A Tale of 2 Trifles

We were invited to 2 parties on Saturday. Each one of course wanted us to bring something. We always bring something meatless to these affairs because the vegetarians get rather short shrift. This year, however, we decided on desserts and not to vegetarian meat courses. That was because a good friend said, "you are English, you must know how to make trifle. It is one of my favorite desserts." Since she was co-hosting a party, it seemed wise to go with the flow.
Trifle is deceptively simple. You can do it the easy way – or the Chris way. I, of course chose the Chris way. That involves making custard (the easy way would have you buy it – or horror of horrors, use vanilla pudding. Also I decided to use crème de cassis instead of sherry. Not traditional, but goes so well with raspberries. We always have crème de cassis on hand for kirs and kir royales, but that's a different posting.
This isn't really about 2 trifles – it is one giant recipe placed into 2 bowls. The recipe below is the recipe I started with before doubling (well kind of because it doesn't double exactly – the cornstarch for example is less than you might think).
Ingredients

32 fl oz whipping cream (1 US Quart) divided use
4 egg yolks
1 vanilla pod
1 ½ oz sugar
1t cornstarch
1 packet lady fingers (trifle sponges)
3T Raspberry jam, warmed so it is spreadable.
12 oz frozen raspberries
3 oz crème de cassis
2 large bananas, peeled and thinly sliced (30 slices per banana)
A few drops pure almond essence
A few slivered almonds toasted lightly for decoration


Method
Place half of the cream into a saucepan. Preferably a pan with a rounded edge between the base and the sides. Split the vanilla bean in half lengthwise. Scrape out the seeds and add to the cream. Also add the pod. When sieved the seeds will stay in the custard, but the pod will be extracted and thrown away. (I used one pod for the double sized recipe and it was fine. You don't really need to double that).
Turn the heat under the cream on to a medium temperature. Stir the cream occasionally until it is close to boiling point. You will see an occasional bubble rising and lots of steam coming off it.

While the cream is heating, break the egg yolks into a bowl. Whisk gently to break them up. Add the cornstarch and sugar and whisk until light and foamy.

Now add the hot cream a little at a time at first to the egg mixture. As you can see in the photograph below, I am using a small bowl to do the transfer. A ladle would work fine, of course. Whisk all the while you are doing this addition.

Once you have added all the hot cream to the egg mixture, return the combined mixture to the pan, and start to heat slowly. The custard will be quite foamy at first, and quite thin. You must stir it pretty constantly at this stage otherwise the eggs will set without the cream. You will have very expensive, vanilla flavored scrambled eggs. The picture below shows the foamy egg/cream mixture.

Keep heating and stirring and the mixture will start to thicken. For those that care about such things, the mixture needs to come to about 172F (77 or 78 C). At that point it should be nice and thick.

In fact so thick that it does this (see picture below). The custard coats the spoon, and when you draw your finger across it, it is rather like Moses parting the red sea.

There will be some egg bits, and of course the vanilla pod to get rid of, so strain the custard through a fine mesh strainer.

Immediately transfer the custard to an ice bath to chill it before refrigerating. Need to make sure it gets cold quickly to eliminate chances of food-borne bugs. Using a larger bowl filled with ice water does the trick nicely.

Before refrigerating the custard, cover with cling wrap. To make sure a skin doesn't form, press the cling wrap right on to the surface.

Cool the custard in the fridge as long as you want. In my case it was about 4 hours while I ran errands. When you are ready to assemble the trifle, melt the raspberry jam in a small pan. It just needs to soften enough to be spreadable on the rather delicate lady fingers

Spread the lady fingers out on a cutting board….

And spread the warmed jam on them. Much easier to this way than trying to do them individually.

Now, cut the lady fingers up into your serving bowl. Add the raspberries, mix well by hand. Pour the crème de cassis over them and let them sit for a few minutes. Layer the sliced bananas on top of the cake/raspberry/cassis mixture.

Layer the custard on top of the bananas. It will be a fairly thin layer. It is so rich that you don't want it to overpower the fruit. Whip the remainder of the cream with the almond essence. It needs to be slightly soft and floppy. Certainly you don't want to overwhip it (and end up with something resembling butter). The cream should not be sweetened. Then ad the whipped cream on top pf the custard, spread it out to the edges and make it flat. Dot with the toasted almonds.
The trifle should now be refrigerated for at least 3 hours before serving.

3 people, 2lbs clams, 1lb linguine

I needed a quick dinner for 3 of us last evening. Quick because I had didn't get out of a meeting until 7:15 and needed to drive home, cook and have dinner on the table by about 8:15. Also it had to be good since Dave Gilbert (an unbelievably creative local chef) was one of the three! The idea then was to create something tasty within the time it took for the longest thing to happen (essentially in less than 30 minutes).
No problem. Linguine alla vongole to the rescue. This is in some ways a perfect timed dish. If you get the amount of water right, you can start the water pot, then do the small amount of prep (chopping parsley, cleaning clams, peeling/slicing garlic, etc.) while the water is coming to the boil. Thne the clams themselves cook in the amount of time it takes to cook the pasta.

Ingredients
2 T olive oil (cooking oil not finishing oil)
4 cloves of garlic - sliced thinly. Not mashed/pureed/pressed
1 dried cayenne pepper (could use flakes) chopped finely. Include the seeds
2 lbs littleneck clams
1/2 cup dry white wine - I used a cheapish Pouilly Fume
Juice of 1/2 lemon
Handful of parsley chopped fine
Salt/pepper to taste

The clams purging themselves of their grit - in a cold water bath

Method

Put a sufficient quantity of water on to boil. I used 2 gallons for the pound of linguine. I could have gotten away with less, but that's the size of my pasta pot. As soon as the water is boiling, place the pasta into the water and set the timer for 9 minutes (or 1 minute less than the directions on the packet call for.

In a large skillet heat the oil to the shimmering stage over medium heat. Add the garlic and hot peppers, turn down the heat to medium low and cook, stirring or shaking often, until the garlic is fragrant. Once the garlic is fragrant, add the clams and shake the pan to coat the clams with the hot garlicky oil.

Add the wine and lemon juice to the pot, and cover immediately.

Cook the clams until they all open (about 6 minutes). After all clams are open, add a little of the chopped parsley and season with salt and pepper. In the picture below, you can just see some salt crystals falling.

Toss the ingredients together and turn the dish out into a large, warmed bowl. Sprinkle some more of the chopped parsley over the top. I served this "family style" so each guest had the opportunity to help himself.



With this dish I served a bottle of Gravonia which was one of the best wines at the Texas Sommelier convention held at the Four Seasons in the early fall.


After we had pigged out on the clams, I served a cheese course with some cheeses we brought back from Neal's Yard in London. The cheeses are a Coolea - a Gouda like cows milk cheese made in Ireland. Very citrusy, rich, thick, dry. With a nuttiness that is indeed reminiscent of Gouda. Lovely firm, almost crystalline texture. A very well made cheese. The second cheese is a Duckett's Farm caerphilly. It has all the characteristic Caerphilly taste and texture. A good sharp bite, almost honey like sweetness at the finish. It is a pale cream colour in a thick gray dry rind. Finally we had some Harbourne goat blue cheese that is about as subtle as a kick... A very bold, assertive blue. Not much mould for a cheese as potent as this. It felt like a lot of the whey was retained - giving it a strong acid bite.


As a final treat we each allowed ourselves a small glass of the Angostura 1827 rum. This is a rum that has been barrel aged for a considerable amount of time. It has huge vanilla notes and a strong oaky presence. It is a very smooth rum indeed. I am indbted to my friend Thor for introducing me to it.


So, there was the evening a terrific time was had by all. many stories, much concentration and minimal clean up!

Seabirdskitchen joins the culinary underground

Dave Gilbert and I met a few months back and just plain hit it off. We had promised ourselves a day together doing our favorite things. Sunday was that day. We got together at Dave's house having raided the farmers' market, Rex's Seafood Market, and our herb/veg gardens for stuff that might come in handy.

I hied myself off to his house at around 11 on Sunday armed with Rex's smoked salmon, some marjoram, mint, rosemary, and various hot peppers from the garden. Oh and some delicious New Zealand honeycomb (thanks sis and nephews), some margarita/salt cookies, the vacuum sealer for the sous vide and, of course the guanciale (cured pork jowls).

The main point was the cooking, but we managed to press-gang some friends into coming to eat. Yes there were nine of us in total. The dinner stretched for about 3 1/2 hours as we ate, discussed, ate some more, tried the wines, got to know each other better and just had a terrific time. The clean up was rather excessive, but somehow that isn't the abiding memory. The memory is of working under pressure with a good friend, making innovative and exciting food, and serving it to friends and strangers - all becoming friends by evening's end.

Dave has done such a wonderful job of documenting this here that I don't have any need to elaborate.

Recipes? What recipes? I am sure we will document better next time, but the wine and rum took their toll.

My parting comment is simply, "let's do this again, soon"

garlic, lemon, potatoes Oh My!

This is another dish inspired by Cooks Illustrated. As usual, I have taken a couple of liberties - but only out of necessity! The original as published is very good. There are a couple of technique keys that are worth pointing out here. The first is that the potatoes should be in even wedges. Not even in size = not even in cooking. The second is that the flavor enhancers (garlic, oregano, lemon juice) are all powerful but quite transient. Add them late in the process - i.e. when the recipe says so, and not before.
It is a bit irritating to make these because the potatoes do have to be in a single layer in a large skillet (typically 12") and not everyone has one handy. I used 2 10" skillets for this - one non-stick and one not. Not a lot of difference between them, but the caramelization on the untreated pan was slightly better.

You want to use potatoes that are not mealy (e.g. russets) and not waxy (e.g. reds). I use Yukon Golds but Maris Piper would be fantastic.

Ingredients
2T canola oil (1T per pan)
2T unsalted butter (1T per pan)
3lbs medium sized yukon gold or other intermediate potatoes. Peeled and cut lengthwise into wedges. Typically 8 wedges per potato. I cut the largest into 8 wedges and then look at the size of the others before deciding how many wedges per potato.
6 cloves of garlic pressed through a press. (1/2 of the pressed garlic per pan)
2T Extra Virgin Olive oil (1T per pan)
3T lemon juice + grated zest of 2 lemons (divided between the pans)
4T minced fresh oregano (can use marjoram if that's what you have - but always ensure it is fresh)
4T minced fresh parsley
Salt/pepper as needed

Method
This method is per pan. So if you are using 2 pans (like I did) then do them simultaneously.
Heat vegetable oil and butter until foaming dies down. Add potato wedges in a single layer keeping heat at medium. Don't let the oil smoke, but do keep the sizzling going. They should be a deep golden brown after 5 or 6 minutes. Don't peek until at least 4 minutes have gone by. Turn the potatoes and cook on the other side until that side is golden brown.
Cover the potatoes tightly and turn the heat down to allow the potatoes to cook through.
Make up the olive oil, garlic, lemon juice, lemon zest and organo into a small bowl. When the potatoes are cooked (6-9 minutes from when they were covered), add the lemn/garlic/organo mixture, stirring to prevent burning. Stir gently fo as not to break the potatoes. Cook uncovered for a couple of minutes. Serve in a warmed bowl, garnished with the parsley.

Madame's comment: "More Please."

Seeing red - meat that is

In a previous post (when will it be done?) , I wrote about rate of change - knowing when something will be done by observing its rate of change of temperature increase. There is a flip side to this. When faced with a tricky challenge - in this case very uneven pieces of meat, how do you manage the cooking so that it all comes out OK. As always, there is a story.
For the Steak au Poivre, I wanted three nice pieces of New York strip. I asked the butcher at the local "Central Market" for 3 pieces of about 12 oz each. That isn't what I got, as I discovered when I got home. One piece was a honking great 16 oz - about 1 inch thick. One piece was about the 12oz that I asked for and a bit thinner. One was about 9 oz and much thinner. We all wanted medium rare steaks, so what to do?
Luckily my old friend rate of change comes to the rescue. I know that the large piece will take the longest to cook (and as it happens, I will eat meat more rare than anyone else), so that piece went into the pan a full minute before the next sized piece. The last piece went in a full three minutes after the first piece. I flipped the steaks in order (largest first). When the largest piece was done, they all were.
So the moral of the story - good technique and taking size into account, you can adjust the major variable (time) to suit the dish at hand.

An old flame? - Steak au poivre

Our friend Bryan - he of the champagne dinner fame, sometimes calls up saying, "I was thinking of opening a bottle of (insert interesting wine here), I'd like to share it with you and Madame, so what would go well with it?" This means that he would like to discuss a pairing with me, and have me cook. Of course that's not a problem. An excuse to drink something delicious, enjoy Bryan's company and have something pretty special. Friday night was no exception. The phone call (on Thursday evening) went something like, "Are you guys busy on Friday, I was thinking of opening a 2004 Clos de tart and would like to share it with you both, what would go well with it?"
The tasting notes suggested pepper and silkiness - among some herby fragrances. So what to do? Well steak au poivre came to mind. The black and pink peppercorns giving some help to the peppery nose, and the cream accentuating the silkiness of the wine. There is a slight sweetness to the dish, courtesy of the shallots (I don't know if they are classic or not, but they seemed necessary), and there you have a terrific complement.
I am not a fan of beef tenderloin, so used New York Strips instead. They turned out rather well served with pommes boulangere and a simple salad. A very good (and easy) time was had by all.
To make this dinner you have to start a bit in advance. The potatoes take about 1 1/4 hours to cook. You also have to factor in prep time.
Pommes Boulangere
Ingredients
2 oz. unsalted butter
2 lbs Yukon Gold (or other intermediate not waxy/not floury potatoes) peeled
1 small onion
8-10 sprigs of thyme
1 cup warmed chicken stock
Salt/pepper to taste

Method
Preheat the oven to 400F. Warm the chicken stock slowly until nearly boiling. Better not to boil it because you don't want any evaporation. However adding it warmed to the potatoes makes them cook more quickly. Less danger of burning the top while still cooking them through.
Grease a gratin dish with a small amount of the butter.
Slice the potatoes thinly and evenly (about 1/4 inch thick). This is easiest done with a mandolin or V slicer. You really do want them to be of even thickness so they cook evenly. Do not rinse the potatoes. Peel and slice the onion into rings - a bit thinner than the potatoes.
Place a layer of potatoes, overlapping very slightly, in the bottom of the well greased grain dish. Cover with a scattering of the onions and 3 sprigs of thyme, a couple of good pinches of salt and a little freshly ground black pepper. repeat with 2 more layers, then finish with a layer of potatoes.
Pour the warmed stock over the potatoes, then dot with the remaining butter, season with more salt and pepper (again about 2 pinches of salt and a couple of healthy grinds of pepper).
Place the gratin onto a baking sheet and then into the oven for about an hour. It isn't terribly time sensitive, but when the top is crunchy and light brown it will be cooked. If you need to hold it until other dishes are ready, then simply turn the oven off.

Now for the steak au poivre. This is one of those dishes that looks really impressive - so much so that the natural instinct is to think it is difficult to do. It isn't! That's the beauty.

Steak au Poivre
Ingredients
4 12 oz ribeye steaks (off the bone)
Kosher salt
2 1/2 T cracked black pepper
2 oz butter + 1 short glug of olive oil. No need for extrav virgin. You could use safflower, etc.
2 good sized shallots (about 2 oz total) minced
1/4 cup brandy (make sure it isn't salted. Use the real thing not the supermaket flavoring)
1 cup thick cream
1 T whole pink peppercorns (optional)

Method
make sure the steaks are removed from refrigeration about 30 minutes to 1 hour before cooking. Lightly coat them with kosher salt about 15 minutes before cooking. Meanwhile crush the black peppercorns in a pestle and mortar until you have fairly even, but still well textured pieces. You do not want dust!
Heat a large skillet on the stove, add the butter/oil and allow to become very hot - almost smoking. You may need to keep an eye on this as it can burn easily. Put the cracked black peppercorns onto a flat plate and coat both sides of each steak with them. Pressing them in as necessary.
Cook the steaks in the hot oil/butter to the desired degree of doneness. If you want them any more than medium, you will probably need to finish them for a couple of minutes in the oven, since prolonged time over the direct heat will cause the outside to become overcooked.
Once the meat is cooked, remove from the pan, tent with foil, and allow to rest while you make the sauce. Into the still hot pan, add the chopped shallots and gently sweat. They will help get the browned bits off the bottom of the pan, and add extra flavor and sweetness. Making sure that there are no open flames nearby (turn the flame off under the shallots too), add all but 1 T of the brandy. Reignite the flame under the pan, and flame the brandy. This will burn off some of the alcohol and add a slightly woody, charred flavor. It is subtle, but pretty important. When the flames have died down, add the pink peppercorns and the cream. Allow the sauce to boil for a short time to thicken. It should not separate. Finish the sauce with the remaining T of brandy, stirred in at the last minute (again, make sure that all flames are off).
Serving
Traditionally this is served with the sauce poured over the meat, but we prefer to place the sauce on the plate first and rest the meat on top. If I had been thinking, a little thyme as a garnish would have been nice.
Because this was an informa dinner, I plated the steak, but served the potatoes and a light salad family style.
Oh and yes, it did indeed complement the Clos de Tart perfectly. Even though we opened it a good hour before drinking, it was really only towards the end of the course that it showed its true potential - opening up with a surprising amount of floral notes - probably heightened by the pink peppercorns. As predicted, though, the black pepper and silky sauce was the perfect pairing.

So Bryan, what are you bringing next?

The Champagne Dinner

We were challenged to create a dinner where each course would be paired with champagne. Of course, champagne is pretty versatile, but we wanted to make sure that we had a different experience, both in texture and flavor for each course. So after much thought we decided on the following menu:

• Mushroom crostini
• Smoked cheddar souffle
• "Poached" fish over petits pois bon femme
• A cheese plate
• Coffee and chocolates

There was, of course, some adventure involved - I was not due back from Canada until after noon of the day of the party. The fish had to be picked up, the cheeses selected and then the cooking done. All for a 7pm start. Of course with Madame doing all the major shopping, setting tables, and making the house look especially nice, we were off to a good start.

The mushrooms for the crostini were cooked with shallots, thyme, and (of all things) rum. I didn't have sherry in the house, so figured that a medium rum would add that woody flavor that we would normally get from sherry. Yup it worked! Also, I had been wanting to try locally produced raw milk (from Layla farms in Plano, TX) for the souffle, so I figured that thinning a little fresh goat cheese with the raw milk would make a nice topping for the crostini. It did.

The souffle was served with a lightly dressed mesclun salad. The fish was suzuki - a type I had never heard of, but turned out to be a fantastic choice. Thanks to Rex's seafood market as always.

The cheeses were picked with the help of Rich at Scardellos. We always get good, thoughtful advice from Rich. The champagnes were all awesome from the Montaudon that we had with the crostini, the Pol Roger with the souffle, the Rouelle Pertois with the cheese, the Delamotte as a transition from the crostini to the souffle, the Francois Montand at the end of the cheese course and the Brut de Peche that we had as an after dinner drink with the chocolates and coffee.

Now for the recipes:

Wild mushroom crostini

Ingredients

2oz unsalted butter

6 Oz each of wood ears, shiitakes, white mushrooms

2 large shallots - minced finely

3 Oz dried porcini mushrooms

Boiling water to cover the porcini

4 sprigs of thyme - left whole

6T medium/dark rum (I used Mount Gay) divided use

3 Oz fresh goat cheese (e.g Montrachet)

2T whole milk

24 small crostini

Method

Hydrate the porcini. Melt the butter in a large skillet and when the foaming has finished, add the finely chopped shallots and sweat them until translucent. Add the roughly chopped mushrooms (including the hydrated porcini) and the thyme stalks. Allow to cook down and dry out. Meanwhile strain the liquid from the porcini to make sure there is no grit. When the mushrooms have cooked down, add the strained porcini liquor. Again allow the mushrooms to dry out over medium heat. Off heat, add 3T of the rum, bring the mushrooms back to heat and evaporate the liquid. repeat with the second 3 T of rum. Season to taste with salt and pepper

Mix the goat cheese and milk together to make a thick topping - the consistency of whipped cream, almost.

Place a small teaspoon of the mushroom mixture on each crostini. Top with a dab of the goat cheese/cream mixture.

Serve slightly warm. We served them cool and one of the guests suggested that they might be even better warmed. She is probably right!

Smoked Cheddar Souffle

Ingredients

2oz unsalted butter (+ extra to grease the dish)

2 oz all purpose (plain) flour

2 cups (16 fl oz. 1 US pint) whole milk warmed

1/4t freshly grated nutmeg

1/2T freshly ground white pepper

1/2t kosher salt

5 large eggs (uses 4 yolks and 5 whites)

2T chopped chives

1 very finely chopped red chile (optional)

1 oz finely grated parmesan cheese

3 oz smoked cheddar cheese - grated

2 oz sharp cheddar cheese - grated

Method

Melt the butter in a large saucepan. After the foaming subsides, add the flour and cook, whisking constantly for 3-4 minutes to remove floury tastes. Whisk in the warmed milk and bring to a boil. You will have a thick bechamel sauce. Add the nutmeg, salt and pepper.

separate the egg whites and yolks. In a large bowl whisk the yolks to break them up and make them smooth. Add one third of the hot bechamel to the egg yolks and whisk vigorously to incorporate. Gradually add the rest of the egg yolks to the mixture whisking vigorously to incorporate. Once the bechamel is Incorporated into the egg yolks, add the grated cheddars. Set aside while preparing the oven and the dish.

Grease the inside of a 6 cup (1 1/2 quart) souffle dish with the remaining butter. Coat the inside with the grated Parmesan making a well covered layer. This gives the souffle something to cling to as it rises.

Heat the oven to 375 and make sure it has had a few minutes to stabilize at temperature. Put the rack in the bottom third of the oven.

beat the egg whites to stiff peaks. Fold the egg whites into the cheese base. carefully so as not to upset the foam. Quickly fold in the chives and minced chile (if using). Put the dish into the preheated oven for approximately 35 minutes. The souffle should be jiggly in the middle.

Carry the souflee to the table and serve on small plates which have had the salad already placed on them. Eat immediately!

What matters?

The wonderful French cookbook, "Je sais cusinier" has been translated into English. The English title is "I know how to cook."
There's good news and bad news. It was some of the bad news that prompted this posting.
There is an unwarranted degree of precision in the book - the recipe that calls for 1lb 8 3/4 oz of mushrooms, for example. That is as a result of a slavish and direct conversion from the metric measurement (700 gm) to imperial measure.
So, how much does that 3/4 oz actually matter? I am sure not much - although I haven't made the dish. When is a measurement really a guideline, and how can you tell? That's a conundrum, so I will try to sort it out - or at least talk about how I pay attention.

1. Ask why there are fiddly bits at the ends of the measurements? Like the 3/4 oz at the end of the mushrooms. If it looks to be a critical ratio item (flour/fat/water in a bakers recipe, then obey it)
2. If the recipe has (obviously) been converted from the metric system to imperial, you could do the conversion mentally and see if it started as round number (25/50/75/100 gm endings). If so, then there's a decent chance that as long as you are not baking you can round off the lb/oz amounts.
3. Be careful with strong flavorings (herbs and spices especially) rounding can throw flavors off, so round down and adjust after tasting.
4. Be careful with anything that is in a smallish quantity (salt/yeast/pepper...) again that can throw off the balance/effect of the dish. Seasoning is always to taste - most of us under season, but again be careful

The good news is that the author uses words like scant and generous to indicate the precision required for many items that are measured by volume. So you know that a scant cup of stock is about a cup but likely to be a bit less. That's a definite clue that you can wing it.

While I am talking about the book, there are a few "duh" moments. First the book starts with sauces. So important to French cuisine, so neglected by most of us. So it is good to have the sauces lumped (no not lumpy!) together so they are easy to find. However, that is a bit of a double edged sword because there are recipes that point you to several other sub-recipes. For example the "Candlemas Rolls" recipe looks like it has 6 ingredients, but 2 of the ingredients are actually complete recipes in their own right. So when doing the recipe for the first time, you need to have bookmarks in several places. I guess the author thought of this - the book comes with 2 built-in bookmark ribbons.

There are some interesting subtelties. For example when making a ham souffle, the oven is set to a constant 400F, while the cheese souffle starts at 350F for a while and then the oven temperature is raised to 425 for the last 15 minutes. The reasons are that the number of eggs and the ratio of eggs to bechamel sauce is different and that the cheese incorprates into the sauce while the ham doesn't. You would think that the same recipe base would work for both kinds of souffle (but it doesn't!). You need to get more lift before the browning stops the expansion wuth the cheeses version, I presume. It's things like this that can make French cooking intimidating - the patterns are not obvious. It's also this kind of attention to detail - and figuring what's important that seperates good cooking from excellent cooking.

Steamed fish over petits pois bonne femme

I have unashamedly pinched this from Gordon Ramsey's show, "The F-Word". However because i have a terrible memory, I am sure I have done something differently. I will be doing this dish for a champagne dinner in a couple of weeks, and thought it a good idea to try it out. Also it was Madame's birthday and we ALWAYS have champagne. So the stars were aligned.

First a quick trip to Rex's Seafood Market (Lovers' Lane in Dallas) to check out the fish. I ended up with red snapper (gulf, wild) the other choice was striped bass (California/farmed). In retrospect I should have chosen the striped bass.

Ingredients
2 fillets (red snapper) with the skin on
24 basil leaves
1T Extra virgin olive oil
salt/pepper to taste
2T pure olive oil (not extra virgin) - you could use another vegetable oil if you prefer
5 oz frozen pearl onions
3 oz guanciale or pancetta
5 oz frozen petits pois

Method
Score the skin side of the fish - cutting just through the skin, but not into the flesh. Oil 2 pieces of cling wrap (each big enough to enclose one fillet) lightly with the extra virgin olive oil. Lay 12 basil leaves onto each oiled piece of cling wrap. Salt, pepper and oil the skin side of the fish and lay skin side down on the basil. Salt and pepper the other side of each piece. Wrap the fish tightly in the cling wrap.

Bring a large pot of water almost to the boil. Slip the wrapped fish into the water and hold at a simmer for 8-10 minutes depending on the thickness of the fish.

Meanwhile, heat the pure olive oil until almost smoking and toss in the pearl onions. saute on high heat for about 7 minutes - until the onions are sklightly browned. Add the chopped guanciale and cook until the guanciale has become slightly crispy. Add the pease and toss quickly until the peas have warmed through.

Serve the fish skin side up on a mound of the peas/onions/guanciale. A bottle pf Perrier Jouet seemd to help too!

Guacatuna

Tuna has been a battleground in our house. Madame likes the canned variety (aka catfood in my book), and I like it fresh, preferably raw. So how to create a rapprochment because after all it can be pretty good for us. Tuna salad using fresh tuna sounds like a good idea, but what about the texture with all that mayo? We realized that mashed avocado is about the same texture as mayonnaise and better tasting too, so an elegant light lunch dish materialized.

Serves 2 - scales up easily

Ingredients
6 oz fresh tuna steak (I used yellowtail)
1 ripe avocado
Juice of 1 lime
a few drops of a sweet chili sauce
4 scallions (spring onions) white and green parts chopped finely
2T finely chopped cilantro
1t olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste
2 lettuce leaves
1 tomato chopped for garnish

Method

Pat the tuna dry, cover with oil, salt and pepper. Sear grill it, so it it is nicely browned on the outside and still rare in the middle. About 2 mins per side depending on your grill. You can, of course do this in a saute pan on the stove top, in which case you will need a little more oil.

Slice the avocado pole to pole, removing the seed. Scoop out the flesh, taking care not to damage the skins - you will use the hollowed out halves as serving dishes (hackneyed, yes but still a nice way to do it).

Shred the tuna into rough bite sized pieces. It wants to be the same kind of texture as pulled pork. mash the avocado and combine all ingredients, adjusting flavoring/seasoning to taste.

Chill the salad for at least an hour. Serve in the empty avocado shell on a little lettuce and some diced tomato for color and effect. A hit of sea salt and/or finely ground pepper can be added too.

A crisp dry white wine and where did Saturday afternoon go?

Watermelon and mango soup

Madame and I ate at The Edge, a very nice restaurant in Rodney Bay St. Lucia. Madame had the watermelon soup and it was excellent. I couldn't decompose it, but I knew I wanted to make something like it. So after much fiddling around, I came to this.

Serves 8

Ingredients
For the sugar syrup
1 cup granulated sugar
2/3 cup water
8 green cardamoms
1 1" knob of fresh ginger cut into thin slices
8 peppercorns
2 kaffir lime leaves (or the zest of 2 limes)
2 cloves


For the soup
1/3 cup of sugar syrup
1T powdered arrowroot
1/4 cup water
6 cups cubed, seeded watermelon
2 ripe mangoes
1t fresh mace chopped fine or 1/2t powdered mace
A few drops of your favorite hot sauce
24 croutons
a little extra virgin olive oil - used as a finishing garnish
a little sherry vinegar - used as a finishing garnish
a little coarse sea salt - used to finish the soup and give a flavor burst and crunch

Method
Sugar syrup
Place the sugar and water into a small saucepan. Stir to dissolve as much as possible. Add the flavoring ingredients. Bring to a boil slowly, and simmer for about 10 minutes. You are really just keeping it hot, not trying to caramelize it. The goal is to speed flavor extraction.

Strain the syrup. Left overs are good in many cocktails that require simple syrup.

The soup
Make a slurry from the arrowroot and water. Add to the warm sugar syrup and stir to combine. It should thicken up.

Place the arrowroot mixture, watermelon, mangoes, mace and hot sauce into a blender and blend until smooth. Strain into a large bowl, cover with cling wrap and chill for at least 4 hours.

To serve, ladle the soup into small bowls, dot the surface with some olive oil and vinegar. Place 3 croutons in each bowl, sprinkle a few coarse salt crystals.

After dinner drink or dessert?

This recipe is inspired by a drink that we had in St. Lucia recently. The drink is a BBC (Baileys, Banana, Colada). However I wanted to make a quick and easy dessert. The colada is gone - and replaced with coconut rum. The drink is thickened with pureed bananas and a little gelatin to give it that special jiggle.

Serves 8

Ingredients
1/2 cup cold water
1/2 cup boiling water
1 envelope gelatin
1 cup Baileys Irish Cream
1/4 cup banana flavored rum
1/2 cup coconut flavored rum
2 ripe bananas

Method
Place the cold water into a bowl. Sprinkle the gelatin on top and stir to mix. Add the boiling water, stir again and leave to stand for around 5 minutes.
Put the rest of the ingredients into a blender and blend until smooth. There should be no discernible chunks of banana. Add the gelatin mixture and blend quickly on low speed until it is all incorporated.

Transfer into cocktail glasses, cover each glass with cling wrap and refrigerate at least 4 hours until set.

Serve garnished with mint leaves.

Grape Focaccia – With Acknowledgement to Daniel Leader

We had an invitation to a July 4^th party and it involved a bit of a drive. So what to take? It's hot here in Texas, so didn't want something that needed reheating. Yet also didn't want something that was going to need coddling on the drive. The host is a bit of a foodie too, so we also had to make sure that the dish was interesting enough. Enter Grape Harvest Focaccia – adapted a bit from Daniel Leader's wonderful book, "Local Breads". Who would have thought that grapes, bread, sea salt, olive oil and rosemary would be such a good combination? The juice from the grapes permeates the focaccia, dissolving some of the salt. The heat of the oven intensifies the sweetness of the grapes. A truly wonderful dish – and impressive looking too.

Ingredients

300 gm room temperature spring water

1.5t active dry yeast

500 gm AP Flour (plain flour – not bread flour)

60 gm (1/4 cup) extra virgin olive oil + extra for oiling pan and moistening fingers

10 gm (1 ½ t) kosher salt

250 gm seedless black grapes – washed and dried

10 gm (3t) fresh rosemary finely chopped

7gm (1 ½ t) coarse sea salt

Method

Add the yeast to the water in a large bowl, and leave to stand while weighing the other ingredients. Add the flour, olive oil and kosher salt and stir with a plastic spatula until a shaggy dough forms. Turn the dough out onto the work surface and knead for about 15 minutes until the dough is very smooth and elastic. As usual, do not add extra flour to prevent sticking. While the dough will be a bit sticky at first, it eventually smooths out and the stickiness goes away.

Transfer to the dough to a lightly oiled bowl and cover tightly with plastic wrap. Leave in a warmish (75-80F) place to ferment and rise.

Towards the end of rising time, lightly oil a rimmed baking sheet (half sheet pan) with olive oil. When the bread has risen, transfer from the bowl to the lightly oiled pan. Leave to settle for about 5 minutes. Oil your fingers and flatten the dough in the pan, pushing it gently into the corners. You should have the pan completely covered with the dough. Dimple the surface with oiled fingers. Press the grapes into the dough at intervals of 1 ½ to 2 inches (4-5 cm). This doesn't have to be precise. Do arrange them neatly in rows though since you will be cutting pieces between the rows. Evenly sprinkle the dough/grapes with the rosemary and sea salt. Cover lightly with a towel or plastic wrap and leave to rise for 45 mins – 1hour.

About 15 minutes to go before baking, turn the oven to 375F. Place the upper rack in the middle. I always keep a baking stone in the oven, so the temperature is evened out a bit. It also causes the focaccia to bake a little more slowly.

Place the pan into the oven and bake at 375 for 25-30 minutes. Mine needed more – about 35 minutes, but the baking stone contributed to the extra time. When I have made this without it is nearer 30 minutes. This is all in a conventional (not convection) oven.

You can tell that it is cooked when the grapes have partially burst – there is juice staining the surface and the dough itself is puffed up and a light golden brown. Remove from the oven and let cool in the pan on a wire rack for about 5 minutes. Transfer from the pan to the cutting board and cut (using a pizza wheel) into squares – 1 grape per square. For shipment to a party, transfer back into the pan and place in an insulated bag.

Comments

This is a very easy bread to make. It slips out of the pan, isn't particularly sensitive to exact times and quantities. You can certainly knead it in a stand mixer – or even using the knead cycle in a bread machine. You do need the whole 500 gm of flour though – it just covers the sheet pan nicely.

Using the tomatoes

We have had a good tomato crop this year. There are 2 varieties – red cherry tomatoes and yellow pear tomatoes. They taste divine and look beautiful when combined. For lunch today we decided to have some, simply prepared with croutons, garlic, mozzarella, basil and oregano. Talk about a taste bomb.

Recipe (serves 4 as a starter or 2 as a main course salad)

1 T Extra virgin olive oil

4 Slices plain white bread with the crusts removed, and cut into ½ inch croutons

1 Clove garlic (or more to taste) sliced thinly

2 t Coarse sea salt

36 Tomatoes (mixed cherry/pear), cherry tomatoes halved, pear tomatoes quartered

24 Basil leaves chopped finely + a few smaller leaves as garnish

1 3inch sprig of oregano (leaves only) chopped finely

4 Mozzarella Bocconcini – preferably buffalo milk cut into the same sized pieces as the tomatoes

1T Sherry vinegar

Method

Heat the oil in a small skillet – until it starts to look swirly. Do not allow to get to the smoke point. Add the croutons and toss to coat. Continue to heat over medium low heat until the croutons are just browned and are beginning to be crispy – about 4 minutes. Turn the heat off and immediately sprinkle the sea salt over the croutons. Add the sliced garlic and toss. Add the chopped tomatoes, the basil and oregano and toss until just warmed through.

Serve onto a plate, drizzle with the sherry vinegar, top with the mozzarella, garnish and serve slightly warm. We had it with a glass of Kim Crawford's unoaked chardonnay.

 

The tennis brunch

Madame and I had been threatening to do this for a while. We finally got it together.

The menu was pretty simple – mimosas, peppers stuffed with tomatoes, chiles, olives, capers (see here) http://seabirdskitchen.blogspot.com/2009/03/peppers-stuffed-with-tomatoes-and.html together with some eggs cooked with fontina/black truffles and prosciutto/parmesan. Since the link describes the stuffed peppers, I won't bother to expound on those here.

The egg dishes were adapted from something we saw on the food network a couple of weeks ago. I think it was the "Hearty Boys."

Ingredients (makes 24 individual servings)

48 Wonton wrappers

2Oz butter melted

24 eggs

Salt and pepper to taste.

Filling 1 – Fontina Cheese and Black truffles

2 oz Fontina cheese cut into 36 small cubes

12 thinly shaved black truffle slices

Filling 2 – Prosciutto and Parmesan

2 Oz thinly sliced prosciutto shredded finely

2 Oz Parmesan cheese

24 strips roasted red pepper

Method

Melt the butter in a small bowl. Prepare 2 12 muffin pans as follows:

• Brush each indentation with melted butter
  
• Lay one wonton in the indentation with the corners sticking up
  
• Brush the wonton with more melted butter
  
• Lay another wonton on top of the first, but rotated 90 degrees – making 8 points
  
• Brush the second wontons with melted butter.
  

For the fontina dish, place 3 small cubes of fontina in the wontons. For the prosciutto version place a small amount of prosciutto in the wontons. Into each indentation, break one large egg. Top with a thin slice of truffle (fontina dish, finely grated parmesan for the other dish). Place a little roasted red pepper on the prosciutto dish.

Bake the eggs in their pans for a total of 14 minutes at 375. Rotate the pans top to bottom and front to back at 7 minutes.

Serve nestled on a bed of spring greens .

Producers' Picnic 2009

We did the annual producers' picnic for Madame's students last weekend. Because I can't leave well enough alone, I tried a new trick for the burgers. This time I did the seasonings ahead of time. Because mushrooms complement beef so well (it's an umami thing), i thought it would be interesting to add some dried mushrooms to the ground beef, so here's what I did.

Ingredients

10 lb 85% lean ground beef. This was a mixture of chuck and sirloin

4 Oz. ground dried wild mushrooms (porcini, wood ears, shiitake, morels, hen of the woods)

2T Kosher Salt

2T finely ground black pepper

2T garlic powder



Method

Using your hands, gently combine all the ingredients. Beware the mixture is cold and you may need to stop to warm your hands a couple of times. Take care not to compress the meat - if you do the burgers will become too dense and not very juicy.



Form the meat into 5 - 5.5 oz patties, making a small indentation in one side with your thumb. This allows them to stay flat while you grill them. Grill about 4 mins/side. Serve with usual condiments.

The Pizza Dough

I have had several people ask me about this, so here goes. It has been a bit of an experiment. I used the same basic method as I use for ciabatta, but have adjusted the water down considerably (to 70% hydration).

This recipe introduces the concept of a starter – or biga. The The elapsed time is very long (20+ hours) because of the development of the biga.

The biga rests for 9-17 hours, most of the time in the refrigerator.

Ingredients

Starter (biga)

Ingredient	Volume	U.S. Weight	Metric Weight	Bakers' Percentage
Water (Tepid)	1/3 Cup	2.3 oz	65	65
Instant yeast	½ t	0.1 oz	2 g	2
Bread Flour	2/3 Cup	3.5 oz	100 g	100

 

Bread Dough

Ingredient	Volume	U.S. Weight	Metric Weight	Bakers' Percentage
Biga	1 Cup (approx.)	5.9 oz	167 g	33
Water (tepid)	1 1/2 Cups	12 oz	350 g	70
Instant yeast	1 1/2 t	0.3 oz	8 g	1.6
Bread flour	3 ¼ cups	17.6 oz	500 g	100
Kosher salt	1 ½ tsp	0.4 oz	10g	2

 

Note the overall hydration percentage is hard to gauge because the biga itself has both flour and water in different proportions to the dough. The biga recipe makes just enough for the overall bread recipe.

Method

The biga

Pour the water into a small mixing bowl and add the yeast. Leave to sit for a minute and then stir in the flour until a dough just forms. Scrape the dough out and knead for a couple of minutes to work the flour in. It will not be fully kneaded, nor perfectly smooth. Spray the bowl lightly with PAM and replace the dough. Cover with plastic wrap and let stand for 1 hour. Place into the refrigerator and leave for 8-16 hours until ready to use.

Mix the dough

Remove the biga from the refrigerator and uncover it. Scrape it into a large bowl (ideally the mixing bowl from your stand mixer) and pour the water over it. Break it up into clumps with a spatula. Add the yeast and leave for 1 minute. Add the flour and stir with the spatula until incorporated. Sprinkle the salt onto the surface and proceed to the next step.

Kneading

With the dough hook, mix the dough on medium speed (6-8) for 13-15 minutes. Periodically stop the mixer and scrape down the dough.

Fermenting

Transfer the dough to an oiled box or bowl. Leave to ferment until tripled in volume (typically 3-4 hours).

Mystery Pizza Ingredients

Last Friday my good friend Gary McCants came by for lunch. I had promised him pizza and he accepted all too quickly. I typically make thin crust pizzas baked on stones on the grill outside. These were no exception. I had wanted to try a potato pizza for a while and this provided the perfect opportunity. I had some dried mushrooms on hand too, rosemary growing in the garden, some nice olive oil and sea salt in large crystals.

So, I reconstituted the mushrooms (they were porcini, wood ears, morels, shiitake) by soaking in boiling water. Par boiled some new potatoes (Yukon Gold) in their skins and tossed the dough into a nice thin crust. Added the potatoes sliced thinly, the rosemary, the mushrooms, some good Extra Virgin olive oil, sea salt and fontina cheese. Bake for about 3 minutes in very hot oven (about 650F) and serve immediately.

Magic – with good beer and excellent company

What to call this dish?

Madame and I went to the farmers' market on Sunday and now have ridiculous amounts of tomatoes, onions, peppers, mushrooms, beans, mangoes, lettuce, cucumbers, yellow squash and eggplants. So we have been steadily working our way through them.

One evening, I thought it would be fun to make a kind of veg casserole. However, not the normal thing – no canned soups, no nasty ingredients at all! This was essentially just a roasting of onions, yellow squash, eggplant and mushrooms, but with a twist. I also wanted this to be done in my customary 45 minutes.

The big question was how to make sure it all cooks. Luckily there is a fair bit of leeway. They key was precooking various ingredients so they didn't have to all warm up together in the oven.

Ingredients

1 Large eggplant, peeled and cut into ¾ inch (2cm) cubes

3 yellow squash (could use zucchini(courgettes)) sliced into ½ inch (1.5cm) thick rounds

6T Olive oil (divided use)

3 large ripe tomatoes (weighing about 2lbs/1Kg)

1 large onion (12 oz/300 gm) sliced thinly into rings

A large handful of unpitted olives (Nicoise and Picholine) making sure you have a good variety of size and color

A few sprigs thyme

4 Portabella mushroom caps (see treatment in method)

Salt/pepper to taste. Be careful, olives are quite salty in their own right

A drizzle of balsamic cream or balsamic vinegar

A drizzle of high quality (extra virgin) olive oil

 

To serve, 4 slices grilled bread – preferably artisanal and day old.

 

Method

Heat oven to 400F. Place gratinee dish and 2T oil in oven to warm up

In a large skillet heat 3T of olive oil. When smoking add the eggplant and squash, turn heat to medium and cook, tossing often, for about 10 minutes, The egg plant should almost cook through. While the eggplant/squash are cooking add the sliced onion to the hot gratinee dish and return to the oven. When the egg plant and squash are cooked, add them to the onion in the gratinee dish. Layer the contents roughly and return to the oven,

Heat the tomato slices in the skillet until they are hot through (about 2 or 3 minutes) and toss in the olives. Heat until the olives are warmed. Add the tomatoes/olives to the gratinee dish and mix to ensure the olives are well distributed. Add the thyme and mix in.

For each portabella, remove the stalk carefully, and then slice the mushroom cap horizontally so that you end up with two pieces each looking like a lid. These will become the lid of the dish.

Add salt/pepper to taste to the dish, then cover the dish with the portabella lids. Drizzle the remaining oil over the portabella lids, sprinkle a little salt/pepper on them, and return to the oven. Reduce the heat to 375 and bake for about 20 minutes – or until the mushroom caps are cooked.

 

To Serve

Grill some thinly sliced artisanal bread. Lay the toast slices in the bottom of a soup bowl. Spoon the vegetables onto the bread, making sure you get some juice to soak into the toast. Top with a portabella cap, drizzle some balsamic cream or balsamic vinegar and a little extra virgin olive oil.

Pickled Mushrooms and other Antipasti

On Sunday evening Madame wasn't due home until after 7 – she had been playing tennis and was likely to be hungry, but not to want anything terribly heavy. I also didn't know exactly when she would arrive, so figured that if I made a nice antipasti plate it would survive the unpredictability of her timing.

We had been to the Farmers' market in the morning and had lots of tomatoes (East Texas), red peppers (South Texas), Mushrooms (some rotting stump some where), mangoes (Mexico), grapefruit (The Rio Grande Valley) and some other local stuff. This wasn't all going to work, so I improvised with some of the wonderful 7 year old parmesan from Sigels, some salame, olives, roasted peppers, roasted tomatoes and pickled mushrooms.

Since we had so many mushrooms, I decided to pickle some myself rather than buy them. This was an experiment – one that worked out well, even if the flavors weren't very Italian.

Ingredients

1 Cup white vinegar

1 Cup water

4 T Kosher salt

2T light brown sugar

6 green cardamoms

1 inch fres ginger

1 inch cinnamon bark

1t cumin

12 black pepper corns

12 coriander seeds

24 button mushrooms washed with stalks trimmed

 

Method

Place all the ingredients into a sauce pot and bring to a simmer. Allow to simmer for about 20 minutes. Drain the mushrooms and allow to cool. Discard the cooking liquid.

 

What could be simpler?

Peppers stuffed with tomatoes and chilies

This recipe is an adaptation from Jamie Oliver's version. It was done from memory, so isn't exactly the same. It looked so good when he did it on his Jamie at Home program. It got the ultimate madame accolade, "We can serve this to people."

The Food Network didn't publish the actual recipe, but it is very straightforward and very adaptable. One comment that Jamie Oliver made was that "Mr. Pepper loves Mr. Garlic who also loves Mr. Tomato." I had some visions in the kitchen that I put out of mind as I was cooking.

I made the filling up (except for the basil) a couple of hours before stuffing the peppers and cooking the dish. The oven temp. will be 400F, the cooking time in total is about 50 minutes.

Ingredients
1 Red Pepper, halved lengthwise, deseeded and the stem left on
2 Yellow Peppers, halved lengthwise, deseeded and the stem left on
Kosher Salt and freshly ground Black Pepper
1 Clove garlic, peeled and sliced finely
18 Cherry Tomatoes, halved
½ green jalapeno
2 sweet chili peppers – not bell peppers but something like Italian sweet peppers
2 T Capers, soaked and drained
Handful olives, pitted – I used a mixture of green and black because that is what I had
A Bunch Fresh Basil, leaves picked
1 T Sherry vinegar
3T Extra Virgin Olive oil
6 Sliced Pancetta or Smoked Bacon
6 Slices bread, preferably rustic and grilled/toasted
3 Oz herbed goat cheese

Method
Make the stuffing by combining the tomatoes, garlic, finely chopped chili peppers, capers, vinegar, olives and oil. Season with a little salt and pepper. Set aside until you are ready to stuff the peppers. Letting the flavors combine doesn't do any harm.
When you are ready to cook the dish, preheat the oven to 400F. Remove the ribs from the pepper halves and season the insides with a little salt and pepper. In a deep cooking tray, lay the peppers open side up. Tear up the basil and put in the bottom of the peppers, and then stuff the peppers tightly with the reserved stuffing mixture. Make sure you use all the liquid that has collected in the bowl. Artfully drape a piece of very thinly sliced pancetta over the top of each stuffed pepper. Cover tightly with alumin(i)um foil and bake covered for 20 or so minutes. Uncover and bake for a further 20 or 30 minutes. The pancetta will become very crispy. Note: The yellow peppers cooked a little faster than the red peppers. The red peppers could have done with a bit longer – next time I will bump up the covered cooking time to 25 minutes instead of 20. Probably leave the uncovered time about the same.
To serve, place each pepper on its own slice of grilled bread. I used home made sourdough for this. Dab the top of each hot pepper with a little goat cheese. You can also decorate with some greens (e.g. arugula), but I served them plain – with a glass or 3 of Kim Crawford Sauvignon Blanc.

Squirrelcam

This doesn't have anything to do human food and the kitchen, but I had to jot it down somewhere....

It was a nice day here today, so I thought it would be fun to set up the squirrelcam to take video of the squirrels as they cavort - feeding from a bungee suspended corn cake.

Easier said than done.

The video camera mounts onto a tripod, so that step was straight forward. The remote control for the camera is at the business end - in front of the lens. So any attempt by me to power it on would frighten the buddha tummied little buggers away.

No problem - in the most Heath Robinson way imaginable, I rigged up a mirror in front of the camera and aimed it so I could bounce the remote control signal to the receptor on the camera. Easy enough. So now we have the camera on a tripod, the mirror on a low table in front of it, artfully held in place with a rock to get the angle just right.

This is all just outside a living room window. The camera set to a suitable zoom, the mirror aimed perfectly - a pregnant pause while we await the arrival of Mr. Squirrel.

No sign. Then the camera goes into a snit and powers down - to quote the manual, "To save running the battery down, and to avoid wear on the tape." Well the camera is plugged in to a convenient outlet so no worry about the battery. But the tape wear - frankly I don't care. But as in all things that are done to protect you - it doesn't work quite right. Clearly the product designers in Japan had not expected squirrelcam.

As it happens, I can reach out of the window to turn the recording on and off, so I will have to do that. However to make sure the mirror does get some use, I can zoom the camera in and out when Mr. Squirrel does arrive and is practicing cartwheels on the bungee cord.

I wonder who is training whom?

What better way to spend a Sunday?

Boeuf Bourguignon Inspired Sliders

We made this dish to complement our wine choice for "Open That Bottle Night", 2009. The challenge was to turn boeuf bourguignon into finger food, so we served the braise inside small, home made ciabatta rolls.

Ingredients – for the braise

4 lbs English cut beef short ribs
2T canola oil
3 onions – peeled and chopped roughly
3 carrots – peeled and chopped roughly
1 stalk celery – chopped roughly
1 head garlic – individual cloves peeled and chopped
2T tomato paste
1/4 Cup flour
1/2 bottle Red Burgundy
1 28 oz can Italian style tomatoes –no juice, tomatoes chopped
1T Soy sauce (hardly traditional!)
6 prunes (hardly traditional)
3 bay leaves
Salt
Pepper
Ingredients – for the finish

1T canola oil
2 Oz guanciale (can substitute pancetta or non- smoked bacon)
10 oz pearl onions (I used frozen)
6 oz white or cremini mushrooms – cleaned and chopped into ¼ inch pieces
8 thyme sprigs
6T Dry sherry (Madeira would be better, but we had sherry!)

Method – Braise
Note: This can be done the day before – in fact it is probably better if it is done the day before. Separate the ribs into individual pieces and pat dry. Season liberally with salt and pepper. Heat the oil in a large skillet and brown the ribs for about five minutes on each cut surface. Do this in batches to avoid overcrowding the pan.
Remove the ribs, and pour off all about 1T of the fat in the pan. Add the chopped onions, carrots, celery to the pan and sweat the vegetables over medium low heat, scraping up the browned bits. After about 5-8 minutes, add the garlic and continue to cook until you can smell the garlic. Then add the tomato paste and ensure that it starts to brown on the bottom of the pan. This adds extra flavor depth to the dish. Once the tomato paste has browned a little, add the flour. Stir to cook. Add the tomatoes, wine and soy sauce and mix the contents well.
Transfer the contents of the skillet to a slow-cooker and sprinkle the prunes on top of the vegetables. Add the bay leaves and thyme. Nestle the ribs into the vegetable mixture thin edges first. You want the ribs pushed into the vegetables, not lying on top of them. Turn the slow cooker to low and leave cooking for at least 6 hours – or until the meat is fork tender. At first as you peer through the lid it will look dry, but then as the vegetables give up their juices, it looks pretty wet.
After it has finished cooking, extract the ribs and strain the juices into a fat separator. The goal is to collect all the juices, but none of the solids. The carrots, onions, etc. have no flavor left by this time.
Pour the juices back over the ribs, taking care to retain as much fat as possible in the separator. Refrigerate overnight.
In the morning, any surplus fat will have congealed on the surface. Scrape it off. Remove the ribs and trim the meat off the bones. Chop into very small pieces. Note if serving this as a main dish, you could leave the meat on the bone, but I wanted to put it into sliders.
Strain the liquids, pushing the prunes, tomato pulp etc against the strainer to extract maximum flavor. You should now have about 1 ½ cups thick, smooth liquid. Pour it back over the chopped meat, cover, and refrigerate.
Method – Finish
Do this after you have refrigerated the chopped meat.
Heat the oil over medium high heat, in a skillet until shimmering. Add the finely chopped guanciale (or pancetta) and cook on low until crispy. Pour off most of the fat. Set the cooked guanciale aside. Turn the heat up to medium, add the pearl onions (still frozen) and sauté (still on medium heat) until they are slightly browned. You will need to shake the pan frequently. Add the chopped mushrooms and the thyme and cook until the mushrooms have given up all their liquid. Add the guanciale back into the skillet. Turn the heat off while adding 3T sherry (or marsala). Turn the heat back on, and cook the mixture down until almost dry. Repeat for the next sherry addition.
Remove the thyme and allow to cool. When cool mix into the beef mixture.
Serving
Gently reheat the dish in a saucepot on the stove top. You will need to stir pretty constantly. Reheating in the microwave is not advised, the mixture is thick and tends to scorch and explode!
Slice some small ciabatta rolls (see ciabatta recipe in this blog) so that they have a hinge. Open each roll and insert 1-2T of the meat mixture. Close the lid on the roll.
Garnish with parsley and serve warm.

OTBN 2009

We hosted an "Open That Bottle Night" party again this year. Same general idea as before – invite wine loving friends, ask them to bring something special and be prepared to share the experience. This year there were a total of 10 of us and we shared 8 different wines and a variety of delicious foods. A real treat all around.

To start the party we had some appetizers and some fun/light Prosecco. The Candoni which isn't as bone dry as some, but set the tone for the evening. Griff and Suzy brought a huge plate of cold meats, cheeses, etc. to have as appetizers. Charles/Tracey brought delicious stuffed artichoke hearts and Cathy produced a brie with a sweet glaze and gently hot peppers. Oink, oink!

Before getting into the wines (and they were all wonderful!), we went through a tasting exercise. I had made up some essences of some of the flavor compounds found in wines. These compounds ranged from sweet to tannin with bitter, sour, flowery, fruity, smooth, oak, and acetic. The compounds were made up to be very subtle, so we had to work quite hard to get the flavor profiles. The results were fascinating. Those who don't like Rieslings and Gewurtztraminers didn't care at all for the flowery compounds. Those that really like the big cabs really went for the tannin, and to a lesser extent the oak.

We were encouraged to compare the flavor profile with pure water in each case so we could really get the subtle distinctions. All in all quite an interesting exercise. It also made sure that the assembled gathering were pretty well hydrated before getting to the main event.

We arranged the wines in sequence – from lightest to heaviest. This year they were all red wines, so it was trickier than in years past. Here's what we had.

• Clos de la Roche (Burgundy 1er cru) 2000 – with a delicious baked chicken dish. Bryan brought this and explained that it was becoming pretty hard to get. What a terrific start to the evening – wish there had been more. That's going to be a familiar theme, by the way.
  
• Chateau de Pommard (Burgundy ) 1996 – with Boeuf Bourgignon inspired sliders. Madame and I provided this. It was one we brought back from our trip to Burgundy in 2002. While not the highest quality Burgundy we will ever drink, it still had sufficient complexity for the food. Interestingly it opened up very quickly in the glass.
  
• Baron de Barbon (Rioja) 2005. This is a 100% Tempranillo brought by Cathy. Delicious very characteristic Rioja with lots of tannin and some dried fruit bouquet – almost raisin like. That sweetness was in the bouquet, but not on the tongue. Cathy had found it while doing research – and she kindly brought a second bottle which we have kept to ourselves….
  
• D.V. Catena (Argentina) 2004. A 100% Malbec brought by David and Sandra. This was the last bottle from their personal favorite collection of Malbecs, so we were honored to share it with them. Sandra prepared an Asian flavored Kobe beef dish that was absolutely delicious (note to self, get recipe from Sandra!) It complemented the wine perfectly – causing of all things the spiciness of the dish to come jumping out.
  
• Veraison Synchrony (California, Napa) 2004. This is an interesting and complex wine. It is a blend of equal parts Cabernet Franc and Cabernet Sauvignon (44% each) with 6% Malbec and 6% Merlot, so there is a lot going on. Charles and Tracey brought this to the party after tasting it at a local wine bar called Cru.
  
• Darjoush (California, Napa) 2005. This is a huge cabernet Sauvignon, with lots of tannin and an amazing amount of body. Somewhat oaky too. Griff and Suzie found this on their trip to Napa last year (for their 25^th. Wedding anniversary) – just about breaking their backs carrying the unbelievably heavy bottles home.
  

So that was it for the formal stuff – but to add to the fun we opened a bottle of our current favorite Shiraz – The Ausvetia 1998 which we had managed to buy on sale (just as well really!).

All in all this was a terrific party. Even though it looks like a lot of wine, the pours were small and we got to savor everything. Thanks to everyone for coming to a fun party.