Cloak & Dinner: The Time Machine || 9/24/11

This time around we thought, why not do a little time travel? What with the premieres of Boardwalk Empire, Pan Am and the Playboy Club right around the corner, this seemed perfectly fitting. 

There's no time like the present, but tonight we tastefully disagree. We've pondered over many a quaint and curious menu of forgotten food to discover the very best this past century had to offer. Cramming for this culinary history lesson has provided us ten decadent decades worth of tantalizing ideas, and we've selected our favorites from every era to create a meal worthy of Doc, Marty, Bill, and Ted. Sit back, relax, and strap your taste buds to their TARDIS because we're time travelling through the tasty twentieth ten years at a time. Let's see if you bastards can do ninety.

Having filtered through an arsenal of old menus, we selected our favorite representations of every era starting with the 1900's & worked our way up to the near future.

A few housekeeping notes.  If you'd like to be added to the mailing list for future C&D dinners, please email rsvp@cloakanddinner.com. and as always you can follow us on twitter @cloakanddinner.

Cloak & Dinner Presents

The Time Machine

The Progressive Era

“The Beginning of Trouble”

bread with fig, brie & thyme honey

The Golden Age

“Pisco Sour – Cocktail”

pisco, lemon, simple syrup, egg white, angostura

Roaring 20’s

“Blue Point Cocktail”

oyster cocktail

Prohibition

“Shine Gimlet”

moonshine, lime, simple syrup, cucumber, mint, celery bitters

G.I. Generation

“Tagliarini in Consommé with Crillion Special Combination”

 homemade pasta in beef consommé; haricots verts

Nifty 50’s

“Lavender French Seventy Five”

london dry gin, sugar, lemon, champagne, lavender

Swinging 60’s

“Kiss of Clouds”

scallops, cauliflower, apple, horseradish

Sexy 70’s

“Ko’aia Haia Kahiki, l’wi’ao’ao”

pineapple glazed spare ribs

Greedy 80’s

“Ginger Figgle aka Slow Screw”

gin, orange, fig, ginger root

Generation X

"Passionfruit Tequila & Grapefruit Sorbet with Cinnamon Dusted Tortilla's"

intermezzo palate cleanser

2020

“Cloak & Dinner Especial”

aztec chocolate lava, orange, cayenne milkshake with snow

And here are the menu inspirations...

Cocktail Roulette: Livin' the High Life

In another edition of our Cocktail Roulette, and yet again from our Rags to Riches dinner... here's the perfect Hipster Beverage, "Livin' the High Life."

Livin' the High Life

• 1oz Domaine de Canton ginger liqueur
• 5oz Miller High Life
• 1/2oz fresh lemon juice

Combine over ice until chilled. funnel into chilled beer bottles in paper bags. 

Note that you will have a bunch of High Life left over after bottling up these oh so satisfying cocktails.  That's when you whip out the extra solo cups you have lying around and initiate a game or two of flip cup!

Muddled Meals: The Duck Confit & Orange Marmalade "Cinnabon" Roll

At our most recent Cloak & Dinner: Rags to Riches, we cobbled together an eclectic menu full of what we'll lovingly call "college" food and classed it up a bit with smoked this, pate that, bacon wrapped bison.  7 courses & 4 cocktails later, we unveiled our "surprise guest" a take-home "Cinnabon" morning roll so our guests could continue the party well into the morning (although from hearing reviews post-dinner, I'm guessing most of those rolls didn't quite make it to the next day...)

But since these were Cinnabon's gon rags to riches, we of course added our own little twist... a heavy helping of Duck Confit & Orange Marmalade!  Because, why not?  One of my hero duo's in the culinary world are the extremely talented Aki & Alex of Ideas in Food, a collection of inspired ideas, photos & videos of their adventures & experiments.  I look to them for little clues as to how to make everything I make even better & when I saw them post photos of their insanely delicious breakfast, I knew I had to try it myself. 

And boy did these turn out well... So well in fact, that I feel compelled to share my take on their idea here!

The Duck Confit & Orange Marmalade "Cinnabon" Roll
prep 2 days + 2 hours || bake 30-40 minutes || yields 3 dozen

• 1 3/4 cups lukewarm water
• 1 1/2 tbl instant yeast
• 1 1/2 tbl kosher salt
• 4 lg eggs, slightly beaten
• 1/2 cup honey
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted
• 7 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
• 1 cup mashed Duck Rillets
• 1 jar of Orange Marmalade
• 1/4 cup salted butter, melted
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 2-3 fresh oranges
• 2 tbsp cinnamon
• 1 cup powdered sugar
• 2 tbsp water

First, mix up a batch of simple brioche.  The trick here is to prep it 2-3 days ahead of time so it has loads of time to rise in the fridge.

In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs, water, honey, melted butter, yeast & salt.  Once your starter is nice & mixed, slowly add in the flour.  Get your hands in there & work it in, making sure not to leave any tiny dry bits.  It's pretty overwhelming mixing in 7 cups of flour, but the end is totally worth it!  Cover it up and stick it in the refrigerator at the very least overnight, but give it a few days to really set up.

When you're ready to make the rolls... first thing's first.  Take the dough out of the fridge, divide it into thirds.  Take the first batch, flour your board & rolling pin & shape the dough into a large ball with no air pockets.  Let the dough rest for 10-15 minutes.

Roll out the dough into the largest square (or oval if you can't quite get the square right) as possible.  You'll know your dough is ready if it doesn't keep springing back into a smaller state.  Make sure that you keep your board well floured so the dough won't stick.  Once it's rolled out, evenly spread your duck confit on top.  Then spoon out 1/3 of your Orange Marmalade making sure to cover the entire area.  Brush with melted butter & sprinkle with sugar.

Then, very carefully, start rolling it up.  Make sure to keep it tight as you're rolling.  Once you have a log, flour a serrated knife & cut the roll into 12 pieces.  Place your rolls into a greased pan, cover with a towel & let it rise for another 1-2 hours. (Yes I know there's a lot of waiting around, but really, it's worth it!)

Preheat your oven to 350F & then bake for 30-40 minutes, or until the tops are nice & browned.  While your rolls are baking, mix up a simple glaze with the powdered sugar & water.  Zest the oranges & set aside.

When your rolls come out nice & hot, drizzle on some "icing" dust with orange zest & a sprinkle with a little cinnamon!  Enjoy!

Cocktail Roulette: The Shiny Moon

Insomuch that we're creating a whole dinner from the ground up for a "One Night Only" event, we thought it'd be nice to share a few of our favorite recipes & cocktails from time to time. So here you go... Cocktail Roulette and Muddled Meals.

From our Rags to Riches dinner - here's the Shiny Moon!

• 1 oz. HUDSON NEW YORK CORN WHISKEY
• 2 oz. fresh apple cider
• 0.5 oz. fresh lemon juice
• 0.25 oz. cherry infused brandy (optional)
• 2 drops Fee Brothers Orange Bitters

Shake over ice and strain into a coupe. Garnish with the peel of a kumquat.

Cloak & Dinner: The Time Machine Invite

ÜBER MORLOCK

We all have our time machines, don't we. Those that take us back are memories... And those that carry us forward, are dreams. 

There's no time like the present, but tonight we tastefully disagree. We've pondered over many a quaint and curious menu of forgotten food to discover the very best this past century had to offer. Cramming for this culinary history lesson has provided us ten decadent decades worth of tantalizing ideas, and we've selected our favorites from every era to create a meal worthy of Doc, Marty, Bill, and Ted. Sit back, relax, and strap your taste buds to their TARDIS because we're time travelling through the tasty twentieth ten years at a time. Let's see if you bastards can do ninety.

~ nicole iizuka | sean brogan | isaac zucca ~

Please join us for the 6th Cloak & Dinner supper club. Details below.

10 Seats || 7 Courses + 4 Cocktail Pairings

$60

Saturday September 24th

6pm

Location will be given out once you have a confirmed spot.

Please visit our event on Gusta to enter the lottery & if you're picked (by Random.org) to attend I will email you further payment instructions by Tuesday September 20th.  You will then have until Thursday September 22nd to pay otherwise your spot will be given away.

https://www.gusta.com/events/51-cloak-dinner-the-time-machine

** if you have any food allergies, let us know. will do our best to accommodate.**

A few other nit-picky notes

please plan to be on-time and for the dinner to last from 3-4 hours

there will be 3-4 paired cocktails, but you are more than welcome to BYO, beer, wine, soda

this dinner will be on a rooftop, so dress appropriately for sundown

Previous Dinners + Photos

Any Colour You Like || 5/30/11

Rookie Blunders || 6/11/11

E Pluribus uNOM || 7/3/11

A Day in the Life || 7/23/11
Rags to Riches || 8/13/11

Any other questions, please check out our FAQ on our website.