing is wiping me out!)
Unlike that song which talks of whiskey drinks and lager drinks and vodka drinks, I made us a gin drink.
People of the world, meet the Dirty Cowboy Martini!
It’s good. It’s so good. As to be expected. Cos who doesn’t love a dirty cowboy?
😉
Now there is a bit of too-ing and ‘s fro-ing to make the Dirty Cowboy but believe me, it’s worth it!
First up you gotta make some Cowboy Candy. Which is no hardship because these Candied Jalapeno’s may just become my favourite thing to eat in the world. Ever.
Sweet, spicy, tangy, hot, sour…these are little flavour bombs!
I had fully intended just to post these but then I got to thinking (always dangerous) about how to show them off to full effect and I came up with the idea of the Dirty Cowboy Martini.
The Dirty Cowboy Martini is a riff on a regular dirty martini. This is where a bit of the olive brine is added to the drink. In the Dirty Cowboy, a spoonful of the sweet, spicy chilli liquid is added! It’s so good! And really hard to have just one of!
I used the Four Pillars Cousin Vera Gin for this as it is a lot more savoury than my usual Hendricks. It worked really well!
The perfect accompaniment to the Dirty Cowboy Martini was a little dip I made from some of the chopped up Cowboy Candies, some cream cheese and a spoonful of the French Onion Soup Mix I had left over from when I made the Selfish Girl’s Seafood Plate.
Here’s the Martini recipe. Now, I like a lot of vermouth in my martini so I would add more than the standard amount I have listed below.
Pour the gin, dry vermouth and Cowboy Candy brine into a cocktail shaker with ice and shake well.
Rub the rim of a martini glass with the wedge of lemon.
Pour the liquid into the glass and garnish with a round of lemon and a Cowboy Candy. Add another Cowboy Candy to the glass if you wish.
Enjoy!
Happy Belated Cowboy Day to all who celebrated!
Thank you to the utterly awesome Greg Swenson from Recipes4Rebels for inviting me to take part in the festivities!!!! I am raising a virtual glass of Dirty Cowboy Martini to you!
So, just this last week I sent off my passport for a visa for a place where the flag looks kind of like this!
Need a few more hints?
Yep, if they approve my visa, I’m off to Russia in August!
I’m so excited! I’ve been watching as much of the World Cup as I can – not so much for the football but for the travel stories and the scenery.
I’ll be visiting Moscow:
And St Petersburg:
But back to the cocktail. I am both obsessed by and fascinated with the pousse-cafe style cocktail where various liqueurs are layered over each other. They always look so pretty. This recipe was called The Electric Flag and I had to include the original version of it here because it so quirky. (Doh! I can’t remember where on earth this recipe came from either!
Yep, this little drink here is 150% cocktail!
I used kirsch instead of grappa for my version. I also didn’t knock it back in one but sipped it over the course of the evening. It’s strong! If you are also sipping, make sure you mix it well before you do.
Otherwise, it’s all alcohol at the start and plain sickly sweet grenadine at the end. The mix of the three together is lovely though!
I’m going to be spending the next few weeks delving into some Russian literature – starting with one of my favourites.
I’ll follow this classic with a wonderful piece of fantasy by dipping back into the Night Watch Series by Sergei Lukyanenko…this is an AMAZING series with Russian Vampires. The first book was also made into a crazy good film a few years ago. The sixth instalment of this series came out last year but I am going to save that for when I am in situ. Meantime, I’ll reimmerse myself into this world by re-reading the earlier books.
Have a great week? Are you watching the World Cup? Who do you think will win?
Today, January 26, many Australians will be celebrating Australia Day. On the good side – it’s summer, it’s a great time to get outside and have a bbq and, if you are not in the midst of a dry January, have a few drinks with some friends. On the downside, the day itself is becoming increasingly fraught for all manner of reasons – some of which you can read about here for a considered view and here for the opinions of a lunatic. Hey America…you’re not alone with your President, we have a Prime Minister (well ex-Prime Minister) who says dumb offensive shit too. And whilst he might not be orange or have a mad comb-over, there was .this….ewwwww.
But we are not here to get political. We are here to eat, drink and be merry. Because it’s a long weekend. And we’re going to celebrate with some Australian food. If by Australian food we mean something that we have totally (mis)appropriated from another culture. So let’s get to it shall we?
Gougères are the French version of what we in Australia would call a cheese puff. And they are delicious! Feather-light pastry flavoured with cheese makes for a perfect snack. Particularly if you happen to be imbibing something of an alcoholic persuasion. Making it a perfect start to this weekend’s round of bbq’s.
But we’re not celebrating Bastille Day…we’re celebrating Australia Day…so how to “Strayanise” these delicious French delicacies? Well, first we’re going to throw a little Vegemite into the mix. Now, I’ll be the first person to admit that I…ahem…”borrowed” the idea of the Vegemite Gougères from Rosie Birkett’s recipe for Marmite Gougères.
And then, to make it even more Australian, I substituted the water in the recipe for beer. I used the Gage Roads Little Dove Pale Ale as the beer for this because it is my absolute favourite and I had some in the house but you could sub in your own favourite.
The gougères are delightfully light. The combination of vegemite, cheese, cayenne and the very slight hint of beer go so well together that it would be a real shame to only save these for one day of the year!
100g cheddar, grated, plus 1 tablespoon extra, for scattering
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
big pinch freshly ground black pepper
1/4 teaspoonfreshly grated nutmeg
Instructions
Preheat the oven to 200°C and line 2 large baking sheets with baking parchment.
Put the butter, milk and Vegemite and ale into pan over medium heat and bring to the boil.
Add the flour and beat very quickly with a wooden spoon, over the heat, until the mixture is smooth and pulls away from the side of the pan (about 2-3 minutes).
Remove from the heat and allow to cool for a minute.
Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition until the mixture is thick and smooth and glossy.
Stir in the grated cheese, peppers and nutmeg.
Spoon the mixture into the piping bag fitted with a nozzle. Pipe little rounds (about the size of a chestnut) onto the trays, leaving space between each mound to allow for rising.
Alternatively, just spoon small spoons of the mixture onto the tray.
Scatter over the remaining cheese.
Bake for 20–25 minutes, until puffed and golden.
Serve warm. Or cool on a wire rack and reheat in a 180°C oven for a few minutes until they crisp up.
Notes
The gougères can be made in advance and frozen once cool.
If you’re celebrating, have a wonderful day and enjoy the long weekend!
If not, make these anyway, they’re awesome!
But remember…
Back with more Z Food next time! Have a fabulous week!
Back in my school days, we had an annual music competition where each House had to arrange and sing a song of their choice to assorted judges, family, staff and fellow schoolmates.
One year the song selected by my House Music Captain for all of us to sing started like this:
Bonnie and Clyde were pretty lookin’ people,
But I can tell you people,
They were the devil’s children.
I had no idea who Bonnie and Clyde before then but wow! Believe me, just those opening lines were enough to send me racing to the Encyclopedia Britannica for more! Pretty people? Of course I wanted to know more. Pretty people who were also evil? My 14-year-old mind was blown. Who knew such a thing even existed!
Why am I telling you all this?
Because a little while ago the lovely Jenny from Silver Screen Suppers asked if I would test out a cocktail recipe for her upcoming cookbook. The cocktail was the Faye Dunaway cocktail, and Faye played Bonnie Parker in the 1967 film Bonnie and Clyde.
And oh boy, you want to talk about pretty looking people?
Oh, the glamour!!!!
The Faye Dunaway Cocktail is also pretty glam! It was invented in 2011 by Jonathan Humphrey of the Drake Hotel in Toronto and was inspired by the film Chinatown, which stars Faye Dunaway and Jack Nicholson.
The recipe for the Faye Dunaway cocktail calls for mango juice which I was unable to find. I also do not have a juicer so I puréed a fresh mango. I was a little worried because the mango purée was quite thick but it worked out perfectly. So do not despair if you also cannot find juice. If fresh mango is unavailable frozen would also work perfectly!
The Faye cocktail perfectly balances sweet, spicy and sour flavours in a glorious mix of mango, lime and chilli. It’s sooooo good! I loved it – it reminded me of sunshine and holidays and tropical climes! I made this exactly as per the recipe (which you can find here) because I was testing the recipe for Jenny. However, even though this is divine as is, I can’t help wondering what it might be like if you also brought in a salty element by edging the glass? Salty, sweet hot and sour being the four elements Thai cooks try to bring into balance. Because that is really what the flavours of this cocktail reminded me of…cocktails on a beach in Thailand.
Faye’s birthday is coming up on January 14. I was going to hold off posting this until the day itself. Then I thought it would be much more fun to give you all a chance to buy the ingredients so we could all celebrate her gorgeousness and iconic fashion sense by donning a beret and drinking one of these in her honour!
I will be trying the Salty Faye myself but if anyone makes either version, please let me know what you think!
And speaking of iconic fashion…I had so much fun trying to find the Dinah Shore look a few weeks ago that I thought I would give it another go.
Here is my take on Faye’s Bonnie and Clyde look fashion via my very first post on Polyvore. Because don’t we all need a little bad girl glam every now and again?
Oh, and for anyone who is wondering how our music competition turned out?
The judges said that our singing and arrangement were spot on but that the content was inappropriate for both us to be singing and our audience to be listening to!
If you would like to hear the scurrilous lyrics not fit for the mouths of good God-fearin’ girls (and see some photos of the real Bonnie and Clyde) here’s a YouTube of that song:
Many thanks to Jenny for the opportunity to help with her book (I will let you all know when it is ready to be purchased, it’s going to be awesome!) and for selecting such a fabulous recipe for me to try!
