Americano Cocchi Classico

Any fan of the Spritz (here) must try an Americano Cocchi Classico. Here’s how to make one: take a small tumbler and fill it with 3 ice cubes; add 2 ounces of Americano Cocchi, a lovely aperitif wine from Italy’s Piedmonte region; splash in 1 ounce of soda water; gently stir. If you happen to have an orange lying about, slice it up and garnish your drink. If your fruit bowl is sans orange, don’t fret; the drink will taste fine without the garnish.

The star of this amazing aperitivo is Americano Cocchi, a Moscato-based wine infused with a secret blend of herbs, fruit and spices.  The wine tastes both pleasantly bitter and just a bit sweet. Its recipe dates back to 1891 when Giulio Cocchi began making aromatic-infused wine and bottle-fermented sparkling wines. If you poke around the Internet, you’ll come across numerous articles lamenting how difficult it is to find Americano Cocchi here in the United States. Well, no more it seems. Good wine shops such as K&L Wine Merchants will ship Americano Cocchi where the law permits. Even my local Whole Foods claims the aperitivo will soon arrive on its shelves. Hurray!

Let me close by sharing my own (Spritz-ish) variation of the Americano Cocchi Classico. After pouring the Americano Cocchi over the rocks and before adding the soda, I tip in a kiss of Aperol. Gently stir and smile at the beautiful, light salmon-colored beverage that you will soon enjoy.

Fiorentini

In the Glossary of Sauces & Shapes (here), Oretta Zanini De Vita and Maureen B. Fant describe fiorentini as a “short, squiggly factory-made pasta”. Based upon this brief description, one might not expect much from this noodle in the looks-department. Yet of all of the pastas featured in Sauces & Shapes, fiorentini rates, in my opinion, as one of the most handsome. It can also handle a broad range of sauces. Zanini De Vita and Fant pair the shape with a hearty ragù di carne. The Mozza Cookbook [2011] by Nancy Silverton with Matt Molina and Carolynn Carreño contains a recipe for fiorentini with a sauce of guanciale, tomato, and spicy pickled peppers.

Dry fiorentini rarely appears on grocers’ shelves here in the US, so if you want to try it, take to the web. As I write, Buon Italia (here) sells the shape. Emiliomiti (here) sells a bronze die for the torchio that produces twisting ribbons that look like fiorentiti to my eye. Ask for die 267 from the Blue Catalog.

I’ve made a lot of extruded pasta, including fiorentini, over the past few months. During this period, I used a 50-50 mixture of Central Milling Organic Type 00 flour and Giusto Extra Fancy Durum flour. I am experimenting with adding a touch more liquid to the flour. In the past, I used 75 grams of an egg mixture (typically a whole medium egg plus a medium egg yolk) for 150 grams of flour. (This produces enough pasta to serve 2 as a main course.) Of late, I’ve increased the amount of eggs for this flour blend from 75 to 77 grams. You need to make allowances for how your ingredients interact on any given day, but I have found that these extra grams of liquid produce a better-shaped noodle.

The other practice I now employ: after mixing the dough in a standing mixer with a paddle, I form the dough into a log rather than a disk. After an hour hydration period at room temperature, I simply pop the dough right into the torchio and start cranking.

Bourbon Milk Punch

Let’s finish off the year with a glass full of holiday cheer. I wrote (here) that 2013 offered a score of outstanding cookbooks. A number of my favorites preached the gospel of new Southern cooking, including Edward Lee’s Smoke & Pickles and John Currence’s Pickles, Pigs & Whiskey. Buy both of these books, and you get a double helping of pickles.

You will also get some outstanding cocktail recipes, especially for bourbon fans. Lee serves up Jalapeño-Spiked Bourbon Julep, Bourbon Sweet Tea, The Rebel Yell and The New-Fashioned. Currence likes his brown water as well; he shares recipes for New Old-Fashioned, Spiced Cider and, the star of this post, Bourbon Milk Punch.

Currence writes “[u]nbeknownst to most folks, Bourbon Milk Punch (or Brandy Milk Punch, depending on who’s making it) is the choice beverage of the gentlemen who work the floats on Mardi Gras day on St. Charles Avenue and ply the masses with plastic beads and aluminum doubloons.” While often served during Mardi Gras, Milk Punch is no stranger to Christmas gatherings. So let’s make some! Currence’s recipe serves 1.

4 ounces whole milk

2 tablespoons half-and-half

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2½ ounces Buffalo Trace bourbon

4 teaspoons confectioners’ sugar

Freshly grated nutmeg, for garnish

Pour the milk, half-and-half, vanilla, and bourbon over cracked ice in a cocktail shaker. Spoon in the sugar, and shake vigorously. Pour into a large old-fashioned glass, sprinkle nutmeg over the top, and serve.

As 2013 comes to a close, I wish happiness and good health to all in the New Year!