Dilution solution
Every great bartender's secret is also the key to great salads, ceviches, hummus, pasta and more
Happy Friday, concentrated cook!
Last weekend, Thierry and I were in a cool cocktail bar, contemplating the enticing assortment of drinks on the menu. A guest sitting at the bar pointed to the one I had my eye on, and said “that one’s good, but it’s strong.” It was a tequila, rye and vermouth concoction. I went for it.
The gent was right: It was strong. In fact, “strong” was its most notable quality. So I did something that scandalized Thierry: I tipped my water glass into it, added just a few drops of ice water and swirled it around.
Then tasted again: outstanding.
It was a lesson I learned a few months ago, when I was fortunate to take part in a cocktail training for a client, led by one of the best barmen in the business: Nick Mautone. Nick taught us something every top-level bartender knows: A well mixed drink involves a certain level of dilution with water — usually about 20%. It smoothes everything out and pulls the drink together. The way you achieve the right dilution is either stirring the cocktail on ice long enough so that the stirring glass is almost too cold to hold, or shaking it until it’s that cold. Voilà — you will have achieved optimal dilution. Strain it into the glass and it’s ready to go.
So counterintuitive! Doesn’t a watery drink sound like an epic fail? Well, it is — but a drink will taste watery only if it’s over-diluted. Proper dilution, on the other hand, is the cocktail gold standard.
Once I understood this, my cocktails at home stepped up in class. In the past, I had a particularly hard time making a brilliant margarita. Now I nail every drink, every time. Just shake it or stir it much longer: That small amount of added water — the right dilution — changes everything.
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Recently, it dawned on me that there are a bunch of analogies in cooking — a realm in which water, and the idea of dilution, are not just under-appreciated, but kind of stigmatized.
Think about it: Water is such a lowly ingredient that it’s usually not even listed as an ingredient; when a recipe wants you to add water, it just tells you how much within the instructions. The stigma gooses us when a recipe gives us a choice of water or something else. “Deglaze the pan with stock, wine or water,” says the recipe. What serious cook would choose water?! More water equals less flavor, right? Why would you want to water things down?
Because sometimes it’s the best thing to do.
Four years ago, in her cooking column for New York Times Magazine, Samin Nosrat wrote a story about the insalata verde at Via Carota in New York City, with the headline “The Best Green Salad in the World.” The salad in question — which I also swooned over the first time I dined there, in the restaurant — is a simple plate of gorgeous lettuces carefully dressed with their house vinaigrette. What makes that salad so good? Partly the care with which the lettuces are chosen and gently washed thrice. But really it’s the vinaigrette — whose essential ingredient is a tablespoon of warm water.
“We add warm water to make it more palatable,” Via Carota’s co-owner and co-chef Jody Williams explained to Nosrat. “Pure vinegar is just too strong — it assaults the taste buds. We want a salad dressing so savory and delicious that you can eat spoonfuls of it. We want you to be able to drink it!”
Another water-trick: the chopped shallots in the vinaigrette are rinsed with water to soften their sharpness.
Since I first made that salad, I’ve added a spoonful of water to every vinaigrette I’ve made. (Unless, of course, I’m testing a recipe for a cookbook review.) As with the cocktails, my salad game has sparkled. And now when I use raw shallots in just about anything, I rinse them with water.
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Secret to silky butter sauce
Water, as it turns out, can also take buttering your vegetables to the next level. For my entire life, when I wanted buttery peas or spinach or asparagus, I did what my mom did: I plopped a big ol’ pat of butter on it and let it melt.
You know what works even better? Drain your vegetables — asparagus, say — after simmering them in salted water, but leave a little water in the pan. Just a tablespoon or two. Plop a couple pats of butter on that, and whisk it in. Or just pick up the pan and swirl it in, over medium heat, till the butter is melted. Voilà: The butter and water have emulsified together, and now it’s a silky sauce that’ll coat your veg more easily and fully than solo melted butter. Does it remind of you the age-old, Italian-granny-invented method of adding a big spoonful of pasta cooking water into your pasta sauce? It should! The difference is that with the pasta water, the starch from the pasta helps emulsify and give body — but in both, the water is important.
I haven’t revised the buttered asparagus recipe on the Cooks Without Borders website yet, but you can follow this recipe through step 2, then follow the method described above to make the butter sauce. (I’ve revise the recipe soon as I can take a new photo.)
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Tao of fluffy hummus
Ever wonder how to make ultra-silky, gorgeously fluffy hummus? Smoothness is achieved by boiling the chickpeas with a little baking soda to soften their skins before blending. As for the fluffiness, it’s the water — ice water, that is. Pour ice water through the feeding tube of your food processor or blender when you’re blitzing the chickpeas, and fabulous fluffiness is yours.
Ceviche that sings
A big part of what got me thinking about this dilution thing is ceviche. On a consulting project I was working on recently, I was helping a chef develop a recipe for a vegan hearts-of-palm aguachile. (Aguachile is technically a type of ceviche.) His marinade — straight lime juice and salt — was harsh and overly acidic, so I suggested mixing in some orange juice. But we decided we wanted more body; the dish was missing something. We finally succeeded with a combo of lime, orange and herbs, but it got me thinking about ceviches, and what separates a good one from a great one.
Dilution was the answer — but not with water. I’m working on a full-blown story about the ceviche piece of this, which I’m super excited about. Look for it very soon.
In the meantime, now that it’s stone fruit season, please help yourself to this nectarine sorbet, adapted from my favorite ice cream cookbook —
‘s The Perfect Scoop. (And hey — water is listed in it as an actual ingredient!)💦
Enjoy the weekend. Hope it’s picnic weather where you are!
Love, Leslie