Live the Live ™

One of the highlights of my recent trip to Scotland was to visit the Oban Whisky distillery. Oban is a lovely seaside town, about a 2-hour’s drive from Glasgow on a sunny day.

 

 

Unfortunately, for me, it was pouring buckets of rain, so my drive took a little over three hours. Nonetheless, the tour was worth it. 

 

 

Oban Whisky is owned by the giant alcoholic beverage company, Diageo, but they claim that the company really leaves them alone to do their magic. And so they do, seven days a week, 365 days a year, cranking out as much whiskey as this little old distillery possibly can.

 

 

There has been no expansion since they started in 1794, other than moving the bottling process over to another location. (The distillery predates the town, which was established in 1811.)

 

 

One of the smallest distilleries in Scotland, only seven employees make Oban Whisky, which is a mind-blowing thought! All of the whisky comes from only two copper stills. The relatively small wooden holding tanks are all they have to make all of their whisky, including their very popular Oban 14, which is available in most of the United States.

All of the whisky made at Oban is single malt. That means it’s made at a single distillery using only water, yeast and malted barley. 

 

 

Our tour guide told us that the taxes in Scotland are ridiculously high on booze, about 75%! So it’s a better deal for them to sell their whisky overseas to make a larger profit, and Americans love their whisky!

 

 

 

Oban uses peat more for flavoring than it does for heating, and so their whiskys are far less smoky than other Scottish brands. (They use biodiesel to heat their mash.) And they’re big on recycling: the spent barley goes to feed local cattle.

 

 

Most whisky distillers in Scotland have a relationship with American bourbon distilleries, because they reuse American bourbon barrels to start the aging process on their whisky. It’s pretty much the standard process throughout all of Scotland.

 

 

That’s why being owned by a company like Diageo, which owns Bulliet bourbon, can give Oban a never-ending supply of bourbon casks. (Bourbon must always be aged in a brand new oak cask, so once the barrel is used, the Americans no longer have any use for it. The Scottish take it and reuse that barrel several times before passing it on to somebody else.) The Scots will also use rum casks, sherry casks from Spain, whatever it takes to add flavors and nuances to their whiskey over the many years of aging.

 

.

 

In Ireland, it’s not called Irish whisky unless it ages for at least three years in a barrel in Ireland. To outdo them, Scottish law says the whisky must age 3 years and one day in a barrel in Scotland to be called whisky!

Either way, the end results at Oban distillery were enjoyed by all. Slàinte!

 

By the way, if you’re wondering why I spelled the word “whisky” without the “e,” you need to read my blog that explains it all. Check it out here:

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN WHISKEY AND WHISKY

These are even better than they sound!

 

 

A few months ago, I received chef Chetna Makan’s book, “Chetna’s 30 Minute Indian,” as a gift. The first recipe I tried was butter chicken, of course, because it’s so delicious. It was a big hit with my daughter and friends, and we’re looking at other recipes to try in the future.

 

Recently, we had dinner at a relatively new Indian restaurant in our area, Saffron, in Fairhaven, Massachusetts. Excellent food and service. We had a great meal. But what peaked our curiosity was their butter chicken wings. Wings! I thought that was genius.

So I took their idea, and using Chetna’s recipe, I gave it a shot. They came out fantastic!

Measurements in my recipe differ from the cookbook due to the large amount of chicken wings I used (5 lbs.), but the actual ingredients are the same. I also needed to change the way it was cooked, because the wings were large and had bones, where the original butter chicken recipe used boneless, skinless chicken thighs cut into smaller pieces.

5 lbs. large chicken wings
5.3 oz. container (150g) plain yogurt
5 tablespoons mustard oil
1 tablespoon Kosher salt
1 tablespoon Kashmiri chili powder
2″ piece of ginger, peeled and grated
4 garlic cloves, grated

I prepared the chicken wings by chopping off the tips. (But I do save them in a plastic freezer bag for future chicken stock.) Then I chop the wings at the joint to make two pieces from each wing. I set them aside.

 

In a large container that will hold all the wings, I combine the yogurt, mustard oil, salt, chili powder, grated ginger, and garlic. Mix it well. Add the chicken wings and make sure they are really well coated with the marinade. You can let it sit for ups to 3 hours at room temperature, or longer in the fridge.

 

 

A tip for fresh ginger: This is something I learned from a local farmer that raises her own ginger. I keep it in the freezer in a plastic freezer bag. When it’s time to grate, I simply take the frozen ginger and grate it, skin and all. The skin completely disintegrates and you don’t have to peel it. Then just put the unused ginger back in the bag and back in the freezer.

 

After marinating, spread the chicken wings onto a large sheet pan in a pre-heated 350 oven, and bake for 20 minutes.

While that’s baking…

2 tablespoons oil
100g salted butter
8 cloves
8 cardamom pods
2 cinnamon sticks (3″)
2 bay leaves
16 oz. passata, or pureed canned tomatoes
1 teaspoon Kosher salt
2 teaspoons chili powder
2 teaspoons garam masala
2 tablespoons Kasoori methi (fenugreek leaves)

Add the oil and butter to a pan over medium-low heat. Add the cloves, cardamom, cinnamon sticks, and bay leaves to the pan, and warm the spices for a few minutes.

 

 

Add the passata, salt, chili powder, garam masala and Kasoori methi to the pan, mixing well. Cover the pan with a lid and let it cook for about 10 minutes on medium-low heat. Don’t let it burn.

 

 

After 10 minutes, remove the lid from the pan and let it cook a few minutes more to reduce just a bit. Take the pan off the heat and let it cool to room temperature. Using a slotted spoon, remove the cloves, cardamom, cinnamon and bay leaves.

 

 

Pour the contents of the pan into a large bowl, big enough to hold all the chicken wings.

After the wings have cooked 20 minutes, pour off any of the fat in the sheet pan and place the wings in the bowl with the pan sauce. Mix gently, but really well to make sure the wings are really covered with sauce.

 

 

Place the wings back on the sheet pan (pour all leftover sauce on top)and bake at 350 for another 15 minutes, until the chicken coating starts to caramelize and get sticky.

 

2 tablespoons cream or half-and-half
2 teaspoons clear (and runny) honey 

Mix the cream and honey together in a small bowl. When the wings come out of the oven, let them cool for a few minutes, then drizzle the cream and honey all over.

 

I served the wings over plain jasmine rice, and some sautéed carrots from my garden.

 

 

 

I’m not a big beer guy, so my travels to Scotland and Ireland did not include a lot of pub visits. Despite being told by my driver that the pub next to my hotel was an excellent “puller,” (at least I think that’s what he called it), my thing is cocktails.

 

 

Sure, a pub can make a gin and tonic for you, and a gastropub, like Element in Edinburgh,  can add a nice plate of food, but I’m always looking for a special place to sit and sip. 

 

 

 

 

I’ve found that the best cocktail bars are located inside the best hotels. And even though I can’t afford to actually stay at the hotel, I can pop in for a drink. I had one very fancy dinner while in Edinburgh, at Dean Banks at the Pompadour, at the Caledonian Hotel.

An excellent meal, but I started the night at the Caledonian’s Caley Bar.

 

 

 

My first stop when I reached Dublin, Ireland, was to pay tribute to my rock and roll hero, Phil Lynott, the lead singer and bassist of Thin Lizzy, one of my all-time favorite bands.  A statue of Phil stands next to Bruxelles pub. But just a little further down that street was the classic hotel, The Westbury.

Having had so many gin and tonics in Scotland, I was craving a good old vodka martini at the Sidecar. Unlike the United States, however, the limit of booze per serving in Scotland and Ireland is about 2 ounces. So they were trying to get me to add things to it, to make it look bigger. I like my vodka unmessed with, because I like the taste of it. Why ruin high quality vodka with nasty salty liquid from an olive jar? A dirty martini is not for me. So they shook it a lot to dilute it, poured it into a tall, thin glass, and dropped a huge olive into it. It was exactly what I was looking for!

 

The Merrion Hotel, another beauty, had a couple of bars that were worthy of a visit. The ground floor bar, the No. 23 bar, had that typical classy hotel bar vibe. But The Cellar, downstairs, was an amazing creature unto itself, with a huge cavern-like space. It was absolutely packed with partying people, and a space I will definitely visit again if I’m ever lucky enough to go back to Dublin.

 

 

I managed to fit in one other historic hotel on my cocktail journey, and that was The Shelbourne, celebrating its 200th year. I enjoyed a beverage on the Horseshoe bar, one of five bars in the hotel.

 

All in all, a pretty successful journey to many classy and classic (found mostly in hotels) cocktail bars. Recovery is now in order!

Since I like to check out rock n roll memorabilia, and I am a tourist from America, after all, I check out Hard Rock Cafes wherever I go. The one in Edinburgh, Scotland was small and not that impressive. (There was one in Glasgow that suddenly shut down earlier this year.)

But the one in Dublin, Ireland, was in the middle of all the action in the Temple Bar district.

Dublin was my 21st Hard Rock Cafe!

I’ve visited: New York, Boston (no longer there), Washington, DC, Philadelphia, Chicago, Orlando, Scottsdale, Phoenix, Maui, Bangkok, London, Athens, Cayman Islands, St Thomas (no longer there), Rome, Paris, Las Vegas, New Orleans, and Reykjavik. (As far as I remember!)

I made a quick stop as I was heading out of town.

Doune was used in the filming of “Outlander,” but for me, all that mattered was this was the castle in “Monty Python and the Holy Grail.” A bucket list destination!

Founded in 1451!

Here for a visit. My first night featured the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo, a fantastic show at the foot of Edinburgh Castle.

 

 

 

I marinated and roasted both lamb and chicken with this marinade, and both worked great. So if you’re not as big a fan of lamb as I am, no worries.

 

The key to the success of this dish is to make sure you give the meat a lot of time to suck up the marinade, and to season the meat well.

1/4 cup Dijon mustard
The zest and juice of a lemon
2 tablespoons maple syrup
1 teaspoon garlic salt
1/2 teaspoon Kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
Fresh thyme and rosemary, chopped fine

Combine all the ingredients in a bowl and mix well.

 

 

Place the lamb and/or chicken in a Ziploc bag and pour in the marinade, squishing it around so that it really covers the meat. Marinate the meat at room temp for at least 3 hours, but overnight in the fridge is best. Make sure to squish the bag around every few hours to make sure all parts get the marinade.

The next day, pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees.

 

 

Place the marinated meats on a sheet pan with non-stick foil. Season the meat with salt and pepper.

Pour whatever marinade is left in the bag into a bowl and use it to baste the meats as they cook. (Don’t use any of the marinade without cooking it–it has touched raw meat!) Bake until medium for the lamb, or all the way through for the chicken. At the end of cooking, toss the meat under the broiler for a few minutes to get a nice char.

 

 

Grilling is certainly an option for this dish. Lamb can be cooked directly on the grill, all the way through. Chicken will require to be pre-cooked in an oven or cooked over medium heat on the grill to make sure it’s cooked all the way through before that final char.