Wednesday, February 25, 2015

Seven-hour Goat Leg, Carrot Purée, Watercress, Pistachios and Naan With 2013 Donkey & Goat Carignane

Eat more goat.

Because goat is good. And cheap. Go to Farm City on Devon, people. Farm City on Devon. When we moved to Chicago 11 years ago, our first meat purchase at Paulina Meat Market felt like we'd made a quantum leap in the quality of our meat, and food in general. The discovery of Farm City in the last year or so feels like another step forward in quality and pleasure. This is fantastic stuff. If you find food to be merely sustenance, that's too bad. Winnowing something you do at least twice a day, something with the potential to offer so much joy down to simply 'energy' feels sad to me.

This meal had a passing resemblance to one of our favorite meals over the last few years, the place where great goat became known to us, at Komi in D.C..

It's well-done goat, a seven-hour roast of goat, slathered with harissa paste, cooked with tomatoes, onions, garlic, bay, verjus, etc. (recipe here - Molly Stevens, modified to a slow roast in a closed dutch oven). The heat from the harissa mellowed out in the roasting, turning this goat into delicious and balanced goat. It's not medium-rare goat, which was so damn close to Komi's goat, but this is perfect build-your-own goat bites with these accompaniments:

1. Watercress, pistachio and orange-blossom salad (Ligaya Mishan)

2. Spicy Carrot Purée (Claudia Roden)

3. Homemade naan with nigella and fennel seeds (Aarti Sequeira)

All three recipes followed to the letter. All of them easy, with enormous pay-off by themselves and relative to the work involved.

Naan topped with goat-tomato-onion-juice, followed by carrot purée and a heap of watercress and herbs. Pick and choose, mix and match. This meal was about 20 mini-flatbread bites of some of the best food we've had this year.

Served with 2013 Donkey & Goat Old Vine Carignane Testa Vineyard Mendocino ($30 - Binny's). Nice plum, nice funk after the clean, polished front entrance. Pure fruit, medium length, maybe a touch young, as it didn't stretch itself out much. Missed the floral and mineral notes from the wine notes. Pleasant, but not what we were looking for here. With carignan, we want that country feel, a rustic burliness that shows up just when you think it's a fine enough, light-ish quaffer. Good carignan is like a movie that takes a perfectly dark turn. Didn't find that here, at least with this food. But Donkey & Goat is basically across the street from Broc Cellars in Berkeley. That trip is gonna happen sometime.

Thursday, February 19, 2015

Feta-brined Chicken, Latkes And Arugula With 2012 Birichino Malvasia Bianca

"Cold enough for ya?"

We love Spanish wine oodles more than Italian, if we were prompted to provide a preference. Not even close, really.

BUT. If we see an Italian-style wine/grape grown in California on the shelf, it's a much more immediate "Yes, please" than a Spanish version. You gotta pick and choose with the Spanish-style stuff. Isn't that funny? Weird, huh?

Today's post is brought to you by useless tidbits about our wine proclivities.

Here's an example, though.

Food: Feta-brined roast chicken, latkes, roasted veggies and arugula-parsley salad

Recipe for feta-brined chicken from Melissa Clark in the New York Times. Good chicken, moist breast (giggity), got the feta notes, sort of, but this didn't change Mrs. Ney's two-day salt rub preference. Nice. Worthy diversion.

Veggies roasted under the bird, mostly celery on crack. Celery, celery seed, celery leaf included, because malvasia LOVES celery. Trader Joe's potato latkes with feta crumbled on top. This is a top-notch product, particularly when whipping up a fancier starch seems like a lot of work that day. Or even not. They're that good. Creamy-crunchy and a great vehicle for more cheese. Arugula-parsley salad to mix and match with a piece of chicken, latkes and/or veggies. You do what you want. It's your food and you're an adult, damn it.

Quite pleased with this meal, we were. All the flavors we like done well. And the wine was perfect.

Wine: 2012 Birichino Malvasia Bianca Monterey ($14 - Vin Chicago)

Elderflower, lime leaf, pink carnations, white peach, kiwi juice. Lighter body than we expected. Bright impression. Seamless transitions. Delicious wine. A perfumey, floral wonder that never wandered into true-blue perfume, which can sometimes be a problem for this grape family that includes malmsey, our favorite name in the malvasia family. This one is bouncy and light, letting the floral notes sing instead of weighing it down. Birichino is an off-shoot of Bonny Doon. Like Bonny Doon wines, it seems Birichino also likes to take Old World grapes and make them their own. So...we'll be following this winery. Because we like surprises.

Pairing: Yep. Good. Happy with this one.

We've been in a pairing slump, particularly with whites. We just haven't had that interlocking deliciousness that's made a meal complete of late. This one meshed and connected in great ways, allowing for that pause in the meal when you say to yourself, "Crap, this is good." Except with the arugula. That was god-awful.

Glad we have another bottle of this stuff. It's another example of the slap-happy goodness coming out of the California.
 

Thursday, February 12, 2015

Two Meals With Four Wines

The month of February has zero redeeming qualities.

None.

Two meals and four wines. Or. Two solid meals with four fair-to-middling wines that offered just enough to keep things in the realm of acceptable, with sprinkles of interesting.

#1 - Rabbit confit with sauerkraut buckwheat crêpe lasagna and shishito peppers, served with 2011 Kuentz-Bas Alsace Blanc ($15 - Whole Foods) and 2013 VinTJ's Gewürztraminer Mendocino County ($8 - Trader Joe's)

Delicious recipe for rabbit confit from David Leite (of The New Portuguese Table). Halved, spiced and herbed up, covered in oil and confit-ed in the oven for three hours, grilled (save that oil! It's awesome as a sauté oil for garlic in pasta). Rabbit from D'Artagnan. Two rabbit legs each. These were capital-G great rabbit legs, so pretty out of the package and perfect after cooking. Rabbit meat with the three-act play. Frenchy skin hit, clean rabbit-y meat, woodsy, herbal finish. Big winner. Sauerkraut (Paulina) crêpes, from this Saveur recipe, turned into sauerkraut crêpe lasagna, as the buckwheat and almond milk subs in the crêpes made them fall apart. Tossed a little (read: a lot) of sour cream on top and whole grain mustard on the side here and we were happy with the result. Sautéed shishito peppers (Trader Joe's is selling them now), done up Mr. Leite-style again. The hope was that these would add a cut and snap to this meal. Missed. But overall, this dinner gave us much of what we wanted, which was great rabbit with 'other stuff' to back it up.

Tuesday, February 10, 2015

Scallops, Grits, Carrots And Carrot-top Pesto With 2013 San Salvatore Falanghina

Crap. Now all I can think about is "hilarious" Carrot Top jokes.

Here are two elements, taken from an April Bloomfield recipe in Saveur, that taste like fancy-pants food: roasted carrots and carrot-top pesto. And they're versatile as heck. Put it with beef, roasted chicken, whatever. Because the protein is simply going to become a garnish to the superlative flavor in the carrots and pesto. Like the scallops did here.

Food: scallops, white corn grits, roasted carrots And carrot-top pesto

White corn grits on the plate, seared scallops nestled into the pile, big pile of carrot-top pesto glopped on the side, piles of carrots surrounding the grits. Basil on top, lemon spritz. Mix and match how you want. Perfect carrot roast and texture. Nutty, garden-y pesto (here, subbing pistachios for walnuts). Tasted like spring with a nod to winter. Or winter with a nod to spring. Comforting, fresh, balanced, chockablock with flavors flying everywhere. We loved this. Eat it.

Wine: 2013 San Salvatore Falanghina del Beneventano Campania IGT ($19 - Vin Chicago)

I've drunk the vast majority of bargain falanghina available in Chicago through my job. Most offer simple citrus, bit of minerals, a nod to something floral, but, in the end, they're southern Italian pinot grigio. Many of the components of an interesting white are there, but most are in too much of a rush to tell you their story. They're loud, they're brash, and frankly, they're boring because they're so loud, brash, and so quick to tell you how interesting they are. Here's one that's not. The San Salvatore (story here) is more calm, slower to reveal its tasty nuggets. Medium-bodied with a clean frame, offering white peach, citrus and green apple, sharp-edged minerals and a 'smacking of the lips' acidity. And it takes its time getting to the finish. Worth $19? Yes. Just. It doesn't inspire comparisons to great Sicilian white wine, or its Campanian companions of fiano, coda di volpe or even greco di Tufo at times, that can reach higher heights. It just takes falanghina, which is basically a patio sipper most of the time, and gives you a couple of extra notes to make you forget it's basically a patio sipper. Sunshine in a bottle.

Pairing: Very nice stuff

Not perfect, but very happy with this one. This wine was quite alive and jumpy, but it took a cue from the food and settled down, resting into a more graceful pairing buddy with the food. Clunky at times, but a good clunky, because flavors were jumping on the plate and in the glass. Not a well-produced play, more like a great Improv show where, as you're walking out, you say, "That was really fun."
   

Thursday, February 5, 2015

Meat And Potatoes With Marietta Cellars Christo Lot #1

Sometimes, when people you know keep recommending things and you continuously ignore such things, a bit of guilt emerges.

So you try one of them. This is that.

Food: Trader Joe's tri-tip sirloin steak with Kansas City barbecue marinade, bacon-onion potato hash and arugula salad

The tri-tip is $10, pre-marinated, and ready to go. That's a plus. Another plus is that there's nothing in the marinade that we don't eat. So, while we can't say this is going to be a regular thing, we can say that, in a quick pinch, and wanting beef...maybe. It's quite decent. Throw it next to grilled potato salad and a slice of watermelon in the butt-sweat hotness of summer...bet it's not too shabby.

Fingerling potato hash and arugula salad to round things out. Quick, tasty, done.

Wine: NV Marietta Cellars Christo Lot #1 Sonoma-Mendocino Counties Rhône Blend ($16 - Binny's)

Syrah, grenache, petite sirah and viognier. People who cry about California not having bargains aren't looking too hard. Here's another one from Marietta Cellars. The Old Vine Red at around $10 might be the best $10 (on sale) red I've had in a year or two. This one tastes $6 better (also on sale at the time) and so full of what's good about California wine and what's good about the direction it's heading. Ripe with savory accents, with a "vooooooop" -like viognier lift at the end. Fresh dirt and spice on the finish as well. Even something like a hint of lavender floating around. Changed with each bite-sip. Delicious wine, we're loving the non-vintage reds trend lately, has the same name as my internet name, and it's under $20. Plus, I'm a slut for grenache and I don't care who knows it.

Pairing: Summertime red in spades

I have a personal issue with bigger reds in the summer. I want light and I want to put a chill on it. Here's one that I don't want to chill and I don't want to be lighter. The viognier gives me what I want - a lift. Starts big, goes savory, ends with a perk. Yes, please. I'll take a dozen to go.


Quick Note: Lamb spezzatino with 2012 Catherine et Pierre Breton "Trinch" Bourgueil ($20-ish - Vin Chicago). The star was the wine, one of the Bretons' bargain cabernet francs. Swirling cherry deliciousness with great length, tobacco and twigs, and pretty pauses. Everything we want from cab franc at a great price. We've had this one other time. I don't know why we're not drinking this by the bucket.