We are the Bleus sisters, Bride, Peaceable and Vivi. We live distantly from each other, across the U.S.A., but we share a love of cooking. This blog is a desultory way of sharing recipes, tips and tricks.
I, too, decanted our Nocino this past week, but didn't get around to blogging about it. The drink is quite raw (nicely said, Bride) but I think we like it more than the vin de noix, at least for now. It's bitter, but rich, intriguing.
I have a photo, however. It is a little over-exposed, but it shows off well the greenness of the liqueur. (That's a Girl-Child pottery doodad obscured by light in front.)
Today, I decanted the Vin de Noix and the Nocino that I made a couple of months ago. I don't have a picture yet, but I'll post one when I do. It all tastes a little rough and needs some time to sit and mature. But that could be said of any of us. At the rate we drink, I estimate that they will last 5 years.
I've started macerating dried fruit for Black Cake, for Christmas. This is a variant of fruit cake, which you frost with fondant (in the English way). I got the recipe from the Houston Chronicle when I was there for our aunt's funeral. That recipe is one adapted by Nigella Lawson from Laurie Colwin's Home Cooking. I'll bet The Bride makes a variant even closer to something cooked a hundred years ago.
(green walnuts stewing in spiced vodka for Nocinoleft, and dried fruit in rum and Manischewitz right)
The black cake seems a lot like Mom's old fruit cake recipe, with the additional step of soaking the fruit in spirits before you bake the cake, then store it in liquor-soaked cheesecloth for months before eating.
I've never made it, so I won't post the recipe now. Once it's proved, maybe I will.
A few days ago we decanted the first batch of the vin de noix -- the San Francisco Chronicle version of the recipe. (Read about the infusion step here.) It took about 20 coffee filters, in five cycles of straining -- after starting with cheesecloth over a fine metal sieve -- to clear out the sediment. The half batch I made provided us with five half-liter bottles to give away, and one to keep for ourselves. (Bottles from Costco World Market.)
We aren't sure we like the flavor. It is definitely nutty, and a little sweet, and it lasts in your throat for a long, long time after swallowing. But it is rather bitter, too, and one dimensional. I though the flavor was all on the back of the tongue; HomoDomi all on the front -- either way, it was simple, changing over time, but always in linear fashion. (I am not a foodie, I don't taste "hints of blackberry and compost" in an expensive wine (see below), but this is the only way to describe the liqueur's flavor). We added one tablespoon of maple syrup to the batch, instead of more sugar, and that helped, a little.
I am told by The Bride that the liqueurs can and will change and deepen in flavor over time, so we'll give this a while. This recipe is interesting because you steep the walnuts in wine, and only add vodka and sugar when you decant it. In comparison, the Nocino (and the other vin de noix recipe that The Bride is making) steep the walnuts in the vodka and sugar directly. So I imagine the liqueur will have ample opportunity to flower in flavor as it ages.
About that "blackberry and compost" -- this is from Posh Nosh, a wonderful filler show (e.g., 10 minutes long, filling space between irregular length shows) on BBC a few years ago:
