A Texas-Style Barbecue in Wenatchee, Washington

Dinner date: July 1, 2000

Menu: Barbecued Pig

Beverage: Beer

I decided to pull an old article from my past for this post. It comes from a paper I wrote for culinary school. For the first three quarters or so we were assigned a project for each class. Some were quite challenging, such as creating a HACCP-compliant scenario for a catering event for 100 people at a July 4 picnic. HACCP was created by NASA in the ’60s and is a seven-step program designed to keep food safe for the astronauts in orbit. It involves seven principles from analyzing potential hazards through establishing procedures to monitor to establishing effective record keeping. The scenario we were given said that it’s going to be 100°F outside and I’d be serving food in a field between noon and 8 P.M. The preparation center is two hours away and a helicopter cannot be used to transport the food. We had to ensure proper ‘flow of food’ (FOF) safety. Explain where the food is prepared. Demonstrate kitchen layout and equipment. Document everything including every step in the FOF. Include HACCP recipes blah, blah, blah.

That was our first project in first quarter and it was 22 pages that sucked the fun out of cooking. But I really enjoyed learning every bit of the challenge in the Flow of Food from receiving, storing, preparing, storing (again), and transporting, to holding, serving, and figuring out how to keep the leftovers safe.

Other projects were so easy because of recent events that the practically wrote themselves. Two projects that fall into that category were for my American Regional Central, and American Regional West classes. For the latter, we were assigned to write a two-page paper about a West Coast chef. Seeing how I had been to The French Laundry six weeks earlier it was the obvious choice and I’ll post that verbose, 15-page paper later. The former project was to write a three-page paper for a cooking method found or attributed to the Central region of the United States. During the summer break I was at a wedding where a pig was barbecued in an open pit. I had taken photos of the whole event so all I had to do was fill in some words to accompany the photos and the paper was done. Enjoy.

There are many interpretations of the term “barbecue” in the world. Most people use it to describe a social gathering and cooking outdoors. Others use it to describe grilling food. However, in Texas, there’s only one definition. Barbecue is a term used to describe meat that is slow-cooked using wood smoke to add flavor.

Barbecuing is not grilling. The distinction between barbecuing and grilling is the heat level and the intensity of the radiant heat. Grilling is cooking over direct heat, usually a hot fire for a short period of time. Barbecuing is cooking by using indirect heat or low-level direct radiant heat at lower temperatures with longer cooking times than grilling. It is the smoke from the burning wood that gives barbecue its unique and delicious flavor.

History

Although there is much debate to the origin of the word and many attributions, I chose the following explanation: Spanish conquistadors picked up the word barbacoa, a raised platform, from the Arawak people of the Caribbean. When DeSoto’s men came through Georgia in 1540, they described natives near the Ocmulgee River roasting venison and turkeys over coals on a similar device, making it the first barbecue recorded in North American history.

Who Cooks Texas-Style Barbecue?

Obviously Texans, but you don’t have to be Texan or be in Texas to cook this style. This is usually reserved for people with some open land. However it can be done in your back yard away from trees and decks. Just don’t trip over the hole when you’re not cooking. Most barbecue restaurants in Texas do not dig a hole to cook this way. They use commercial smokers that follow the convention of low heat over a long period of time.

How to Barbecue a Pig

What follows is an experience I had in Wenatchee, Washington. A friend of mine was getting married at his parents’ house. The main dish for the wedding was a barbecued pig. I asked if I could come out and observe the process as I have never seen it before.

Barbecuing (which can also be referred to as pit-roasting) a pig is not as difficult as you might think if you break down the process into the following steps.

1. Identify what you know (these are the assumptions) and then identify what you don’t know (these are the risks). Deal with each risk on an individual basis. (I’ll offer a couple of suggestions for each).

2. Break down the scope of the process into individual steps. This is the game plan:

a. Write the mis en place list

b. Dig the hole

c. Obtain the pig

d. Store the pig in a HAACP safe environment

e. Build the fire

f. Prepare the pig for roasting

g. Prepare the pit

h. Roast the pig

i. Carve the pig

j. Eat and enjoy the scenery

Assumptions

The first assumption is that you can procure a whole, fully-dressed pig. Dressed means all of the internal organs are removed. In some parts of the country procuring a pig like this might be easier than in others. When determining the size to fit your needs, figure on about 1.25- to 2-pounds per person of dressed pig. For the wedding we had a 160-pound pig to feed about 100 people and it cost about $225. This was supplemented with two ham legs and many other dishes. At another event, the pig weighed 60 pounds and fed about 30 people at a cost of $100.

Another assumption is that you have a safe environment for storing the pig from the time you pick it up from the butcher to the time you begin cooking it. It doesn’t matter how good something tastes or what sensations a food item gives you, if it isn’t safe to eat you’re going to be in serious trouble. Fortunately, the FDA provides some simple guidelines to follow to help ensure safe storage.

Taking a paragraph from my culinary school notes: A safe environment is defined by HACCP (Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point); a seven-step proactive, comprehensive, science-based food-safety system that allows operators to continuously monitor their establishments and reduce the risk of food borne illness (prevent food-safety hazards from occurring).

The key things to know for this scenario are:

1. Keep the pig at or below 40°F while transporting the pig from the butcher to where you will be storing it.

2. Store the pig at or below 40°F.

3. Cook the pig to its proper temperature (at least 160°F).

4. Don’t allow the pig to sit for a period of time after preparing it. If the pig is ready to go on the fire, but the fire isn’t ready, return the pig to a cool environment. Keep the amount time it is in the danger zone (40°F to 140°F) to a minimum.

5. Minimize the time it takes carving the pig.

6. Don’t leave the leftovers out; store them in the refrigerator or cooler right away.

7. Reheat the leftovers to 165°F and hold that temperature for at least 15 seconds.

Enough of the food safety lecture.

Risks

What risks are involved in taking on such a task? If you haven’t done this before, it can be daunting, even intimidating. Some things you might be thinking include:

1. If you screw up, it’s expensive. Trying a recipe with 150 pounds of pork is an altogether riskier endeavor than trying a new recipe using 1 pound of pork.

2. If you screw up, there’s going to be a whole lot of people disappointed. Read through this a couple times before starting and know what to expect. Be flexible. This post can’t anticipate everything you might encounter.

3. How can you be sure that it will be cooked to the proper temperature? Use an instant read thermometer that can be calibrated to within 2 degrees of accuracy.

4. Will the weather interfere? It shouldn’t be a problem as the pig will be covered while it’s cooking. Digging the hole, however, may be difficult if you decide to do this when the ground is frozen, extremely rocky, or when the soil is saturated.

The Game Plan

What follows is the scope of the process broken down into individual steps.

A. Write the Mis en Place List

List the equipment you need then begin to gather it so you have it all in place on the day of the roast.

1. People. Don’t try this alone. Get all the help you can to dig the pit. For the preparation and cooking of the pig you’ll need at least four people.
2. Shovels. One per person.
3. Sheet metal covering (or roofing)… this is the same stuff used as roofing on a backyard shed. You’ll need a piece about 6-feet long by 4-feet wide. Don’t use plastic roofing material.
4. Tape measure.
5. Instant read thermometer, preferably one that can be calibrated to within 2 degrees of accuracy.
6. Garden sprayer filled with water to put out flare-ups. Buy a new one; do not use a sprayer that has had chemicals in it.
7. Four 3/4-inch pieces of rebar about eight feet long. You can purchase these at any hardware store.
8. Two cinder blocks. These keep the rebar off the ground and make it easier to flip the pig. You’ll need an additional two if you’re cooking something else with the pig.
9. Chicken wire fencing; about 15 feet, or enough to wrap the pig twice around.
10. Saws. You will need a wood saw for the initial cutting and a hacksaw, with an extra blade or two, for more precise cutting.
11. Wood for fuel. Expect to use between 1/4- to 1/2-cord of wood. We used apple wood because this pig roast was on an apple farm, but you can also use alder, cherry, hickory, mesquite, oak, or pecan. However, don’t use too much mesquite as this wood burns at a hotter temperature, and with good pit roasting the motto is low and slow. Avoid evergreens such as, cedar, fir, pine, or spruce. These woods produce toxins in the smoke that can make you ill.
12. Container to hold a second fire. This can be 55 gallon drum cut in half, a kettle grill, or even another hole in the ground.
13. Welder’s gloves. When you ‘carve,’ you’ll be pulling the meat from the pig with your hands. The meat is going to be very hot and you need to work quickly so your guests are served hot, succulent pork. Buy new welder’s gloves just for this purpose.

B. Dig the Hole

About two days ahead of time, you need to dig the hole. Get extra help as you’re going to dig a hole 18 inches deep, 3.5 feet wide, and 6 feet long. If you dig the hole too deep, you might not get enough heat; if you dig it too shallow, you might get too much heat. Make sure the walls of the pit are straight up and down. If the walls are at an angle too much heat and smoke will escape. Throw the excavated dirt well away from the hole; you don’t want the rebar resting on dirt piles as this will alter 18-inch depth.

C. Obtain the Pig

Ask your butcher, about a month before the event, for a dressed pig at the weight you want. If your butcher can’t provide you with a pig, perhaps he or she can give you the name of one who can. Make sure it can be delivered or that you can pick it up on time.

One week before the event, contact the butcher again to confirm your order. You don’t want to be left empty-handed if your butcher is absent-minded (like my former butcher).

D. Store the Pig in a HAACP-Safe Environment
The pig had been stored in the garage, surrounded by ice, since delivery the day before. It was kept as cold as possible, and except for a last minute sniff at 7 A.M. when we were moving the pig, the storage conditions were GRAS (generally regarded as safe). We used a forklift to move the 160-pound pig the 200 or so yards from the garage to the fire.

E. Build the Fire

Before moving the pig we had to get the fire going earlier in the day. This picture was taken at 5 A.M. We were given some instructions on how to get started by the man who would be “managing” the barbecue. We were told to build a huge, hot fire, so we started with a whole cord of wood that measured 4 feet, by 4 feet, by 8 feet. It turns out we only needed about 1/3 of that.

Here my friend’s dad is throwing another log on the fire. You don’t need a fire this big.

Give yourself a very wide area free of buildings or any sort of combustible material. In hot, dry months make sure you’re well away from surrounding trees or grass.

F. Prepare the Pig for Roasting

Preparation includes using a wood saw to cut through the backbone, jawbone, and groin. You want the pig as flat as possible to ensure even cooking.

You need to create “handles” for manipulating the pig while it is roasting. For the wedding feast, we drove four 3/4-inch thick rebar rods through it. For a pig of this size, you need 3/4 inch thick rebar. If you use 1/2-inch the pig will sag, if you use 1-inch it will be too rigid and carcass will fall apart when you try to lift it.

G. Prepare the Pit

Meanwhile, have someone prepare the fire pit after the fire has settled down. You want about a 1-inch layer of coals on the floor of the pit. Never let the coals flare up during cooking, so don’t leave it unattended. On this occasion, we had built the fire too hot and had to remove most of the coals from the pit. These extra coals were placed in a small metal drum that acted as the container for the second fire.

Prepare the Pig for Roasting continued…

Wrap the pig with chicken wire to help keep it together while it is roasted and turned. Near the end of the cooking time, the meat will be tender enough to fall off the bone. The chicken wire helps keep it in place.

Pierce the skin so the fat can drip out of the meat. There’s enough fat in the pig to keep it from drying out. If you don’t do this, the meat will be very greasy. We added neither spices nor marinades but you can insert garlic cloves in the slits you made to drain the fat, or you can smear a molasses, brown sugar, and spice mixture over the exterior.

Note the two rebar rods, inserted perpendicular to the ones inserted in a previous photo. This arrangement of rods allows you to turn the pig any way you want.

H. Roast the Pig

Bring the pig to the roasting pit. Now all that’s left is to cover the pig and begin the low, slow cooking process. An old cookbook my mother has from the ’50s suggests using an asbestos blanket.

Notice the cinder blocks used to hold the rebar off the ground. These make it easier to flip the pig every hour or so. This is also why a depth of 18 inches is important. The cinder blocks elevate the pig even further away from the coals. So you’re actually 25 to 27 inches above the bottom of the pit. (For the wedding, we also roasted a couple of ham legs that are shown to the right.)

Cover the pit with metal roofing material.

The following picture was taken at 6:24 A.M. At 6:25 the beer came out.

Notice in the picture above that the metal roofing doesn’t cover the sides. We dug the hole a bit too wide. This allowed heat to escape, and because it was a bit windy that day, air got in and generated some flare-ups that had to be extinguished.

This is how it looked after 1 hour of cooking (7:30 A.M.).

In the following picture, you see how to flip the pig over. You want to rotate it about every hour or so, always watching to make sure there are no flare ups from the coals.

Add coals when necessary. Because our fire started very hot, we didn’t add anything until about two hours into the cooking. Knowing when to add coals isn’t determined by measuring temperature, it’s determined by the sight and sound of fat dripping into the coals. Listen for a slow, steady sizzling rhythm and look for the smoke where the fat is dripping. You need to know that the fire is burning evenly so the pig cooks evenly. In other words, you need to manage the coals.

By coals I mean, pre-burned wood. This is where the secondary fire comes in. Keep a fire going to the side of the pit. When you need some more heat, pull the coals from the secondary fire and place them where needed beneath the pig. It helps to have one person lift the corner of the metal covering with a shovel, and another person to shovel the coals into the pit.

You’ll know where additional heat is needed; it’s the areas where you don’t see the fat dripping.

Also, as the fuel is burned up, add coals to different parts of the pit on an as-needed basis.

Towards the end of the cooking time (about 7 hours for a pig this size) start checking the internal temperature. Check the temperate in various parts of the pig and when you get a consistent 155°F, remove the pig from the fire to a prepared carving surface. The carry over cooking will bring it to 160°F to 165°F. A 160-pound pig takes about 7 hours to cook; a 60-pound pig takes about 4 hours.

One photo I didn’t’ take is spraying the little flare ups that occur. Keep the garden sprayer near by and don’t be afraid to use it. Move the coals around if one area of coals sounds like it’s getting more fat dripping on it than the other areas.

I. Carve the Pig

Once fully cooked, the meat just falls off the bone. In this instance, the smoke ring was about 1/2-inch thick. There were no leftovers. Notice the gentleman on the left is wearing the thick welder’s rubber gloves. You don’t need a knife to carve a roasted pig. But know that the meat deep inside is going to be very hot and the gloves are necessary. (The apple was my idea.)

J. Scenery

This is the view we had overlooking the valley. All-in-all it was one of the most memorable days of my culinary experience. It was really nice!

Web Sites

HACCP

GRAS

FAQ OF THE INTERNET BBQ LIST

City of Wenatchee, Washington

Riesling—The (un)Official Wine of NASCAR

Dinner date: July 26, 2008

Menu: Brats with Sauerkraut, Grilled Onions, Mustard, and a Very Chewy Bread Roll

Wine: Domaines Schlumberger Riesling Alsace Grand Cru 2000

I recently read somewhere that wine is making a headway into the NASCAR audience. Why not? They now match beer to the food at The French Laundry, so why can’t we haute* wine lovers return the favor and offer the [admittedly stereotyped] NASCAR beer drinker wine?

Before I get too far into this discussion I should explain that NASCAR is not something I watch or attend. I’m aware of it, I see it on TV as I surf the channels every weekend, but it just doesn’t fit my persona. The highlights of it (and all car racing events) on the weekend 11 P.M. sports seems to be about two things: the crashes and the last 3 seconds of the race as the winner passes across the finish line. If you’re on board with that, great. This is not a post for me to bash your liking this sport because I have nothing to bash. It’s just not something I’m drawn to.

I have friends who are into auto racing and I understand how beer, in most instances, is the beverage of choice to these friends. During my brief television encounters with NASCAR, I also understand from all the beer advertising, and lack of wine advertising, that beer is the dominate beverage of choice with that audience.

If you work in a garage and smell that oil and rubber all day long I know that by the end of the day there’s nothing like downing a couple of beers, letting out a big belch, and patting the stomach while proclaiming, “Damn, that felt good!” Okay, that was another stereotype. Beer and NASCAR are emblematic to each other, ‘it’ just doesn’t feel right having one without the other. And besides, holding a glass of wine in the garage while shootin’ the bull doesn’t feel right either.

My girlfriend’s maternal cousin’s husband is big into NASCAR and just about anything with cars. And when we come over for a visit he offers us his favorite beverage—Coors Lite. It’s his persona.

The closest I got to getting into ‘it’ was changing the engine in my 1973 Dodge Dart from an inline 6 to a V8. This task was a disaster from conception to the inevitable resale. Renting the engine hoist to pull the engine out, purchasing a used engine from a junkyard, and then having to rent the hoist for numerous weekends as we had to make minor adjustments. A nightmare in frustration only to finally give up and have a professional finish it for me. I can still smell the oily rags, the metal wrenches and how I could smell that metal hours later simply by sniffing my well-washed fingers. I can still see my nicked and bloody knuckles caused by those wrenches and unrelenting bolts, the front of the car sinking about 8 inches as it absorbed the weight of the engine being put in, and the major oil stain left on my parent’s driveway.

Mostly I remember how the excitement of anticipation gave way to a relief of transaction as I finally gave up and sold my frustration to someone else at a significant discount.

Every time I drink a certain style of Riesling, it takes me back to those days and the frustration seems to melt away.

So that establishes my qualification to suggest that Riesling be The Official Wine of NASCAR.

What the Farmers Are Selling in the Market

I walked through the Market last Sunday, advertised as Summer Sundays, which is a sort of free-for-all for farmers who can bring their harvest into the Market as it doesn’t matter if they’re organic or not… just bring it in. I found the following items available for sale this week:

· Apricots

· Blueberries

· Onions

· Peaches

· Potatoes

· Squash blossoms

· Zucchini

Previously observed in quantities but now diminishing in offerings are pluots and cherries. I picked up a Walla Walla onion for tonight’s dinner. It’s a large (1 pound), round, sweet onion that caramelizes very well due to its sugar content. You might have seen other sweet onion varieties known as Maui from Hawaii, Vidalia from Georgia, or Texas from Texas.

Tonight’s Dinner

I spent the first 31 years of my life living outside Chicago. This is brat country. Anywhere within a couple hundred miles of Chicago is brat country, especially northward, and this includes Milwaukee. Milwaukee was settled by German immigrants who brought with them the cuisine and ingredients that they were accustomed to. This means a countless variety of sausages, sauerkraut, and onions.

First on the list is the brat, which is a big barbecue favorite back home. I use the word barbecue here as an event, A Saturday barbecue, not a method of cooking which is completely different from the high-heat grilling done in backyards. To my knowledge there are no manufacturers who make one bratwurst significantly better than its competition. Go with what’s available, but you’ll usually have two choices of brat—fresh or precooked. Fresh takes about three times longer to cook than reheating the precooked variety.

A brat is a pork and veal sausage that is seasoned with sweet spices such as allspice, ginger, and nutmeg. This is a Riesling-friendly food item.

Sauerkraut is significant to the brat sandwich because it complements the whole. Without sauerkraut a taste gap appears in the sides of your tongue, and a texture gap appears on the center of your tongue, like something is missing from both. Sauerkraut brings the fatty brat and tart kraut together to the taste buds. Rinse the sauerkraut in a strainer under running water to remove its brininess.

Sautéed onions; just about the easiest thing to prepare for a barbecue. Cut each end of the onion off, peel the skin away, and cut the onion in half from cut end to cut end. Position the onion on the cutting board with one of the cut ends facing you. Cut each half at an angle with your knife cutting at the line provided naturally by nature. You can sauté these in the kitchen or on the grill itself. If you choose the grill, you don’t need a side burner, just put the skillet on the grill. This will take a bit more time to cook as the grill will be farther away from the heat source than a side burner or kitchen stove. Just place the onions in a skillet over medium heat with about 1/4 cup of water. Heat until the water evaporates; stirring occasionally, and add a small amount of oil to the skillet. As the onions cook and get soft the skillet will develop a caramel coating from the sweet juice extracted from the onions. Move the onions to the side and add 1/4 cup of water to deglaze the skillet. When the water is reduced by half mix it in with the onions. Repeat until the onions are brown, they will still have a tender quality to them, they shouldn’t be limp and soggy.

I usually sauté onions the day before to free up time the day of the barbecue. Mix in a lot of fat, wrap it in foil and place it in the fridge. The next day just toss it onto the grill before adding the brats. The fat keeps it moist during the reheat.

Mustard is a personal preference between American-style yellow and French Dijon-style mustard, which can be either smooth or whole grain. Do not substitute powdered mustard mixed with water. This is an extremely hot mixture best suited as a dipping sauce for Asian-style pork sprinkled with sesame seeds. My personal Dijon mustard preference is Maille.

With brats and sausages you need a very chewy bread roll, I got a long French bread from Three Sisters Bakery located in the Market. A hot dog bun or soft roll won’t stand up to the bite you need to chew off a piece of brat or sausage.

Green salad. A green salad is one of the easiest things to make. Just ensure the ingredients are fresh and the textures between the greens and the dressing are balanced. Matching a salad dressing to greens is no different than matching a sauce to a main dish because a salad dressing is nothing but a sauce for salad greens. Match the weight of the dressing with the weight of the greens. Tonight I’m using a mixed greens salad (Mâche) with a vinaigrette made from 3 parts extra virgin olive oil, 1 part champagne vinegar, salt, pepper, and will flavor it with some dried herbs. Don’t use distilled vinegar as that has no household purpose except to kill weeds in the yard. Use it carefully because it also kills grass and flowers.

It should go with out saying that a green salad needs to taste good and whet the appetite with balanced acidity no matter how rich or thick the dressing is.

Brats, sausages, hot dogs, chicken parts, and hamburgers all use a direct heat method of grilling. The means that the food is directly over the heat source. If not using a gas or electric grill, you should spread the charcoal one layer deep in the charcoal grill. (This determines how much charcoal to use). Heap the charcoal in center of the grill. Ignite the charcoal or use an electric starter. Never use a flammable liquid to ignite the charcoal because the chemical is absorbed into the food as added flavor, and it’s not appealing at all. When coals have a light coating of gray ash (about 20 to 30 minutes) move them to one side so you have one hot side, one warm. This allows some control over the temperature. Put the wire rack in place to begin cooking.

When you cook a brat or sausage, don’t pierce it with a fork to turn it over. Use tongs because you want to keep the juices inside as it cooks, this keeps the meat moist. When you think it’s done, use a toothpick or the thin tine of a fork to pierce the meat as the doneness test is the same as a chicken thigh, the juices run clear. Along the same line, keep a spray bottle filled with water at your side to extinguish any flare-ups on the coals. Flare-ups are caused by the fat dripping from a crack in the casing. Besides burning what you’re cooking, flare-ups increase the size of the crack causing more fat to be released from the brat (or any protein). The end result is a burnt, overly dry brat.

Special Equipment Needed

My preference for igniting the charcoal is a chimney- or smokestack-charcoal starter, which is an aluminum cylinder with a wire basket near the bottom. They sell for about $12 at your local all-purpose, one-stop-shopping arena. After determining the amount of charcoal you need, fill the chimney starter with the charcoal, and place crumbled newspaper underneath the wire basket. Ignite the paper and in about 20 minutes the charcoal is ready to use.

The Wine

Tonight’s wine is a Riesling, a great summer wine and great wine for a barbecue. Jancis Robinson calls Riesling the “most underappreciated and the finest white grape in the world”. And Oz Clarke responds with “Yet the world doesn’t get the message.” And Willie Gluckstern says that “Riesling is the world’s most important wine grape, and it creates the absolute best wines for food.” I lean towards all of these sentiments.

Riesling, pronounced rees-ling as there is no ‘z’ in the pronunciation, is one of the few wine bargains left in the world. Perhaps it’s because too many sweet Riesling wines were accidentally purchased when a drier wine style was preferred, or maybe it’s because of those very long vineyard names on the bottle turn your head away towards a more recognizable wine name, like Chardonnay. Either way people just aren’t buying it so its price remains a bargain compared to any other wine, regardless of currency fluctuations.

My regional preference for Riesling is for Alsace, pronounced like Al’s ass, but the ‘a’ in ass is more of an ‘ah’, Al’s ahss. The Riesling wine style of this region is almost always bone dry, full bodied, crisp (meaning a higher acidity than most wines) and fruity; a great food wine. It goes well with shellfish, chicken, duck, ham, all types of charcuterie, curries, rich cheeses, and the spicy cuisines of Mexico and Thailand.

An added feature of Alsatian Riesling is that the word Riesling is on the bottle. You don’t have to wonder what’s in the bottle like you do with other regions in France where the wine is named after the place it comes from. This is something you don’t see in quality wines made elsewhere in France. The wines that bear the grape name outside of Alsace are mostly low-end end wines created by multi-national conglomerates who are marketing the wine to sell at high volume at a low price to the consumer.

German Riesling wine styles are a bit more difficult to identify, and are worthy of a mention here. There are many things to discuss about German Riesling, such as the which color bottle to buy, a green one that offers wonderful wines from Mosel and its tributaries the Saar and Ruwer, or a brown one from the Rhine river regions of Rheingau, Rheinhessen, and Pfalz. You may note some sarcasm here, but knowing which color bottle to buy is a serious task. The green Mosel/Saar/Ruwar bottle might offer the following based on the region from which it comes.

• Mosel; citrus and minerals
• Saar; steely acidic with long ageability
• Ruwar; delicate, subtle, and smooth

while with the brown Rhine bottle you can get these features from the following regions:

• Rheinhessen; wildflowers and smokey peach
• Rheingau; dry and ageable
• Rheinpfalz (pfalz); warmer climate; hence you’ll get tropical notes

On top of having to remember all this there are five levels of ripeness (sweetness) and in order from light-bodied (dry) to syrupy (sweet) they are:

• Kabinett
• Spätlese
• Auslese
• Beerenauslese
• Trockenbeerenauslese

These words are on the bottles of German Rieslings and tell you the style of wine in the bottle. I don’t speak or read German so when I first tried to remember the sequence I thought that the longer the word, the sweeter and heavier the wine. However, Auslese at the middle level is shorter than the top two Kabinett and Spätlese. So that didn’t work, but then I remembered the jingle. The Kraft Foods jingle. K-R-A-F-T. Every time I’m in the German Riesling section I sing that little jingle to myself only I use the first letter of each level, K-S-A-B-T. Fortunately, the K, A, and T are in the same position for the jingle and this list. And S is closer to R and B is closer to F so those fit nicely into place and this technique works like a charm for remembering dry versus sweet German Rieslings. Other words to note are trocken (dry) and halbtrocken (half-dry). These are also wines to seek out if you want a Riesling on the dry side.

No wonder people who purchased a German Riesling have pretty much had their expectations blown out of the wine glass. How can you know all this stuff if you’re not passionate about it?

Like any wine, the fruit flavors come from the soil and Riesling has four main flavor profiles: pome fruit, citrus fruit, stone fruit, and tropical fruit. The profile is almost always associated to the climate and number of hours of sun the grape is grown in. Riesling from Germany and Austria have pome and citrus fruit aromas apple, pear, lemon, lime, and grapefruit. From Alsace it has pome, citrus, and stone fruit aromas apple, pear, lemon, lime, grapefruit, peach, and apricot. In cooler areas of New Zealand, Australia and South Africa it focuses on kiwi fruit and stone fruits. In the warmer areas of California and Washington you’ll find tropical fruits pineapple, mango, and banana, but know that there’s nothing written on the label to indicate its sweetness level.

No matter where it’s grown Riesling has a minerality base to it. You will hardly ever find a Riesling with oaky influences because the fruit is too delicate, which makes it an excellent alternative to people who don’t like those big, oaky Chardonnay wines. A great benefit to this wine is that Rieslings are so much more food friendly than Chardonnay. And they are very ageable. Even without the oak, Riesling wines are capable of being some of the longest lived wines in the world and on par with Bordeaux and Burgundy in their best years. I think the main issue with people not laying down a Riesling in the cellar is the bottle is about three to four inches longer than a Bordeaux-style bottle, which is the bottle size used as a reference in most cellar racking kits and construction.

As a Riesling wine ages the color turns toward gold, and with Alsatian Rieslings the aroma exhibits petrol, kerosene, gasoline, black gold, Texas tea, whatever you want to call it.

For this reason I think Alsatian Riesling is the perfect NASCAR wine because an aged Riesling from this area has those telltale aromas of petrol, rubber tires, and newly fallen rain on cement (referred to as petrichor by wordsmith.org The pleasant smell that accompanies the first rain after a dry spell).

For those of you not willing to smell petrol out of your wine glass, cast that aside and focus on the flowery aromas. Rieslings are filled with those aromas and with the high acidity level it makes a combination that out performs any other white grape in terms of being food friendly.

Tonight’s wine is a Domaines Schlumberger Saering Grand Cru 2000. There are about fifty Grand Cru vineyards in Alsace in the classification established in 1983. These Grand Cru vineyards typically have the best location and soil, but it doesn’t logically follow that they automatically make the best wine from the region list. The grapes allowed to grow in these vineyards are Gewürztraminer, Muscat, Pinot Gris, and Riesling. To identify a Grand Cru wine from Alsace, look for “Appellation Alsace Grand Cru Contrôlée” on the front or back label.

Note: A high-quality Appellation Alsace Grand Cru Contrôlée wine can be purchased at about half the price of a so-so Californian Chardonnay, even with today’s Euro/Dollar imbalance. The quality-to-price ratio (QPR) is very high with Riesling wines.

If you like the smell of oil and rubber tires, give an Alsatian Riesling a try. A bottle can cost about the same as a 12-pack of ordinary beer whose primary ingredient comes from rice. It might feel out of place in a garage, so when you get home open up a five-year-old bottle and take a good whiff. It’s a nice way to end the day.

MEP

The bullet-point Mis en Place (pronounced MEEz ahn plahs) for this dinner is as follows.

Set up the equipment for the barbecue:

· tongs

· charcoal (or check the gas in the propane tank)

· skillet for onions

· spray bottle filled with water.

Set up the equipment on the counter:

· cutting board

· knife for onions

· serrated knife for rolls if they’re not sliced already

· strainer for rinsing sauerkraut

· small knife for mustard

Prepare for service

· plates ready for guests

· salad plates placed in refrigerator

· wine glasses cleaned and set at table

· eating utensils, napkins etc., at the table

Recipe

The following steps are listed in the order taken to prepare the meal as described above, not in the typical order of protein first or first course served is the first course listed.

Preparing salad greens

Wash and dry greens…

using the usual awe and shock method. Prepare a basic vinaigrette, season and add flavorings.

Preparing the onions

Slice onions…

and sauté to preferred doneness.

Preparing the barbecue

Ignite the coals…

or turn on the propane. Let the barbecue come up to temperature before adding the onions (if reheating) or the brats.

Cooking the brats

Place the brats on the grill…

and turn them over every few minutes. Watch for flare-ups. Cooking takes about 20 to 3o minutes for fresh brats, about 10 for precooked.

Service

Yell, “Come and Get it!”

Everyone should know what to do.

Analysis and Notes

We opened the wine at 6 P. M. and immediately poured it into our glasses.

It had a light gold color. The bottle lasted about an hour. While the tasting notes were few, they were bold with an in-your-face style. This wine was so intense that the next day I picked up a few more bottles of the 2005 that we’ll open in 10 years or so, and I’m going to continue to buy a few bottles of each vintage each year for that same purpose. What follows is a timeline of what and when each new component was detected.

6:00 rose petals B

6:10 lemon zest T B

6:20 cloves T At this point the spices in the brat came to an ideal symbiosis with the wine

6:30 oily rags T B

6:45 rubber tires B

6:50 petrichor B

7:00 kerosene B

T Taste

B Bouquet

All-in-all I’d say this was a really nice dinner.

Until next Saturday… boja, boja.

Photos by me and I’m (obviously) not a photographer.

Here are a few items of note about the ingredients. Unless otherwise specified:

· Salt is always Kosher

· Olive oil is always extra-virgin

· Eggs are always large

· Butter is always unsalted

· Pepper is always freshly ground

References

Andrea Immer, Everyday Dining with Wine, New York, Broadway Books, 2004

Andrea Immer, Great Tastes Made Simple, New York, Broadway Books, 2002

Andrea Immer, Great Wines Made Simple, New York, Broadway Books, 2000

Evan Goldstein, Perfect Pairings, Berkley, University of California Press, 2006

Jancis Robinson, How to Taste a Guide to Enjoying Wine, New York, Simon & Schuster, 2000

Jancis Robinson, Jancis Robinson’s Wine Course, New York, Abbeville Press Publishers, 1995

Mark Oldman, Oldman’s Guide to Outsmarting Wine, New York, Penguin Books, 2004

Oz Clark, Oz Clark’s Encyclopedia of Grapes, New York, Harcourt Inc., 2001

The Society of Wine Educators, Certified Specialist of Wine Study Guide, The Society of Wine Educators, 2nd Ed., 2003

Willie Gluckstern, The Wine Avenger, New York, Fireside, 1999

* FYI, haute rhymes with oat.

Web Sites

Petrichor

Walla Walla Onions

Jancis Robinson

Andrea Robinson (formerly Immer)

Oz Clark

The Society of Wine Educators

Wine

Domaines Schlumberger

The Soul of Sole Meunière

Dinner date: July 12, 2008

Menu: Sole Meunière with Baseball Zucchini and Rice Pilaf

Wine: Beringer Napa Valley Private Reserve Chardonnay 2000

 

I’m not much of a fish eater. As a matter of fact it is the last thing I look at on a menu. During my growing years fish was something that came frozen in a box consumed on Fridays or even worse, fish was the smell of its afterlife as you walked along the lake shore. In my adult years I grew more towards consuming water life in tasting and enjoying clams, crab, lobster, green lip mussels from New Zealand, oysters, prawns from a boat off Sydney Harbour (fresh prawns, not frozen… the kind that still had its head, eyes, and four antennae attached as it was served to you), scallops, squid, Beluga caviar from the Caspian Sea (and nowadays enjoying the more environmentally correct Idaho White Sturgeon Caviar), conch in Pompano Beach, FL, baby octopus (again while in Sydney), shark fin soup before I saw the videos, and so on. Not an impressive gastronomists lifestyle, but for a guy from the Midwest who grew up hating fish as a kid, this is quite significant. But, when it comes to fish… the kind of thing that swims through water via scales, whether it’s from fresh water or salt, it is something I just plain avoid.

 

But then a dish comes along and it intrigues you. So much so that you visualize every step of the cooking process and identify what needs to be done and how to do it. You can smell the nutty aromatics in the pan as the clarified butter heats to the correct sauté temperature, see the butter foam when you add lemon juice to it, hear the parsley sizzle when you pour the butter over the fish, feel the crunch of the texture as you take your first bite, taste the fish… well, there are 4 out of 5 good reasons to pursue this dish.

 

It doesn’t matter that you hold your breath every time you walk past the fish mongers because you can smell that one part in a billion of fish-death particles like you can smell that one part of 2,4,6-trichloroanisole (TCA) in a million of a wine smelling like a wet newspaper in a dank basement. It doesn’t matter because this dish is more of an exercise in mis en place and in the execution of culinary technique and methodology than it is in simply sautéing a fish. As you research, this dish becomes a challenge.

 

The dish in question is sole meunière. It’s something I’ve never had before but Kriste has twice in the time I’ve known her: once at a restaurant whose name is forgotten in Napa Valley and once at Au Bon Acceuil in the 7th arrondissement in Paris. Both times it was presented whole, not in fillets, with final preparation tableside. She couldn’t get enough of it.

 

I decided to make this dish when I stumbled across it in Walter Bickel’s, Hering’s Dictionary of Classical and Modern Cookery. My copy is the 13th English edition but it was originally published in German as Lexikon der Küche by Richard Hering almost 80 years earlier. The recipe is simply stated as:

 

— Miller Style: a la meunière: sole coated with flour, fried in butter, chopped parsley and lemon juice on top, covered with browned butter

 

Well that looks easy enough and it looks to be a very flexible recipe. After a some searching through the book I found that the meunière (pronounced muh-nyair) Miller’s wife style of cooking has 20 recipes in Hering’s little book of 16,000 recipe summaries:

 

· 1 soup

· 16 fish

· 1 calf’s brain

· 2 vegetable

 

With the Miller’s wife making 80 percent of her dishes with fish (in Hering’s world) you’d think the French eat nothing but fish. Not so according to Len Deighton, who says in his book, ABC of French Food, that as of the late ’80s (my edition is from ‘89), the per capita consumption of fish is 25 percent of Denmark and only 66 percent of England.

 

What is Sole?
Sole is a white, firm-fleshed flatfish found in the Atlantic Ocean. It is a lean fish (low in fat) whose compressed bones are usually more suited to the fillet cooking method than a cut of steak. It has an almost meat-like texture with a delicate flavor. When it’s born, the sole swims like a normal round fish (think of a bass in a lake) and then, as the fish gets older, it turns sideways and one eye moves to the other side (think of a horror film mutation where that bass is on the ironing board and with an iron you flatten it). It’s kind of freakish if you’re only familiar with round lake fish that swim in a straight line and have an eye on each side of the body.

 

The principal soul of sole meunière recipes is Dover Sole (Limande) named for Dover, southeast of London on the English Channel, where fishermen trawled for this fish along the channel’s bottom and brought it to the fish markets of London. This particular brand of sole is found up and down the Eastern Atlantic Ocean. This is the brand of sole used in European homes and restaurants when making ‘authentic’ Sole Meunière. In Europe and the American East Coast you can find whole Dover Sole with its black and white skin still on, and its skin can actually be peeled off. Trying to find this fish on the West Coast where salmon is king (no pun there) is another fairy-tale.

 

Here on the West Coast ‘Dover Sole’ is usually a slice of soft-textured flounder put on display in small, Dover Sole-like fillets. Other variations of ’sole’ exist and include lemon sole, gray sole, petrale sole, and Lex sole, among others. All of these brands are in the flounder family and can be grilled or sautéed. Fillets are usually poached, sautéed, or fried. Usually Pacific flounder or ‘lemon sole’ carry the Dover Sole name at my fish mongers. This is why I chose the word ‘brand’ in the previous paragraph. Here in the states Dover Sole has become a brand and it’s the fish monger’s choice as to how to pitch it. On the West Coast the fish displayed lacks the classic Dover Sole ripple effect in its flesh and the price lacks the transportation surcharge of bringing it from either side of the Atlantic. No one prices something caught in an ocean at $8 a pound after it is shipped 4,000 miles. In the Pacific Northwest, Dover Sole is flounder caught on this side of the Pacific Ocean.

 

Unfortunately for us tonight’s dinner will be Flounder Meunière branded as Dover Sole Meunière. Oh well. Maybe that won’t be so bad. Heck, even August Escoffier said over 100 years ago that a fine fillet of flounder can replace Dover Sole, but I should know that it can never replace the firm flesh and delicate flavor of a real Dover Sole.

 

A Simple Dish…

So far Sole Meunière sounds quite simple based on Mr. Bickel’s book. You just dredge the sole in flour, sauté it, sprinkle some parsley, lemon juice, and butter over it and it’s called à la meunière. Philip Pauli in his book Classical Cooking the Modern Way says to go a step further and dip the floured sole in egg and sauté it and it becomes Tranche de cohn sauté à la oeuf. Coat the egg-coated sole in bread crumbs and sauté it with bananas it’s now Filet de sole panés, aux bananes (breaded sole with bananas).

 

But dang me if I didn’t go on to read Elizabeth David’s French Provencial Cooking, originally written in 1960, who says how surprised she is at how simple Sole Meunière is explained in recipes. She states that there is a big difference between theory and practice.

 

She comments about how the ‘problems’ in this recipe are not mentioned by recipe writers. These writers don’t tell the reader:

 

· that cooking Sole Meunière for more than two people in the home is not a good idea

 

· a 10-inch skillet will not be large enough to cook more than two fillets

 

· the butter to sauté the sole must be clarified

 

· to watch the sole so it does not stick and burn

 

· how to turn the sole without breaking it; this is not easy

 

· to discard the remains of the butter in which your fish was cooked

 

· that the newly added whole butter must be brought just exactly to the right point when it turns a pale hazelnut colour, “no more and no less”

 

· to pour the butter instantly over the cooked fish and immediately serve the dish

 

From her warning I began opening more cookbooks to see what others wrote about it. These recipe ‘problems’ are now often explained in well-written cookbooks by people such as E. Saint-Ange, James Peterson, Paul Bocuse, and Philip Pauli. In reading these books a cook gains insight to every step required in a recipe, which makes Hering’s book a thing of beauty. A cook reading Hering’s recipe summary for Sole Meunière knows how to execute each step even though it’s not written there because the specifics were learned elsewhere. Look at the summary again and break it down to each individual content.

 

— Miller Style: a la meunière: sole coated with flour, fried in butter, chopped parsley and lemon juice on top, covered with browned butter

 

· sole coated with flour. You need to know to season the fish with salt and pepper. Know how coat it with flour, how much to use, and how to dust it off. Know that you can’t coat it more than 5 minutes beforehand or the resulting dish will be soggy. Know the serving portion for a fillet should average between 9 and 11 ounces.

 

· fried in butter. You need to know that the skillet must be large enough so that when you put the fish in it is not too tightly packed. You need to allow the steam from the fish to escape because this is dry-heat cooking. If the fish are too close together in the skillet the steam is trapped and the color will not be brown—the resulting texture will be soft.

 

You need to know that frying the fish in butter requires clarified butter because whole butter scorches the milk solids at the high temperature required to cook the fish, and that the butter must be at the correct temperature when the fish is added to the skillet to seize it and prevent it from sticking. The butter must cover the entire bottom of the skillet because the fish will stick where there is no butter. Cooking and browning must go hand in hand. You need to know the timing of cooking the fish and this is determined by temperature of the skillet and thickness of the fish. You need to know how to identify how the doneness is progressing and to look at the edges for the white dryness slowly moving up the side of the protein like a thermometer rises in the heat and the brown coloration that follows it to indicate when to flip it over. (The same doneness indicator is used on chicken breast for sautéing or grilling.) A general rule is 10 minutes per inch of thickness, but that can’t be followed too closely because the temperature of the skillet and thickness of the fish determine actual cooking time.

 

· chopped parsley. You need to know to scald, slightly dry, and chop the parsley before starting the dish. The chopped parsley should be spread evenly over the fish when the butter hits it to maximize the sizzle and foam.

 

· and lemon juice on top. You need to know to squeeze the lemon juice into a small container before you start cooking the dish because you won’t have time to put the mis en place together to extract the lemon juice after the fish is cooked. You need to know to pour the lemon juice over the parsley to wet if for the browned butter.

 

· covered with browned butter. You need to know how to brown butter to the right color. You need to know that only when you are ready to serve the plates should you drizzle the fish with the hot beurre noisette. When the very hot butter hits the damp parsley it produces the foamy richness that makes this dish so grand.

 

This is the soul of Hering’s book, as a cook you know all these things already because that’s your job. You just have this book, almost pocket-sized, handy to give you a summary of the recipes. It’s a reminder to 16,000 little scripts. It’s like an actor asking for a line in a play. Give me the line and I’ll remember how to deliver it.

 

The authors of sole meunière recipes who show the most concern in your success all have a common theme in the recipe headnote: speed and care of getting the fish from skillet to plate to guest.

 

With sole meunière you want to work fast as it’s one of the few dishes that requires immediate service. Ideally, the parslied butter should still be foamy when presented, don’t wait for it to subside. This is one of the few recipes that absolutely, positively must be served immediately. There is no holding it in the oven until you’re ready with other matters. The side dishes that accompany this dish must be of the type that can be held warm for at least 20 minutes. Even with two ‘foodies’ working together in a home kitchen the odds of executing the exact delivery time of the meunière and the side dishes à la minute is slim. Don’t set yourself up for failure. Let the meunière be the star of the dinner.

 

There is one exception to the previously stated rule; serve the side dish as a separate course before the meunière.

 

What the Farmers Are Selling in the Market

A gentle segue to tonight’s dinner, on Friday I walked through the Market on my way to work. The cloudless sky was bright blue with a light breeze coming off the Sound, always an indication of a busy and noisy day. During the summer, Fridays’ in the Market means farmers set up their street canopies usually starting at Pine Street and forming a line north. I notice today there’s a high percentage coming in from east of the Cascades, mostly from the Wenatchee area. There’s now an ample supply of zucchini and raspberries, as well as apriums, beets, bing cherries, fava beans, white-flesh peaches, pluots, potatoes, and basil.

 

However, the unusual thing that caught my eye at the Corner Market high stall was something called baseball zucchini. I have never seen this before, but I pick up three and bring them home. I have no books that reference it. A search through Yahoo and Google show only 9 hits and none of them offer much insight to cooking this.

 

Tonight’s Dinner

I’d like to point out some characteristics of the key ingredients in tonight’s dinner.

 

Butter is added to the dish in two parts; as clarified butter at the beginning of cooking and whole butter at the end. Clarified butter is butter that has the milk solids removed and the water boiled off. All that is left is the oil. This is preferred for the sauté cooking method because milk solids burn at a lower temperature (around 250°F) than what you need (around 400°F) for a successful sauté. Burned milk solids are those little black bits you occasionally see on poorly prepared dishes of pan-fried foods. It’s distracting in appearance and taste.

 

As an aside, I’d like to mention that I always save the milk solids I skim when making clarified butter and freeze them in rectangles about 2 inches by 1 inch and 1/4 inch high. This has a special purpose for another meal as I insert these frozen milk solids between the skin and meat of chicken breasts; this is especially beneficial to a whole roasted chicken in keeping the breast meat juicy while waiting for the leg meat to finish cooking. Absolutely sublime!

 

The second part of adding butter is whole butter at the end of cooking. Whole butter is used because the cooking of it is quick and controlled. You want the butter to brown (beurre noisette). Here the milk solids are lightly caramelized, not burned. This creates a nutty-smelling and tasting brown butter. Use your nose at this stage because you’ll smell the nuttiness before you see the brownness. If you wait to see the proper brown color you risk burning the milk solids and this is no time to start over.

 

Parsley is one of the most popular herbs used in European cuisine. To prepare for sole meunière: briefly (2 seconds) scald the parsley in boiling water, quickly dry in a paper towel, and chop. Parsley is named according to the shape of its leaf and there are two main types available:

 

· Curly: The leaves are bright green and curly. In the states it is most often used as a garnish on plates because of its attractive appearance. When buying in the grocery be sure to smell it because it looks very much like cilantro (coriander), which is often displayed along side parsley. The stem in curly parsley is more tender than Italian parsley so it’s okay to include a little of it when pulling the leaves off for chopping.

 

· Flat: Also known as Italian parsley. The leaves are dark green and flat. Use only the leaves for chopping as the stems are too tough and are easily noticed in a finished dish. More often seen in Europe as an ingredient as it adds more flavor to a dish than curly parsley.

 

With both types avoid bunches with yellow leaves as it’s a sign of age. Save the stems and add them to stocks and sauces as this is the most flavorful part of the plant. It helps build a ‘completeness’ to the flavor of the dish.

 

Flour, cook’s choice on this. The main thing I want to mention about flour is not to dredge a protein in flour until you are ready to cook it. As the protein sits it absorbs the flour and the result is a gummy coating that doesn’t crisp. The finished dish will either have a soggy texture with the inside properly cooked or a proper texture with an overcooked inside.

 

Sole. Unfortunately it’s going to be the flounder variety tonight. It won’t be the firm, delicately flavored variety. Perhaps this is a reason why European recipes don’t translate well as they cross the Atlantic.

 

Rice Pilaf. The side dishes that accompany this dish must be of the type that can be held warm for a period of time long enough for you to finish the sole meunière. This rice pilaf dish is so easy it’s one of the dishes they teach you in the first quarter culinary school. Here’s what I have from my school notes:

 

Rice Pilaf — Pilaf is a method using the following steps.

1. Melt butter in pan.

2. Toast rice.

3. Add liquid (stock) using a ratio of 1.5:1 for converted rice, 2:1 for regular rice.

4. Cover and finish in 350° oven for even cooking; 10-12 minutes.

5. Remove lid, stir, and hold for service.

 

You can do steps 1 and 2 days beforehand and store it in the refrigerator. When ready to cook, add the aromatics with the stock in step 3. Tonight’s aromatics are a simple matignon (edible mirepoix) of onion, carrot, and celery. Because I have only one oven I’ll make this on the stove top and hold it in a 170°F oven. This dish will hold in the oven for more than an hour with an occasional stir and a splash of stock to keep it moist.

 

While any long-grain rice is good for a pilaf I’m going to use basmati rice tonight. It’s a white, long-grain rice grown in the foothills of the Himalayans. The flavor is sweet and delicate with a floral aroma and is named after a fragrant flower grown in Southeast Asia. Basmati is one of those rices that require several rinses in cold running water to prevent the rice from sticking to each other.

 

Baseball Zucchini

I’ve never seen this, but seeing how the baseball All-Star Break is coming up, this has my interest. I’m thinking of preparing it with a combination of steam cooking and pan-frying. When I worked in catering steamed summer squash was often on the menu. The cooking was simple enough: steam for four minutes, mix with clarified butter, salt and pepper and toss it into a hotel pan and hold it for two or three hours. In the kitchen I’d sometimes grab some for my own dinner and place them cut side down in a skillet and sear for a minute to get a little caramelization. I thought about using bacon fat but decided on a clean-tasting oil, canola, instead. I want to keep the flavors clean. That is tonight’s plan with this.

 

The Wine

Selecting a wine for any dish is a mix or match proposition. Matching a wine to food means to serve a wine that complements the food. This is the easier of the two, but it is also the one that can get you into the most trouble. Match similar flavors, but be careful because this can backfire as the flavors might cancel each other out. On the positive side, if you can build on the flavors, it doubles the flavor. Mixing a wine to food means to go for contrast and have the wine function as a foil to the dish. If you’re preparing something on the spot, this is the way to go. If the wine is fruity, use the fruit notes to diminish richness. For example, the richness in game, such as duck, is diminished with fruit (Duck à l’Orange). Earthy wines are also contrasted with fruit if only because the wine doesn’t contain the fruit it should. Add fruit to the dish to enhance the fruit flavor that is supposed to be in the wine.

 

When picking a wine style remember to use the same skills as you would in matching a sauce to a food.

 

Tonight’s dinner is big on browned butter. Browned butter smells like toasted almonds. Butter, toast, and almonds means a big oaky California Chardonnay that’s big in weight, alcohol, and oak. It’s a match. California Chardonnay matches well with fattier fish, lobster, shrimp, and crab. Flounder is a leaner fish so I’m looking for the butter to carry the dish into fattier texture territory.

 

Tonight’s wine is a Beringer Napa Valley Private Reserve Chardonnay from 2000. I think Beringer offers one of the best wine brands in the country. Their product line, from top to bottom, delivers with every bottle and every brand offers great quality and value. And their website is the best around for offering information about wine and food pairing and tasting.

 

As much as I like Beringer products I have to remember that this is a Californian Chardonnay, which means oak. To reduce the oak notes I’m going to decant it for about an hour. Decanting white wines is not a common process as it’s usually done for reds and ports. I seldom decant my wines because we make them last two or three hours and I don’t want to miss anything as the wine evolves. If the wine is young, I might decant it for more than three hours.

 

When you taste a Californian Chardonnay you can’t help but think that the wine style is more about the oak barrel it was created in than the grape used to make the wine. This is sad because there are so many well-made Chardonnays in the world that focus on the grape and exscind the oaky note.

 

I have a fantasy that someday I visit a winery in Napa when the winemaker happens to catch me as I sip the “brilliantly made” latest offering. “Ahhh, an excellent choice! [What choice? It's the only white you're offering.] The oak tree we used to make the barrel for this wine was 200-years-old. What a day that was, cutting it down! I remember it like it was yesterday. It’s American oak, which is more forward flavored than French, and it comes from Michigan. Michigan oak is tighter than Virginian oak and gives the oak flavor more slowly. I was going to go with Kentucky or Missouri oak, or Oregon oak because oak from Oregon adds floral notes, but when I saw this tree… Oh, and then to toast the barrel I thought about going with a light toast because that offers more vanilla flavor than a medium toast, which adds coffee, caramel, and roasted nuts. Finally, I said, Screw it! Let’s go with both! So every other stave is alternating between light and medium toast. You can just imagine swimming in vanilla, coffee, caramel, and nuts…

 

Never mind the grape.

 

Special Equipment Needed

The only special equipment needed tonight that you might not have is a Fish Spatula. This is a metal spatula that is about twice as long as your pancake flipping spatula. It’s designed to slide under the entire length of the fillet to make turning it over easier and without breaking it.

 

MEP

The bullet-point Mis en Place (pronounced MEEz ahn plahs) for this dinner is as follows.

 

Set up the equipment on the stove:

· skillet for fish

· small pot with lid for rice pilaf

· small pot with lid for parsley and baseball zucchini

 

Set up the equipment on the counter:

· fish spatula

· landing pan for zucchini

· small bowl for lemon juice

· cutting board and knife for parsley and baseball zucchini

 

Portion the ingredients in the refrigerator:

· clarified butter

· whole butter

· parsley

· fish

· onions and carrots diced for rice pilaf

 

Prepare for service

· Dinner plates placed in oven, do not turn on heat

· Wine glasses cleaned and set at table

· Eating utensils, napkins etc., at the table

 

Recipe

The following steps are listed in the order taken to prepare the meal as described above, not in the typical order of protein first or first course served is the first course listed.

 

Turn oven on to 170°F.

 

Preparing the rice pilaf:

 

Preheat a skillet…	over high heat for two minutes, add the rice and toast to an even brownness.
Chicken stock onions carrots celery salt pepper	Add to skillet, stir, boil, reduce heat to simmer, cover and cook until done. Hold in oven.

 

Preparing the Baseball Zucchini:

 

Prepare pot for steaming…	by filling the pot with a 1/2-inch of water, insert steamer basket and turn burner to high.
Slice Baseball Zucchini in half…	and place it in the steamer basket and cover the pot with a lid. Steam until the zucchini is just under done, about 5 minutes.
Preheat a skillet…	in the usual manner. (See previous posts.)
Add oil to the skillet…	and sear the cut side of the zucchini. Spoon zucchini into a landing pan and hold in the oven.

 

Preparing the fish:

 

Preheat a skillet…	in the usual manner. Add clarified butter to the skillet.
fish fillets salt pepper flour clarified butter	Season fish on both sides with salt and pepper. Coat the fish with flour and when the butter reaches smoke point in the skillet, add the fish. Turn the fish when correct color is reached.

 

Preparing the plates:

 

Begin plating…

with the zucchini and rice pilaf, leaving room for the fish. Keep the oven door closed.

 

Continuing with the fish:

 

whole butter parsley lemon juice

When the fish is done place it on the plates and sprinkle the fish with parsley and lemon juice. Wipe skillet clean, return it to the burner, increase heat and add butter. When butter is properly browned pour it over the fish and serve it immediately.

 

Analysis and Notes

We opened the wine at 4:40 P.M. and double decanted it until the dinner was served at 5:20. Double decanting is pouring the wine into a decanter (or another empty wine bottle) and pouring the wine back into the original bottle. This gives the wine a double dose of air and begins softening the tannins much more quickly. It had color a nice gold color to it, much darker than a new Chardonnay. The bottle lasted until 7 P.M. What follows is a timeline of what and when each new component was detected.

 

5:20 this wine was made with oak: vanilla, caramel, and nuts; 30-second aftertaste T B

5:40 butter B

5:50 all oak notes fade and there’s nothing to detect

6:00 butter T

6:05 bacon fat T (reminded us of Pine Ridge Epitome)

6:10 petrol B

6:15 sour apple candy B

6:20 apple, pear, and quince notes reminiscent of a Burgundy B

6:25 something familiar and sweet but can’t identify it B

6:35 cream T B

6:40 rubber tire B

6:45 some chemical B

6:50 toast T B

6:55 still had a 30-second aftertaste

 

T Taste

B Bouquet

 

I think Kriste said “Wow!” about five times while eating the fish. It was properly cooked with a crisp crust and flakey, moist interior. I have to say even I enjoyed eating it and this was supposed to be an exercise in mis en place execution. The wine really impressed us, I thought we had all it had to offer by 5:50. But when it began shifting into new dimensions I felt very glad to still having four bottles left of this vintage. All-in-all I’d say this was a really nice dinner.

 

 

Until next Saturday… boja, boja.

 

Photos by me and I’m (obviously) not a photographer.

 

Here are a few items of note about the ingredients. Unless otherwise specified:

· Salt is always Kosher

· Olive oil is always extra-virgin

· Eggs are always large

· Butter is always unsalted

· Pepper is always freshly ground

 

References

Aliza Green, Field Guide to Seafood, Philadelphia, Quirk Books, 2007

 

August Escoffier, Le Guide Culinaire, New York, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1979

 

Diane Forley with Catherine Young, Anatomy of a Dish, New York: Artisan, 2002

 

Didi Emmonds, Vegetarian Planet, Boston, The Harvard Common Press, 1997

 

E. Saint-Ange, La Bonne Cuisine de Madame E. Saint-Ange, Berkeley, California, Ten Speed Press, 2005

 

Elizabeth David, French Provencial Cooking, New York, Penguin Books, 7th ed., 1999

 

James Peterson, Glorious French Food, Hoboken, NJ, Wiley 1st ed., 2002

 

Jerald W. Chesser, CEC, CCE, Art and Science of Culinary Preparation, St. Augustine, FL, The Educational Institute of the American Culinary Federation, Inc., 1992

 

Jon Iverson, Home Winemaking Step by Step, Medford, OR, Stonemark Publishing Co., 3rd Ed., 2002

 

Julia Child, Julia’s Kitchen Wisdom, New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 2000

 

Len Deighton, ABC of French Food, New York Bantam Books, 1989

 

Paul Bocuse, French Cooking, New York, Pantheon Books, 1977

 

Philip Pauli, Classical Cooking the Modern Way, New York, John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 1999

 

Walter Bickel, Hering’s Dictionary of Classical and Modern Cookery, Rotherham, UK, 13th English Ed., 1994

 

Wine

Beringer Wine

The Streets of Seattle are Lined with Olive Trees

Dinner date: June 28, 2008

Menu: Chitarra Pasta with Garlic, Olive Oil, and Red Pepper Flakes

Wine: Pinot Grigio

 

Work is finally starting to let up a bit so rather than spend more energy in the kitchen I decided to make this Saturday night’s dinner an easy task, and enjoy a little free time reading. The current book on the coffee table is Jacques Manière’s Le Grand Livre de la Cuisine à la Vapeur translated into English by Stephanie Lyness with the subtitle: The Art of Cooking With Steam. In addition to translating the recipes it’s an interesting read because Lyness turns it into a narrative of Manière’s work and his intentions within it. (Manière passed away shortly after Lyness began the translation.)

                                 

Of the four ingredients listed in the recipe title olive oil is perhaps the most personal to most people. People have olive oil preferences ranging from color to taste to press sequence and press method to country of origin. There are so many sources available in explaining the olive oil lingo that I’m not going to address it here. I will say that my favorite olive oil is an inexpensive bottle available at Trader Joe’s. It’s the Kalamata Olive Oil and I like it because it tastes like olives. It’s not peppery, grassy, nutty, fruity, or buttery… it’s olivy. 

 

A visitor new to the Market would think the streets of Seattle were lined with olive trees simply based upon the amount of olive oil available for purchase here. I don’t know why it’s this way because Seattle is not at the top of any list of olive-oil producing regions, yet two food souvenirs you see people carrying around the market are fish in a cardboard box shipper and olive oil.

 

Along with numerous tables in the original Market building known as the Main Arcade (Arcade) displaying all sorts of infused olive oils and vinegars, the Market proper has two main olive oil suppliers:

 

La Buona Tavola Truffle Cafe and Specialty Foods in the Triangle building offers lesser-seen brands mixed in with its truffle scented oils.

 

DeLaurenti Specialty Food & Wine in the Economy Market building is a wonderful Italian market with wine, cheese, and deli and has over 90 feet of shelf space dedicated to olive oils from Italy.

 

The Spanish Table, located behind and below the Market on Western Avenue, specializes in Spanish and Portuguese products. If you need Port this is the place to go. There is more Port consumed per capita in Seattle than in any other city in the country; maybe it’s the rain. The Spanish Table has 12 feet of shelving and one table (and the floor space underneath it) for olive oil. The shelving has one facing per bottle. This is unlike your typical grocery that has three or more facings per bottle. The 12 feet may sound insignificant, but it’s equal to 36 feet or more of grocery shelving and here it’s all Spanish and Portuguese olive oil.

 

Honorable mention goes to Big John’s PFI (Pacific Food Importers) located 1.2 miles south of the Market and just east of the stadiums on 6th avenue. It’s an honorable mention because as a supplier of Mediterranean foods, they not only have 96 feet of shelving dedicated to this stuff from the Mediterranean rim, they also supply my pantry with Israeli couscous, lentils, cavatelli, trofie, monastiri, pastichio macaroni, and orecchiette specialty pastas, carnaroli rice, Dutch cocoa powder, Callebaut chocolate, Diamond Kosher salt, Maldon sea salt, Moscatel vinegar, Banyuls vinegar, Champagne vinegar, and gelatin leaves because they offer the cheapest prices I can find on these products. <Sorry for the run-on…>

 

What makes this all so significant is that most of the brands available in these stores are not available in your local supermarket.

 

What the Farmers Are Selling in the Market

As long as I was at the market with my measuring tape I thought I’d check the farmers tables to see what they’re harvesting this week. The farmers set up their tables in two locations: daily on the east wall in the Arcade, and on Wednesdays (organic farmers), Fridays, and Sundays from June through October under canopies on the red-brick paved Pike Place.

 

Last Wednesday I took a walk through to the Market to see the organic farmer setup. There’s only seven there, probably due to it being a weekday and the record-breaking cold spell we’ve had this spring. Most of these farms are located in Skagit County north of Seattle. Many harvest schedules are delayed this year. Most of the farmers today have cherries—either Bing (deep red) or Rainier (mostly yellowish with bright red and pink areas). They look good with firm skins, none shriveled. Other produce being offered include: apriums, an apricot and plum in one; English, snow, and sugar snap peas; and various salad greens.

 

Inside the Arcade the long stretch of tables, about 200 feet long, is filled with flower, infused olive oil, and jewelry vendors except for one young woman who has about 6 feet of table space. She is selling strawberries for Hayton Farms Homeplace Berry Stand from Mount Vernon, about 50 miles north of Seattle. She has quite the quantity given the difficult growing conditions so far. The berries are very big and very red. In conversation with her I find that Hayton Farms is certified transitional meaning they’re transitioning their crops from conventional growing methods to organic. Soon they’ll qualify to have a canopy outdoors on Wednesdays with higher visibility and more foot traffic.

 

Tonight’s Dinner

What a difference 14 days makes. In my last post, June 7, I talked how it hadn’t been this cold in Seattle in over 114 years. Today SeaTac airport tied the high temperature for this date, 91 degrees—19 degrees warmer than average.

 

This temperature swing caused a major shift from my dinner planning earlier in the week. Now I’ll keep the oven off and make a quick preparation of a dish and enjoy it while sitting on the back deck.

 

Tonight’s pasta is a Chitarra Pasta Abruzzese di Semola di Grano Duro Secca imported from Italy and is made from durum wheat and water. It is produced by Rustichella d’Arbruzzo S.p.A. I bought it at the newly opened Kress Grocery on 3rd Avenue. I guess chitarra pasta is a cross between spaghetti and linguini because it’s square. Pasta can be divided into two categories: pasta secca (dried) and pasta fresca (fresh). Dried pasta is made from hard durum wheat and water, pressed through metal dies, dried and sold as dried pasta. Fresh pasta usually contains softer wheat flour, eggs, and salt, is handmade and as sold fresh pasta. This is also the homemade type.

 

Setting up a pot for cooking pasta is a basic function, we’ve all done it, and done it quite well, I’m sure. I do have some items to offer to the process.

 

· Have all ingredients going into the pasta prepared and portioned before cooking the pasta. Once you drain the pasta it’s just two minutes to service. There’s no time for mincing, dicing, or heating.

 

· Figure on using about 2 ounces dried pasta per person for a first course, 4 ounces for a main course.

 

· Most sources say to use 4 to 6 quarts of water to 1 pound of pasta. Don’t try using a small amount of water to cook the pasta. The water will get too starchy from the pasta and it will be difficult to keep the pasta from sticking together.

 

· Make sure the water is at a rapid boil when you add the pasta. Cover the pot to achieve that boil, if necessary. Do not keep the pot covered during cooking; you can’t see what’s happening.

 

· Don’t forget to stir the pasta during cooking at least once every two minutes. You’ll never have enough water boiling to keep the pasta separate in the boil. In a restaurant I’ve cooked 3 pounds of pasta in 8 gallons of water and still had to stir the pot to keep the strands from sticking together. At home, a tablespoon of salt is enough to season pasta during cooking. Don’t try seasoning afterwards because it won’t be absorbed. Bland pasta is very noticeable in a finished dish and adding it to the water before the boil ensures the pasta will be well-seasoned when it’s done cooking. Unseasoned pasta has that ’something’s missing’ feel when you bite into it.

 

· Don’t add oil to the water just because you’ve read that it helps keep the pasta from sticking; it doesn’t and this is a waste of [probably] good oil. Mix oil and water together and oil always ends up floating above water. It doesn’t matter if the water is standing still or is boiling. In fact, the pressure from the boil pushes the oil to the surface away from the pasta. I suppose you could pull the pasta up to the oiled surface with a pasta ladle, but why bother? If that works, then it follows that the pasta will have oil on it when you sauce it, and sauce doesn’t stick to oily pasta. Just give the pasta a stir every other minute during cooking and it won’t stick.

 

· Professionally made dry pasta is usually done by the time mentioned on the package instructions. Manufacturers know best about cooking the pasta they make so that’s the place to start. You probably also read about cooking pasta to ‘al dente’, which means ‘to the tooth’. And it goes on to explain that ‘to the tooth’ means that the pasta has a ‘bite’ to it. So? That’s not a good explanation as to when pasta is done. It’s like what people say on the bulletin boards about how they identify an over-cooked salmon fillet and writing, “Hmmm… denatured proteins… tsk, tsk.” It tells you nothing about determining doneness.

 

And don’t throw pasta against the wall looking for it to stick as a measure of doneness. An ex-liquidator of future income of mine used to do that and all we had was a wall with starch stains that really don’t disappear when painted over. When you bite into the pasta don’t just trust your bite to determine the doneness. Look at the pasta where you bit it. That tells you how far along the pasta is to doneness.

 

4 stages of pasta: raw, undercooked, properly cooked, and overcooked.

Professionally made dry pasta is yellow in its uncooked state; however, a color change takes place during cooking. The uncooked pasta in the middle turns white. Take a bite of pasta three-quarters into cooking it and look at the edge where your bit. Notice the white center, it’s probably large in proportion to the diameter of the pasta and it’s still quite hard. Cook it to its full cooking time and bite another piece. What you want is a pinpoint white spot, nothing bigger. This is when dried pasta is done, this is al dente. If you’re cooking a flat noodle such as lasagne or ravioli, then the pinpoint is a straight line across the pasta as if drawn from a pin.

 

· Rinse pasta in cold running water if the pasta is going to be a cold pasta salad. Do not rinse pasta after cooking unless you’re planning on doing a ‘reheat’ later on and need to immediately stop the cooking process. A ‘reheat’ is necessary if you’re having a big dinner party or catering. Creating dishes à la minute doesn’t fit to your schedule. The pasta loses some quality, but that’s better than losing a dish or your sanity.

 

· Drain the pasta into a colander in the sink and then immediately return the pasta to the pot. Doing so will keep about two to four tablespoons of pasta water with the pasta. This ’starchy water’ helps add texture to the sauce.

 

Garlic, since I’ve been reading Le Grand Livre de la Cuisine à la Vapeur I decided to play along with tonight’s garlic and steam it with its skin still on for 12 to 15 minutes according to the instructions in the book. Let it cool and then peel and process any way you want. As Manière and Lyness described, the steaming garlic technique makes garlic as spreadable as butter. Also, steaming garlic rounds its angular flavors. I found this to be a technique good for many applications.

 

There are several garlic types available, so whatever type you buy you want a firm, plump bulb with dry, papery skins. As with all root vegetables, avoid those that are soft or shriveled or have sprouts shooting out. No matter what you’re cooking preference, if the garlic is old, as usually indicated by sprouting, slice the garlic in half lengthwise and remove inner green sprout. This is a plant’s way of trying to survive through reproduction and that sprout is very bitter and acrid.

 

Olive oil. As previously mentioned, I use Trader Joe’s Kalamata Olive Oil. Heating a subtly flavored olive oil or running it through a food processor breaks down those subtle flavors. I’m not worried about this particular oil because the only subtle flavor is olive, and there’s a lot of it. Adding a little splash from the bottle at the end of preparation helps keep the flavor bright.

 

Red pepper flakes. Not much to say about this. You can buy it anywhere spices are sold. The only issue here is when to add the flakes to the oil. If you want the spicy heat (picante) from the flakes add it right away as the oil heats. Otherwise, sprinkle it in with the pasta along with the oil at the end of the preparation. The former preparation offers a hotter dish than the latter.

 

Whenever a recipe calls for a citrus juice I also add some zest from that fruit. It adds a little complexity and another layer of flavor. When zesting a citrus use a grater to grate just the outer skin. Avoid grating deep into it and exposing the white pith. If you expose the pith, chances are you’re grating into it and it ends up in the dish. This is bitter and can ruin a dinner. Tonight I’m adding lemon juice and zest because it will match the wine.

 

The Wine

After consuming over $400 in wine in two of the first three posts, I decided to dig through the couch for some change and buy a Pinot Grigio priced under $7. Like Rosés, Pinot Grigios are starting to bloom all over the place as the warm weather appears. When you bump into floor displays of Rosé, Pinot Grigio, and Sauvignon Blanc in a store’s entrance you know summer is just around the corner.

 

Bella Serra 2007 Pinot Grigio

 

Pinot Grigio and Pinot Gris are one and the same white grape. It has two flavor profiles depending on the region where it’s grown. In Italy, Pinot Grigio is known for its steely-minerality and acidity. It’s light and crisp and usually has a ‘middle-of-the-road’ flavor. The best description I’ve found for Pinot Grigio comes from Oz Clarke, “…the archetypal Italian restaurant wine.”

 

The Pinot Gris wines made in Oregon go quite well with salmon prepared with moist heat cooking methods (simmer, poach, or steam). Oregon Pinot Gris is usually crisp and acidic with pomme fruit and mango notes. A footnote to Oregon Pinot Gris, as of October 2007, winemakers can label their wines Pinot Grigio.

 

In Alsace, the grape named Pinot Gris makes wines that are soft, spicy, nutty and with a honey bouquet. It’s completely different from Italy’s table wine. The grape grown in Alsace makes excellent late harvest wines due to the area’s usually dry autumns. This same wine profile also comes from German regions of Baden and Pfalz in wines named Ruländer (sweet) or Grauer Burgunder (dry).

 

MEP

The bullet-point Mis en Place (pronounced MEEz ahn plahs) for this dinner is as follows.

 

Set up the equipment on the stove:

· 6- or 8-quart pot

· skillet

 

Set up the equipment and ingredients on the counter:

· colander

· grater for lemon and Parmesan cheese

· pasta weighed according to course and number of people

· olive oil

· red pepper flakes

· lemon (zest and juice)

· salt

· pepper

 

Recipe

The following steps are listed in the order taken to prepare the meal as described above, not in the typical order of protein first or first course served is the first course listed.

 

For the pasta:

1 gallon water 1 tablespoon salt

Add water and stir to dissolve the salt. Cover and bring the water to a boil.

 

For the sauce:

 

juice and zest from one lemon 1/2 cup of extra-virgin olive oil 6 garlic cloves, steamed and coarsely chopped 2 tsp hot pepper flakes

Combine in the skillet and warm over medium heat.

 

Preparing the bowls:

 

Fill the bowls with a little water…

and microwave until the water boils. We use Thomas Rosenthal porcelain plates and they retain heat quite well.

 

Continuing with the pasta:

 

When the water boils…	add the pasta and stir. Do not cover with the lid. Stir the pasta every two minutes. Begin testing the pasta for doneness starting at 75 percent of the cooking time. Place the colander in the sink.
When the pasta is done…	drain the pasta into the colander. Return the pasta back into the pot. Including a little water is preferable. Turn the stove off and place the pot on the burner to keep warm.

 

Finishing the dish:

 

Pour olive oil into the pot…

and mix well.

 

Plating:

 

Drain water from bowls…

and wipe dry. Divide the pasta between the plates. Grate Parmesan cheese over the pasta and serve.

 

Analysis and Notes

While preparing the dish, I decided to add lemon juice and zest to accent the citrus notes of the wine. The affect of the hot pepper flakes goes to the back of the tongue where they accentuate the citrus. The oil, wine, and bread will counterbalance that affect.

 

The wine offered some light, crisp, citrus flavors with a chalky undertone. A younger vintage would probably offer more. After we finished dinner the remaining wine exhibited a lime-like note. Was this an evolution in the wine or was it because we were no longer consuming lemon from the dish?

 

We opened the wine at 5 P.M. and went straight into dinner. It was quite clear and had very little color; typical for this style of Pinot Grigio. The bottle lasted about an hour. What follows is a timeline of what and when each new component was detected.

 

5:00 citrus flavors with a chalky undertone T

6:00 citrus flavors with a chalky undertone T

6:15 Lime B

 

T Taste

B Bouquet

 

I can say this the wine was consistent.

 

All-in-all I’d say this was a really nice dinner.

 

 

Until next Saturday… boja, boja.

 

Photos by me and I’m (obviously) not a photographer.

 

Here are a few items of note about the ingredients. Unless otherwise specified:

· Salt is always Kosher

· Olive oil is always extra-virgin

· Eggs are always large

· Butter is always unsalted

· Pepper is always freshly ground

 

References

Claudia Piras editor-in-chief, Culinaria Italy, Cologne, Germany, Könemann, 2004

 

Jacques Manière with Stephanie Lyness, Le Grand Livre de la Cuisine à la Vapeur, New York, William Morrow and Company, Inc., 1995

 

Jill Norman, The Cook’s Book, New York, Dorling Kindersley, 2005

 

Jill Prescott, Ecole de Cuisine, Berkeley, California, Ten Speed Press, 2001

 

Kate Whiteman, Jeni Wright, Angela Boggiano, and Carla Capalbo, The Italian Cooking Encyclopedia, London, Lorenz Books, 1999

 

Oz Clark, Oz Clark’s Encyclopedia of Grapes, New York, Harcourt, Inc., 2001

 

Web Sites

La Buona Tavola Truffle Cafe and Specialty Foods

DeLaurenti Specialty Food & Wine

The Spanish Table

Big John’s PFI

Slow Food Skagit River Salish Sea

Certified Transitional

Rustichella d’Arbruzzo S.p.A.

Summer in Seattle Starts on July 12

Dinner date: June 14, 2008

Menu: Roast Pork Tenderloin with Potato Purée and Fava Beans

Wine: Lafite Rothschild, 1979

Whether it is correctly attributed, Mark Twain has gone down in history as saying, “The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco.”

He never visited Seattle.

 

The first week of June 2008 was the coldest in Seattle since 1894, the year when they started to track such stuff here. And now here we are 7 days from ’summer’ and this cold weather means I can continue cooking using methods normally reserved for winter (roast, broil, and braise). I have to keep reminding myself that “summer in Seattle starts on July 12″ a quote from a retired Seattle meteorologist. Earlier this week on June 10, the Cascade mountain passes received 12 inches of snow as low as the 3,500 foot level. There’s talk of canceling the Market strawberry festival next week due to excessive cold, clouds, and rain this spring. Washington strawberries are not even close to being ripe. The locals are starting to call June Junuary.

 

Tonight’s Dinner

The tenderloin for any four-legged animal all look the same… like a giant sperm. It has a large head end and a narrow tail end. Beef tenderloin is about 2 1/2 feet long with the iliacus muscle or wing protruding from the head end. Pork tenderloin is the largest of all at around 3 feet, the use of which is usually reserved for the carving station of catered events. You’ll find much smaller versions from younger pigs at the butcher or wholesale grocery warehouse. They often are packaged in pairs head-to-tail. If you can prepare them this way you’ll find that cooking and portioning is much easier. Tonight is half of two small tenderloins purchased at a grocery warehouse. It was brined in a milk, water, salt, and sugar solution for two days.

 

After brining, pat the tenderloin dry with paper towels. Lay four pieces of string (about a foot long each) across a cutting board, about 2 inches apart. Lay two tenderloins, head to toe, perpendicular to the string on the cutting board. Tie the two loins together with slip knots. To make a slip knot:

 

1. make a loop with the shorter end overlaying the longer end by about an inch.

2. take the shorter end and bring it under the loop.

3. take the shorter end and insert it in the hole created by the string in step two.

4. or just follow the graphic supplied by an instructor at culinary school.

5. now take the other end of the string and insert it in the loop and firmly pull it to tighten the string around. Repeat with the other three strings.

 

Season the tenderloin to your liking. Rub in some flavorings such as herbs de Provence, pepper, nutmeg, rosemary, sage, and thyme. To cook the tenderloin prepare the oven by arranging the oven racks so the top rack is about 8 inches from the top. Preheat it to 350°F. Preheat a skillet over high heat for two minutes, toss a teaspoon of water onto the skillet to seal the pits, swirl the skillet around, toss out the remaining water, and return the skillet to the stove; reduce heat to medium. Add 2 tablespoons canola oil, let it come to smoke point, and add the tenderloin. Brown it well on all sides by rolling it around in the skillet. Place the skillet on the top shelf in the oven and cook it until the internal temperature is 140°F. The 5- to 10-minute resting time will allow the meat to come to 145°F and redistribute the juices evenly across the meat. It also gives you time to finish the other components and to prepare for plating. Before you put a protein on a cutting board to rest cover the board with some paper towels. This helps absorb juices and makes cleanup a little easier.

 

The USDA recommends cooking pork to 170°F. I like mine cooked to 145°F. The resulting meat is pink and juicy.

 

Potato Purée is fast becoming my favorite way to prepare potatoes. It’s potatoes that are pressed through a potato ricer and then pressed again through a tamis. This gives the potato a very smooth texture with less damage to the cell structure than the beater of a mixer—a mixer makes the purée elastic and sticky. To this ‘mash’ add a quarter of its weight in cream and half its weight in butter. The starting ratio for tonight’s purée is 4 parts potato, 1/2 part cream, 1 part butter. The exact measurements can’t be given because it depends on how well the potato absorbs the cream and butter. Finish with a little salt, nutmeg, and white pepper and it’s ready to serve. All the recipes I’ve researched say to serve it immediately. This is usually impossible for a kitchen brigade of one. I’ve found that it holds up well in a 170°F oven for 1 hour. If the oven is warmer, transfer it to a bowl or hotel pan, cover it with plastic wrap and place it on the back burner of the stove that is emanating heat from the oven. I’ve even made the purée the night before and held it in a 1/9 hotel pan in the refrigerator. To refresh it just warm it to 170°F, stirring occasionally to keep the cream and butter from separating, and add a little more cream to soften it.

 

Weigh the potatoes and bake them until their internal temperature reaches 205°F. I prefer using Yukon Gold, a waxy potato that is more suited for boiling. When cooking the potatoes in the oven, don’t prick them with a fork, you want the potatoes to retain as much moisture as possible. Heat enough cream on the stove, equal to one quarter of the potato’s weight; keep warm. Remember, ‘a pint’s a pound the world round’ so with each pound of potatoes heat 1/2 cup cream. When the potatoes are done, press them through the potato ricer; cut them in half if necessary to make them fit. You don’t need to peel them; in fact, save the pressed skins for the next morning’s breakfast. When you press them, hold the ricer over the tamis and let the potato fall onto it. Work fast because you need the potatoes hot. Take a plastic bench scraper and press the potatoes through the tamis into a bowl large enough to hold the tamis. About half the potato will stick to the bottom side of the screen; turn the screen over and scrape the potato into the bowl.

 

Finish pressing all of the potatoes and then slowly fold in the warm cream to blend using a rubber spatula. For a righty, folding is the equivalent of making a capital letter J in the bowl. Start at the far side of the bowl, slide the rubber spatula down the right side, scraping both bottom and side, and at the near side of the bowl bring the spatula to the center. Turn the bowl of a few inches and repeat. Do this slowly so the potato has time to absorb the cream. Add small chunks of cold butter (cold butter is preferred because it melts slowly giving time for the potatoes to absorb it) to the potatoes and continue blending using a ‘folding method’. Keep doing this until the butter is no longer separate from the potatoes. Repeat with more butter. Depending on the freshness and original moisture content of the potato you might not need all the butter. The consistency you’re looking for is a thick, creamy mashed potato. Finish with a salt, white pepper, and a little freshly grated nutmeg. Taste and adjust the seasoning. Spoon the mash into a small bowl and hold in a warm oven or the refrigerator, if serving later.

 

Don’t worry about calories. Eat this in moderation with no more than a 1/2 cup per serving.

 

The person who brought this recipe to fame and is famous because of it is Joël Robuchon. His recipe is published by Patricia Wells in Simply French and L’Atelier of Joël Robuchon, and in a book he authored with Nicolas de Rabaudy La Cuisine de Joël Robuchon. Kriste and I had this dish at L’Atelier de Joël Robuchon in Paris this past winter. It was lovely… rich, creamy, and decadent. Robuchon is so well known for this potato dish that Jonathan Sundstrom of Lark, who won the James Beard Award for Best Chef Northwest in 2007, has named it on his menu as Robuchon Potatoes despite numerous sources for the recipe. Depending on which book you peruse, chef Robuchon’s potato preference is a Roseval, Rate, or a BF15 potato. Thomas Keller has published a recipe in his Bouchon cookbook. He uses the Yukon Gold potato. Early last century August Escoffier published Le Guide Culinaire and offers his version, recipe 4230: Purée de Pommes de Terre—Mashed Potato. He recommended Dutch potatoes.

 

The common theme with these recipes is that all the potatoes are waxy, which has less starch and more moisture, and the prefered preparation method for these recipes is boiling. I’ve had great results with baking Yukon Golds and prefer this method for my potato purée. The moisture content going into the mash is under greater control, and can be further controlled by adjusting the cream and butter. And speaking of butter, the butter should be expensive and tasty. Irish and Normandy butters selling for $5 for 8 ounces are the butters I prefer. If I’m in the mood, I’ll sometimes start with 2 or 3 tablespoons of chilled bacon fat and then add the butter. It gives it a nice smoky, bacony character. I saw goats milk butter at the grocery this week and will experiment with that next time along with goats milk. The flavor of the cream available in this area has less of an influence on this dish so cook’s choice, but use the freshest available.

 

The following table shows the ratio between potato, milk and butter for the previously mentioned recipes:

Book	Potato	Cream/Milk	Butter
Simply French	4 parts	3/4 to 1 1/4 parts	1 part
La Cuisine de Joël Robuchon	Recipe not given, description only.
L’Atelier of Joël Robuchon	4 parts	3/4 to 1 1/4 parts	1 part
Bouchon	4 parts	3/4 part*	1 part
Le Guide Culinaire	5 parts	1 1/4 parts	1 part
My recipe	4 parts	1/2 part*	1 part

* Recipe uses cream

 

Each recipe states that you should maintain flexibility in the amounts of cream/milk and butter added to the recipe because the final consistency dictates the exact quantities used.

 

Fava beans are coming into the market this week so somewhere within 150 miles of here it’s spring.

 

When discussing herbs and spices saffron is usually mentioned as being the world’s most expensive spice. By comparison, I’m sure fava beans are the most expensive vegetable. The beans have a thick outer pod that you’ll discard. The inside of this pod has a wonderful furry material. I love brushing my fingers against it. I wish I could coat my car seats with this stuff. Inside the bean has a white, almost plastic looking, skin. This too you’ll discard. What’s left is just a hint of what you bought.

 

The beans have a seam running down each side, just snap the bean at one end and run your thumb down this seam and the bean opens easily. The fresher the bean, the harder it is to follow the natural seam, which is a good indicator to freshness.

 

I buy the beans from the Corner Produce stand at the Market. The As Purchased weight is 1.1 lbs (483 grams). After removing the pod, the weight of the beans is 5 3/8 ounces (153 grams). Cook them in boiling salt water for 30 seconds; chill in an ice bath, remove the plastic looking skin with a pinch on one side to break the skin and squeeze the other side to force the bean out.

 

The weight of the bean afterwards with the skin removed (and soaking wet) is 3 1/2 ounces (101 grams). To finish the cooking, sauté them in the skillet used to cook the protein with a bit of fleur de sel. For tonight’s dinner, the Edible Portion yield is only 21 percent of the As Purchased portion. This means that 79¢ of every dollar spent on these beans is discarded to the compost heap. You might consider using dried fava beans, but they are no substitute to fresh fava beans. The dry version is best used for soups and stews.

 

To finish the dish you’ll need a sauce. Tonight’s sauce is Sauce Marchand de Vin, an Espagnole sauce made from veal stock with red wine and shallots added at the end of cooking. Espagnole sauce is a heavily reduced sauce made from brown stock and flavored with onions, carrots, tomato paste, thyme, bay leaf, and whole black peppercorns. Traditionally it is thickened with a roux, a mixture of cooked flour and butter. I thicken my sauces with a slurry, which is a mixture of equal amounts of corn starch and a liquid. Most recipes mention the use of water as the liquid. My liquid preference is a non-oaked white wine. It adds flavor and acidity. The amount of slurry to use is variable and dependant on the strength of the starch, the temperature of the liquid it’s being added to, and how quickly it is mixed into the liquid.

 

The base for a hot sauce usually comes from a stock made from simmering bones. Making a stock from bones is a long process, from six to 12 hours, depending on the bones. Chicken bones are a six-hour simmer, veal bones need 12. I don’t have the luxury to set aside this amount of time every week. When I do make a stock I’ll go through all the motions of making it and then portion it in little 2-ounce plastic portion cups. If you ever bought a salad at a snack bar you’ll usually get the dressing in one of these cups. You can get them at restaurant supply stores that are open to the public. I don’t have the brand handy but the product number for the 2 ounce size is P200. The lid is PL2. This amount is enough for two people when adding 2 tablespoons of butter, a squeeze of lemon juice, and a splash of alcohol such as Madeira, or Port. Store these cups in the freezer up to six months. When you heat it up refresh it with a carrot, shallot or onion, and a bay leaf.

 

As with all my dinners, making the sauce for tonight’s dinner is a thaw and reheat of a stock frozen in the freezer. How to make a stock and store it for later use will be explained in a later post.

 

The Wine

Lafite Rothschild (pronounced la-feet rot-shield, not roth-child) is one of the world’s most recognizable wine brands and it has a price to match. Lafite, as it is referred to, is located in southwest France in the Paulliac (pronounced po-yack) area of Bordeaux on the west side (left bank) of the Gironde estuary. Cabernet Sauvignon is the primary grape varietal for wines made on this side of the estuary with Merlot, Cabernet Franc, and Petit Verdot blended in to soften the tannic Cabernet Sauvignon and add complexity to the bouquet.

 

It’s one of the five Bordeaux 1st growth wines and I’ll try to summarize what this means in one paragraph. Centuries ago the brokers (negotiants) who sold the wines for left-bank wine growers started cataloging which wines were bringing in the most money per tun (252-gallon casks). The wines were classified from most expensive to least expensive. As an economy dictates, a natural separation developed between the prices and groups began to emerge. Over time, these ‘classifications’ were adjusted and wines were grouped by price with wines commanding the highest price classified as the first group. Eventually five groups (or growths) emerged. One of the first of these classifications is dated October 27, 1647; the most famous is the most recent and is dated April 18, 1855 (known as the 1855 Classification). Historically Lafite has been listed at the top of the first growths more than any other wine.

 

There are many sources of information regarding the 1855 Classification. For me the best source with the most in-depth content is a book written by Dewey Markham, Jr., 1855: A History of the Bordeaux Classification. It is one of the most interesting, fascinating, and well-written books I’ve ever read on the subject of wine.

 

Lafite is made for slow, long-term aging that results in a deep, complex wine. Some vintages should be drunk within 15 years, others should not be opened before 30 years have passed.

 

Like most wines from the Bordeaux region, Lafite has enjoyed an incredible surge in prices since the 2000 vintage. Take the 2005 vintage, for example. At first release (1st traunch) in June 2006 the wine had a retail price $545 a bottle, that’s over $21.25 an ounce (2 tablespoons). This first release was hundreds of dollars more than any previous release because the 2005 was recognized as the best vintage in 40 years. Here we are three years later, the wine is not yet in the hands of the consumer and that bottle is now retailing at $2,000, over $78 an ounce ($39 a tablespoon).

 

Special Equipment Needed

A potato ricer is a gadget that looks like a big garlic press and serves the same purpose only use a cooked potato not garlic. Other root vegetables work just as well. A potato ricer has two handles, the top is for pushing the food into a perforated ‘bucket’ attached to the bottom handle with the food coming through the bucket’s holes. It’s called a ricer because when the food comes out of the bucket holes it looks like rice.

 

Sometimes referred to as a drum sieve, a tamis looks like someone cut out the screen of a porch door and attached it to a round metal drum with the ends cut out of it. Most tamis are sold with the screen attached to the metal drum. Look for one that has a screen that can be replaced with another screen that varies in screen count (like thread count in sheets and pillow cases: from very fine to course). Use a tamis to further improve the textural qualities of a mash, purée, mousseline, terrine, etc.

 

A plastic bench scraper is the plastic version of something bakers use to scrape dough scraps off their work benches. The more common version is made of metal. When working with a tamis, use a plastic scraper so as not to damage the screen should an edge get caught. Plastic bench scrapers also come with a rounded edge to easily scrape the insides of bowls. The results are much more efficient than any spatula.

 

MEP

The bullet-point Mis en Place (pronounced MEEz ahn plahs) for this dinner is as follows.

 

Set up the equipment on the stove:

· skillet for the pork, fava beans, and sauce

· small pot for fava beans and cream

 

Set up the equipment on the counter:

Pork

· cutting board

· chef’s knife

· string

 

Potato Purée

· thermometer

· potato ricer

· tamis

· plastic bench scraper

· large bowl to hold tamis

· small bowl to store potato skins for next morning’s breakfast

 

Sauce

· cutting board

· chef’s knife

 

Prepare for service

· Wine glasses cleaned and set at table

· Eating utensils, napkins etc., at the table

 

Recipe

The following steps are listed in the order taken to prepare the meal as described above, not in the typical order of protein first or first course served is the first course listed.

 

Potato Purée: 1 pound makes about 4 servings, save what isn’t used for the next evening.

 

Prepare oven…

by arranging the oven racks so the top rack is about 8 inches from the top. Preheat oven to 350°F.   Place washed potatoes directly on top rack. Insert a the probe of a high-heat probe wire thermometer. Potatoes are done when they reach 205°F; about 1 hour.

 

Pork tenderloin: Two tenderloins wrapped together make four servings.

 

Prepare the pork loin…	Remove from brine, pat dry, and tie the loins together. Season with salt and add flavorings.
Preheat the skillet…	over high heat for two minutes. Add water, swirl, discard water, reduce heat, and add oil.
Sear the pork tenderloin…	in the skillet. Roll the tenderloin in the skillet to brown all sides.
Roast the pork tenderloin…	in the same skillet on the top rack in the oven until it reaches 140°F internal temperature. Turn off oven and let the pork rest on the cutting board while preparing fava beans and sauce.

 

Fava beans: 1 pound barely makes two servings.

 

Bring pot of salted water to a boil…

and remove beans from their pods; discard pods. Boil beans for 30 seconds, chill in an ice bath, and remove the skins.

 

Continuing with the potato purée.

 

Set up the station…	by placing the tamis in a large bowl. Large enough to hold the entire tamis because you’ll be pushing the bench scraper hard into the screen. Open the handle on the potato ricer.
Press the potatoes through the potato ricer…	and onto the tamis. Use the bench scraper to scrape any potato sticking to the ricer. Open the ricer and remove the skin—save it for a breakfast sauté.   Repeat with the remaining potatoes.
Press the potatoes through the tamis…	with the bench scraper. Lift the tamis and scrape the potatoes underside of the screen into the bowl.
Finish the purée…	by folding in the hot cream, a little at a time, into the bowl. Reserve a couple of tablespoons for finishing the consistency. Begin folding in the butter a few tablespoons at a time.   Once most of the butter is added evaluate the consistency. Add more butter or cream, if necessary. It should be smooth and creamy, not elasticky. Add seasonings and flavorings, taste and adjust.
Hold the purée…	in a bowl or hotel pan and cover with plastic wrap.

 

By now the tenderloin should be done; remove it from the oven and place it on a cutting board covered with paper towels.

 

Continuing with the fava beans while the tenderloin is resting.

 

Degrease skillet used to cook the tenderloin…

by carefully wiping out the grease with a paper towel. Don’t burn yourself. Heat the skillet over high heat for two minutes and add a little water. Use a wooden spoon to scrape the brown bits from the bottom of the skillet. Add a splash of Madeira and boil it for 15 seconds. Add fava beans and shallots. Sauté for one minute.

 

Heat the plates.

 

Place plates in oven…

for two minutes to warm.

 

Continuing with the fava beans.

 

Reduce the heat of the skillet…

as the liquid needs to stop boiling. Add the stock to the skillet, heat the stock to about 170°F. Thicken with the slurry and season. Take the skillet off the heat and add the butter while stirring the skillet to mix. Add a squeeze of lemon juice. Taste, adjust seasonings, and hold warm over low heat.

 

Plating. Open oven door and slide the rack with the plates out.

 

Potato purée…	Spoon the purée into the middle of the plate.
Fava beans and sauce…	Spoon the fava beans and sauce around the purée.
Pork tenderloin…	Slice the tenderloin in serving portions, cut the string, and place one portion on top of the potatoes. Garnish with an herb, if you want. Top with fleur de sel.

 

Analysis and Notes

We opened the wine at 5 P.M. and let it stand straight up until the dinner was served at 6 when we poured our first glasses. It had a beautiful amber color, much like a 40-year old port. The classic Lafite lead pencil note was apparent throughout the evening. The bottle lasted 1 hour and 45 minutes. What follows is a timeline of what and when each new component was detected.

 

6:00 sour cherries T and B and it’s quite acidic

6:05 a 25-second aftertaste, earth and leather B

6:15 autumn leaves and sawdust B

6:20 black currant B

6:25 tobacco leaf B

6:30 stewed tomatoes T

6:30 vegetables T

6:45 the richness in the potatoes and the acidity in the wine are a great foil to each other

7:00 black olive T

7:15 toast B

7:20 by now the aftertaste was at 10 seconds

7:30 earth and leather T

7:45 smoke B

 

T Taste

B Bouquet

 

The fruit in this bottle faded a long time ago in a cellar far, far away. Its peak was probably somewhere in the ‘90s. With the fruit gone the wine showed mostly earthy notes, which is not a bad thing to my taste buds.

 

All-in-all I’d say this was a really nice dinner.

 

Until next Saturday… boja, boja.

 

Photos by me and I’m (obviously) not a photographer.

 

Here are a few items of note about the ingredients. Unless otherwise specified:

· Salt is always Kosher

· Olive oil is always extra-virgin

· Eggs are always large

· Butter is always unsalted

· Pepper is always freshly ground

 

References

Aliza Green, Field Guide to Produce, Philadelphia, Quirk Books, 2004

 

August Escoffier, Le Guide Culinaire, New York, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1979

 

Dewey Markham, Jr., 1855: A History of the Bordeaux Classification, New York, John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 1998

 

Joël Robuchon and Nicolas de Rabaudy, La Cuisine de Joël Robuchon, London, Seven Dials, 2001

 

L. Saulnier, Le Répertoire de La Cuisine, London, Leon Jaeggi & Sons LTD, 1976

 

Patricia Wells, L’Atelier of Joël Robuchon, Hoboken, NJ, Wiley, 1997

 

Patricia Wells and Joël Robuchon, Simply French, New York, William Morrow and Company, Inc., 1991

 

Thomas Keller, Bouchon, New York, Artisan, 2004

 

Web Sites

Definition: Foil

How to tie a slip knot

 

Restaurants

Lark

 

Wine

Lafite Rothschild

 

A Walk Through the Market

Dinner date: June 7, 2008

Menu: Pan-roasted Squab with Morel Mushrooms and English Pea Ravioli

Wine: Kalamar Syrah, 2002

 

I walk through Pike Place Market about three times a week. The Market is Seattle’s main tourist attraction for people who are afraid of heights. It’s relatively small (9 acres) and starts at the west end of Pike Street. It’s 3 1/2 blocks long overlooking the Elliott Bay waterfront between 1^st Avenue on the east and Western/Elliott Avenues on the west.

 

The Market, the most famous of the city’s 12 farmers markets, opened on August 17, 1907. Credit goes to Seattle City Councilman Thomas Revelle who felt the citizens were paying too much for onions and wanted a market for farmers to sell directly to consumers. Since then it has become the oldest continually operated public farmer’s market in the U.S.

 

There are nearly 200 year-round commercial businesses here including seven high-booth (booths open year round) produce stalls; a handmade cheese shop; three wine shops and a Washington State wine tasting room; four fish mongers, one throwing fish at 30 mph; eight shops focusing on bakery items; some guy offering free hugs; many stalls selling honey, flowers, jams and jellies, and nuts; Mexican, Italian, and Asian groceries; 18 restaurants or booths offering breakfast, 47 offering lunch, and 25 offering dinner; surprisingly only four coffee shops, one of which is the original Starbucks; and the first Sur la Table.

 

Add to this 120 farmers registered to rent space by the day and 240 registered street performers and musicians (not all playing at once), and you have a very diverse landscape.

 

If you check out the early morning scene around 6 A.M. you’ll find vendors setting up their booths, others wheeling in carts filled with their goods from storage, and some hosing down the sidewalks. The fish mongers shovel crushed ice into their bins. Usually the air is crisp at this hour regardless of what the calendar says. There’s not much pedestrian traffic but you’ll see lots of trucks filling the brick-paved Place with the day’s delivery. The homeless are still huddled under their blankets in the entryways of store fronts. The staging is noisy with the trucks beeping as they back up and empty produce crates being tossed into the street. Conversation among the vendors is lively and quite colorful.

 

The afternoon scene, 11 A.M through 6 P.M. is in direct contrast to the morning. The remainder of the Market’s open hours belong to the tourists who outnumber the locals by 19 to 1. This is my own personal guesstimate but with 10 million people touring the Market annually, I’d say my ratio is low. Tourists in this part of town are easy to spot:

 

·         They take pictures of their people in front of the clock above the ‘fish throwing place’, which is in front of Rachel the Pig. If they look like they’re open to the idea I’ll offer to take the picture for them so everyone is in it.

·         They gather around the ‘fish throwing place’ and watch fish being thrown at 30 mph. Note this: fish weren’t meant to be thrown at 30 mph.

·         They set their umbrellas down and have their children’s picture taken on Rachel the Pig. The extremely large piggy bank helps provide services for low-income folks who live and work in the Market and downtown Seattle. Consider taking a picture of the kids making a donation.

·         They study their maps and look in all directions (including up) while trying to get their bearings. Take note: to find SAM (Seattle Art Museum) look south down 1st Avenue for the strip club marquee in pink neon (Lusty Lady); SAM is across the street from it. I call your attention to this marquee because the sign always has a humorous message to draw customers in. From See our Women of Mass Distraction posted early in 2003 to Now Showing. Everything! Look and laugh.

·         They have their picture taken in front of Starbucks.

·         They drive the car through the Place. I don’t understand this one but people will waste 30 minutes to drive 3 1/2 blocks. The Place is filled with pedestrians, with vendors wheeling carts from one side to the other, with pedestrians, with trucks bringing in afternoon deliveries, and WITH PEDESTRIANS. Sidewalks in this tiny world are optional and are usually reserved for street musicians or for entering and leaving shops. The best way to get a ‘feel’ for the Market is walk through it. You can’t hear, smell, taste, or touch the things that are happening around you when you are in a car with the windows rolled up, and you all have the windows rolled up. You can’t see much from your car so park it and enjoy the walk. Know that you can only drive through the Place as fast as the pedestrian in front of you. In addition, you can’t see it but three cars in front of you is a guy who is trolling for a parking space. He is stopped for 5 minutes waiting for a spot that looks like it’s going to become available. It won’t. He moves on and finds another spot 30 feet farther up, and he waits. This is the true cause of why the 3 1/2 block auto tour lasts 30 minutes.

 

The late night scene, after 8 P.M., the Market quiets down as the vendors closed up shop at 6 P.M. Some are gone 5 minutes after close, others—like the fish mongers—can be seen hosing down the walkways hours after close. Crushed ice covers the sewer drains. Most of the people walking through the Market are going to a bar or restaurant. The homeless begin to return to the store front entryways to bed down for the night.

 

The Market offers quite a few sit-down restaurants. Our favorite places to dine inside the Market include Maximilien Bistro, Place Pigalle (both French), Il Bistro (Italian), and Matt’s in the Market (American). Maximilien Bistro and Place Pigalle offer very good food with an even better view of Puget Sound. If it’s a warm day in the summer Kriste and I will spend time on the deck at Maximilien and indulge on the happy-hour menu items and gaze out at the shipments coming in from overseas. Outside and within walking distance of the Market you might find us at Entre Nous, Le Pichet (both French), or Union (American).

 

Beginning in June and running through October the Market hosts events to support the local farmers and chefs. Organic Wednesdays began June 4 for organic farmers to bring in their goods and offer the best in seasonal, organic produce. Farm Fridays began yesterday for farmers to come in, some from as far Eastern Washington (other side of the Cascades), and sell their freshly picked produce.

 

Summer Sundays will begin tomorrow to showcase some of the city’s best chefs. This year’s list includes Bruce Naftaly from Le Gourmand, Jim Drohman from Le Pichet, Daisley C. Gordon from Campagne, and last year’s James Beard Foundation Award winner for Best Chef Northwest: John Sundstrom of Lark.

 

So on Tuesday I’m on my way to Don and Joe’s Meats. Don Jr. took on ownership after his father passed away and his Uncle Joe retired. This is my butcher of choice and, until recently, the only butcher in the Market. Besides the usual proteins of beef, lamb, chicken, and pork, I’ve also bought lamb tongue and liver, beef sausage and hanger steaks, pork fat and neck bones, veal tongue, hind shanks, and bones, and today… squab.

 

Squab is a lean and rich-tasting farm-raised game bird (if there such a thing). In fact, a squab is a young pigeon (Fr. pigeonneau), but squab sounds a bit more appetizing. It’s size is usually between 14 and 18 ounces. Even though they are small, they are known for thick breasts and tender, red meat. As with a chicken from a butcher, you’ll usually get the heart, liver and sometimes the lungs, too. The squab I purchased weighed 1 pound (As Purchased) and cost $13 each. After deboning, they weighed 9 ounces each giving a yield of 56 percent, which is the “Edible Portion”.

 

As I was on my way to Don and Joe’s Meats, I walked past Corner Produce. I saw morels. During a quick discussion with the merchant I learn that this year’s harvest is near its end. The morel season is very short and dependent on the weather. The price is still a hefty $29.99 a pound. I take a look to ensure these are true morels, which have the stem and cap seamlessly attached to each other. Fake morels aren’t attached like that, and more importantly they contain antibuse, a chemical that causes a really bad reaction when you consume it with alcohol.

 

Even true morels have this chemical, which is why they require to be completely cooked through.

 

I buy six morels because Kriste doesn’t like mushrooms. Usually I try to persuade her and change her way of thinking but at this price I’ll let it slide.

 

The Plan

In the world of food parings, gaminess and earthiness go very well together. It is the gaminess of squab and the earthiness of mushrooms that bring tonight’s dinner together.

 

For the morels I check Henri Babinsky’s, better known as Ali-Bab, Gastronomie Pratique. I have a French-language edition of his book published in 1907. And as best as my high school French can figure out his recipe (Morilles au jus) calls for washing them, cutting them in half and sautéing them in butter with some lemon juice, salt and pepper and cook for 30 minutes while adding meat juices of the main dish. Finish with an egg yolk and serve hot. C’est excellent!

 

Now to decide on a vegetable. As I search my cookbook collection I find that morels and asparagus go very well together. Balthazar, Turbot with Morels and Asparagus; L’Atelier of Alain Ducasse, Sylvain Portay’s Roast Asparagus Parmesan with Steamed Morels au naturel and Poached Egg; and The Paris Cookbook by Patricia Wells – Asparagus, Morels, and Asparagus Cream have tempting ideas. This last recipe is also described in a French-language edition cookbook of hers, Recettes des marchés et restaurants de Paris. Joël Robuchon in his narrative, La Cuisine de Joël Robuchon, states that morels and asparagus are the perfect combination.

 

Asparagus isn’t floating my boat today so I move on.

 

Morels and peas go very well together, as shown in Saveur Cooks Authentic French Ragoût of Peas and Morels. Le Bonne Cuisine has a recipe for Squab with Green Peas (Pigeons aux Petits Pois) and Paul Bocous In Your Kitchen has a recipe of the same name.

 

I settle on a recipe source by Chef Ron Siegel. You might remember him as the first American chef to beat an Iron Chef (Hiroyuki Sakai) on Food Network’s Iron Chef television program. The primary source for tonight’s recipe is Pan seared squab breast, English pea ravioli with morel mushroom, pea tendrils and squab jus. This recipe comes from San Francisco Cuisine 2001, a magazine Kriste and I picked up on our March 2001 vacation to Napa Valley. A trip that included three nights of dining at Chez Panisse, La Toque, and The French Laundry. C’est excellent!

 

The Wine

The wine for tonight is Kalamar Syrah, 2002. As if this needs to be disclosed, Kriste used to work with the wife of the owner/winemaker, Mark Kalamar. I was introduced to Kalamar wine by our friend Jean with the 2000 Merlot. It was good. Very good. When I asked about purchasing some I was told he was sold out. Since then I’ve added 4 cases to my cellar, not a bad representation considering that I have around 180 bottles of Washington state wines and Kalamar Winery has made up 25 percent of that in less than 7 years. Mark has two varietals to date: Merlot and Syrah. Sadly, the last Syrah vintage for Kalamar Winery is the 2003. Mark has moved on to Sangiovese.

 

 The 2002 Washington state vintage was another in a growing list of consecutive years with great produce hauled in at the end of the season. Eastern Washington is known for its long, warm-to-hot, sunny days and cool nights. The grapes for Kalamar’s 2002 Syrah come from Yakima Valley where they are harvested by hand from Pleasant Vineyard near Prosser. They are trucked to Kalamar Winery at Bonney Lake where they were fermented for eight days in open-top fermentation tanks. After pressing they were aged in French and American oak barrels for 23 months.

 

Equipment Needed That Has Not Been Previously Mentioned

There really isn’t a need for special equipment for tonight’s dinner with the exception of a wired skimmer called a spider. This is a wire-mesh skimmer at the end of a long handle. They come in many sizes and can have a fine-wire with the wires close together or a course-wire with the wires far apart. You often see this in Chinese restaurants with the cook using it to stir or remove the contents of a wok. Tonight I used it to gently remove the ravioli from a pot filled with water.

 

Perhaps one other item to note is a thing called a landing pan. This is a chefs term for nothing more than a small cookie sheet to place an item during preparation. Cookbooks will say ‘a plate.’ I don’t like using a plate at home because usually the item on the plate will have to be refrigerated. A plate is round and that wastes a lot of space. A small cookie sheet-like item is rectangular and is efficient in the space it uses. Since there are just two of us I prefer using the little pan that comes with our toaster oven. I have three of them and they measure 7″ x 10″ and they fit perfectly, side-by-side, in our refrigerator.

           

Tonight’s Dinner

To start my Saturday night dinner, I began with a brine like I do all my poultry dishes. This one started on Thursday, June 05. A brine is a strong water-salt solution used to pickle or preserve foods. This is different from a cure, which is something that has been dried with an abundance of salt for the purpose of preserving foods. This is how the definition was for hundreds of years.

 

Today a brine is used to bring flavor to the item being brined as well as giving it a juicy, moist, and tender characteristic. My brines always consist of water, salt, and sugar. Brines work by moving the salt and sugar from the water through the protein via osmosis. This creates an equilibrium between the two. Salt goes in and impurities come out. After 24 hours you’ll notice that the brine has a pink hue to it. This is the blood and other impurities that were in the protein that have now been forced out. This is something you wont’ eat. This is good.

 

Brine a chicken and cook it side-by-side with a chicken that hasn’t been brined and you’ll always make an effort to brine a chicken.

 

I always use a ratio of 16 parts water to 1 part salt. In culinary school I was told that this is the consistency of ocean/sea water. But later I found that not all oceans/seas have the same quantity of salt. On average, and it depends on the ocean/sea and if you’re analyzing the surface or farther down, seawater is about 3.5 percent salt. I once read in a book that the Mediterranean Sea has the highest ratio of salt to water, but I can’t find my source. The 16:1 ratio means that this brine is about 6.25 percent salt. Quite a bit more than seawater.

 

To the brine add a bit of sugar. It takes a bit of the ‘brined edge’ off the proteins. In fact, this is the simplest and most functional brine. 16 parts water: 1 part salt and a bit (1 tablespoon?) of sugar. Works every time. This is a dinner for two so the brine solution only needs to be 2 quarts.

 

To add complexity, make a brine with the things that have an affinity with the item being brined. The things that go well with the item when it is served also go well with the item when it is brined. Allspice berries, juniper berries, garlic, rosemary, and thyme are ingredients that highlight the gaminess of squab. Therefore, these items go in my brine and here’s the ‘recipe’.

 

1 quart water

2 ounces salt

1 tsp sugar

10 whole black peppercorns

2 whole allspice berries

5 whole juniper berries

2 whole bay leaves

2 garlic cloves, crushed

1 large rosemary stem

2 thyme stems

 

1 cup milk

3 cups water

 

Bring to a boil; remove from heat and let cool to about 150°F. Add one cup of nonfat milk and 3 cups tap water. Place in the refrigerator to chill overnight. Friday morning I’ll pick up the squab and let it brine for about 30 hours. After that period of time the brining solution will be pink. This is the blood and other impurities that are pulled from the protein. This is a good sign.

 

Remove the squab from the brine, pat dry and add a bit more salt inside and out. Return it to the refrigerator on a landing pan for a few hours. Place it on the counter about 30 minutes before preparing it.

 

As I mentioned, things that go well with the item when it is served on a plate go well with the item when it’s in the brine. For example, when brining a chicken, turkey, or cornish hen make a poultry seasoning sachet using the following fresh herbs and add it to the brine:

 

·         thyme

·         sage

·         marjoram

·         rosemary

 

Then add a couple of whole black peppercorns and freshly grated nutmeg. Boil, cool, chill, and then add your protein to this brine for a day.

 

For pork add garlic, rosemary, and sage. Instead of sugar try apple juice or apple cider.

 

Start with the squab by rinsing them under cold water and placing them on several layers of paper towels on the cutting board. Remove the giblets (liver and heart, some might even have the lungs), from inside the squab and place on the landing pan. Pat the squab dry with the paper towels.

 

Note: deboning a squab is the same as deboning a chicken, the carcass is basically the same with the same joints (points of separation) being the same as a chicken.

 

Using the poultry shears cut the neck and wing tips away from the bird. Place in the pot for the squab stock. Using the boning knife, trim away excess skin from the neck area. Make two slits along the breast bone, one on each side. Starting on one side slice down the breast bone along the ribcage down to the backbone. Find the joint between the wing and the breast and cut through that. Continue slicing along the backbone to the tail end along the thigh. Hold the thigh in your hand, lift up the squab, and snap the thigh joint out of the socket. Cut the remaining meat attached to the carcass and separate the breast/wing/thigh portion from the carcass. Repeat with the other side. Place the two portions on a landing pan and the carcass in the 1/2 sheet pan. Repeat with any remaining birds. Place landing pan in the refrigerator.

 

Make a squab stock by roasting the bones in the oven for 30 minutes at 350°F. Turn the bones over and roast another 30 minutes. Fill a pot with water, add the squab bones and quickly bring to the boiling point. Reduce to a simmer and cook for one hour. Add the remaining ingredients and cook for another hour. Strain the stock into a bowl and rinse the pot with water. Strain the stock back into the pot and simmer to reduce the stock down to 1/2 cup. Add giblet purée to the reduced stock.

 

Cook the giblets, by preheating a skillet and adding enough canola oil to the skillet to coat the bottom. Add the giblets and sauté for about four minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Add water to deglaze the skillet and reduce the liquid to a syrup consistency. Place the giblets in a small food processor fitted with a chopping blade. Process for about 20 seconds. Remove the cover and scrape down the sides using a rubber spatula. Repeat until the giblets are smooth. Any chunks will not make it through the tamis so make it creamy.

 

Place tamis inside bowl and pour the giblets onto the tamis screen. Using a plastic bench scraper force the giblets through the tamis. Most of the giblet purée will stick to the bottom of the screen. Scrape the contents of that side into the bowl. Scrap into a smaller bowl and place in the refrigerator.

 

For the peas, shell them by breaking them in half and running your thumb through the inside of the shell to force them into a bowl. Bring 2 quarts of water to a boil, add 1/4 cup salt, and add peas to the water. Meanwhile, fill a bowl with cold water and add ice to it. Boil the peas for about 5 minutes. Cover it with a lid to keep the boil rolling. Remove one from the pot and bite into it. It should be soft with no resistance. Pour peas through a strainer and then place the strainer in the ice bath for 1 minute. Put the peas in a food processor fitted with a chopping blade. Process for about 20 seconds. Remove the cover and scrape down the sides using a rubber spatula. Repeat until the peas are smooth. Any chunks will not make it through the tamis so make it creamy. Add vegetable stock, a tablespoon at a time, if necessary to get the creamy consistency.

 

Drain ice water from bowl and wipe dry. Place tamis inside bowl and pour the peas onto the tamis screen. Using a plastic bench scraper force the peas through the tamis. Most of the peas will stick to the bottom of the screen. Scrape the contents of that side into the bowl. Add mascarpone cheese to the bowl and mix well. Season with salt and pepper. To heighten the flavor of the peas, add 1 or 2 drops of mint sauce. You don’t want to taste the mint; if you taste it, you’ve added too much. Scrape the peas into the plastic bag and store in the refrigerator.

 

Now for the morels. Several sources, from Escoffier to Joël Robuchon recommend soaking morel mushrooms in water to remove dirt particles. This is welcomed advice as it’s probably the only mushroom that has this recommendation. Soak any other mushroom in water and it becomes bland and watery. For soaking morels, it’s worth it to take this advice a bit further by replacing the water with a weak vegetable stock. The mushrooms are going to absorb the liquid so it might as well be an agreeable one rather than something that’s going to dilute the flavor of this $30 a pound fungi. A 30-minute soak, with an occasional shaking of the bowl, should be sufficient. Discard the weak vegetable stock, gently squeeze the mushrooms, and put them on paper towels and gently roll around to absorb excess liquid.

 

Developing this dinner is going to be a complex operation. Therefore, the pasta will come from won ton wrappers. Purists may cringe but serving ravioli using these wrappers has never been outed by a guest in my household. The texture and flavor difference between the ‘true’ pasta and won ton wrappers is negligible when prepared in water. The brand I use lists for its ingredients: flour, water, salt, and oil. Use a beaten egg to act as glue for the sheets and you have the same pasta ingredients in every bite.

 

Fill a pot with 1/2 gallon of water and bring the water to 180°F. Put two paper towels on counter, place eight won ton wrappers on paper towels. Cut a small hole in the corner of the plastic bag filled with the pea mixture. Pipe the pea mixture into the center of the eight wrappers. Brush the edges of the wrappers with the egg wash. Top each with another won ton wrapper and press down using your finger or the dry bottom of a glass. Any moisture on your fingers or glass will make the ravioli stick, possibly tearing it.

 

Leave ravioli on the paper towels. Add it to the pot about 1/2 way through cooking the squab.

 

Cooking the squab, arrange the shelving in the oven so the top shelf is about 8 inches from the top. Preheat oven to 400°F. Preheat a skillet, add clarified butter and swirl the skillet. Add the squab, skin side down, and cook about two minutes. The squab should wiggle when you shake the skillet. If they don’t, use a metal spatula and slowly slide it between the squab and skillet; try not to tear the skin. Turn the squab over. Place the skillet in the oven and cook for about 8 to 9 minutes. At the four minute mark add the ravioli to the pot of water simmering at 180°F.

 

Simmer the ravioli at the four minute mark. Add the ravioli, one at a time, to the pot of water simmering at 180°F. Gently swirl the water to keep the ravioli from sticking to each other or the bottom of the pot.

 

Cooking the morels, preheat a skillet and add Madeira and clarified butter to the skillet and then add the morel mushrooms. Sauté for three or four minutes and add shallots; season with salt and pepper. Continue with the sauté for another two minutes. Using a fine mesh strainer (chinois) strain the squab sauce into the skillet. Adjust the heat to keep the sauce from boiling.

 

The sauce will be a strong vegetable stock taken from the freezer, seasoned and flavored with parsley stems, chervil, tarragon, chives, thyme, lavender, and savory. This is also known as Herbs de Provence.

 

The salad tonight is an easy romaine salad with a creamy-thick dressing. Last week I mentioned how salad greens determine the salad dressing and vice versa. Romaine is sturdy leaf able to withstand the heaviest of salad dressings. The dressing tonight will be 2 parts sour cream, 1 part mayonnaise, 1/2 part red onion, and 1/4 part bleu cheese. Vinaigrettes are not appropriate for this type of leaf.

 

Prepare the greens using the awe and shock method. Gently wash the greens in warm water, about 115°F, in a salad spinner. This removes the dirt and helps relax the cell structure much in the same way you relax in a hot tub. It’s soothing and relaxing—awe. Now take this colander with the greens still in it and place it in an ice bath. This cold makes the green’s cell structure rigid and stiff, much in the same way you jump out of that hot tub and make snow angels in the snow—shock. The crunch in the greens is now set. Spin the greens dry and store them in the refrigerator until ready to use.

 

MEP

The bullet-point Mis en Place (pronounced MEEz ahn plahs) for this dinner is as follows.

 

Set up the equipment on the stove:

·         Skillet for squab heart, liver and lungs, and sauté. Use same skillet for morels sauté.

·         Pot for squab stock

·         1/2 sheet pan for roasting the squab bones

·         Pot with lid for ravioli

 

Set up the equipment on the counter:

Squab

·         Cutting board

·         Poultry shears

·         Boning knife

·         Landing pan

·         Small bowl for giblets

·         Small food processor for giblets

 

Morels

·         Small bowl

 

Ravioli

·         Strainer Food processor

·         Large bowl for peas, ice water bath and tamis

·         Rubber spatula

·         Tamis

·         Plastic bench scraper

·         Plastic bag

·         small bowl for egg wash

·         brush

 

Recipe

The following steps are listed in the order taken to prepare the meal as described above, not in the typical order of protein first or first course served is the first course listed.

 

Brine the squab…   Season the squab…

for 1 day.   inside and out.

 

Preparing the squab: 1/2 squab per person for dainty presentation

 

Prepare the squab…

rinse, remove giblets, and debone. Preheat oven to 350°F.

 

Make the squab stock: about 4 hours total time.

 

Roasted squab bones   1 quart water 1 large onion, chopped 1 large carrot, chopped 1 tomato, chopped 2 bay leaves 2 thyme sprigs 5 whole black peppercorns

Roast the bones.   Make and strain stock.

 

Prepare the giblets: heart, liver, and lungs

 

Preheat a skillet…   Giblets from squab Salt and pepper 1/2 cup water

in the usual manner.   Sauté giblets; add water to deglaze the skillet and process in a food processor. Press through tamis; add to stock.

 

Preparing the Green Salad: Use 2 ounces greens per serving.

 

Prepare salad greens…

using awe and shock method. Hold in refrigerator.

 

Preparing the morels: Use 3 or 4 large morels per person

 

Rinse the morels…

in cool running water, soak in a weak vegetable stock for 30 minutes.

 

Continuing with the ravioli stuffing: 1 ounce mascarpone cheese per person

 

Boil peas…     Mascarpone cheese Salt and Pepper to taste 1-2 drops of mint sauce

in pot, strain, purée in food processor, run through the tamis into bowl.   Add mascarpone cheese and mix. Season with salt and pepper. Add mint sauce. Scrape the peas into the plastic bag and store in the refrigerator.

 

Continuing with the ravioli: use 8 wrappers to make 4 ravioli per person

 

won ton wrappers pea filling egg wash

Bring pot of water to 180°F. Squeeze pea mixture onto wrappers, brush with egg wash, top with wrapper, press down and add them to the pot about 1/2 way through cooking the squab.

 

Continuing with the salad…

 

Dress greens

Combine greens with dressing. Serve and relax.

 

Continuing with the squab

 

Prepare oven…   1 tbsp clarified butter squab

Preheat oven to 400°F. Sauté squab in clarified butter for two minutes, skin side down. Place in oven and cook for 8 to 9 minutes. At the four minute mark add the ravioli to the pot of water simmering at 180°F.

 

Continuing with the ravioli…

 

Simmer the ravioli…

at the four minute mark add the ravioli, one at a time, to the pot of water simmering at 180°F.

 

Continuing with the morels…

 

1 tbsp Madeira morel mushrooms shallots salt and pepper 1/2 cup squab stock

Add Madeira to a hot skillet and add morels and clarified butter. Sauté with other ingredients. Using a chinois, strain the squab sauce into the skillet. Adjust the heat to keep the sauce from boiling.

 

Final preparation…

 

for the squab…     for the mushrooms… 2 tbsp butter 1 squeeze of lemon juice        for the ravioli…

remove squab from the oven and let it rest for three or four minutes. Turn oven off and place the plates in the oven, leave door ajar.   take the skillet off the heat and add butter. Swirl the skillet to incorporate the butter into the sauce. Don’t let it separate. If it does, add a couple drops of cold water. Add lemon juice and swirl the skillet again. Taste the sauce and make any final seasoning adjustments.   place a couple of paper towels on the counter. You’ll remove the ravioli with a spider and tap it gently on the paper towels to absorb the excess liquid.

 

Plating, be careful… the plates are hot.

 

start with the ravioli…      continue with the mushrooms and sauce…   finish with the squab

using the spider to remove the ravioli. Tap the spider on some paper towels to help absorb the water. Place four ravioli in each plate.   Spoon mushrooms and sauce over the ravioli.    Top with the squab.

 

Analysis and Notes

We opened the wine at 4 P.M. and let it stand straight up until the salad was served at 4:30 when we poured our first glasses. It had a very youthful purplish hue. The bottle lasted 1 hour and 50 minutes. Not bad for a $30 wine. What follows is a timeline of what and when each new component was detected.

 

4:30 at first approach the wine shows deep chocolate and coffee T

4:30 Kriste’s first comment is about the anise and a spicy characteristic B

4:35 pepper and blackberry T

4:35 plum, cedar, and tobacco B

4:40 licorice seems to come out because of the cheese in the salad B

4:45 nutty and black olive B

4:50 black olive and eucalyptus T

5:10 Kriste picks up black cherry T

5:15 dinner is served and we immediately notice a gamey transition in the wine T

5:25 a hint of raisin B     

5:35 toast and vanilla from the French and American oak barrels used to age the wine B

6:00 I get the black cherry Kriste tasted 50 minutes earlier T

6:10 walnut skins starting to dry out the back of the tongue T

6:20 the tannins start to dominate the wine as the fruit fades

 

B: bouquet

T: taste

 

All-in-all I’d say this was a really nice dinner.

 

 

Until next Saturday… boja, boja. 

 

Photos by me and I’m not a photographer.

 

Here are a few items of note about the ingredients. Unless otherwise specified:

·         Salt is always Kosher

·         Olive oil is always extra-virgin

·         Eggs are always large

·         Butter is always unsalted

·         Pepper is always freshly ground

 

References

Patricia Trifari, San Francisco Cuisine 2001, San Francisco, San Francisco Cuisine, 2001

           

Ali-Bab, Gastronomie pratique, Paris: Ernest Flammarion Editeur, 1st ed., 1907

 

James Peterson, Glorious French Food, Hoboken, NJ, Wiley 1st ed., 2002

 

Jerald W. Chesser, CEC, CCE, Art and Science of Culinary Preparation, St. Augustine, FL, The Educational Institute of the American Culinary Federation, Inc., 1992

 

Michael Ruhlman and Brian Polcyn, Charcuterie: The Craft of Salting, Smoking, and Curing, New York City, W. W. Norton and Company, 2005

 

Molly Stevens, All About Braising, New York City, W. W. Norton & Company, 2004

 

Web Sites

Pike Place Market

Don and Joe’s Meats Note: They don’t ship their products

James Beard Foundation

Lusty Lady Marquee

Pike Place Market Clock

San Francisco Cuisine

 

Restaurants

Entre Nous

Il Bistro

Le Pichet

Matt’s in the Market

Maximilien

Place Pigalle

Union

 

Wine

Kalamar Winery

 

Celebrating 22 Years

Dinner date: May 31, 2008

Menu: Simple salad; Moroccan-Style Lamb à la sous vide

Wine: Penfolds Grange, 1986

 

As we end the winter season, yes I know the calendar says May but this is Seattle, I thought about braising a lamb shoulder one last time before the thermometer hits 60°F on a semicontiguous basis. Kriste will be passing the 22-year mark with her employer this weekend so we’re going to be having a 22-year-old Penfolds Grange to celebrate. The only question is what to braise. Of all the proteins parts suitable for braising, shoulder offers one of the greatest transitions in both flavor and texture so I set my sites on that.

 

Before developing a menu I check the freezer to see if there is anything of interest. Often the freezer is full but the interest just isn’t there for the items inside. I see some lamb shoulder sealed in a vacuumed-packed bag from a few months earlier left over from a Toulouse-style cassoulet. Now the mental debate begins. I can save some money and use this lamb, already cut up and packaged for cooking using a method called sous-vide (Fr. under vacuum), or run out and buy a shoulder and braise it. If I use the vacuumed-packed bag for braising I miss the opportunity of cooking it in a 130°F water bath for 6 or 8 hours. If I go with sous vide, I possibly miss the last opportunity for braising till fall.

 

Sous vide wins. Chances are this won’t be the last Saturday this spring and summer with weather made for braising. Besides, summer doesn’t officially start here until July 5.

 

The credit to the origin of sous vide cooking in a professional kitchen is given to Georges Pralus of the Hôtel Restaurant Troisgros in Roanne, France. In the early’70s he found this cooking method to be perfect for cooking foie gras without loosing too much of the lobe in the process. Foie gras melts rapidly even in mild heat and the edible portion can sometimes be 50 percent of the as-purchased portion. When a lobe costs upwards of $50 per pound retail, that loss is significant.

 

Another, more typical, notation of sous vide is the boil-in-a-bag frozen dinners that came into vogue in the late ‘70s as microwaves started to become mainstream. Aluminum foil and microwaves don’t go well together, so for a TV dinner to keep its market share the powers-that-be made it a popular method to boil water on a stove and place the bag in it for twenty minutes and you had your all-in-one dish of vegetable, starch, and protein; usually, broccoli, rice, and chicken. At least that was the biggest seller at that time when I managed the frozen foods department at Thompson’s Finer Foods in Park Ridge, Il.

 

As the microwave gained popularity in homes these bags went from cooking in a pot of boiling water to cooking in a microwave. Over the years the staff in professional kitchens have refinement this method as precise temperatures and timing have replaced the all-purpose boil. The water temperature is the serving temperature. Cook chicken at 165°F, pork and duck breast at 145°F, lamb at 135°F, fish at 118°F, and beef anywhere between 120°F to 170°F. Any food item that requires heat can be sous vide; even steak. The unique equipment used is called a thermo water-bath circulator. It can maintain a precise temperature to within 1/10th of one degree Fahrenheit.

 

Equipment Needed

For a laboratory constant temperature precision is necessary. Even a food geek requires that precision. But there are many people for whom the expense of a thermo water-bath circulator (used models start around $150) is just too high. And there are others, like me, who have a small, condo galley-kitchen and have to settle for a stove. Even with the small foot print of a countertop thermo water-bath circulator (14″ × 21″) it’s relative to the size of the kitchen. It’s an appliance that takes up too much room in a small condo kitchen. This doesn’t mean sous vide cooking is beyond my or your grasp. A 5-quart pot filled with 1 gallon of water can keep a semi-constant temperature, +/- 2°F, and for most finished dishes that 4-degree swing is not detectable. Items cooked to a lower finished temperature don’t cook as long and the temperature is easier to keep.

 

Thomas Keller and Michael Ruhlman are putting together a sous vide book, Under Pressure, set for release later this year. It is rumored that a package combination of the book and a thermo water-bath circulator will be offered. I’ll have to revisit my decision of sticking with the stove if it’s true.

 

The other unique piece of equipment is the bag. A resealable plastic bag is easiest and cheapest. I’ve sous vide chicken marylands, salmon fillets, and pork loins in it. The main problem with this bag is the expanding air inside the bag as the item inside heats up. This can be addressed by occasionally opening the bag, removing the air, and sealing it back up. Another issue with the air in the bag is the air inside the bag isn’t the same temperature as the water. Again, this is addressed by occasionally opening the bag, removing the air, and sealing it back up. Finally, a bag with air in it floats. The item inside isn’t experiencing the full effect of the water bath. The solution here is to put a weight over the bag. I find that a metal vegetable strainer works just fine.

 

The more expensive option is to purchase a home vacuum sealer, also referred to as a cryovack. Two notable products in the market are the Reynolds® Handi-Vac™ Vacuum Sealing System and FoodSaver® Vacuum Sealer. Both are quality products with the Reynolds version coming in at a much lower price. Both make use of proprietary bags that add to your food cost with each use.

 

The function of these vacuum sealers is to place food in a heavy-duty plastic bag, remove air from it, and seal it shut. You can store the food for a much longer period of time with the air removed. And you have added the convenience of dropping it into a pot of water and cooking it to the temperature you want. The expanding air issue previously mentioned is diminished as the vacuum bags are strengthened with multiple layers. One additional thing to consider is the food being sealed usually needs to be frozen. The strength of the vacuum is strong and it can crush the item inside. In my experiments, I’ve found that the texture of protein not previously frozen in these bags is disagreeable to my palate; the texture resembles rubber.

 

Usually I go with a vacuumed bag when cooking sous vide. I’ll go with a resealable plastic bag if the dinner is planned and purchased at the last minute.

 

Besides a clock, the last piece of equipment is a thermometer. A candy thermometer works well if you already have one. If you need a thermometer, consider purchasing one that has a high-heat probe wire that connects the probe to the display. A wire that is about three-feet long will serve an additional purpose for cooking items in the oven while the display sits on the counter, or measuring the temperature of items in the refrigerator.

 

Tonight’s Dinner

I chose as my influence a Moroccan spice rub leg of lamb on a bed of couscous recipe at the Meat and Livestock Australia, Ltd. (MLA) Web site. The spices cumin, ginger, coriander, caraway, clove, cumin and cayenne pepper should go well with the Shiraz wine I’ve chosen. Four of the spices just mentioned, cumin, coriander, caraway, and cloves will be toasted in their original whole state. The cumin, coriander, caraway are members of the aromatic Umbelliferae family and toasting brings out their oils and similar aromatics, which intensifies and concentrates their flavors.

 

When toasting more than one type of seed toast them one at a time, going from woody to green so as not to burn the greenest seeds. As the seeds start to heat up, toss the skillet often to keep the them from burning. If you begin to hear them pop, pour the seeds into a bowl, set the skillet off the burner, reduce the heat for electric (turn it off for gas) and wait a couple minutes for the skillet to cool. Return the seeds to the skillet and continue with the lower heat.

 

Because my cooking method is sous vide, and the original recipe uses a roasting method, I need to change the recipe to suit the method as the meat in the package is already sealed. After the lamb cooks for about six hours, I’ll drain off the liquid and pour the contents of the package into a bowl with the seasoning, flavorings and oil. Preheat a skillet over high heat for two minutes, toss a teaspoon of water onto the skillet to seal the pits (this will be explained in a later post), swirl the skillet around, toss out the remaining water and add the lamb. Sauté the meat to brown, about two minutes or so and serve on a bed of Israeli couscous.

 

Another reason for choosing this recipe is I’m a sucker for Israeli couscous.

 

A canvas is to an artist what Israeli couscous is to a cook. It’s white and bland, and developing a flavor profile for it is limited only by your imagination. Israeli couscous is a mixture of bulgur and flour and toasted for a period of time. The cooking of it is an infusion, much like how tea leaves are infused in water to bring the flavor of the leaves to the water. To prepare couscous just bring 2 parts water to a boil, add 1 part couscous, cover the pot, remove it from the heat, and 10 minutes later it’s ready to serve. Your imagination comes in when you decide how to flavor the water or what you decide to add to the finished product. This recipe uses in its flavor profile preserved lemon, white vinegar, and mint. (Although I omit the mint from my dish.)

 

The link to the recipe source is under References at the bottom of this entry.

 

This dinner has a simple salad of greens, olive oil, lemon juice, reduced balsamic vinegar and sea salt. The secret to a good green salad is the crunch factor. To prepare the greens gently wash them with warm water, about 115°F, in a salad spinner. This removes the dirt and helps relax the cell structure much in the same way you relax in a hot tub. It’s soothing and relaxing. Now take this colander with the greens still in it and place it in an ice bath. This shocks the greens and makes the cell structure rigid and stiff, much in the same way you jump out of that hot tub and make snow angels in old, stale, really frozen snow. Did that once—I think I got freezer burn. The crunch in the greens is now set.  Spin the greens dry and store them in the refrigerator until ready to use.

 

This salad is simple and cheap to make, and after drying the greens it takes only two minutes to prepare when you dress the greens using squeeze bottles instead of the original bottles. Squeeze bottles are a fast and efficient way to distribute oil or vinegar. You have more control over how much you pour because you have to squeeze the bottle to get it out. This technique is great when the measurements are 2 tablespoons or less.

 

Salads made from greens have a fundamental rule—the greens determine the salad dressing and vice versa; it all depends on what you want. If you’re focusing on the dressing, then it determines the greens. If you’re focusing on the greens, then it determines the dressing. Tonight, I’m focusing on the dressing. I have an inexpensive bottle of balsamic vinegar. It’s okay in its original state but I want more spotlight on the flavor, and there are two ways to go about it: buy a more expensive, older vinegar, or reduce the inexpensive type. I choose to reduce an inexpensive type by pouring it into a saucepan over low heat, just enough to see the steam rise above it. Reduce it by half and you end up with a thicker, richer, stronger balsamic. An 8-ounce bottle takes about 45 minutes to reduce. Reducing the vinegar enriches the sweetness and masks its 6 percent acidity. It’s really a wonderful taste sensation.

 

Now for the selection of greens. I decide to go with a Mâche, also known as lamb’s lettuce, and Boston Bibb. Mâche is known for its mild, tender, and nutty flavors and Boston Bib matches the mild and nutty properties with a delicate butteriness that will complement the oil/balsamic vinaigrette.  I could have gone with Romaine but it’s too ‘chunky’ of a leaf. It goes great with a Caesar salad dressing because the textural weight of the Romaine leaf perceived by your tongue and the weight of the Caesar dressing are equal. To further demonstrate the vise versa factor of matching greens to a dressing, imagine adding a heavy Caesar dressing to the light and delicate Mâche and Boston Bibb greens.

 

The Wine

The flavors for this dish are bold and require a bold wine. Zinfandel could be a good substitute but I’d change the flavorings and remove the coriander and preserved lemon, and add dark fruit such as plum and fig. It should be noted that both Zinfandel and Shiraz are agreeable to spicy dishes.

 

Another substitute to Australian Shiraz is French Syrah. Same grape, different spelling. I don’t think I’d make any changes to the flavorings. Syrahs from the Northern Rhône region in France—Côte Rôtie, Hermitage, and St. Joseph—are all well-suited to lamb; although, I think I’d find a way to add bacon to the recipe if I were serving a Côte Rôtie. Unfortunately, I have none from 1986.

 

We’re having an ’86 Penfolds Grange from Australia’s from Barossa and Clare Valleys, and McLaren Vale and Adelaide Plains. While Penfolds Grange is arguably Australia’s finest wine, it is definitely its most famous. This is quite possibly the best vintage for Grange in the ’80s, but I still vividly remember my first introduction to Grange and it’s been my favorite bottle to reflect upon. It was the ’81 served in ‘01. Kriste and I were sitting on the deck in our backyard, a collection of Mozart sonatas was playing softly in the background. It was a beautiful sunny day. The dinner was a pan roasted rack of lamb with mint sauce, shoestring sweet potatoes and green beans. We  opened the bottle and never let it breathe. It went straight into the glass. Over the course of three hours that wine made one transition after another, we counted over 30 in all. Moving from bright red fruits to dark, from chocolate to coffee, the wine dramatically changed every five minutes or so. Halfway through I remember thinking, “I don’t want to drink this, I just want to smell it all night long.” The single sensation I can still taste and smell to this day happened around the two-hour mark. I started to get an old leather bouquet when Kriste exclaimed, “Oh my God! It’s like we’re in a furniture store in Snohomish!” This is a small city outside of Seattle known for its antique shops with a plentiful supply of stores selling 100-year-old furniture with the original leather still intact. Sadly, that old leather bouquet moved on to something else, but while it was there for those five minutes it was spectacular.

 

Grange was created in the early ‘50s by Max Schubert after he visited the Bordeaux region of France and saw how they were making age-worthy wines primarily made up of Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot. He thought the same could be done with Shiraz, which was a radical thought because Shiraz grown in Australia at that time was made into sweet dessert wine. At first Grange was misunderstood and production ceased in the late 50s; although, in Skunk works fashion, Mr. Schubert continued making the wine without the knowledge of those who wrote his paycheck. By the end of the decade, the early bottlings of Grange began to show promise and potential, and production ‘was allowed to resume’.

 

As you may have guessed the primary grape in Grange is Shiraz. Usually it makes up to 90 percent of the bottle; although, a few vintages of this wine are made up solely of Shiraz. The wine we’re having tonight is a blend of 87 percent Shiraz and 13 percent Cabernet Sauvignon.

 

I cannot say enough about Penfolds Grange or Penfolds in general. I consider Penfolds to have the best quality product line in the world from top to bottom. Every bottle from Grange to Rawson’s Retreat delivers. Their wines avoid what Kriste calls ‘the donut hole effect.’ You know it by that emptiness in the middle of the tongue after taking a sip that you so often get with a wine. Grange is one of my two favorite wines. If you’re not familiar with it ask around or you can search for it on the Internet. It’s an experience that everybody should enjoy at least once in their lifetime. But—and there’s always a but—upon release the price starts around $225 U.S. a bottle. It’s not your everyday table wine.

 

N.B. To open a bottle of wine that is more than 15 years old, it is best to use an Aso cork remover rather than a cork screw if the bottle has the original cork. A cork screw will shred an old cork and you’ll be left with half the cork in the bottle.

 

MEP

The bullet-point Mis en Place (pronounced MEEz ahn plahs) for this dinner is as follows.

 

Set up the equipment on the stove:

·         Five-quart pot filled with 1 gallon of water, do not turn on heat

·         Thermometer inserted into pot

·         Skillet placed on another burner, do not turn on heat

·         1-quart pot placed on a third burner, do not turn on heat

 

Set up the equipment on the counter:

Salad

·         Olive oil squeeze bottle

·         Reduced balsamic vinegar squeeze bottle

·         Lemon, cut in half

·         Sea salt

·         Pepper grinder

·         Salad bowl

·         Salad spinner with colander insert

 

Lamb

·         Bowl large enough to hold lamb

·         Mortar and pestle for grinding spices

·         Seasoning, flavorings, and oil portioned into bowl

 

Couscous

·         Cutting board

·         Chef’s knife

·         Measuring cup

 

Prepare for service

·         Dinner plates placed in oven, do not turn on heat

·         Salad plates placed in refrigerator

·         Wine glasses cleaned and set at table

·         Eating utensils, napkins etc., at the table

 

Recipe

What follows is not so much of a recipe. It’s more of a diary as the steps are listed in the order taken to prepare the meal as described above, not in the typical order of protein first or first course served is the first course listed.

 

Lamb: Use 4 ounces lamb per serving. This recipe makes two servings.

 

Vacuum seal the lamb	Follow the manufacture’s directions if you have a vacuum sealer. If you don’t have one, place the lamb in a resealable plastic bag, remove the excess air, and seal the bag.
Prepare the pot for poaching…	and bring the 5-quart pot of water to 140°F. Add the bag of lamb and cook for 6 to 8 hours. Occasionally watch the temperature to make sure it doesn’t go far from 140.

 

Spice Mixture: This quantity is enough for 8 ounces of lamb. With this being an older wine I went light on the measurements compared to the recipe source. Younger, more tannic wines can stand up to the aggressive flavors.

 

Preheat the skillet…	over high heat for two minutes, toss a teaspoon of water onto the skillet to seal the pits, swirl the skillet around, toss out the remaining water, and return the skillet to the stove; reduce heat to medium.
2 cloves, whole 1/2 tsp cumin seed 1/2 tsp coriander seed 1/2 tsp caraway seed	Toast seeds in the skillet in the order given, about 1 minute per ingredient. Pour seeds into a mortar.
1 tsp mild paprika 1/4 tsp ground ginger 1/8 tsp turmeric 1/8 tsp cayenne pepper 1/8 tsp nutmeg	Add ingredients to the mortar, and using the pestle, grind the spices to a powder.
1/2 tsp salt 1/2 tsp Harrisa Canola oil	Transfer the powder to the bowl reserved for the lamb. Add the salt with enough harrisa and oil to make a paste about the consistency of pancake batter.   After cooking the lamb open the bag to drain the liquid and pour the lamb into the bowl; mix well.

 

Notes: Do not confuse the paprika package with the cayenne pepper package. The results can be shocking. Harrisa is a Moroccan spice blend that can be very piquante (spicy hot, not temperature hot).

 

Prepare oven…

Preheat oven to 170°F.

 

 

Green Salad: Use 2 ounces greens per serving.

 

Prepare salad greens…

using warm water. Wash greens in a salad spinner with a colander, rinse, and shock in ice water. Store in refrigerator until ready to prepare.

 

 

Couscous: Use 1/2 cup couscous with 1 cup water per serving. Begin this when the lamb is near the end of the cooking time.

 

2 cups water 1/2 tsp white wine vinegar Israeli couscous olive oil 1/4 preserved lemon, zest only, minced 1 Roma tomato, seeded and diced salt and pepper

Bring water and vinegar to a boil in a pot. Remove from heat, add couscous, cover and let it sit 10 minutes.   Pour couscous through a strainer to remove excess water and return couscous to pot. Add a enough olive oil to give the couscous a light coating. Add preserved lemon zest, tomato, and season to taste with salt and pepper.   Keep warm in the oven.

 

 

Continuing with the green salad…

 

1/2 lemon, juice and zest Olive oil Balsamic vinegar, reduced Sea salt and pepper

Place salad greens in a large bowl. Zest the lemon onto the greens, cut the lemon in half, and squeeze the juice from it onto the greens. Save the other half for another day. Toss greens.   Add olive oil and balsamic vinegar reduction using a 3:1 ratio. Toss greens again. Finish tossing and add sea salt and pepper to taste.   Remove the chilled plates from the refrigerator. Plate and serve.

 

 

Now’s a good time to clean up the dishes and countertops. Clean as you go.

Continuing with the lamb…

Preheat the skillet…	over high heat for two minutes, toss a teaspoon of water onto the skillet to seal the pits, swirl the skillet around, toss out the remaining water, and return the skillet to the stove; add enough oil to skillet to cover its bottom. Reduce heat to medium because its 10 seconds to smoke point. Work fast in the next step.
Sauté lamb…	Drain liquid from sous vide bag. Mix lamb with spice mixture. Pour into skillet.   Gently shake the skillet, the food should not stick. After a minute turn each piece over. The lamb should have a good, brown crust on the cooked side. Turn off stove after one minute.

 

 

Plating

 

Service…

Turn off oven. Open oven door and slide the rack with the plates out. Give the couscous a stir; if it looks like it needs some moisture, add a little olive oil to it. Spoon lamb on top of couscous. Wipe plate lips clean with a moist paper towel. Use a clean towel to grab the hot plates and serve.

Analysis and Notes

We opened the wine at 4 P.M. and let it stand straight up until dinner was served at 6:45. I new this dish was going to be assertive with its flavors so we didn’t decant the wine. Any tannins left in it were going to be needed.

 

At 5:50 we poured our first glasses. It has a lovely black color with a slight red brick edge, and that first sniff revealed that this wine was going to be rich and deep. What follows is a timeline of what and when each new component was detected.

 

·         5:50 plum and pepper

·         5:55 1st taste lasts more than 60 seconds

·         6:00 tannins are noticeably chewy and sweet, this wine is concentrated

·         6:10 significant shift towards cola

·         6:20 we have the salad and the balsamic intensifies the cola note

·         6:25 the balsamic really works well with this wine; now it exposes fig aromas

·         6:30 Kriste doesn’t concur, but I get blueberry

·         6:45 sit down with the dinner; the wine shows kalamata olive about 10 seconds into the aftertaste

·         6:50 the preserved lemon in the dish further perpetuates the olive note

·         7:00 roasted, meaty notes: maybe it’s from the lamb

·         7:15 Kriste starts to get that antique leather furniture bouquet

·         7:30 a deep note of cedar wood

·         7:30 I’m a little behind but I get a hint of that antique leather furniture

·         7:40 a little out of place but a bright red cherry appears, a welcome feeling as I thought the piquante heat from the dish was starting to hurt our perception

·         7:45 vanilla

·         7:50 tobacco as in a freshly opened pack of cigarettes

·         7:55 anise

·         8:00 cigarette ash, which is something I’ve never detected before but it leaves a dusty texture on the tongue

·         8:15 returns to cola

·         8:25 last sip reminds me of a cherry cola

 

Overall I think the wine was opened about 5 to 10 years too early. There were a lot of nice things about it and there were plenty of transitions but they weren’t as deep as past experiences with Grange from other vintages. It’s still tight.

 

The lamb was extremely tender. The crust from the sauté served as a great foil as did the preserved lemon in the couscous to the flavor of the lamb. I also pulled back a little on the preserved lemon because I didn’t want the sour factor to interfere with the wine.

 

The sous vide method of cooking is one of the most relaxing ways to cook food. Outside of poaching the bag, monitoring the temperature of the water, and sautéing its contents before plating there’s no input on your part. It’s easy with no rush except in the final two minutes when you sauté. This cooking method is going to be revisited often on this blog.

 

All-in-all I’d say this was a really nice dinner.

 

Until next Saturday… boja, boja. 

 

Here are a few items of note about the ingredients. Unless otherwise specified:

·         Salt is always Kosher

·         Olive oil is always extra-virgin

·         Eggs are always large

·         Butter is always unsalted

·         Pepper is always freshly ground

 

References

Moroccan spice rub leg of lamb recipe source

 

Diane Forley with Catherine Young, Anatomy of a Dish, New York: Artisan, 2002

 

Sarah R. Labensky and Alan M. Hause, On Cooking, Prentice Hall, New Jersey, 2nd ed., 1999

                       

Amanda Hesser, “Under Pressure,” NY Times August 14, 2005 (requires registration)

 

Penfolds Grange, 1986

 

Thermo water-bath circulators on eBay®

                                    

Reynolds® Handi-Vac™ Vacuum Sealing System

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