Tonic Water #8

This is a lemongrass tonic water--no real difference from earlier ones, except I am trying to be more precise in my measurements. And the Lemongrass came from my daughter's school.

4 cups water (plus 1/4 cup excess)
1/4 cup cinchona bark (1.4 oz. cut bark, fairly large grain)
1/4 cup citric acid
1 tsp salt (kosher)

45 minutes simmer.
cut heat.
break lemongrass. 4 stalks. Add. Steep for 2 hours. Stir.

Refrigerate for 2 days.

Cognac Cherries

Cherry season is upon us. Because the window is so limited, I almost always miss out on the ability to turn fresh cherries into cocktail components. But not this year.

I looked up a variety of recipes and found an unremarkable amount of consistency in proportions. In the end, I followed this formula:

for a quart of cherries

1 cup sugar
1 cup water
1/2 cup cognac
2 cloves
1 cinnamon stick
8 cardamom pods

Pitting the cherries was tedious, but not overly so. I found that a paperclip did the job well.

I heated the water and sugar, added the spices, and let it come to a simmer. Once the sugar was dissolved, I let the mixture simmer for about five minutes, turned off the heat, then added the cognac. Then I poured the mixture over the cherries. Then I put them in small jars, lidded them, and put them in the fridge. We'll see how they turn out!

Tilapia Tacos

on a whim, I decided to turn salmon-and-sushi-rice night into tilapia-taco night. The impetus was the trip to the fish counter and its disappointing salmon offerings, but also my daughter's admonition that my meals are becoming boring. The tilapia looked good, so I bought it.

I could not find a suitable recipe for tilapia in tacos. Bittman was uncharacteristically silent. Rick Bayless's cookbook was empty. I could not score an internet recipe without some ad company trying to take over my web browser. So I ditched it all and made up my own recipe.

For the marinade:

2 1/2 tbsp lime juice
zest of 2 limes
2 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed
1 tsp. ancho chili powder
1 tsp. cumin
1/4 cup olive oil
cracked black-green-white-pink peppercorns
WHISK until smooth

I marinated the tilapia in a bowl for about thirty minutes while preparing the rest of the meal, which involves:

heating tortillas (from freaking Sonoita!) in the oven.
dicing green onions
dicing radishes (alas, I didn't actually do this, and it was the one thing missing!)
making fresh pico de gallo (I bought it fresh at Kroger--not bad!)

Remove tilapia from marinade, season with salt, dredge with flour, shaking off the excess.

Pan fry in 1 TBSP of olive oil--enough to cover the bottom of the frying pan and leave about 1/8 of an inch in the pan. The oil must be hot but not super hot--I heated it at 7 on the dial until it was shimmering. I did not have to reduce the heat during cooking, but I did have to add some oil for the second batch.

cook, 4 minutes per side.

Good and filling. Served with Ottolenghi green beans with hazlenuts.