Wining and Dining, (with a touch of "whining" perhaps?)

Well my life lately has been full of wine.  Wine tastings.  Wine dinners.  Wine sauces.

The Chemistry of Wine event was a bit disappointing.  There was a component tasting table which we probably should have visited, but didn't.  It was tucked away back in a corner.  The catered food consisted of stuffed raw veggies (little tomatoes and celery) which ran out before we made it over to the food table.  That was also disappointing.  I had been under the impression that the food would be paired for the wines.  One of the vendors had a table of food to "cleanse your palate."  Ironically, it had garlicky hummus and artichoke dip with pieces of bread.  There was also an assortment of dark chocolate.  Not exactly what I'd choose to create a blank slate for tasting the next wine, (especially with the artichoke which is notoriously impossible to pair with wine).  After the tasting, we headed to Crush where we did a bit of supplementing in both the food and wine departments.

I had much better luck on Wednesday when I attended a Kenwood Winemaker's dinner at Kinley's.

We started out with a nice 2009 Pinot Gris to begin the evening.  It was fairly straightforward, but enjoyable, which says a lot since I'm generally not a huge fan of white wines.  It was followed by the first course, a white asparags salad with chevre, chopped egg, sauteed bread crumbs and lemon vinaigrette.  This was paired with a 2008 Sauvignon Blanc.  I wasn't a fan.  The wine was pretty lemony and the whole thing was a bit too intense for me.  The sulfur from the egg added to the abrasiveness of the dish and the texture combination of cold white asparagus and chopped egg was less than appealing.  Needless to say, I don't like Sauv Blanc and I don't like lemon, so I'm probably fairly biased here.  I will say that the goat cheese was very tasty.  I would have paired that wine with something to balance the acidity, maybe something buttery, like seared scallops.  The second course was fantastic.  It was a spicy black bean and shredded pork Napolean topped with a sugar snap pea and cabbage slaw, drizzled with chili syrup, paired with a 2007 Zinfandel.  The Zin was loaded with raspberries and it played well off the savory spiciness of the dish.  I'll have to remember that combination next time I make a pork and black bean chili.  The third course was a petite filet mignon on a caramelized apple demi glace, parsnip and potato puree and a slice of warmed Cambozola.  This was paired with a 2006 Merlot.  The combination was wonderful.  I loved the parsnip and potato puree.  The demi glace was pretty sweet, it reminded me of a caramel apple.  The cheese was pretty overpowering.  All of the flavors ended up balancing each other out.  I really enjoyed this dish and the pairing.  The fourth course was a grilled rack of lamb on a roasted shallot and mushroom risotto with bordelaise sauce and friend artichoke hearts.  It was paired with a 2006 Cabernet Sauvignon.  Unfortunately, this course was pretty disappointing.  The lamb was overpowered with pepper.  The artichoke heart (singular) was cold and no longer crispy.  The risotto also had a lot of black pepper in it, and the rice was undercooked.  The tanins in the Cab ended up amplifying the pepper and I found it all to be overwhelming.  Thankfully the last course was very pleasant.  They served mango white Stilton with freshly sliced papaya, topped with a ginger reduction.  I loved it!  The course was paired with a 2008 Gewurztraminer.  Normally I'm not very enthusiastic when it comes to Gewertz or Reisling, but I think they can be nice when paired properly.  This was paired properly.  The wine was sweet enough to hold it's own against the fruit, but not so sweet as to be candy-like.  The creaminess of the Stilton tied it all together nicely.  The table next to us apparently hated it though, exclaiming in horror that the gelato tasted "weird."  Shocked, I leaned over and told them it was a Stilton, (just like the menu said), and they just looked at me in silence.  It was an uncomfortable situation all around.  I'm still coping with the fact that people that were willing to pay $85 for a wine maker's dinner couldn't tell the difference between STILTON and GELATO.  *Sigh*

The Pastabilities Are Endless!

Most Alaskans have a talent for spending lots of money on the activities they love.  Walking into an REI brings on the overwhelming aroma of burning money.  It just incinerates right there in the pocket it's hiding in.  A girl can never have too many pairs of moisture-wicking-you-name-it or too many water-resistant-layers-of-this-or-that.  Or yoga mats.  The same holds true for kitchen appliances.  If you name it, there's a good chance I have it.  If, however, you'd named "pasta machine" or "ice cream maker" you'd have proved me wrong... a week ago.  I recently welcomed these two appliances into the D'Eramo collection and they have not let me down.

This past weekend, I decided to break out the new additions.  The plan was to make some fresh pasta with my white whole wheat flour, and some tahini ice cream.  That's pretty much as far as I had gotten in the planning process before jumping right in.  My friend Tony helped me kneed the dough and roll it out.  We attempted two methods.  For half the dough, I used a food processor with a dough blade to combine the flour, eggs, oil and salt.  The other half I combined the old-fashioned way, creating a little egg volcano in the pile of flour.  This latter method proved to be significantly more difficult.  I broke the barrier of flour and ended up with a nice little lava flow of raw egg, headed straight for the edge of the cutting board.  I found myself asking Tony questions like, "This does not look right, does it?" "How much flour do you think they mean when they say 'not all of it'?" "Hmmmm, is it supposed to do that?"  Poor Tony just shrugged, and then Googled a YouTube video for me to watch, which ended up being somewhat helpful.  I will say that the traditional method could be more appropriate for moderating how much flour is added to the dough.  With the processor, it's pretty much an all-or-nothing.  At least the egg-volcano method provides more freedom to gradually increase the flour.  In the end, I don't think the two sets of dough really behaved differently.  Letting the dough rest after it's been kneaded seems to be pretty important.  It definitely relaxed quite a bit.  We struggled with the first batch and it started to tighten up on us from overworking it.  Giving it 30 minutes to re-relax made all the difference in the world.

Rolling the dough out was tons of fun.  It was just like playing with Playdough.  I think that I could eventually do it by myself, but it was certainly helpful to have two people to help guide the dough through and catch it on the other end.  We went down to the thinnest layer for the first sheet and decided it was too thin for fettuccine, so we kept the subsequent layers at a level 2.  After rolling and cutting both batches of dough, we hung the pasta on racks and let it dry while we moved on to the ice cream festivities.  

The ice cream turned out to be a bit tricky.  It basically requires a cooked egg custard as the base.  I let myself get distracted while making the first batch and it boiled, creating a tapioca-looking goo.  I tossed it and tried again.  The second time around the custard came out well, and immediately after taking it off the burner I added the tahini to it and beat it in.  The mixture had to cool completely before being added to the ice cream maker.  An ice cream maker, by the way, is an incredibly simply thing, (unless you get the super-uber-fancy kind).  Basically, you pour this custard into a pre-frozen container and that container does the "freezing" of the ice cream.  The machine itself just insulates the process and turns a mixing apparatus to break up the ice crystals as they form.  It's surprisingly noisy.  All this being said, the ice cream that came out of that little machine was pretty fantastic.

While all this ice cream business was churning in the background, I started thinking about what to put on this potentially fantastic pasta.  I hadn't thought as far as sauce.  After rummaging around a bit, I decided that some hand-crushed canned tomatoes would work.  I rinsed them off to get the seeds and goo off, crushed them by hand, strained them, and tossed them in a deep pan with a little olive oil.  I found some of the leftover cooked Italian sausage I had from earlier in the week and I added that in.  I made a little well in the center of the mixture and sauteed some crushed garlic.  I bloomed some saffron in warm water and added that in, as well as a splash of white wine.  I let that all simmer for a while, reducing the liquid, and then I added the remaining 1/4 cup of the mascarpone cheese I had from Easter brunch.  I served that over the pasta and topped it all with some Romano cheese, served with a bottle of Alta Vista 2007 Atemporal Blend.  The result was pretty much heavenly and the wine paired perfectly.  I'm going to hold on to that little "recipe" in my head, but I doubt I'd ever be able to replicate the magic.  The pasta was extremely easy to cook and very tasty.  I think that if I make it again with the white whole wheat flour, I'll set the machine to the thinnest setting.  I thought the pasta was a bit dense. Everyone else seemed to prefer the thicker pasta, but as the chef, my preference rules.  

Everyone loved the main course and the dessert was a hit as well.  The ice cream was a bit nutty and very creamy and rich.  It was a bit reminiscent of halva, which is a favorite sesame-based treat of mine.  I'm looking forward to all the fun of combinations.  Chile pepper, gorgonzola and blueberry?  Black pepper and cherry?  Rooibus tea and vanilla?  Avocado?  Mmmmmm.  The possibilities are endless!  

Oh, and the shameless title of this post?  I'm going to blame that one on a co-worker of mine who had a bit of elevator-induced inspiration on our way out today.  Thanks Sam!

This weekend I'm attending The Chemistry of Wine which is a wine tasting benefit for the museum.  It's supposed to be about the science behind wine tasting, complete with wine and food.  Right up my geeky wine alley.  More to come on that...

Easter Expanded

Easter.  Even though this holiday is generally supposed to be about a really important dude emerging from 3 days of death in his tomb, we generally associate it with adorable fluffy things like little chicks or bunnies or lambs.  Mmmmmm.  Lamb.  The former vegetarian in me cringes to think of eating cute 4-legged things, but the current carnivore in me usually succeeds in shushing that former self and getting on with picking out a nice wine pairing.

(Jen: if you're reading this, I apologize.  For the purposes of this post, let's pretend it was a fluffy little texturized-soy-protein lamb that we ate…)

Apparently I wasn't the only person in this town to make such a logic leap from "fluffy Easter animals" to "yummy rack of lamb."  I called New Sagaya approximately 30 minutes after they sold their last fresh rack of lamb on Saturday.  Mr. Prime Beef had frozen packages of 4.  My heart was set on rack of lamb, so I went for it.  I planned to thaw one and vacuum pack the rest, keeping them frozen for another time.  Unfortunately, my zealousness had me leaving my engineering logic in the dust.  It is impossible to pry frozen racks of lamb apart while leaving them even moderately intact.  Trying to thaw them a bit to "loosen" them up is a silly idea because they tend to follow the laws of physics and heat transfer, thawing from the outside in, thus never reaching the fully fused internal sections.  So I thawed it all out and had enough servings of lamb for 8 people when I was only feeding 2.  Needless to say, it turned out to be a very lamb-centric week.

I rubbed the meat with salt, pepper, olive oil and herbs de provence, then seared the lamb rack on both sides in a cast iron pan and put it in the oven.  It was incredibly, quick, easy and straightforward.  For the vegetable, I chopped some lovely rainbow chard, blanched and shocked it, then briefly warmed it in a pan with some olive oil and garlic.  I topped it with some shaved Romano cheese.  I roasted some mini Peruvian potatoes as the starch.  Just olive oil, salt, pepper, and coriander, with a pinch of rosmary and thyme.  As a dipping sauce for the lamb, I used a recipe I found with combined crème fraiche, mascarpone cheese, honey, mint and cumin.  For my purposes I switched out the cumin for coriander.  I think that cumin is generally a lime-light starring-role type of spice.  It doesn't play a supporting role very well.  There's nothing subtle about that spice.  Coriander, however, complimented nicely.  It's a more delicate, fruity spice and it tied the sauce in nicely to the potatoes and the somewhat floral character of the Romano cheese.

The meal was very rich and satisfying.  It was all very easy to throw together.  There was minimal preparation and, aside from the cast iron pan, clean-up was a snap.  That was a good thing, because I ended up recreating the meal for five friends and myself after work the next day, at which time I paired it with a Tempranillo blend from Washington called Hellcat.  When that ran out, I opened a BoomBoom Syrah, which is generally a safe bet.  There were a few other bottles mixed in there, but I didn't keep my wine tags or write down the names.

I had sworn off of lamb for a period of time after returning from Baku.  In Azerbaijan, we ate a lot of adult "lamb" (i.e. mutton) which has a very strong flavor and is generally pretty tough and dry.  I needed a bit of time to recover from that.  The lamb that we had on Easter was very mild, tender and juicy.  I'll certainly be making it again.  I'd like to get a few racks of lamb (separately packaged) to keep in the freezer for last minute dinner parties.  It's always easy to find a leafy green and a starch to add alongside.

In general, it was a fun food-filled and relaxing weekend and a great way to start out the week.

Easter-esque Brunchiness

I've been a bit remiss in posting lately. Strange how my real life tends to get in the way of the important things in my life, like food.

I'm going to rewind a bit. Easter feels like it happened ages ago, but I suppose it's really only been about a week. I decided to do a small brunch with a couple of very close friends. I wanted to do something vaguely breakfasty but non-traditional, something sweet and something savory, and most importantly, something that could be prepared quickly because no one wants to get up early on a Sunday morning. I decided to make dishes that could be prepared the night before and assembled the morning of, thus allowing maximum sleeping-inage.

For the first course, I made some fun little fig muffins filled with a gooey honey goat cheese mixture. The recipe called for "white whole wheat flour," a substance which I'd never heard. I was of course very intrigued and went out in search of it. I found it, shockingly, in my little local supermarket, the one affectionately known by Anchorage folks as "The Ghetto Carrs". (It has character. And sometimes no cilantro. Or chicken. But always plenty of white powder and sticky black stuff. At any rate, I digress…)

The white whole wheat flour is made from "albino" wheat and has less "bite" than the normal red varieties. So far the results have been pretty good.

I'm going to experiment with using it as a substitute for plain white flour in various recipes. I used King Arthur brand, which is generally my favorite brand for every type of flour. Some girls have favorite brands of handbags or shoes. I live a slightly-less-glamorous, flour-dusted lifestyle.

The recipe called for either cream cheese or goat cheese for the filling. I decided a mixture would probably be best. I love goat cheese, but it can be quite intense at times. Cutting it with fat free cream cheese also cut the calories quite a bit. I'm pretty sure I'll be using this filling for other purposes: equal parts goat cheese and fat free cream cheese, honey and vanilla to taste plus a pinch of salt. I worked it together with a fork until it was creamy. This would probably be fantastic in a parfait with blueberries, or as a spread for toasted bread.

The muffins were yummy. If I make them again, I'll leave out any added sugar since the sweetness from the figs was nearly overwhelming in itself.

For the "main course" I served little polenta cakes topped with sautéed spinach, Italian sausage and Romano cheese.

I've found, through unfortunate experience, that polenta goes from creamy and smooth to firm and fairly stable when refrigerated overnight.

Thankfully, that knowledge came in handy for the creation of these little polenta cakes. I made the creamy polenta and added a handful of grated Romano cheese and a smidge of white truffle oil. I then poured it into muffin trays, covered them with plastic wrap and let them "stabilize" overnight.

I browned the fresh Italian sausage (from Mr. Prime Beef, pretty much the only real butcher in town), sautéed the spinach and grated the cheese the night before. On Sunday morning, all I had to do was bring everything back up to temperature in the oven, plate the servings and throw them under the broiler for a minute.

The result was very tasty. The polenta cakes were a bit crunchy on the outside without drying out.  There was a nice mixture of textures and flavors.  The cheese provided a touch of saltiness, the sausage gave it a little spicy heat and the polenta mellowed it out with a mild sweetness.

I did, however, notice that strange coating that spinach sometimes leaves on your tongue. By the end of the meal, it was fairly intense, (for myself, at least). I suspect that the others were being polite in not mentioning it, but I think it detracted from the enjoyment of the meal.  It even gave the dryness of the champagne a slightly abrasive quality.  The next day, I decided to do some sleuthing and determine the culprit.

Apparently, the source of that funky texture is oxalic acid. It turns out that oxalic acid is a pretty nasty substance. Thankfully, most of us won't suffer too many problems from it or the resulting oxalates, however certain groups could be susceptible to issues. Anyone that suffers from kidney disorders, gout or rheumatoid arthritis should generally avoid high levels of oxalic acid because it bonds to metals, (calcium, iron, etc…) to form very small but very sharp oxalate crystals which exacerbate those conditions. It also renders those metals useless to our bodies in the same way that many tetracycline and quinolone antibiotics do. It's a process called chelation. The two things bond together and become an entirely different entity. (Never take your antibiotics with dairy or a multi-vitamin! You'll get the benefit of neither the medicine nor the supplement.) Apparently, serving items high in oxalic acid (such as spinach) with dairy products will cause chelation and intensify this pasty film effect. One way to reduce the amount of oxalic acid in spinach is to boil it and change the water 2-3 times while cooking, essentially dumping the oxalic acid (and any fun vitamins or minerals) out with the water. Personally, this sounds like a pretty disrespectful way to treat spinach.

I thought that this website provided a pretty level-headed overview of oxalic acid.

I probably won't change my spinach-eating habits much, however I'll probably avoid cooking it with calcium-rich ingredients, and I might even try to change things up a bit by cooking with other leafy greens that are low in oxalic acid, like the ever-intriguing kale family.

Overall, the brunch was a success, and it led to a few epicurean educational experiences for me, which is always exciting!  Shortly after the dishes were cleaned up from brunch, I started preparing for dinner:  roast rack of lamb with rainbow chard and roasted Peruvian potatoes.  More details (and photos) to follow...