Struffoli

Whether you call them struffoli or honey balls, they’re just plain deliciousness and fun to eat.  You have heard of struffoli, right?

Well, in case you haven’t had struffoli before, I’ll explain.  They’re something that Italian people love to have, especially around Christmas.  And, at least based on my own experiences, they seem to take forever to make (for me, about 4 hours).  They’re tiny fried dough balls in honey.  I blend together my eggs, shortening, lemon zest, salt, sugar, and baking powder, and form a well in my pile of flour on the baking mat.  I keep on forming the dough ball with my hands until there’s a nice, moist dough ball with just a hint of lemon aroma.

Separately, I heat some honey with orange zest in a small pot.  And at some point, I’ll heat some vegetable oil in a somewhat larger pot.  For the honey, I’ll be using a slotted spoon, and when frying the dough balls, I’ll use a spider spoon, one of my favorite kitchen tools.

Anyway, I form tiny dough balls the size of ceci (chick peas) and keep them on a cookie sheet underneath a damp paper towel.  I’ve never counted how many dough balls the recipe makes, but a reasonable guess would be somewhere between 400 and 500.  I fry them in groups of about 10, until they’re golden brown, and then remove them to the honey, make sure they’re coated, and form a conical sort of mound on a plate, and sprinkle with multicolored nonpareils.

And that’s struffoli!

Christmas Cookies - Italian Style

It’s that wonderful time of the year again, when I start making a ridiculous amount of cookies for Christmas.  Usually, I make cookies for my family and friends.  This year I did an extra batch - to give to the people I sell wine to all year.  I wanted to know with a small gesture as homemade cookies that I very much appreciate working with them all year.

I did opt for a few American traditional cookies (chocolate chip and peanut butter) but most of the cookies were Italian recipes.  The biscotti I had never made before - the other two are on the menu every time I make cookies.

Hazelnut and Chocolate Biscotti

So, about the biscotti - I love hazelnut.  Unfortunately, stores like Stop & Shop (for some very strange reason I suppose) rarely have in stock products that Italian-American families might need.  At least, that’s been my observation over the past few years, without going into too much detail.  Anyway, they didn’t have any hazelnuts that were all ready for baking.  So I cracked open quite a lot of hazelnut shells, but I guess it was worth it, because the biscotti turned out amazingly good!  (And they’re perfect for breakfast, for dipping in coffee.)  I changed the recipe slightly that I had found online - I added some chocolate to it.  Frangelico, vanilla, almond all went into the flavoring of the biscotti, plus a whole lot of flour, eggs, sugar, and other basic baking ingredients.  And while the dough is a little annoying and difficult to work with due to its very sticky nature, it’s a relatively easy recipe in the end, and once the cookies are baked in loaves, sliced, and baked again, that’s really all there is to it.

Cuccidati

Next up were the cuccidati.  Cuccidati are a distinctly Sicilian recipe, but they’re pretty similar to rugelach.  The dough is simple - flour, sugar, eggs, butter, baking powder, and salt.  Into the food processor until it becomes a nice ball of dough, and that’s it.  The food processor needs to be cleaned again though, because you’ll need it for the filling.  What’s in the filling?  Mission figs, raisins, rum, orange juice, black coffee, chocolate, candied lemon peel, black pepper, walnut, almond, apricot jam, clove, nutmeg, cinnamon, and a touch of ginger.  I think that’s all.  If it sounds like a lot, that’s because it is, but the depth and complexity of the aromas and flavors of the cookies are amazing.  So here’s what I do (because lots of people think they’re really hard to make, and that’s just not true) - I cover my entire work surface in flour, as well as my hands and forearms.  I used to use a rolling pin but the dough needs to be so thin that the rolling pin kept on ruining it.  So I flatten it completely with my hands and arms, and anyway I like the more natural feel of the dough that way anyway.  So once I make medium sized rectangles of dough about 12 inches long by about 4 inches tall, I spread the fig paste along it, and then roll it to make a long roll (carefully!), pinching it at the ends to seal it.  I then cut it into bite sized pieces, score the pieces, brush them with an egg wash, and sprinkle them with nonpareils.  Into the oven on parchment paper lined cookie sheets, and that’s it.

Rainbow Cookies

The most stressful recipe I ever make are the rainbow cookies.  I think it’s because I’ve been doing it for 10 years and yet I still lack my usual kitchen confidence when making them.  For me, they’re a lot more difficult than the cuccidati could ever be.  They’re almond flavored and the batter is on the dry side so it makes it a little difficult to spread into the bottoms of the 3 pans, especially since they have to be so thin (remember, they’re made in 3 cake layers), and in between the colored layers, we have raspberry jam and apricot jam.  And on top, it’s melted chocolate.  Everything about them seems to be a challenge for me - getting the right consistency, getting them to spread evenly and correctly, baking them just the right amount of time, getting them out of the pans without cracking the very thin and delicate layers, and getting them cut and separated safely.  But they’re completely worth it.

The baking isn’t over yet.  I’m making these 3 recipes again, and I’m making something else fun that I do at Christmas, called struffoli - the Italian honey balls.  And the cooking?  It’ll be the Feast of the Seven Fishes for Christmas Eve, and lasagne for Christmas Day.  Fun!

My 1983-Themed 30th Birthday

http://champagne-taste.blogspot.com/2013/11/my-1983-themed-30th-birthday.html

Posted to my other blog, Champagne Taste - my 30th birthday dinner party - all 1983 wines!

Pumpkin Lasagne, Pinot Noir, & Banana Cream Pie

I can’t think of any better way to work on my food blog than to have Jacques Pepin and Julia Child on dvd in the background - and I’m sipping on a fun Carmenere from Chile.  I’ve never been much of a Carmenere fan, but this one doesn’t have that excessive green bell pepper that happens sometimes (which I don’t like, because it masks the fruit and earthiness).  This one has some pepper but plenty of fruit, and I’m enjoying it.

Anyway, I made something awesome last week - well, two awesome things, but one was from a popular recipe, and the other I hatched from my own imagination.

For dinner, I created a pumpkin lasagne.  And if it sounds delicious, it is.  I boiled 12 pieces of lasagne and laid them out on wax paper.  In the Emile Henry baking dish, I built the lasagne.  In a bowl, I mixed pure pumpkin puree with a pinch each of cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, and ginger.  In another bowl, I mixed ricotta with finely chopped sage and walnuts.  (Ricotta isn’t the only cheese I used - I also used grated parmigiano reggiano, crumbled fresh goat cheese, and small pieces of fontina - how is it that whenever I start creating a dish like this, I end up with four completely different cheeses?)  And finally, I sauteed some chopped crimini mushrooms seasoned with black pepper.  Now it’s time to build the lasagne.  I placed four lasagne pieces, slightly overlapped, at the bottom of the pan.  I then spread 1/3 of the pumpkin over it, topped it with dollops of ricotta, and added goat cheese, fontina, and mushrooms (each I used 1/2 of what I had).  Then I laid another four pieces of lasagne, and again topped with more pumpkin, plus the remainder of the cheeses and mushroom, and then topped with the last four pieces of lasagne, the remainder of the pumpkin, and then sprinkled with the parmigiano reggiano.  Into the oven at 350F for about 40 minutes or until the top is crisp and golden, and the sides are bubbling.  It’s so good (and I was even a little surprised at how good it was, considering there was no recipe).

With it, the pairing was a Pinot Noir from Switzerland, which was excellent and a really good pairing.  I love Pinot Noir, especially the bright, clean feel that cuts through some rich ingredients, and this one also had some complexity heading toward the finish, with dark fruit showing through, followed by mineral, and just delicious overall, especially with the dinner.

One of my favorite pies is banana cream pie, and ever since I was a kid, I wanted to make my own, so I have no idea why I never attempted it until now.  Anyway, I used my sister’s pie crust recipe, except I added about 2 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder, and that gave it another dimension in terms of flavor.  The pie filling consisted of 4 bananas plus a homemade sort of pudding made from scratch which was quite simple, and then baking it and chilling it, and making fresh homemade whipped cream to top the pie.  It was everything I remembered from when I was a child, only better somehow.

That was a fantastic dinner.  Lots of calories, yes, but completely worth it!

Braised Lamb Shanks, Brunello, & Orange Spice Butter Cookies

I think I’m finally all caught up on blog posts!  The wine blog is a little different these days as it’s less about just tasting notes and more about wine philosophy and new discoveries made by me and cool things that are happening lately with wine and me.  But that’s one of the things I’m enjoying about having this food blog as my secondary blog - it requires a lot less thought as I rarely follow recipes and technicalities (unless I’m working on one of the “classics” like the French mother sauces, those need real recipes as I will not tamper with a classic, and so they take more thought) - everything else I kind of do by the seat of my pants, which is my favorite way to cook.  I think I learn the most that way, and that way no one can say, “oh Jac, you didn’t follow the recipe correctly,” because there is no recipe involved.  That’s why those who know me well, know that I usually refer to my creations as “concepts” - and this is a total run-on sentence.  Anyway, now that it’s a new sentence, I call my creations and experiments “concepts” because that’s exactly what they are to me - ideas that I hatch out of my own imagination, sometimes based on something I’ve had before, sometimes based on something I’ve seen or heard about, and sometimes just because the ingredients seem to make sense to me and so I imagine how they’d be when they’re together, and test it out.  After all, what’s the worst that can happen?  Sometimes the ingredients are already good friends, like pumpkin/goat cheese/walnuts/sage (so yes, that’ll be incorporated into a recipe possibly as early as next week and it’ll be something really awesome so stay tuned please!), or venison and juniper, or things like that.  And sometimes, the ingredients are complete strangers and need to be introduced formally, and then we see how well they work together, sometimes with the help of other ingredients.  An example of this happened several years ago - I had an Australian Pinot Noir open and I was enjoying it on a snowy night alone in my kitchen.  I was making something with chocolate for dessert, and I was making a steak with a bleu cheese sauce for dinner.  Now, I’m not generally an advocate for pairing dry style wines with chocolate, but there was something I simply couldn’t resist - I put the bleu cheese and dark chocolate into my mouth at the same time.  To this day, it’s still one of the most incredible, delicious, and eye-opening things I’ve ever tasted.  And then I had a sip of the Pinot Noir and BOOM - I became a lot more radical in the kitchen from then on.  And if you’ve never tried bleu cheese with dark chocolate, consider this a strong suggestion to do so.  I think the bleu cheese allowed the Pinot to work with the chocolate, and without it, I think the wine and chocolate would have offended each other, but instead, they all worked harmoniously.  So like I said, what’s the worst that can happen?  If two ingredients don’t work well together, there won’t be a costly divorce or nuclear war to remedy the situation.  You just learn from it and try again.

That said, this blog post will describe ingredients that I already knew would work well together.

I love lamb.  I love the flavor, aroma, and texture.  And I’ve loved lamb dishes for as long as I can remember.  I usually make lamb chops, often the small ones, at home.  (I always include rosemary and garlic and lemon, as to me, those are perfect with lamb.)  But this time I wanted to try a more autumnal variation on lamb by braising it, so I went to the local butcher and bought lamb shanks.  In the Le Creuset dutch oven, I heated some extra virgin olive oil until it was smoking, and then added the lamb shanks.  I seasoned them with kosher salt and fresh ground black pepper, and turned them a few times to allow them to brown a bit until they had somewhat of a golden color.  I then deglazed the pan with a good red wine (I’ll tell you about that in a moment because I deviated a little on the wine), and scraped the bottom of the pan with a wooden spoon, lowered the heat, added about a cup or so of beef stock, and some rosemary and finely chopped garlic.  Into the oven for 2 hours at 350F until the meat was pretty much falling off the bone.

Most people love to serve that kind of lamb over potatoes or rice.  I’m sorry but I don’t care much for potatoes unless they’re very seasoned and mashed or they’re turned into gnocchi, and I really don’t like rice unless it’s a good risotto.  So I went into the pantry and voila, there was half a box of orzo left!  I was so happy, because I LOVE orzo.  I cooked and drained the orzo, placed it at the bottom of a fairly deep square Apilco dish, and seasoned the orzo with lemon juice and garlic.  And then I topped it with the lamb shank.  WOW.  It smelled amazing, the texture was perfect, and the flavors?  Well, I was astounded at how well it turned out!

Ok, so about the wine - usually with lamb, depending on how it’s cooked, I usually recommend one of the French reds from Bordeaux (Cabernet/Merlot), Burgundy (generally a Pinot Noir from Cotes de Nuit), or Rhone (either a Chateauneuf-du-Pape of mostly Grenache from Southern Rhone or a Saint-Joseph made of Syrah from Northern Rhone) - those are my favorites with lamb.  This time, I chose a Brunello di Montalcino.  What’s that?  Well, it’s a really good dry red made from Sangiovese in Tuscany.  So I chose a nice Italian wine instead.  And it was a perfect pairing.  The wine had notes of dry earthiness with cherry, rose petals, savory herbs, and barrel, and that’s what I was looking for on an autumn evening.

With it, I made a light salad of baby greens and almonds, with a lemon/wildflower honey/balsamic vinegar/olive oil dressing.  Very clean and simple - I like clean side dishes when the main dish is complex.

On a whim after dinner, I decided I was in the mood for a light and not overly sweet dessert - so I decided within seconds on butter cookies, but I wanted to make something fun with them.  Basically, the recipe called for flour, sugar, salt, butter, egg, and maybe some other ingredients, I don’t remember (because I was ever so slightly tipsy - read SLIGHTLY [oops] - and I picked up my iphone and went online and found a quick butter cookie recipe from scratch so I didn’t save it) - and I added to it some fresh orange zest, cinnamon, and nutmeg.  The dough was soft and dry and easy to work with - I formed it into small balls and pressed them a bit into the cookie sheets, and criss-crossed them with a fork.  Into the oven at 350F for about 10 minutes, and there I had them - perfect orange spice butter cookies.

And soon thereafter, I was really full.

Limoncello

Preparation

Apparently I had a lot of catching up to do on the food blog, posting a few times this week should catch me up to where I am right now.  I’ve experimented with a lot of things that I’d been wanting to try and finally got to a lot of them.  Hopefully later this week or next week I’ll cover a cool lamb dinner I made a couple of weeks ago because it was fantastic and because I’ve got more things I’ll be making in the coming weeks and don’t want to fall so far behind again!  So the next post will definitely be the lamb dish I made (especially since I’ve been asked by a lot of people for the recipe).

5 weeks in the jar

So here’s a brief post on something I make at the onset of the cooler months - which for us here in New York, is around October.  Citrus fruits are good in the cooler months.  And I love limoncello.  Not that stuff you find in liquor stores that’s bright yellow and gooey and thick - personally I think that’s gross.  To me, a proper limoncello is the kind you make at home.  And everyone always sounds so impressed when I saw I make it at home, but the truth is, it’s really easy to do.

I have a large jar, I’m not exactly sure how large it is but it’s very large.  To make the limoncello, I peel 12 lemons - and I only use the peel, no pith (the white part - it tastes bitter).  I place the peels in the jar and then add 2 liters of vodka.  It doesn’t have to be expensive vodka - Absolut or Iceberg will do.  I seal the jar and let it sit for 5 weeks.  I shake it once a day and keep it out of the sunlight.

The finished product!

At the end of the 5 weeks, I decant it (and it smells amazing) into a large bowl or pot, and in a medium sized pan, I make a simple syrup of 6 cups sugar and 3 cups water.  Simple syrup is easy to make - swirl the pan around but don’t stir it - that might make it grainy instead of clear and smooth.  Once the syrup cools, I add it to the lemon infused vodka, stir it, and put it in bottles (usually a few empty vodka bottles) and it’ll last in the freezer for about a year (if you can prevent yourself from drinking it all in under a year!).

Sounds really easy, right?  That’s because it is.

There are also 2 variations on limoncello, which I’ve made a bunch of times as well.  One is mandarino - I peel 9 mandarin oranges (I’ve used tangerines instead) and use the same amount of vodka and simple syrup.  The other is zenzerino - that’s the peels of 7 naval oranges and 1/2 lb fresh grated ginger and the same amount of vodka and simple syrup.  (At least that’s what the recipe calls for - I prefer finely chopped ginger as it doesn’t just turn to sediment instead and the drink remains clear once decanted.)

Enjoy limoncello after dinner, or use it as an ingredient in some really fun cocktails!

Venison, More Homemade Bread, and Madiran

Here’s something interesting I had been wanting to work on for quite some time - venison.  I enjoyed it in restaurants and I just really wanted to attempt it at home.  And my first observation is that venison apparently is far easier to find in a market than quail is.  Go figure.

Anyway, I heard that juniper pairs particularly well with venison.  It kind of does, except that I like the flavors of meats, especially game type meats.  So both gin marinade and crushed juniper berries for a crust were recommended to me, and I did try both.  It worked of course but next time I’d go without so much juniper.  The meat certainly is delicious though.  So all I really did was buy venison tenderloin (d’Artagnan product) and marinate it briefly in some Tanqueray (just a very small amount), and then crust it with crushed dry juniper berries.  I cooked it at probably around 350F.

The sauce on the venison was a drizzle of cooked blackberries with wildflower honey, sugar, and apple cider vinegar (with a sprig of rosemary) which after it cooked and cooled, I put it through a sieve.  It was good.

The side dish I made was another homemade loaf of bread which was fun and it seemed so much easier than the first time.  (See my quail dinner post for the first loaf of bread.)  This time I sauteed a small amount of finely chopped onion and added it to the bread dough, along with finely chopped fresh sage from my rooftop garden, and the crust was topped with grated Swiss cheese.  The bread, I think, was amazing.  I’d do that one again in a heartbeat, and of course I’ll keep learning new flavors too.

The wine I chose to pair was a Madiran - the 2008 Chateau Peyros Vieilles Vignes.  I love Madiran - they’re so wonderfully dry and rustic and expressive, and made of mostly Tannat, often with some Cabernet Franc.  It’s a very honest wine (with nutritional benefits - read up on Tannat and resveratrol!) - and it’s a great pairing with something gamey like venison.  (I like Tannat paired with lots of things actually, and regularly make excuses to do so.)

Anyway it was quite a learning experience and delicious.

Autumn Appetizer - Goat Cheese Stuffed Figs

I’m a summer sort of person - I love the hot weather, I love drinking rose’ on the porch or dock, I love watching baseball, I just prefer summer over any other time of the year.  But when it comes to recipes and cool flavors and aromas, few things can top autumn.

I’ve got so many food related posts to work on as I’ve been experimenting quite a lot in the kitchen these days, but something I’d like to share this weekend is my favorite autumn appetizer.  It’s easy and fairly quick to make and very seasonal, and I’ve been making it for a few years and each time I enjoy it more.

Basically, they’re goat cheese stuffed figs.  Simple enough, right?

We have fig trees in our yard but they’re easy enough to find in a store at this time of the year, and I mean fresh figs, not the dried kind, as they’re easier to stuff when they’re fresh, as opposed to reconstituted.  Anyway, I recommend black mission figs.  And you can buy the small log of fresh plain goat cheese or you can buy the crumbled kind (which is actually a lot easier when stuffing, but it’s up to you and depends on what you can find, obviously).

I begin by cutting the stem plus a bit of the top off the fig, and then I clean some of the inside out of the fig - leave some but clean some out.  When you’ve cleaned out all the figs, begin stuffing them with goat cheese.  Once they’re all stuffed and on a platter, sprinkle them (and be conservative) with ground nutmeg, and drizzle with fresh lemon juice (again, be conservative) and honey.  It’s to die for.

I’d recommend some prosciutto di Parma on the side - the delicate meat and saltiness is perfect alongside the sweet fig and tangy goat cheese.  And I’d also recommend a sparkling wine - I almost always go with a sparkling rose’ when pairing with this appetizer.

Sounds easy and delicious?  That’s because it is!

Goulash & Blaufrankisch

Being a sales representative for a company that imports and distributes mostly French wine and having a name like Jacqueline, often people assume I’m French until they find out otherwise.  And generally, I identify myself as a Sicilian American, since that’s pretty much how I was raised.  But I’m also Hungarian and Slovakian (or, as I’d like to call my Hungarian heritage, Magyar).  And what I’ve noticed in the past few years is that while it’s quite common to be of Italian, Irish, German, Polish, etc. heritage, being Hungarian is a little less common and lately there have been quite a few Hungarians and Hungarian Americans coming out of the woodwork - it’s like we find each other somehow and embrace the common thread.

But Hungarian or not, I’m sure you’ve all heard of goulash.  It’s a delicious Hungarian stew or soup, and I’ve been enjoying making that, even a little more often now.  It’s generally served over egg noodles (that have bee lightly buttered and sprinkled with parsley).  The stew itself consists of vegetables, beef, wine (of course), and it would hardly be Hungarian without paprika.

How about I just tell you how it’s done?  It’s a little time consuming as I’ve clocked it even when I’m moving as quickly as if I were making marinara sauce, and prep time and cook time combined, it gets to somewhere between 2 and 3 hours.  Anyway, I use about a pound and a half of stewing meat (but I still cut away any fat) and cut it into fairly small pieces.  Some say to toss them in flour, but since my dad doesn’t care much for flour in most dishes, I tend to avoid the flour.  And it doesn’t seem necessary anyway.  I heat a bit of olive oil in the large round Le Creuset Dutch oven and brown the meat, seasoning it with kosher salt and fresh ground black pepper.  Once the meat is cooked, I remove the meat to a separate bowl but keep the juices left behind.  In the juices, I cook 3 medium sized yellow onions cut into thin rings, roughly a dozen garlic cloves peeled and cut in half, and one of those packages of baby portobello mushrooms (I believe that’s about 8 oz), which I cut into quarters.  I add a bit more olive oil and cover the pot, cooking on med-high heat until the vegetables are softened but have not browned.  I then deglaze the pot with some red wine (some recipes call for sweet red wine but I prefer a good quality dry red with some fruit characteristics).  After letting it cook a bit longer, I add about 2 cups of beef stock and I put the meat back in, as well as a small jar (drained) of roasted red peppers which I love (and I cut them into fairly small pieces), and a quarter of a cup of paprika.  Stir it all together and cover and cook on simmer-low for somewhere around an hour and a half.  The meat will be a lot softer and the stew will have thickened a bit and reduced somewhat.  Once it cools a bit, I add a cup of sour cream and stir it in, and heat it up again and serve it over the noodles.

It’s really easy, just a little time consuming, like I said.

My favorite pairing is currently Blaufrankisch, from Austria.  I’m a sucker for Austrian wines, both red and white, as I mentioned in my last blog post.  But something about the dry, spicy, earthy, and somewhat tart red wine like Blaufrankisch just seems so perfect with the goulash.  Eventually I’ll try a Hungarian red with it, but for now, Blaufrankisch suits me just fine (and as in the case of Zweigelt and how I like saying the word, it’s the same thing with Blaufrankisch, I like saying it).

So, in 3 days, I’ll be sitting in a Guild of Sommeliers master class on Austrian wine - while I’ve got a cool new blog post coming on this blog about a great experiment I did this week, my next blog post will probably be on the Austrian class, and it’ll appear on my other blog, Champagne Taste, so please be sure to check it out!

Pairing: Red & Fish?

Niles Crane is convinced he’s got a case of the munchies in one Frasier episode - and he feels he’s doing something radical by pairing “Chilean sea bass with this aggressive Zinfandel!” - he’s right, of course.  You don’t want to pair a wine with a food it might overpower.  But let’s face it - there are few really hard rules in food and wine pairing, and believe me when I say it’s ok to pair some heavier whites with meat dishes and some lighter reds with fish dishes.  (I’m quite open minded with lots of pairings - just don’t try to convince me to drink brut Champagne with cake or chocolate - it’s not romantic, it’s disgusting.)

I’ve had red Burgundies with fish lots of times and it’s often a good pairing (salmon really loves Pinot Noir!), and I’ve done lighter style Tuscan reds with fish as well.  A good Beaujolais (and I mean Villages or Cru) pairs nicely with fish dishes, and of course you can do most lighter style reds with fish - and keep this in mind - it’s especially important to me when applying the idea to lighter style, bright acidity reds, but in general it’s a good idea to get a slight chill on your reds.  No, I don’t suggest serving it as chilled as a while, but Americans tend to drink our reds at room temperature, as opposed to cellar temperature.  My suggestion then?  Put your bottle of red in the refrigerator for about 20 minutes before opening it - trust me, it’ll taste and feel better.  And if it’s got bright acidity with some tart red fruit characteristics, you’ll really want to get that little chill on it, so it won’t have that “bite” to it.

Anyway, most times I drink red.  I do love a good white, especially those from Burgundy, Alsace, and Germany - but oftentimes it’s red that satisfies me.  So recently, I wanted fish but wanted a red that night too, and I was alone cooking that night, so I wasn’t about to open 2 bottles.  For my dinner, I went with a gorgeous piece of sashimi grade tuna, and Asian noodles in a sauce of rice vinegar, soy sauce, lime juice, and wildflower honey, and sesame seeds, carrots, and scallions.  You’re probably thinking, ok, where’s the Riesling and Gewurztraminer?  On most days, I’d be thinking the same thing. But when I crave red, I crave red, and there’s nothing I can do about it.  The red I chose was a Zweigelt.  Zweigelt, you ask?  Zwhat’s that?  Well, it’s a fruity light-to-medium-style red from Austria. Austria makes wine, you ask?  YES.  And I love Austrian wine!  In fact, in less than 2 weeks, I’m attending a Guild of Sommeliers master class on Austrian wine, and I’ll be sure to tell you all about it on my other blog, Champagne Taste.  Anyway, the Zweigelt is a cool thing and it’s good with fish dishes and other light, subtly flavored culinary concoctions.  I find that Austrian wines are very expressive, which is often the case with grapes grown in a cooler climate wine region - the grapes are able to take on the characteristics of the terroir - the soil, air, etc., and then express them to the drinker, uninhibited by other factors like excessive heat, excessive sunlight (excessive sugar and alcohol levels, etc.) - and we can learn more about the characteristics of the wine region that way!  Zweigelt is often a lot less expensive than other Austrian wines like the red Blaufrankisch and some whites including Gruner and Roter Veltliner and Riesling.  And plus, like other Austrian grapes, Zweigelt is fun to say.  It’s got mostly soft red fruit characteristics and a slightly funky, earthy nose, and a clean feel (usually) - so it’s a great red for chilling a bit and pairing with fish.  How did my pairing turn out?  FANTASTIC.

So no aggressive Zinfandels with fish, ok?  But the lighter reds - go for it.

Quail and My First Homemade Bread

Roast Quail,
Balsamic Drizzle

I miss having more time for writing on both of my blogs - I like having a busy schedule but I just miss my writing time, especially when I’m inspired to drink or create something really awesome in the kitchen and have no time to relive the moment.

A couple of weeks ago, I decided that for a dinner with my sister, we’d have quail.  And I also decided that with the quail, I’d bake my first loaf of bread.  I didn’t know what I was getting myself into.  See, at the local grocery stores and butchers, I’ve seen quail available.  But the day before our dinner, I couldn’t find quail anywhere.

Fresh from the Oven

So the search for quail began.  I called probably around 20 stores on Long Island to see where I could find the quail.  The issue at that point was hardly the fact that I couldn’t seem to find the quail - it was actually the poor customer service I was receiving on my quest.  And this time, I’m not holding back on the names of the businesses.  Most locations I called had no idea what quail was.  An Uncle Giuseppe’s worker went so far as to ask me if quail is seafood.  How can customers possibly find what they’re looking for if the store employees have no idea what’s in their store’s inventory?  After much frustration with local stores, I called D’Artagnan directly, and spoke with a customer service representative - I attempted to order quail for next day delivery, but missed the cutoff by an hour.  I asked her if I could pay a penalty fee to have it shipped next day - I know how this stuff works, as I have to process sales orders for my own job - instead of answering me, she simply hung up on me.  Needless to say, finding quail was an aggravating experience.

Herbed Homemade Bread

And then I called a poultry farm in Huntington - and they had quail - and said they’d hold 4 quails for me.  See?  It’s that simple.  And that’s one of the many reasons why it’s best to shop small and seek good customer service.  So I made the drive to Huntington and was very pleased with what I saw at the farm and shop - I’ll be going back there again!

So what happened with the quail?  We trussed them, rubbed them with olive oil and sprinkled them with sea salt, and sauteed them in the Le Creuset pot for a while, and then transferred them to the oven, until they became golden brown and crispy, and then made a quick balsamic drizzle for them, and voila - perfect quail for dinner!

Langhe Nebbiolo

And about the bread - well, I found what looked like a fairly simple bread loaf recipe, and for someone who makes bread all the time, it probably is very easy - but doing this late at night after work and doing it for the first time made for a challenge and a mess of dough everywhere, but it wasn’t so bad after all - I think I was just worried that it wasn’t going to rise!  But rise it did.  And it was a beautiful and delicious loaf of bread.  The flavors I used were fresh chopped basil, thyme, and rosemary from my rooftop garden, and lemon zest - and a crust of grated parmigiano reggiano - not bad for a first attempt at baking bread!  (And for a bread loaf pan, I highly recommend Emile Henry - heat is distributed correctly and the loaf doesn’t stick to the pan.)  And the leftover bread after our dinner was used for a delicious breakfast with poached eggs - perfect.

What did we pair with our quail and herbed bread dinner?  A Langhe Nebbiolo from Piemonte - dry and bright and clean with lovely cherry and flower petal notes.  There’s an ideal pairing right there.

So, all challenges and frustrations aside, that was a fantastic dinner!

Mom’s Birthday Dinner

The wines!

I picked some really fun dishes for Mom’s birthday over the weekend - my sister made a cool appetizer of apricot with brie en croute and for the main course we had lamb chops with a dressing I made of olive oil, balsamic vinegar, lemon, and fresh rosemary with garlic, kosher salt, and black pepper.

My dishes?  I made side dishes - stuffed tomatoes, risotto, and the cake - a New York style (or sort of German style) cheesecake.  Delicious!  I picked the wines, too - a Provence rose’, a 2007 Right Bank Bordeaux (that means it’s mostly Merlot with some Cabernet), and a Chateauneuf-du-Pape (mostly Grenache based wine with other grapes like Syrah and Mourvedre, from Southern Rhone).  The wines showed perfectly, and the dishes turned out really well.

Very easy stuffed tomatoes

The stuffed tomatoes are incredibly easy - I cut a few large vine ripened tomatoes in half, and, using a grapefruit knife, I hollow them out.  In a bowl, I mix together Italian seasoned bread crumbs, parmigiano reggiano, fresh finely chopped garlic, fresh chopped parsley, and olive oil.  I blend the olive oil into the mixture with a fork and make sure the crumbs are moist with olive oil, and then I spoon and lightly tamp down the mixture into the hollow tomato halves.  I then drizzle them with a bit more olive oil just to let them brown a bit, and bake them in the oven at 400 degrees F.  When they’r golden brown and just starting to crack a bit on top while the tomatoes are softened, take them out and enjoy them!

A cheesy, lemony risotto

The risotto I taught myself.  It’s not the easiest thing to make but if you get a feel for it, it can be quite simple.  I use 2 cups of arborio rice and my ratio is just over 3:1 liquid to rice.  I begin with a large pot and a drop of olive oil and cook an onion, chopped.  I add about 4 tbsp unsalted butter and let it melt, and using a wooden spoon, I add the 2 cups of arborio rice and stir to coat with the melted butter.  I then add, about 1 cup at a time, chicken stock, and keep the pot on fairly low heat.  I use about 6 cups of chicken stock, and then I also add the juice of 1 lemon and about 1 cup of dry white wine (this time I used a Cotes de Gascogne so not quite as dry as usual - Sauvignon Blanc or Pinot Grigio).  I add 1 cup at a time and stir so that the rice will gradually absorb the liquid.  I use about a pinch of ground black pepper, garlic powder, and about a tsp of fresh thyme leaves.  Once the rice has absorbed all liquid and is at a cooked rice consistency, I add about a cup (or slightly less) of grated parmigiano reggiano, and stir it in and remove the pot from the heat.  Once it’s integrated, I put it in a large heated bowl and top with chopped fresh parsley, and it’s done!

Cheesecake!

Let that cheesecake settle!

So about the cheesecake - there’s a story behind this one.  I was a girl scout when I was a kid until I was almost a teenager.  Somewhere around the middle of my girl scout years, I guess I was around 10 or 11, we had our first real bake-off.  I had never baked anything before - so my mom suggested her cheesecake recipe - it’s not that hard and it’s 100% from scratch, and she’d be happy to watch me, since she had made the cake so many times (I think she was given the recipe by someone named Connie that Mom worked with a long time ago, before I was born).  So the cheesecake it would be.  We’ve always called it the German cheesecake, but it’s definitely New York style (for those of you who have had a real New York cheesecake - and it’s far more fresh than most cakes that you’ll find in a New York deli or diner.  Anyway, it gets made in a spring form pan, and so there’s no graham cracker crust - in fact, there’s no crust at all.  I grease the pan with butter and coat it with plain bread crumbs.  The cake itself consists of cream cheese and butter blended together, and then add to it: sour cream, heavy cream, sugar, flour, corn starch, eggs, and vanilla, and there it is - use an electric mixer (I begin on low but bring it all the way up to the highest setting as I like loads of air in it - it can be pretty heavy for a cake so air helps!) - and 4 minutes later, pour it into the prepared pan, and bake it for almost an hour.  It’ll crack just a bit on top, but let it settle for a little while, and it;ll return to form, and carefully release the spring form sides, and it’s done!  Let it cool and place it in the refrigerator and that’s all there is to it.  Easy, right?  Well, maybe.  But I won that girl scout bake-off, and so the cheesecake was my first ever kitchen project, and a success it was.

Blueberry Pie for Labor Day

I love cooking and baking according to the seasons, and what’s fresh - it’s the best way to ensure a delicious and healthy dish, because preservatives don’t play quite so big a role when the ingredients are so fresh.  Plus, when ingredients are in season, they’re at their peak, so flavor is at maximum levels - at least that’s the way I see it.

Blueberry Pie - up close

I’m a huge fan of Ina Garten.  I learned an interesting lesson in one of her books (I believe it’s in Back to Basics but I’m not positive on that.)  Anyway, the lesson came from one of her trips to France.  She and her husband Jeffrey have homes here in New York (one in East Hampton right here in Suffolk County on Long Island, maybe an hour’s drive from where I live), one in the city, and one in Paris.  She was spending Thanksgiving in Paris and she and Jeffrey invited some friends over to their Parisian apartment, and she encountered a problem.  Some foods that are available to us here in New York are not available in Paris, at least not at Thanksgiving, when we use those ingredients to cook our Thanksgiving dinner.  I believe cranberries were among her examples.  The lesson I took from her experience which she shared with her readers is that cooking should be based on what’s in season, in order to keep it fresh and delicious.  So while Ina was able to put on an American Thanksgiving dinner in Paris, it took some major effort to find the ingredients, and some were frozen and she wasn’t happy about that (if I remember the story correctly).  And after the story, she reminds her readers to opt for the freshest ingredients, preferably those that are currently in season.

Blueberries are generally in season toward the latter part of the summer, at least that’s the case in northeastern United States.  And the true blueberries are the ones also labeled “bluet” - they have a pale colored inside flesh and dark skin (and the not-so-real blueberries have dark flesh as well - I think that’s important to remember!).

They say every good cook should have signature items, including signature cookies, cakes, and pies.  (When the holidays come around, I can’t wait to tell you all about my signature cookies - they reflect my Italian/Sicilian heritage and while they’re challenging, I love them so much and I look forward to sharing them with you.)

Since this blog post covers pie, I’ll tell you what my signature pies are.  My real signature pie is key lime pie - it’s the first pie I learned to make and now I do with without a recipe in front of me - I make it during the warmer months as I like to think of it almost like margarita in the form of dessert.  And the graham cracker crust is really quite simple to make.  If you look back a month or two ago, you’ll see the key lime pie in my 4th of July post.  My other signature pie, which I believe I covered in a post in June, is pecan pie, which I learned to make because it’s my dad’s favorite, and it seems quite difficult to find a good quality pecan pie here in New York, even in the best of American restaurants.  So I learned it, and thanks to a friend in the midwest who shared his recipe with me, the whole thing is quite easy.

“Raw"

As a child, my favorite pie was banana creme, and I’ve yet to attempt it, but I think it’ll be fairly simple - hopefully I’ll try soon and let you know about it!  My dad’s friend used to make it all the time when he came to our house when I was a kid, when the men in the family made wine in our cellar and planned fireworks shows for 4th of July parties at our house.  Eddie always brought cool desserts, including gingerbread cookies for my sister and me, Christmas cookies, apple pie, and of course my favorite, banana creme pie, and he even whipped the creme by hand.  How about that!  So yes, I’ll be learning to make banana creme pie.

But while blueberries are in season late in the summer, I decided it was time to try making blueberry pie.  I got the recipe from a dear family friend, who was also my piano teacher when I was growing up.  But the recipe didn’t include a specific pie crust recipe, so I turned to my sister, who makes an outrageously great apple pie.  That crust is fantastic, so that’s the one I wanted.  But instead of doing a complete cover crust, I opted for lattice, which I think looks nice on a richly colored berry pie filling.

Fresh out of the oven!

The filling includes about 5 cups of fresh blueberries (the real ones, bluet!), sugar, flour, and cinnamon, and once it’s in the pie crust, some lemon juice and tiny pieces of butter sprinkled over the berries.  The crust includes flour, shortening, salt, and cold water.  The crust is completely done by hand, and I doubled the recipe, because I wanted to ensure that the entire bottom crust would cover the Emile Henri pie dish, and also to make strips (cut with a pastry cutting wheel from Williams-Sonoma) long enough to make a proper lattice top for the pie.  Without giving away Lauren’s pie crust recipe, I’ll say that the shortening gets “cut” into the flour with butter knives, which takes a bit of time but it’s worth it, and when adding the water one tablespoon at a time, it gets blended in gently with a fork.  Do it by hand, she said, and not with the food processor.  You want to know how your dough feels throughout the process.  TRUE.

I used the butcher block as my surface and covered it with a bit of flour so as not to let it stick, and then rolled it out with a wooden rolling pin, and carefully, I got it quite thin, which is essential, and placed it very carefully in the pie dish.  I repeated the rolling for the second crust, except this one I cut into strips with the pastry cutting wheel (which works really well!).  I filled the crust with the blueberry mixture which was already starting to sort of macerate.  I carefully placed the strips of dough into a lattice which my mom helped me weave like a basket (since it was my first time doing lattice, 4 hands were better than two).

I then added a bit to it - I made an egg wash and brushed it on only the lattice and crust around the edges and not on the berries - and then sprinkled the whole pie with cinnamon sugar.  Perfect, I thought.

Into the oven for 45 minutes at 425 degrees F.

And voila!  A perfect blueberry pie emerged from the oven, bubbling around the edges and looking “golden brown” - I took so many pictures, I was so pleased with the way it looked.

Blueberry Pie with Vanilla Bean Gelato

And it was delicious, too.  It was served with a scoop of Talenti Tahitian vanilla bean gelato, and the sweet/tartness of the pie, the slight saltiness of the crust, and the sweetness of the gelato were a perfect match.

I was asked what would I pair with that - well, I’d say one of my favorite dessert wines - Alcyone late harvest Tannat from Uruguay, with its dark fruit and chocolate characteristics.

In all, I don’t think the whole prep time took longer than an hour, making this one of the less complicated and time consuming desserts in my repertoire.  And I’m pretty sure this will become my signature berry pie.  It’s too beautiful and delicious not to!

Gazpacho

It’s been a long, busy work week.  We just polished off two bottles of wine tonight (a Bergerac blanc and a 2009 Pauillac) - and somehow it’s 2.30am, I’m listening to Steely Dan and Bottle Shock is on in the background, and I’m sitting up in bed with my glasses on while writing about gazpacho.

In the summer I rarely eat any soup - I think of soup with the cooler months, with ingredients like lentils, pumpkin, sage, squash, and things like seafood and meat and one of my favorites - mushrooms.  As I write blog posts in the cooler months, you might figure out that I’m completely obsessed with mushrooms of all kinds, but mostly the very textured, dark, bold flavored types.  But anyway, I decided I felt like a chilled soup was in order this week - and I picked gazpacho - I haven’t had one in ages.  And I went with Ina Garten’s recipe.

Some of the ingredients include coarsely chopped tomatoes, red bell pepper, red onion (my advice - back off on this one just a bit - a whole red onion is extremely intense on day 1 of the soup - a bit more tame on day 2 but be careful - you may want to opt for half an onion or play it extra safe with a large shallot - and definitely go with a finer chop on this!), cucumber (which helped cool the palate with all the other flavors going on), minced garlic (again, go easy on this one - she calls for 3 cloves - but probably smaller than the cloves I used - because the flavor is powerful when garlic is raw!), tomato juice, good quality olive oil, white wine vinegar, kosher salt, and freshly ground black pepper.  I think that was everything I used.  If I were to add anything, it would be some fresh parsley or cilantro.  Use the food processor for the vegetables for sure, and let it sit covered in the refrigerator overnight, the flavors marry well and I enjoyed it more on day 2 actually.

I served it alongside seared chicken breasts and a simple salad of mixed dark greens, chopped pecans, finely grated parmigiano reggiano, and my basic salad dressing that takes me literally one minute to whisk and prepare - olive oil, balsamic vinegar, lemon juice, honey (I prefer wildflower over clover but the choice is yours), black pepper, kosher salt, and a dash of garlic powder.  The entire salad preparation takes no more than 5 minutes tops.

And the wine I picked was a 2009 Chateauneuf-du-Pape - in case you’ve heard of it or tried it but don’t know much about Chateauneuf, it means “new house of the Pope,” lots of history there worth reading about, based near Avignon in the Southern Rhone Valley region of France, where Grenache is the dominant grape, often blended with Syrah and Mourvedre (as was the case here), but may include up to (I believe) 13 different grapes.  Chateauneuf is a bit on the pricey side but if you find one you love, believe me when I say it’s worth every cent.  When properly executed, they’re a great blend of fruit, spice, and earthy notes, a rich deep red color, and enough acidity to pair well with lots of foods from cheese platters to tomato soup to duck to ribeye steak.  (I find that lots of people have heard of Chateauneuf but don’t know what it is, except that it’s a fairly expensive French wine - read up a bit on it and start tasting!)

So, why did I choose Chateauneuf?  Well, I would have chosen a Spanish wine to pair with a soup of Spanish origin like gazpacho, except that, truth be told, I already had the Chateauneuf open, and fortunately, Chateauneuf is made of similar grapes to Spanish reds, particularly those made up of Grenache and/or Mourvedre (in Spain they’re called Garnacha and Monastrell and while they’re quite different in Spain from the way they’re used in France, I still love the elegance and spice and lovely texture of these wines).  Anyway, it was a nice pairing and a fun thing to enjoy on a summer evening on the porch.

Gazpacho is simple to make - just find a dependable recipe, don’t use to much onion or it won’t show enough tomato characteristics, and I think the cucumber is a must - it works so well since the soup is chilled.  I don’t think it took me more than 20 minutes to make the whole thing.  And I do recommend making it the day before you intend to consume it - let the flavors work together overnight.

A Fun Appetizer - Simple, Too!

I can’t believe how long it’s been since I last updated the food blog!  I’ve finally got a few moments tonight while sipping a Plavac Mali on the couch and watching the Yankees and Red Sox, and I think I’ll write about a simple concept I tested this week - a combination of two favorite starter ideas that together, made for something exponentially better.

Anyway, I love gorgeous appetizers at restaurants, but at home, whether it’s a cocktail party or a simple gathering, I think starters should be fairly simple - yet absolutely delicious.  After going through recipes upon recipes of dips, salads, canape, etc., sometimes it’s fun to just put something together that seems like it makes sense.

Bruschetta is one of those timeless appetizers that most people seem to like - at least at Italian American gatherings.  But it’s not quite the same as the basic bruschetta - I made the topping with a simple balsamic dressing and chopped beefsteak tomatoes, finely chopped shallots, and fresh herbs from my garden (basil, parsley, and oregano) - toss it and set it aside and let the flavors marry.  But here’s where it gets a little bit different.

To make it more interesting, I made a sort of low calorie hummus of cannellini beans (Tuscan white beans), olive oil, kosher salt, ground black pepper, garlic, parsley, and lemon juice.  Rinse and drain the beans and put them in the food processor, and add the other ingredients, and puree it until it’s completely smooth.  (This can be made the night before.)

I used plain crackers and spread the hummus in a fairly thin coating, and topped with a small amount of the tomato topping, and that’s it, it’s that simple.  I doubt the whole process took me more than 20 minutes to complete.  And it’s perfectly delicious, lots of flavors going on, bite sized, and you can pair most anything with it - cocktails, beer, sparkling wines, and reds and whites.  It’s that easy.