Orange

This is a cocktail that was composed by one of our bartenders, former U.S. Marine Steve Schneider. According to him, he got tired of mixing White Ladies and wanted something more exciting and powerful to offer as a gin cocktail. When asked to describe his intention, he simply said: “Alongside a beautiful lady should be a handsome man in a tux. By replacing Cointreau with a touch of simple syrup and orange bitters, you are getting an easy, yet stunning White Lady variation, which is more appealing to the modern palate.”

This Prohibition-era cocktail is not very ladylike on the surface. On paper, it looks like a Sidecar made with gin, but nothing could be farther from the truth. We tasted this cocktail at the Savoy in London where it was invented, according to Harry Craddock, author of The Savoy Cocktail Book, which was published in 1930. Three high-quality ingredients and a master technique make this cocktail a high point of everyone’s evening. We suggest you pack your freezer full of large ice cubes, squeeze a lot of fresh lemon juice, and get going. Play some slapstick movies while you drink it—it is said that this cocktail was the favorite of Laurel and Hardy.

The Whiskey Sour is the pinnacle of the sour cocktail family and unarguably its most famous member. In Harry Johnson’s Bartenders’ Manual, the preferred method is to stir together sugar, water, and lemon juice before shaking with whiskey. During the dark ages of the cocktail in the 1970s and ’80s, it was turned into a two-ingredient drink in which cheap blended whiskey was poured over ice with sweet-and-sour mix from a soda gun. However, the real Whiskey Sour has been resurrected and can be made in its pure form almost anywhere that has a decent cocktail menu, even by aspiring actors working as bartenders. It is a very straightforward cocktail with a strong base of whiskey mixed with simple syrup and sour, freshly squeezed lemon juice. To bring together the body, add a splash of orange juice—just realize that with more than a splash, this drink becomes a Stone Sour. It is a fairly easy drink that can help you master the balance between sweet and sour to spirit. Make sure you shake it enough so that a thin foam rests on the surface—that is the hallmark for Whiskey Sour fans.

This Grand Fashioned was the first-place winner of Grand Marnier and the New York Film Festival’s Independent Cocktail Festival in 1999, long before we ever opened Employees Only. The idea was to get two ounces of Grand Marnier into a cocktail without being cloyingly sweet. To balance this much Curaçao, we muddle fresh blood oranges with lime juice, sugar, and dashes of Angostura bitters. This cocktail looked so much like the contemporary recipe for an Old Fashioned that the name just took over. For the competition, we garnished the drink with a kumquat that had to be tediously scored and peeled to resemble a “blossom,” then stained inside with grenadine. You can imagine our surprise when, upon winning, we were told we would need to make five hundred of these cocktails at the premiere for All About My Mother by director Pedro Almodóvar. The Grand Fashioned is so rich and luscious that it can be consumed as an after-dinner drink.

According to David Wondrich, the Whiskey Smash comes from the Baroque Age (see opposite page) of the cocktail. Obviously, it served as inspiration for our seasonal Ginger Smash cocktails, but it is in all its features a julep—the only difference being that the Smash has some ornamental fruits for garnish and is always shaken so that the mint is “smashed”—hence the name. From all the smashes in the Baroque Age, it appears that the Brandy Smash was the most popular (same drink, different base spirit—try it out for yourself), but somehow the whiskey version stuck with us. Maybe sampling Dale DeGroff’s rocking peach whiskey smash sealed the deal for us, or maybe it was just that we loved the term “smashed.” In any case, this is a very simple drink to make, and we suggest that you use our homemade Mint Syrup in place of simple syrup for a far more dimensional cocktail experience. This cocktail is one of the very few that contains no juice but nevertheless should be shaken and smashed.

Blanching the carrots before roasting them makes a huge difference. Not only are they more flavorful, they also become juicy and tender after roasting. Coating them with a fragrant spice paste and cooking them along with fresh citrus infuses them with an intoxicating blend of flavors.

To get through the winter months, I rely on bright, in-season citrus like blood oranges. A nice, dry bubbly heightens their vibrant sweetness, as does orange-flavored liqueur. For the flavors to bind properly, you need to combine—but not stir—the ingredients before pouring into flutes. If you can’t find Crémant d’Alsace, my sparkling wine of choice, a dry cava will work as well.

This is easily my favorite party drink. I combine the white wine of my native Alsace with the tropical fruit flavors I first came to love when I cooked in Thailand. It’s a natural pairing and tastes amazing with just about anything. Best of all, it’s meant to be made ahead of time, leaving me free to finish up dinner prep.

This colorful salad dresses up a plate, especially if the central dish is monochromatic. With spinach and oranges, it packs a lot of valuable vitamins. I recommend this salad frequently throughout the book.

No Italian Easter is complete without a ricotta pie. This light, citrus-tinged pie, with its creamy ricotta filling and sweet crust, sings of spring. Although this savory pie is traditionally served as a meal, it can also satisfy a sweet tooth. There are many different varieties of Sweet Ricotta Pie (pizza dolce) out there, but we stick to a very basic pie that will please all palates. If you’re feeling adventurous, try adding candied orange peels, grated lemon zest, miniature chocolate chips, or nuts to the filling.

Almost every region in Italy has a variation of “grandmother’s cake,” but this one was created after tasting a version at an Italian restaurant in New York City. Durum wheat, included here, is most commonly used to make semolina for pasta. This pie is best eaten the same day it is baked.

This filling, which has a pleasant tartness, bakes up like a firm custard. The pie is at its best when served slightly warm. If it’s been in the refrigerator, 20 seconds in the microwave is all it takes to warm up a slice for that just-baked sensation.

When she was a child, Mildred harvested and sold chestnuts. She often arose earlier in the morning than her brothers and sisters to pick the cherished nuts, which were a cash crop for many Appalachian families. But by 1950, most American Chestnut trees were wiped out by a devastating blight. Even though you can’t pick chestnuts from a tree growing in the forest now, you can certainly buy chestnuts in the grocery store—most of which aren’t grown in the United States. Processing chestnuts isn’t a chore to be taken lightly because of their very hard shells, so we recommend using sweetened chestnut puree, which can be found in better grocery stores. This pie is moist and has a pleasant hint of orange flavor to complement the earthy, sweet chestnut taste.

A trio of citrus zests brightens simple cupcakes. The ones pictured are finished with lime-flavored glaze and finely grated lime zest, but lemons or oranges could replace the lime. Or, for a particularly pretty display, divide the glaze into thirds and flavor each portion with a different citrus, with garnishes to match.

You can use any variety of jam to fill these versatile little cakes, as well as vary the type of citrus used in the batter and in the glaze. You could also substitute milk glaze (page 63) for the citrus glaze used here.

Candied orange slices top fragrant vanilla-orange cupcakes; a circle of tiny piped buttercream dots frames each slice. Feel free to garnish with other candied citrus, such as lemons or blood oranges.

An all-time favorite fruit pie—strawberry-rhubarb—is utterly charming in miniature. These pielets would be welcome at a family reunion, graduation party, or other summer occasion. Baking the lattice-topped pies in mini muffin tins makes large batches easy to manage. If you’d like to serve the pielets à la mode, use a melon baller to form tiny scoops of ice cream.

Here, a dozen petite pies are baked in pâte sucrée–lined muffin cups. A small amount of blood-orange juice sweetens the tart cranberries, but not overly so. You can assemble and bake the pies a day ahead, but for the best presentation, wait to top each with meringue until just before serving. If you can’t find blood oranges, use a regular variety.