Happy 2024!
This begins my 13th year of blogging. I continue to be astonished that I was able to continue blogging for so long. My experiences have been many and my education has been vast. I've learned techniques and recipes from a variety of time periods and cultures. It is fun to taste something completely different or a riff on something that is familiar. Sometimes I review my early posts just to remind myself of what I have done, because this is my 289th post and some of them have faded in my memory.
As of this writing, my blog has had over 144,000 page views from all over the world. Mostly it averages around 1,000 page views a month, but occasionally I have months where the views are 2,000 or 5,000 and one month over 12,000. I am pleased to share my writing with so many people.
For my "Happy New Year" 2024 post, I chose to explore Encarnación Pinedo's recipe for Catalan Horchata (page 123).
My Translation
My Redaction
Making the full recipe that uses a quart of brandy was too much for my guest taster and me, so I reduced the recipe to 1/4 her suggestions, thus making the amount I want. : )
1 cup brandy
2 egg yolks
4 tablespoons brown sugar
1/8 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon orange flower water
2 ounces ground almonds
Put the brandy into a small saucepan. Beat the yolks thoroughly.
Begin heating the brandy over a very low fire. Slowly drizzle the beaten yolks into the brandy, beating vigorously with a fork the entire time. The yolks cook and the mixture looks like egg drop soup, but because of the beating, the strands of yolk are very small and fine.
Once all the yolks are in, add the brown sugar, cinnamon, orange flower water, and almonds. Stir well.
I let it sit without any heat for about 5 minutes to start infusing the almonds into the hot liquid. But I noticed the brandy wasn't very hot at all, so I returned the pan to low heat to warm it, stirring often, until it started to simmer.
I tasted it with the ground almonds in it and was not happy having to deal with them as part of the beverage. So I strained them out.
There was enough to make two servings of about 3 to 4 ounces each.
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| Yolks before beating |
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| Beaten yolks |
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| Pour a very thin stream of yolks slowly into the pan. |
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| While beating continuously with a fork |
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| The look with all the yolks incorporated. |
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| And with everything mixed in. |
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| The strained mixture to drink. |
The Verdict
It was warm, sort of. Straining out the almonds took time so the drink cooled in the process. But oh, it was definitely warming!
It had a good mouthfeel -- thicker than just brandy. My guest taster said it had body. The flavors were bold: we could taste the cinnamon, the sweetness, the brandy, and (with contemplation) the almonds. I think the orange flower water was there, but it didn't stand out. That was acceptable.
It was creamy and had the brandy kick without being too strong. An alcoholic dessert, really, in the same category with hot buttered rum. We were both pleasantly relaxed after sipping our share. A little goes a long way with this!
I think this is a good beverage to serve on a cold winter's night, on New Year's Eve, or at a gathering of good friends. I recommend it to those who enjoy the stronger spirits.
Success!
But wait, there's more! When I was translating Miss Pinedo's book, I did some reading about horchatas, which are not typically alcoholic beverages, and discovered that this recipe is more like an horchata-inspired version of an old beverage called a brandy flip, an ale flip, or a "Yard of Flannel."
I needed to explore flip recipes to learn more about them. Considering the amount of alcohol involved, I tried one recipe a day.
The earliest reference I found was about Thomas Jefferson (so late 1700s to early 1800s) and his "Yard of Flannel", found in The Early American Cookbook, page 36:
This recipe is given in more detail in William Kitchiner's The Cook's Oracle. It's first edition was published in 1817 and went through at least seven editions through 1830.
This was the recipe I tried next. Again, I reduced the amounts to one-fourth.
1 cup ale
1 egg
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1/4 cup brandy
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| For a Yard of Flannel |
The ale went into a saucepan and was heated. The brandy, sugar, egg, and ginger went into another container where they were mixed vigorously with a fork until the egg was fully blended -- I couldn't see any white or yolk floating in the brandy.
It didn't take long for the ale to start boiling, although it was hard to tell if what I was seeing was boiling or just fizzing. It was important to look for steam. I put the ale into another container.
I followed the usual technique for mixing a hot liquid into beaten eggs and not making scrambled eggs: I put a little hot liquid into the eggs, swirled the mixture to warm the eggs, then poured in more hot liquid, swirling it to keep mixing. That worked. Once I had the two together, I kept pouring them back and forth between the containers until I thought they were "smooth."
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| You can see it was foamy. |
The final result looked like this:
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| Does this look like flannel? |
The Verdict
It was fruity, lightly spiced, lightly sweet, and had a thinner mouthfeel than the first recipe. The ginger was not dominant. My guest taster and I both liked it, although we disagreed on one aspect. I felt it needed more sugar and he thought it was just right. I wanted it to have a more syrupy mouthfeel (I was not aiming for sweeter, honest!). Perhaps a second egg instead of more sugar would have accomplished that.
It wasn't very warm, so I warmed some of it again over the stove. I noticed some small chunks of egg appeared, although the flavor didn't change and it didn't stay hot for long. I don't think it was worth doing.
In comparing the two recipes, this one was my guest taster's preference. It was not as strongly alcoholic and, I thought, not as robust in its presentation. I liked both recipes, and I would choose between them based on the situation I was addressing or what I felt like having at the time.
We were curious about how the egg, sugar, spice, and brandy changed the flavor and look of the ale, so we taste-tested them to compare.
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| Flip on the left, ale on the right |
You can see that the flip is darker, creamier, and foamy. The ale itself was a little bitter but the flip was not at all. We both preferred the flip over the ale.
Success again!
I thought it interesting that they suggested adding butter (which I think would improve the mouthfeel) and to serve it with dry toast. I did not try this recipe, but I did put butter into another recipe (see below).
Something I had seen in a variety of sources suggested that originally the flip was heated with an iron rod (a "flip dog" or "loggerhead") that was heated in the fire, plunged into the mixture, and stirred until the beverage was hot and foaming. From there, the technique changed to heating the ale on the fire and then pouring the liquids between two pitchers to mix. The modern recipes for flips don't heat them at all -- they still use an egg but it is served cold.
I wanted to explore the idea of heating the flip with a hot iron. I chose to repeat the second recipe for this but used 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg instead of ginger. I mixed all the ingredients together, including the eggs, until they looked smooth.
I used my hand-forged skewer and heated it to red-hot in my most convenient fire: my stove top!
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| Not quite a fireplace, but it meets the need. |
The challenge was to stir the liquid well despite there not being very much of it to work with.
My first attempt was with Kitchiner's recipe, using nutmeg instead of ginger. I mixed all the ingredients together in one pitcher, making sure the egg was well-incorporated. The iron was red hot but when I plunged it into the liquid and the mixture hissed and steamed a little. However, it did not heat the liquid much at all. I reheated the iron and tried again, several times, but I did not get much of a change.
We tasted it -- it was much like what we had before but not hot and I didn't feel the egg was cooked. So I heated it on the stove until it was steaming. We both liked it with the nutmeg as much as we liked it with the ginger, so our choice was to pick the one we felt like having if we made it again.
I still wanted more body to it, so after drinking about half of it, I added about 1/2 teaspoon of butter to each mug, stirring it well. The butter definitely improved the body, and my guest taster thought it was fine. I liked it but it was not what I wanted.
It was then I realized I made a big mistake: the ale was cold right out of the refrigerator, which made it a challenge for the iron to get it hot. We decided to try again the next night, and I left the ale out to come to room temperature.
This time I used Kitchiner's recipe but modified with the inspiration of
The Gentleman's Companion, page 52. Notice the subtitle of this book, "Being an exotic drinking book or, Around the world with jigger, beaker, and flask." This is funny! Mr. Baker was quite serious about his drinking skills.
The inspiration was to mix the spices (I used 1/4 teaspoon of cinnamon and ginger mixed together) and to use dried lemon zest, which Kitchiner also suggested. I also increased the amount of sugar to 4 tablespoons.
Alas, starting with room temperature ale did not change the outcome of the experiment. The liquid did not get hot, even after several attempts with a hot iron, so I heated it on the stove while stirring vigorously with a fork until it was very steaming hot.
We enjoyed it! The lemon was too strong for me, but my guest taster thought it was fine. I wanted some lemon, just less. I particularly liked the cinnamon and ginger mix. The mixture had more body (I was right about adding more sugar!) although none had as much as Pinedo's recipe. Perhaps another egg or just a yolk would have done it.
It wasn't too sweet, and it had a lovely flavor with just the right amount of alcoholic bite. My guest taster thought that was his favorite mixture. Mine was the Pinedo recipe because of the flavors and the mouthfeel, although I wished it had less alcohol in it. Heating it longer could take care of that problem.
At this point we had tried flips five times in four days, and we were seriously done with drinking brandy and ale for a while. Not that we regretted it! It was just more drinking than we were used to.
Regarding heating with an iron: I suspect that I needed to have more liquid and a thicker iron that could get very hot and stay that way for a while. I can see why the heating and mixing process changed -- using a saucepan was much more reliable for heating, then mixing between two pitchers allowed the frothing that was so desired.
Just to wrap up the survey of flips, I wanted to share a version from
Lobscouse & Spotted Dog, page 114, which suggests using sherry instead of ale and does not suggest brandy at all. We did not try this.
As an added bonus, I redid a recipe from this blog to keep from being wasteful...
I used the strained out almonds from the horchata recipe to make emeles, a fried medieval cookie. I added the leftover egg whites and enough dried bread crumbs to make a dough that was reasonably thick and stuck to itself. I heated oil and dropped in spoonfuls of dough, flattening each cookie, and frying it on both sides until golden brown. As they drained on a paper towel, I sprinkled them with cinnamon sugar. They look just like pork sausage patties! But the brandy kick came through along with the cinnamon and almond flavors.
Click here for the original post on emeles.
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| Not sausage patties! |
What a way to wrap up the old year and prepare for the new! I wish you all a wonderful 2024 filled with good food and friends.
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| Cheers! |
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