Making bloody marys with limited resources
May 27, 2011 1:55 PM Subscribe
Bloody Marys with limited resources?
I live in Peru and can't seem to find tomato juice or horseradish. What I do have is tomato paste, bouillon cubes (veggie, beef, chicken, shrimp), Worcestershire sauce, all sorts of herbs and spices and hundreds of varieties of peppers and pepper pastes.
Does anyone have a good recipe that will work with what I have? I'd love to make some for a brunch I'm having on Sunday.
I live in Peru and can't seem to find tomato juice or horseradish. What I do have is tomato paste, bouillon cubes (veggie, beef, chicken, shrimp), Worcestershire sauce, all sorts of herbs and spices and hundreds of varieties of peppers and pepper pastes.
Does anyone have a good recipe that will work with what I have? I'd love to make some for a brunch I'm having on Sunday.
You can definitely make your own without tomato juice if you have fresh tomatoes. You'll want to add other veggies though. I recently cooked my own Bloody Mary mix with fresh tomatoes, carrots, onion, celery and garlic thrown together in a pot and cooked down until a mushy mess (you might want to add water, sparingly, to make sure it's not too dry as you cook that ish).
As for lack of horseradish, wasabi is also a good replacement. What I did with the tomato base after cooking it, then running it through a chinoise (if you have a juicer, that's probably a better idea, or maybe blend the whole thing, then pour it into a chinoise lined with cheese cloth, hey, I didn't say it'd be easy) was throw in:
-Cayenne powder
-Salt
-Fresh ground pepper
-Horseradish (which you don't have)
-Tabasco sauce
-Fresh lemon AND lime juice
-wasabi
-fish sauce (this and the above were actually used in a Bloody Mary base a bartender I know told me about)
-Worcestershire sauce
I'm not gonna lie, you're gonna need a lot of tomatoes for this. I used 3 pounds, and with the result I could've probably made just 3-4 Bloody Marys.
Since you don't have horseradish, you could try and get the heat from the different peppers you have. Though wasabi/horseradish heat is different from a straight up pepper heat, but if you like having some kind of kick in there, that would be the way to go.
You can definitely throw in a beef buillion cube or two. Technically, you would be making yourself a Bloody Bull in that case, so it's a-ok and would definitely help boost flavor.
One thing I didn't get to try, but might do next time is also throw in golden beets in the mix. Basically all the veggies I used to cook down the original tomato base, I just read off the back of a v8 bottle. Beets was one of the ingredients they list, but I could only find the regular red beets, and didn't feel like drinking deeply crimson purple Bloody Marys, so they were omitted at the time.
posted by kkokkodalk at 2:12 PM on May 27, 2011 [2 favorites]
As for lack of horseradish, wasabi is also a good replacement. What I did with the tomato base after cooking it, then running it through a chinoise (if you have a juicer, that's probably a better idea, or maybe blend the whole thing, then pour it into a chinoise lined with cheese cloth, hey, I didn't say it'd be easy) was throw in:
-Cayenne powder
-Salt
-Fresh ground pepper
-Horseradish (which you don't have)
-Tabasco sauce
-Fresh lemon AND lime juice
-wasabi
-fish sauce (this and the above were actually used in a Bloody Mary base a bartender I know told me about)
-Worcestershire sauce
I'm not gonna lie, you're gonna need a lot of tomatoes for this. I used 3 pounds, and with the result I could've probably made just 3-4 Bloody Marys.
Since you don't have horseradish, you could try and get the heat from the different peppers you have. Though wasabi/horseradish heat is different from a straight up pepper heat, but if you like having some kind of kick in there, that would be the way to go.
You can definitely throw in a beef buillion cube or two. Technically, you would be making yourself a Bloody Bull in that case, so it's a-ok and would definitely help boost flavor.
One thing I didn't get to try, but might do next time is also throw in golden beets in the mix. Basically all the veggies I used to cook down the original tomato base, I just read off the back of a v8 bottle. Beets was one of the ingredients they list, but I could only find the regular red beets, and didn't feel like drinking deeply crimson purple Bloody Marys, so they were omitted at the time.
posted by kkokkodalk at 2:12 PM on May 27, 2011 [2 favorites]
An amazing bartender I knew made what he called a "spicy bunny" for a tomato juice-hating friend. He used carrot juice instead of tomato and used all the same spices otherwise. It tastes MUCH better than you'd think it should. It is definitely not for bloody Mary purists, but it might be an interesting alternative.
posted by devotion+doubt at 2:44 PM on May 27, 2011 [3 favorites]
posted by devotion+doubt at 2:44 PM on May 27, 2011 [3 favorites]
Can you find Clamato juice? I was surprised to find it in Mexico and at a Chinese grocery store in the US in the 'Mexican' section. Clamato juice, Worchestershire sauce, Tabasco sauce, vodka and a celery stick is the classic Canadian Caesar. Adding a little clam juice (shrimp bouillon could be good) to some watered down tomato paste might be passable.
(clamato juice in beer is also super yummy)
posted by hydrobatidae at 4:29 PM on May 27, 2011
(clamato juice in beer is also super yummy)
posted by hydrobatidae at 4:29 PM on May 27, 2011
If you can get canned whole tomatoes, cut the tomatoes up reserving the juice that comes out of them and the juice in the can. Cook with the cut up tomatoes. What's left in the can is enough to make what I refer to as a 'spotting Mary' - it's red - you get some chunks, but it works as a base.
It's not the same without horseradish, but you can use some garlic powder, celery seed, black pepper, Whats-this-here sauce, and hot pepper sauce.
What I do is: in a rocks glass, a generous shot of vodka (from the freezer), a generous splash of Whats-this-here, 4-5 shakes of hot sauce, a pinch each of garlic powder and celery seed, a grind of black pepper, 1/2 t of horseradish, top up with the juice from aforementioned tomatoes, stir with the horseradish spoon. Enjoy.
If you can get to an Asian grocery, but all means get some wasabi to keep on hand. It's more than likely just horseradish and green color anyway.
posted by plinth at 7:58 PM on May 27, 2011
It's not the same without horseradish, but you can use some garlic powder, celery seed, black pepper, Whats-this-here sauce, and hot pepper sauce.
What I do is: in a rocks glass, a generous shot of vodka (from the freezer), a generous splash of Whats-this-here, 4-5 shakes of hot sauce, a pinch each of garlic powder and celery seed, a grind of black pepper, 1/2 t of horseradish, top up with the juice from aforementioned tomatoes, stir with the horseradish spoon. Enjoy.
If you can get to an Asian grocery, but all means get some wasabi to keep on hand. It's more than likely just horseradish and green color anyway.
posted by plinth at 7:58 PM on May 27, 2011
Brunch on Sunday?
Get a bunch of small sample or shot glasses, and get your friends to conduct an experiment in the search of the perfect recipe within these ingredients. You can try this out yourself on Saturday night first if you like.
posted by ovvl at 9:07 PM on May 27, 2011
Get a bunch of small sample or shot glasses, and get your friends to conduct an experiment in the search of the perfect recipe within these ingredients. You can try this out yourself on Saturday night first if you like.
posted by ovvl at 9:07 PM on May 27, 2011
Lord knows if you can find it, but a bit of dark beer ala Guinness is tasty in bloody marys!
posted by fillsthepews at 9:09 PM on May 27, 2011
posted by fillsthepews at 9:09 PM on May 27, 2011
perhaps this is too obvious or out of the question but what about cocktail sauce? It has 2 things you need ready to go, tomatoes and horseradish already in it. Perhaps a local restaurant might have some they sell?
posted by gypseefire at 12:43 AM on May 28, 2011
posted by gypseefire at 12:43 AM on May 28, 2011
This thread is closed to new comments.
There are some good ideas in this thread - one person makes the juice from tomato paste, and another makes juice from fresh tomatoes.
http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/648170
Just omit the horseradish if you don't have it (though, can you find wasabi?)
posted by unlaced at 1:59 PM on May 27, 2011