So sage

monshu cooked up a storm today. He already had some ideas about recreating a couple of the dishes we had at the Purple Pig, and my mention of the fact that it was Eid inspired him to feature lamb. In the end we had an eclectic Mediterranean feast featuring:

• Lamb tagine with honey over couscous
• Roasted cauliflower with parsley and cornichons
• Roasted asparagus and cebollitos with romesco
• White beans with sage and morcilla

The tagine was my favourite dish, followed closely by the beans. (We were able to get Spanish morcilla from La Única, though offhand I couldn't tell you which variety.) Penelope Casas gives two versions of romesco in her cookbook, one with a tablespoon of vinegar and another with a half-cup (among other differences). The former is what I'm used to, but the recipe the GWO grabbed off the Internet was closer to the second, so it tasted oddly sour to me. At least the roasted flavour came through.

monshu assigned me to do cocktails. One of the more intriguing cocktails was, in essence, a gin sour with the addition of Amaro Nonino. But what caught our attention was the use of sage-infused simple syrup as a sweetener. We have an abundance of sage these days, and nothing could be simpler than making simple syrup.

But even after fiddling a bit with the proportions, we couldn't get a result we liked. So, with a jar of sage syrup cooling on the counter, I hit the computer looking for recipes. The first one that appealed to me was something tritely named the "Sage Advice":

1 ½ oz Gin, Hendrick's
½ oz Aperol
½ oz Lillet Blanc
½ oz Simple syrup (Sage infused, see notes)
¾ oz Lemon juice
1 lf Sage (Large, garnish)
1 ds Bitters, Angostura (Optional)

I'm not a big Hendricks fan, but I love Lillet and Aperol is fine when you're not feeling up to Campari. I used the Bombay for this, but on second thought the Ransom Old Tom would probably have been a better choice. That would've messed up the colour, though, which the GWO find a pleasant "pinky-orange". He suggested substituting blood orange bitters, but I thought that made it a bit too smooth and sweet. His, made with the straight Angostura, was better.

Unfortunately, I have to be real careful with sours, since either alcohol or citrus is enough to give me reflux, so the combination is deadly. It ended up being a two-omeprazole, eight-TUMS, shot-of-Pepto, still-up-until-midnight kind-of-night, which would've been easier to handle had I not been out stupidly late on Saturday.