At Sobelman’s Pub & Grill in Milwaukee there’s a fried chicken—I mean the whole bird—propped up on the rim of a 60-ounce Bloody Mary. And that’s just one of the garnishes; there are skewers of bacon-wrapped jalapeño cheese cubes, Brussels sprouts, shrimp, asparagus spears, and sausages. There are restaurants perching grilled ribs across the rims of glasses, using strips of beef jerky as swizzle sticks, and indulging many aquatic fantasies.
What tops the drinks has become as important as the contents of the glass to many people, and when Bloody Marys are served at a restaurant with a full kitchen rather than at a bar with a cubbyhole for lemon wedges, many cooks get very creative. While an endless pitcher of Bloody Marys might be an inducement for brunch, other restaurants are putting so much on top of the glass that it becomes brunch. It’s smart marketing; they can charge a premium for the drink and the person sits on a barstool rather than claiming prime real estate at a table.
The great thing about building this kind of Temple of Temptation is that you can buy all the foods. You really don’t have to make a single, solitary thing.
This chapter is divided into categories of garnishes. Think of it as the old Chinese restaurant menu; pick one from column A and two from column B. Or in this case, choose a meat, a seafood, and a few types of something vegetal. There remains a place for the celery rib, even in this world of shrimp and sliders.
But there may be times that you want to prepare a signature garnish that your guests would not have nibbled the night before, so there are some recipes in this chapter for those.
If you have a degree in mechanical engineering you’re at a distinct advantage when it comes to creating the framework for an awe-inspiring Bloody Mary garnish. But even we mere mortals can make it stunning with some imagination and some strong skewers.
All skewers are not created equal. The thin ones commonly found in supermarkets for dishes like chicken satay are good for lightweight, fairly soft foods. For heftier and harder foods, you need to find nice thick bamboo skewers, or get some reusable metal ones.
When you look at a glass there are three possible ways that food can be arranged: vertically, horizontally, and perched on the rim. The verticals are easy; just make sure that your skewers are long enough to reach the bottom of the glass. That will stabilize the skewer and all the foods on it. You also have to measure to make sure that you’ve left enough of the skewer bare that your foods won’t end up in the soup, or in this case, in the Bloody Mary. Always work your way up from the largest item to the smallest item on the skewer, so a whole pepperoncini would go on first and a small rosette of smoked salmon would be at the tip.
But vertical skewers are not really vertical, they’re askew unless you anchor them to a horizontal for increased stability. That’s where your friend the celery rib or carrot stick comes to the rescue. Before starting to thread your foods, begin by drilling through the middle of the celery or carrot, which will rest on the rim of the glass horizontally and keep everything straight. You can stick a celery rib with two or three skewers of garnish, too.
For the horizontal elements you should use shorter skewers and toothpicks and anchor them to the sides of the celery. You can also just drape items like crisp slices of bacon across the glass.
Securing food to the rim can be a bit tricky, unless it’s a cooked shrimp, because its natural curve is a perfect fit. Anything else you want to balance on the rim needs to be carefully slit partway through it. For wedges of lime and lemon, the peel creates a natural stopping point for the knife. Hold other foods securely on a cutting board and use a small and very sharp paring knife to slice only about one third of the way through the item.
When you skewer a number of disparate elements for a mixed garnish, the size and shape of the pieces become important. Pick one item that is used in its entirety, like a cornichon or olive, and then trim the other items to size accordingly.
Small, thin items, such as fresh basil leaves or strips of prosciutto, should be folded and rolled.
Also take into account the effect that the moisture in one item might have on another. There’s no way to make a marinated artichoke heart dry, but you should place it in between cubes of meats and cheeses rather than next to a cube of soft pretzel that could become soggy.