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Monday, June 24, 2013

Pecan Pie



I’ve always been one to order the dessert with the most chocolate in it.  So as a child, I picked the chocolate dessert wherever we went.  But my dad usually ordered pecan pie whenever it was on the dessert menu, and when I realized just how much he enjoyed it, I began to get curious about the pecan pie.  I was familiar with lots of fruit pies - berry, citrus, and other pies, but I’d never had a pie that revolved around a nut.

So about a year or two ago, when I decided I’d surprise my dad with pecan pie, I asked my Facebook friends for the best pecan pie recipe.  And one friend was generous enough to share his pecan pie recipe with me.  I tested it in my kitchen and it was pretty easy, much easier than I thought it would be, and looked just as I remembered it from restaurants.

And it’s delicious.

And what’s amazing to me is that these days, my dad says it’s much harder to find a good quality pecan pie in a restaurant that doesn’t have a strange, unpleasant texture.  His current favorite is the pie that I make at home.  And I made it for his birthday celebration yesterday - delicious, of course, with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.  And a leftover slice for breakfast this morning was a great way to start the day.

So while I’m not going to give away the recipe on the blog, as it comes from someone else, I will say that if you seek out an authentic pecan pie recipe, and not something that sounds mass-produced, you’ll probably be quite satisfied with the result.  Begin with your basic pie crust and take it from there.  

They say every good cook should have signature dishes, and for desserts, we should have a signature pie, cake, and cookie.  My signature pie has always been key lime as it’s probably my favorite pie, but I might just have to take on a second signature pie, the pecan.  It’s that good.  And speaking of key lime pie, in a couple of weeks I’ll be making that as well, and of course I’ll be posting about it.

Saturday, June 22, 2013

A Classic, an Experiment, and Poached Eggs


Summer weekends are my favorite thing.  And having a few moments to update my blog is so nice - while listening to the Yankee game after a productive morning outdoors and preparing to bake pecan pie, before heading out to a favorite wine bar tonight.  This is my kind of Saturday.  I’ll give you an update on the pecan pie next time - it’s Dad’s birthday celebration tomorrow and pecan pie is his favorite, and it’s really not that difficult to make.  And who doesn’t love pie in the summer?  (I’ve already decided for our 4th of July barbecue, I’ll bake key lime pie.)

Smoky fettuccine, poached
eggs, parmigiano reggiano,
and black pepper
Anyway, last night I needed something pretty quick and easy (but fun) to make for dinner, after getting home from pouring a wine tasting at the incomparable Lake Side Emotions Wine Boutique, my regular Friday wine gig.

Delicious - dinner up close
When I get home late, I crave what I consider my “comfort food” - anything with macaroni, and usually not too complicated.  It was a perfect summer evening and I wanted to sit out on the porch and listen to the Yankee game over dinner, so I was in the mood for a crisp white.  What macaroni dish should I pair with a crisp white?

Well, a few months back, I was at a restaurant in the Hamptons with one of my favorite ladies in the wine industry.  I have a sort of fascination with properly poached eggs, as I used to be intimidated by the thought of making a mistake while poaching (before attempting it this spring - to date I’ve poached a total of 16 eggs and so far not one mistake).  So when I saw an interesting dish on the menu, I went for it that evening.  The pappardelle was made with smoked flour, and topped with a perfectly poached egg, grated parmigiano reggiano, and ground black pepper.  That evening was rather chilly and in keeping with my love for wines from Sud-Ouest, I went with an earthy Cahors.

A perfectly poached egg -
quite tame and simple
So I decided to attempt as close a replication of that dish as possible last night.  Of course, I have no such smoking device at present, so instead, I cooked fettuccine in a pot of water seasoned with Liquid Smoke (hickory seasoning).  Yes, it worked - the macaroni had a light smoky taste to it.  I was pretty hungry so I opted for two poached eggs, and of course added the parmigiano reggiano and black pepper.  The eggs, when poached correctly, are wonderfully runny and delicious.  (For some reason, I felt it would be a good idea to stir in a pat of butter into the macaroni - it made the texture a bit richer and gave the flavor some complexity and in fact it was a very good idea.)

Recently I was asked if poaching eggs is as difficult as it appears.  My answer was no, it isn’t, if you do it correctly.  How do I do it?  Well, I’m sure everyone does it differently, but I bring 8 cups of water to a boil with 1 tbsp white vinegar.  I’ve read that it’s effective to poke a tiny hole in the bottom of the egg (where there’s a little air pocket) with a pin, and when the water is just barely about to boil, hold the egg with the hole in the water for about 10 seconds, then break the egg carefully and allow it to drop into the water.  I don’t allow the water to boil - it seems it would cook the egg too quickly and violently when we’re trying to be so careful.  After about 4 minutes, I remove the egg.  I hardly have to manipulate it with a spoon as it contains itself pretty well and doesn’t move around the pot.  I generally poach 2 eggs at a time, so I use a medium sized pot.  Remove the eggs with a slotted spoon and voila, a perfectly poached egg.  Sounds simple?  That’s because it is.  Just be careful and be confident, and chances are, it’ll turn out just as you hope.
Very basic - fried
artichoke hearts

Aligote
What did I pair with it?  Well, I wanted a vegetable to go with dinner.  I love artichokes in the warmer months, so I made a very basic side dish of fried artichoke hearts.  I drained a can of artichoke hearts and coated them in eggs whipped with a dash of milk, and seasoned bread crumbs.  It only takes a couple of minutes to fry them, and then I let the oil drain off, and topped them with parmigiano reggiano.  Delicious and simple.

The wine I chose was a biodynamic Aligote.  Haven’t heard of Aligote?  It’s the “other” white Burgundy.  When we think of white Burgundy, for obvious reasons we think of Chardonnay.  This was my first Aligote and it was a perfect pairing.  The wine is quite dry with subtle fruit notes of citrus and apple, and plenty of mineral, with a crispness ideal for cutting through a rich texture such as egg (I generally opt for bubbles when pairing with egg, but last night I just wanted a crisp white), and the flavors of the dish and side dish seemed to allow the fruit notes of the wine to shine through.  The bright acidity of the wine left my palate feeling very clean and I was very satisfied with last night’s dinner.

Monday, June 17, 2013

Keeping It Simple


When I was first learning how to cook and experiment in the kitchen, I spent a lot of time watching Food Network shows.  (These days, I realize that my favorites on the Network are Ina Garten and Giada De Laurentiis - I’ll explain why shortly.)  One of my favorite shows to watch was the Iron Chef America competition.  For some reason, I was fascinated with just how many crazy concepts the chefs could come up with, how many ingredients they used, and how many flavors and textures appeared in each dish.

These days, I’m a lot less impressed by what appear almost like culinary theatrics.  I’d rather taste the honesty of the ingredients.  I want each to taste as it’s supposed to - and not like a thousand other things that tend to mask the true characteristics of the essential ingredients of a traditional dish.

Caprese towers - very simple
I think it’s that desire and quest for culinary purity for inspired me to begin learning more about the basics, and less about making a splash in the kitchen, so to speak.  But I just want my meats and vegetables and fruits to taste as they were intended, and not like something completely unrelated.

Ina Garten tells her readers and viewers that a dish needn’t have so many ingredients - only a few good quality ingredients are necessary.  And her “Back to Basics” approach in more recent years speaks to me in that entertaining and even every-night cooking become far less stressful (and I’m guessing healthier as well).  Giada De Laurentiis has a relatively basic approach to Italian cooking - for me, that’s perfect, in that I generally use Italian ingredients at home.  (Ina Garten tends more toward French technique, and when applying it to basics and traditional dishes, I find it to be spot on.)

People lead some pretty busy lives these days.  And I realize that it’s not always easy to cook every night for a spouse, children, or even for yourself.  But if you keep it fairly simple most times, it won’t take too long, it won’t cost as much, and if you cook at home rather than buying pre-made meals, you’ll be in charge of your own ingredients, so it’ll probably be healthier.

For purposes of practicality, it’s safe to say that there’s no sense in trying to run before you know how to walk.  The same applies for mastering the basics before trying to make it too complicated.  (This is why I prefer most fruits and vegetables raw, and most meats cooked just to make them safe for consumption - I want to know the pure flavors of the ingredients as they were intended.)  This isn’t to say that I don’t appreciate a very artsy dish - sometimes I create them and they’re fun to order in restaurants, but sometimes that idea wears itself out.  (I mean seriously, how many gold leaf-saffron-caviar-shaved truffle appetizers can you enjoy before wondering how necessary all of those ingredients really are?  And you’d shy away from eating dinner out if it’s always going to cost the equivalent of a mortgage.)  Let’s keep it simple and just enjoy the dish for what it is.

Tuesday, June 11, 2013

Back to Basics - Mother Sauces


As I wait for the Yankee game to begin (I secretly love when the Yankees are playing on the West Coast, because it gives me an extra 3 hours to get lots more accomplished), I’m enjoying a lovely Willamette Pinot Noir - the Cristom 2007 Jessie Vineyard - anyway I thought I’d share with you a project I assigned to myself this year.

As I mentioned briefly in my first post, I’ve been inspired to return to the “basics” - what we consider “basic” is not quite what others may consider basic.  For us, something basic probably comes from a box, some kind of mix, etc.  Well, what I’m calling “back to basics” is having the best possible understanding of the classics, the basis for traditional dishes, mainly from French and Italian cuisines.

The assignment this year was to sort of master what are known as the “5 French mother sauces” - that includes Tomato, Espagnole, Bechamel, Veloute, and Hollandaise.  I was inspired to do this for a few reasons, and the first being that while I was reading Julia Child’s My Life in France, I came to a better understanding of the amount of work that goes into testing classic recipes, making them into the classics that they are.  And I also had been doing plenty of experimenting in the kitchen over the years, and wanted to know why some methods work and some don’t.  The best possible way to find out is to start from the beginning.

Please remember one important thing that will show up as a recurring theme - I’m Italian.  Very Italian.  As much as I embrace many things that are French, particularly wine and food, my roots are Italian, my mind is Italian, and my heart is Italian.  So some of the French sauces end up in a familiar place - atop a plate of macaroni (for you non-Italians, that’s what Italian households call pasta).  French methods tend to work for me, but alas, many of the French basics acquire an Italian accent before consumption.

Hollandaise on eggs benedict
Hollandaise.  I’m sure you’ve had it at some point, as it’s a base for plenty of sauces we’ve all tasted.  But this is one that instead of making a “derived sauce,” which are sauces that happen after we begin with one of the mother sauces, and proceed to add to it, making a different sauce.  I’ll explain more in a bit.  Anyway, Hollandaise is technically an emulsion of egg yolk and butter, with other ingredients such as salt and lemon juice.  I created the Hollandaise sauce for a Palm Sunday brunch that I put on for the family, to top eggs benedict (which was so awesome, because it was then that I learned to poach eggs for the first time - but that’s a story for another day), and have with a lovely spring salad, fresh fruit and cream, and mimosas (used Prosecco for that).  Believe it or not, the whole thing was pretty simple.  Next time I practice Hollandaise, I’m not sure if it’ll be for eggs benedict again (as my sister has requested that I make the brunch again this summer), or for a Bearnaise sauce.

Bechamel
I don’t know about you, but I’ve always loved cream sauces, ever since I was a child falling in love with the likes of Fettuccine Alfredo.  But the issue I was facing was that the sauce felt too thin generally, and I wanted to know how to give it a bit more body.  Enter Bechamel sauce.  Bechamel begins with a roux of butter and flour (and the amounts have to be exact - at least that’s how it appeared to me, otherwise it would become too pasty), and once the roux is made, heated milk is added.  My whisk certainly got a workout that evening!  I decided to add some fun seasonings like nutmeg and a bit of tarragon (and the obvious kosher salt and black pepper), and it was placed atop a cool dish of farfalle macaroni (butterflies, also known as bows), sauteed lemon marinated chicken breast, and blanched peas and asparagus.  See what I mean about applying French techniques to Italian style dishes?  Well it works, and for me, that’s the perfect comfort food.  Pairing?  A fresh, clean, minerally organic Sancerre.  Some of the green grassy notes of the Sancerre mirror the vegetables, the citrus notes mirror the lemon marinade in the chicken, and the bright acidity of the wine cuts through the cream sauce, leaving the palate feeling perfectly clean and ready for more.  For me, this spells perfection.

Veloute
I’ve had the chance to practice one other mother sauce - Veloute.  Begin with a basic roux again, only this time, we’re incorporating a light chicken stock into the sauce.  I do realize that doesn’t sound very interesting - that’s why I went with a derived sauce - the Supreme Sauce, so that means we need some cream.  In the end, chicken and crimini mushrooms were added, as was conchiglie macaroni (shells).  Delicious.  I chose a smooth Roussanne from Northern Rhone to mirror the velvety texture of the Veloute sauce, and it was so enjoyable.

So next up - I’ve got a few options.  I’ve got 2 sauces remaining to attempt - the Tomato and the Espagnole, or I could practice the other 3 more.  I’ll have to base it on my mood I suppose, and since I’m the kind of person who pairs dinner to wine (and not the other way around), I might just choose the wine first, and see which sauce would be most accommodating.

Thursday, June 6, 2013

Panzanella

Recently, I was asked if I’d ever made a panzanella salad.  In fact, I’d never even eaten a panzanella salad, let alone make one.

Panzanella
So a few nights ago, I was going to have dinner with my sister.  And I decided to try making a panzanella salad, knowing that it would be quite quick and easy.

A panzanella generally consists of tomatoes and usually onions too, with bread, and olive oil and vinegar, with basil.  The bread is generally stale and so it is soaked and then dried before being added to the salad.  Well, I didn’t have any stale bread in the house, so I bought a ciabatta and put it in the oven at about 350F for 10 minutes or so, took it out, let it cool, and then cut it into bit sized pieces, to match the pieces of greenhouse tomatoes I’d cut up.  I added finely chopped onions, and made my usual salad dressing of olive oil, balsamic vinegar, sea salt, garlic, and freshly ground black pepper.  I tossed the tomatoes, onions, and bread together, and then drizzled it with the dressing, and topped it with finely chopped fresh basil and parsley (from my own garden - I’ll explain that in a moment).  And there it was - a panzanella salad ready in about 15 minutes, and absolutely delicious.  My suggested wine pairing really depends on your mood.  Serving the salad as an appetizer?  Go with a Prosecco (sparkling Italian white wine).  If you want something light and fresh, go with a Vermentino from Sardegna.  For a red that’s light enough and make sure you serve it slightly cool (cellar temperature is around 55F, which is correct for serving - not room temperature which is quite a bit warmer!), I’d go with a Sangiovese, which is the main grape in most Tuscan reds, including Chianti.
Tomato plants

So about this garden - many Italian families believe that women do the cooking and men do the gardening.  However, I’ve met plenty of men of Italian heritage in the past several years who know how to cook as well as garden.  So why can’t a woman do the gardening and the cooking too?  I decided that in addition to my cooking, this spring/summer season I’d try my hand at gardening.  And a couple of weeks later, I’ve got 4 healthy tomato plants, a small eggplant seedling making progress daily, and an army of herb plants including basil, parsley, cilantro, oregano, sage, chives, rosemary, and thyme.  What was fascinating to me is that yesterday when I went up on the roof (yes, I planted them in pots on the widow’s walk on top of the house - for maximum sunlight and protection from the wildlife in the yard), three out of the four tomato plants already had fruit on them!  I guess there will be plenty of panzanella this summer, and lots of other dishes using the tomatoes and herbs and hopefully eggplants that I’m growing - and they’re 100% organic too!

Wednesday, June 5, 2013

Something New

Anyone who knows me from my regular blog, Champagne Taste, a wine blog that I started nearly two and a half years ago, knows that I’m constantly on a quest to learn and to try something new, and that this quest is what fueled my wine exploration, landing me a cool job in the wine industry (I was actually an attorney) and forming important professional and personal relationships in my life.  Well, maybe I haven’t gone into much explanation of the personal side of things - but that’s a story for another day.

My wine blog has inspired me to start a food blog.  The posts will not be regular - rather, they will revolve around kitchen experiments whenever they happen.  My wine blog takes up that space, the regular weekly (and sometimes biweekly) writing assignments I give myself.  But I’ve put some food related posts in my wine blog over the past couple of years, especially since it was experimentation with food that led me to learn about wine, but I think food deserves its own blog, and this makes sense to me since my food projects are surprisingly separate from my wine projects.

In terms of food, I draw my inspiration from the likes of Julia Child, Ina Garten, Giada De Laurentiis, and Jacques Pepin, to name a few.  But I also feel inspired by some of the people in my life, who encourage me to try traditional concepts, and who take an interest in my new concepts.  (For the record, I more often use the word “concept” than “recipe” - it makes sense to me and if you follow me, you’ll probably understand.)

I’ll be the first to admit that I was a timid, fearful child.  That was carried into my teenage and young adult years, and then something changed.  I realized that in the kitchen, I had no fear.  What I created was as I intended it, and I believed in it, and most times, it turns out so well.  After reading Julia Child’s book, I understood that this was a good thing.  And as the kitchen brought me confidence, I was able to apply it to other areas of my life.  So while I continue to experiment fearlessly in the kitchen, I make sure to respect “the classics” - tried and true recipes tested by some of the greatest chefs over the years.

My cooking and baking are most reflective of Italian and French cuisine - Italian because those are the flavors and traditions I grew up with, and French because those techniques seem to be the most practical and effective.

I think I should also mention that this blog sometimes will be paying tribute to some of the culinary greats, but it will be nothing like the Julie/Julia Project.  While I loved the movie, I was dismayed by Julie Powell’s approach and was in no way surprised by Julia Child and Judith Jones’ reactions to Powell’s blog.  I’m not one for kitchen theatrics and throwing four letter words around when learning from someone like Julia Child.  I’d rather show some respect and admiration, and in a sense, affection, for those who happily gave us so much through their work in the kitchen, and for which we should be grateful.  And there’s no need for four letter words in the kitchen - cooking and baking are supposed to be happy, delightful things.

So I’ll be talking to you about my kitchen experiments, both new concepts that I hatch from my sometimes vivid imagination, and attempts at the classics.  I’ll walk you through my steps and research and results, I’ll give you some insight into my culinary imagination, and of course I’ll explain my wine pairing selections!

I hope you’ll join me on yet another fun journey and perhaps find some inspiration to turn your own kitchen into what I call “the test lab” - this is going to be fun!