MSG martini
Savory, filthy and faintly illegal-feeling. Stir, don't ask.
At a Glance
Story
MSG is not a chemical scare story, dear boy, it is glutamate with a sodium chaperone, the same savory molecule a chemist named Kikunae Ikeda pulled out of a pot of kombu broth in 1908 and christened umami. It dissolves clean, carries no bitterness of its own and lends a martini the round, mouth-filling savor that olive brine only gestures at. A quarter teaspoon is plenty. More and it turns to soup.
Ingredients
- 5 fl oz London dry gin or a good cold vodka
- 1 fl oz dry vermouth
- ¼ tsp MSG
- ½ fl oz olive brineoptional, for a properly filthy one
- icefor stirring
- Castelvetrano olives or a lemon twistto garnish
Method
Every filthy martini is chasing savor. Most reach for olive brine and end up cloudy and sharp. This one goes to the source instead, and keeps the glass crystalline.
- Put your coupes or martini glasses in the freezer while you work. A warm glass is the fastest way to ruin a cold drink.
- In a mixing glass combine the gin, vermouth and MSG, and the olive brine if you are being wicked. Stir a moment with no ice first, just to dissolve the grains.
- Fill the glass with ice and stir long and steady, about 20 seconds. You stir a spirit-only drink rather than shake it because shaking clouds it with air and shards, and here you want it clear and silky, not frothed.
- Strain into the frozen glasses. Olives on the skewer for whoever wants them, a lemon twist for whoever doesn't, expressed over the top so the oils catch the light.
Make a jug of it for a party by scaling up the chips and stirring in batches over plenty of ice. Do not pre-dilute and hold, it goes flat and sad within the hour.
More to cook
A lasagna with a short fuse
The golden lasagna's wilder sister, all smoky sausage and charred poblano with a chipotle streak, cooled by a lime drizzle.
Golden lasagna
A carrot lasagna so light you could eat the lot and still fancy pudding.
Spatchcock chicken over leeks and greedy bread
One bird on a bed of leeks, and torn baguette underneath drinking up every drop.
The tomato pasta worth the airfare
Three kinds of tomato, a whisper of anchovy and enough lemon to keep it honest.
Bagna cauda for the anchovy-shy
The warm garlic and anchovy bath that quietly wins every party. Melting, not fishy, and gone before the coats are off.
Chunky chimichurri for steak night
Parsley, oregano, garlic and vinegar, chopped not blended. The steak's best friend.
Five-minute harissa yogurt
Smoky, cooling and quick. The yogurt does the calming, the harissa does the talking.
One-pot Pugliese sausage and potatoes
Peasant food that minds itself in the oven, as happy on a Tuesday as it is at a three-hour lunch.
Salsa cruda for peak tomatoes
Grated ripe tomato, garlic and basil. The less you do to it, the better it is.
Salsa verde, anchovy and all
Sharp, briny and green. The Italian one, not the tomatillo one.
Grated tomato and Calabrian chili
Grated tomato with a Calabrian kick and a lemon lift. Sauce or dip, your call.
Za'atar yogurt with sumac
Herby, tangy and green-flecked. The cooling spoon for anything off the grill.
Zhoug with a proper temper
The Yemeni green sauce that bites back. The cardamom is the tell.
Lemon pesto spaghetti, all zest and no juice
The Amalfi trick: zest steeped into the pasta water and pounded into the pesto, toasted almonds underneath, not a drop of juice anywhere.
Shrimp in a fish sauce caramel
Sugar taken to the edge of burnt, then doused with fish sauce: Vietnam's sweet-and-savoury backbone, wrapped around shrimp over jasmine rice.