#27 - Tilapia Tacos & Purple Corn Sangria

On a random Tuesday afternoon last year with nothing else on the tele, we gave an episode of Boy Meets Grill with Bobby Flay a try.

What came from it just proves that worthless television can occasionally produce great results (Lesson: watch more worthless TV - may I suggest Bridezillas?).

Purple Corn Sangria.

It's a sangria concoction of Peruvian purple corn (found in many Latin grocery stores), pineapple, cinnamon, water, sugar, Pisco liquor and Sauvignon Blanc.

We've made it three times now and it's a dark, heavenly brew that has become the standard for sangria in the Ney household.

One caveat: cheap Sauvignon Blanc doesn't cut it. We tried using Barefoot once and it wasn't nearly as good. Kim Crawford - a wine that was hot for about two seconds last year, every wine shop ordered entirely too much, it never sold and now everyone's stuck with it by the pallet, thereby driving down the price considerably - works perfect ($13).

Food: Tilapia tacos with guacamole, radish and Brussels sprout slaw, jalapeño sour cream and hot sauce

Quickly becoming a staple, tilapia (or mahi mahi) tacos aim to be authentic Mexican (or Central American coast) tacos and, from our experience in trying to get to know these things, succeeds. Other tacos from anywhere (including Los Nopales) just don't measure up.

Fish marinade = shallot, garlic, jalapeño, olive oil, lime juice, chili powder, cilantro and cumin and then grill the fish.

Spicy, salty, earthy and fresh with the just the right acid, making everything a ridiculous, mouth-watering, blissful adventure. I wasn't even hungry when we started eating last night. Didn't matter.

Beverage: Purple Corn Sangria

Tough to explain the flavor of it. Dark and intense, yet the depth created by the purple corn takes the sweetness that plagues typical sangria down a notch. Good sangria is great, but I rarely want more than a glass or so. Purple corn sangria never gets old.

And the recipe is incredibly easy to made. Just one more step than regular sangria. Stick the purple corn and pineapple flesh in a pot of simmering water for an hour and drain.

Pairing: Yes, Please

Probably a top-three hot summer meal no matter how trite that sounds.

The sangria brightened up a bit, sure. Mostly though, the pleasure was in how complimentary the food and sangria were. It's not as if they played off each other or the sangria enhanced the food particularly, just that nothing conflicted and the consistent "Latin-ness" of everything made for a better meal than if each were separate. It stayed at that point but it was still a pretty nice place to be.

Again, wasn't even hungry and I was sad to see it end.

365 Days Of Food And Wine: Week #16

Royals are better.

And I can't wait until Halloween is over. It's a silly holiday, though Mrs. Ney's costume for work, Red Flags, is awesome.

A celebratory week of solid restaurant chicken, a couple of greatest hits, and one of the best dinners we've had in a good long while.

Rabbit. Stupid rabbit. You're delicious. And grilled radicchio with rabbit? Gee whiz.

Best rabbit we've ever had.

Total food and wine cost for the week: $142 for food and $137 for wine = $279

Total food and wine cost for the month: $688 for food and $716 for wine = $1404

Sunday: Ham and Mortadella Sandwiches with 2014 Innovacíon Rosé Mendoza

Food Details: Ham, mortadella and red pepper sandwiches on ciabatta, baked. Olive oil chips. It's sandwich and chips!

Did We Like It? Fine and good. Fine. And. Good. Ending your waiting tables week with a big plate of sandwich and chips with rosé works every freakin' time.

How Was The Wine? Last bottle of the $8, one-liter rosé goodness. We drank probably 8-10 bottles of this pinked-up malbec-syrah blend this year. It was good to us. Fading now, as it's getting a little muddled in flavor, but still happy $8 pink.

And The Pairing? It's ham sandwich, chips and pink. What's not to like?

Cost: $15 for food, $8 for wine = $23    

Saturday: Taco Salad with 2014 La Granja Blanco Rioja

Food Details: Put all the following ingredients in the biggest bowl you have and mix: Ground beef cooked with taco seasoning, chopped romaine, crushed tortilla chips, shredded white cheddar, kumatoes, onions, leftover jalapeño crema from Fish Taco Tuesday (limed up), cubed avocado and cilantro...

Did We Like It? ...Bring your bowl to the couch, lean back, put the bowl on your stomach, put your favorite TV entertainment on the tele, move your beverages to the edge of the coffee table so you don't have to move too much; eat, drink and enjoy Halloween the way you do.

How Was The Wine? It's taco salad. $5 Trader Joe's Spanish white will suffice. Nothing gets in the way.

And The Pairing? See above. Just enjoy the Big Bowl of Taco Salad with some wine that's good enough.

Cost: $12 for food, $5 for wine = $17

Friday: Boxing Day Sausage Rolls and Arugula

Food Details: Sausage Rolls (here, via NYT Cooking) with an arugula and pomegranate seed salad.

Did We Like It? Fine, easy-peasy, substantial and satisfying food.

How Was The Wine? No wine. We needed a break.

Cost: $8


Thursday: Rabbit Confit, Grilled Radicchio and Celery Root-Chestnut Purée with Pouillon Rose de Maceration Brut Champagne

Source: Rabbit from Michael Psilakis, via Leite's Culinaria

Food Details: D'Artagnan rabbit with rosemary, thyme, sage, parsley, shallot, garlic, bay, mustard seed, fennel seed and lavender. Radicchio, grilled, cored, coarsely chopped; with rabbit oil, orange juice, whole-grain mustard dressing. Celery root and chestnuts sauteed in 2 tbsp butter; cooked in almond milk, pureed; finished with a drizzle of rabbit oil. Rabbit drizzled with more rabbit oil at the table. Radicchio and rabbit spritzed with orange.

Did We Like It? Je-Sus! Best rabbit we've ever had! Best radicchio we've ever had! Tasted like if we gave this to an Alsatian grandmother, she'd begrudgingly nod in approval. So savory and crunchy and bitter and creamy and slightly sweet, with perfect acid, perfect rabbit skin and meat, all of it...just perfect. We couldn't get better rabbit dish out in the world, period. Best meal in months!

How Was The Wine? 100% pinot noir, given the saignée treatment. Not floral, not deep, not a lot of stuff, but everything it gets right, IT GETS RIGHT. Pretty fruit, pretty mouthfeel, lilting acid, Champagne doing what Champagne does: make you happy that it exists in the world.

And The Pairing? Like Wednesday, we could have gone in a lot of directions, but in the end the sparkling nature of the wine brought a bounce and lift that kept the entire meal buoyant and a sheer joy, something a still wine might not have done here. Golly, we eat well. This was Exhibit A.

Cost: $40 for food, $44 for wine = $84

Wednesday: Lamb Kofta, Charred Shallots, Labneh and Ancient Grains Bread with 2013 Broc Cellars Grenache Mendocino

Source: Ottolenghi kofta and Melissa Clark charred shallots

Food Details: First time making kofta with lamb. It's usually been goat. Cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg, parsley, nuts, onion, garlic, all the kofta goodness. Big splotch of labneh on the plate, charred shallots on top of labneh, kofta on the side. Ancient grains bread instead of pita. Inland cress salad with mint. Spritz of lemon on things.

Did We Like It? We had to get back on this horse after the sweetness of the tomatoes in the last version of this meal, with goat leg, brought out some food hate. That was confirmed when we had a bite of this. A piece of Ancient Grain bread, a lil dollop of labneh, some charred shallots, maybe some inland cress, sometimes some kofta. Eat. Beautiful savory combinations that offers space and time to taste and savor everything, instead of sweetness muddying the waters. Can't recommend this more highly.

How Was The Wine? Broc being Broc, again. Our first Broc grenache, with low alcohol (12.5 - nice place for grenache), lovely floral frame, happy red fruits of raspberry and darker currant, sometimes a bit of licorice, sometimes a bit of chocolate. Light body, sunny acid, bright disposition. Liked it very much.

And The Pairing? No complaints in the least. Everything liked each other. We could have gone in a few directions here with the pairing but this one brought a completeness to the meal that never made us think of other options.

Cost: $20 for food, $30 for wine = $50 

Tuesday: Fish Tacos with Purple Corn Sangria

Source: From Duncan Gott of Gott's Roadside. Recipe taken directly from here. Purple corn sangria (Bobby Flay) here.

Food Details: Mahi mahi marinade = shallot, garlic, jalapeño, olive oil, lime juice, chili powder, cilantro and cumin and then grill the fish. Make some cabbage slaw. Bought guacamole this time, because the avocados weren't ready, and mixed it with tomatoes and cilantro. Jalapeño crema. Hot sauce. Charred tortillas.

Did We Like It? Any celebration week in this house must have fish tacos, because they're the best fish tacos on Earth. This batch was one of the better batches made. Complete balance in flavor. Loved-loved-loved it.

How Was The Beverage? And one of the better batches of purple corn sangria made in this house. Oodles of depth, made possible by a more significant reduction in the purple corn-pineapple rind juice.

And The Pairing? Classic. It tastes classic when made this perfectly.

Cost: $17 for food, $18 for wine = $35

Monday: Nando's with 2014 Cara Viva Rosé Lisbon

Food Details: Full chicken platter for two with two sides of fries and four sides of peri-peri mayo.

Did We Like It? Got $60? Don't wanna cook? Want a tableful of chicken and fried potato sticks with tons of mayo to dip? We do. Often. And Nando's does that pretty darn well. This is nothing earth-shattering, just solid bird and good fries when you want that.

How Was The Wine? Had the Cara Viva branco last time. It's nice for $16. Rosé this time, same price, same label. It's their house label, and it tastes like Portugal. Fresh dirt, nice fruit. Again, nothing earth-shattering here, simply a drinkable rosé that doesn't get devoured by the spiciness of the peri-peri.

And The Pairing? See above. Eat, sip, eat again, sip again. The solid acid in the wine cuts nicely, the food is good, and you get about a third of the way through the meal and say, "This'll do. This'll totally do."

Cost: $30 for food, $32 for wine = $62

365 Days Of Food And Wine: Week #41

Ever watched a movie you should have seen decades ago? I watched Gandhi for the first time last night. Yep. First time. Never seen Chariots of Fire either. Probably should take care of that.

The first season of 'The Americans' only made me think that the rest of the series is them almost getting caught every other episode, with them almost breaking up in the other episodes. Keep it. I have hundreds of hours of terrible Angels baseball to watch.

And I can't wait to see in what unique way the Browns screw this one up.

Total food and wine cost for the week: $126 for food and $91 for wine = $217

Sunday: Salmon and Bagels with 2015 Charles & Charles Rosé Columbia Valley

Food Details: Trader Joe's cured salmon, avocado, clover sprouts, cream cheese (with dill, cilantro, serrano, onion and lemon zest), bagels, and tomatoes for me.

Did We Like It? Leaves us clean, full and feeling healthy every time, even with bagels and cream cheese. We have it probably 8-10 times a year.

How Was The Wine? More Charles Smith rosé (this one a collaboration with Charles Bieler). 63% syrah, 12% mourvedre, 10% grenache, 7% cab, 7% cinsault, 3% counoise from Columbia Valley, with Mr. Smith's VINO being 100% sangiovese. Both are a house favorite. When the new vintages come out, at least six of each are immediately bought. This year's has a watermelon-earth back and forth with bright acid. Not as evocative or deep as a couple vintages ago, but has a playful, perky side that's welcome. And it was a stupid-ridiculous $8 at Target (!) when we bought it.

And The Pairing? Not great. Felt like two co-workers who go through the necessary pleasantries because they have to be in the same space while on the clock, but no friendship will be forming anytime soon.

Cost: $22 for food, $8 for wine = $30

Saturday: Big Fried Chicken Salad with Leftover Wine

Food Details: 'Southern style" Aldi frozen fried chicken cutlets, cheddar, green pepper, onion, peas, kumatoes, pretzel-bread croutons, romaine and homemade honey mustard dressing. All ingredients in a big bowl, mix, eat. Don't even use a table. Sit on the couch, put the bowl on your stomach and go to town.

Did We Like It? Nostalgia food! Tasted like 1998 Bennigan's, and that was a pretty darn good thing. Tasted like my 20s. Does Bennigan's still exist?  

How Was the Wine? Mrs. Ney had better luck with leftover Joel Gott sauvignon blanc than I did with leftover Schwarzböck Grüner Veltliner, which was terrible. Tasted like Pledge.

And The Pairing? See above.

Cost: $11 for food, $0 for wine = $11

Friday: Fava-Ramp-Carrot Top Strozzapreti with 2014 Schwarzböck Gruner Veltliner Austria

Food Details: Favas, ramps, carrot-top pesto, ricotta salata, marjoram, parsley on strozapretti

Did We Like It? First uber-spring meal of the year. Green and green with a side of green, and it was rampy and carrot top-y in the bestest sense. Happy. Very happy.

How Was The Wine? Fine. Lemony with green hints and fine acid. Cheap grüner in liter form that has served us fairly well over the years.

And The Pairing? Less "fairly well" this time. Not much intermingling or interplay.

Cost: $20 for food, $13 for wine = $33

Thursday: Zucchini Goop with 2015 Charles Smith VINO Rosé Columbia Valley

Food Details: Based on a recipe from Mexican, by Jane Milton (page 186), with the addition of green chorizo, from Melissa Clark in NYT Cooking. Cook your chorizo. Remove from pan, and then brown onions and scallions. Add garlic and four [previously salted and rinsed] sliced-into-sticks zucchini, sautée some more. Add a can of tomatoes and sliced pickled serranos; sauté briefly. Dump in chorizo, warm through. Turn off burner, add half a block of cubed cream cheese to melt in residual heat. Fresh oregano, tons of dill and parmesan. Ancient Grains bread to top with zucchini goop.

Did We Like It? Bready, porky, touch spicy, vegetabley, happy as all-get out. This version brought a very good dill-heat balance.

How Was The Wine? Sangiovese rosé from Mr. Charles Smith. Bright cherry fruit, pretty earth, medium-bodied, super-duper rosé happiness. We'll probably go through a case by the end of the year. Because it's delicious and because it's $10.

And The Pairing? The wine LOVED the dill. Very good version of zucchini goop with a very fresh rosé that liked the food. Do need much else.

Cost: $10 for food, $10 for wine = $20

Wednesday: Hummus, Laffa and Fattoush with 2015 Broc Cellars Sparkling Chenin Blanc Central Coast

Food Details: Hummus here, laffa here, fattoush here. Third making of this meal. Hummus somehow less bright and clear than in the past. Greens too wet, but fine enough flavors bouncing around to enjoy it. Homemade za'atar again helped immensely. Laffa instead of pita this time, which is the same recipe as pita but rolled thinner and bigger. Better than pita.

Did We Like It? Good enough was my overall thought. But this wine... Curse the heavens that it's sold out!

How Was The Wine? Pet-nat chenin blanc from Broc. 11.5% alcohol from Central Coast (that in itself seems like a miracle). We got three in our club shipment this year. Crazy-fresh peach, peach fizz and pit in a glass. Crystal-clear fruit that tastes like San Francisco morning sunshine - cool, bright, head-clearing. Five stars, Mr. Brockaway. You're ridiculous.

And The Pairing? Wine ruled the night and slid into the food well enough. Nice dinner.

Cost: $20 for food, $27 for wine = $47    

Tuesday: Argentinean Skirt Steak and Empanadas with 2009 Quinta do Vallado Tinto Douro

Food Details: Most beautiful medium-rare on some of the beautiful beef we've had in a long time. Paulina Meat Market skirt steak in churrasco marinade. Chimichurri to top and dip. Empanadas filled with kale, potato, onion, Petit Basque cheese, currant and garlic. A bit of arugula under the beef.

Did We Like It? Best meal of the week and probably the best since Fish sauce-sauce game hens! Gorgeous beef, delicious empanadas, what else does anybody need?

How Was The Wine? Dry, savory blackberry fruit, perfect earth, lovely hint of spice, great balance. Vallado's tinto is the best $20 and under red wine in my book. This thing is over six years old. Find me another $20-and-under, six-year-old wine that drinks like this and I'll give you...something...how about a hug? Tastes like the air of a mid-August Iowa summer (which is the air of the Douro all the time) in the bestest sense.

And The Pairing? The chimichurri beat it up the smallest wee bit, but overall this was so stupid-good.

Cost: $27 for food, $17 for wine = $44    

Monday: Fish Tacos with Argus Cidery Tepache Pineapple Wine

Food Details: (recipe - don't mess with it) Mahi mahi marinade = shallot, garlic, jalapeño, olive oil, lime juice, chili powder, cilantro and cumin, then fish cooked up in cast-iron. Cabbage slaw. Homemade guacamole. Jalapeño crema. Hot sauce. Charred tortillas.

Did We Like It? Why has it been so long, fish tacos! This batch had a complete balance of flavor. Perfect hit of everything needed to find fish-taco joy. And a perfect kickoff to a great food weekend.

How Was The Wine? Pineapple wine made in Texas. We're fans, ever since having it at Minero in Charleston. Spicy grilled pineapple in a bottle. Frothy, almost beer-like but never all the way there. It demands you to pay attention to it in the best way.

And The Pairing? Strangely better than we expected, and we expected to love this. Purple Corn Sangria is great with fish tacos, but purple corn sangria can be a bit of work, particularly when you don't want to do said work and pineapple wine exists. Argus killed purple corn sangria and we're just fine with that.

Cost: $16 for food, $16 for wine = $32

#51 - Hanger, Fish Tacos & Three Mediocre Wines

Let's combine two meals this week that were eaten with three wildly mediocre wines.

Food: Mustard-red wine rubbed hanger steak with onion tart and arugula salad

Good hanger steak with a nice char, something that I thought would help the wine beautifully.

Traditional-style onion tart made with bacon had a good earthy taste and a fluffy crust. In fact, I'm eating the leftovers of it as I write this and it's still good stuff.

Arugula salad drizzled with balsamic and olive oil. Again, good capper.

Should have been a great meal. Both of us, though, thought it missed some brightness.

And some of that could have been mitigated if the wine revealed itself in the same way it did that last time we had it.

Wine: 2005 Colonial Estate GSM Envoy ($20 - Wine Discount Center)

The meal seemed to match well with a Rhône. Originally, we had the new 2007 Chateau Des Tours (brother of the Domaine Des Tours Vin de Pays that we absolutely love and is probably one of the best QPR wines we've ever had - both are wines from the venerable Châteauneuf-du-Pape winery, Château Rayas), but I had a bit of the sniffles so we deferred to an Australian done in the Rhône style.

Last time we had this, it came off much darker and much bigger with herbal, tar and spice elements.

This time, unfortunately, the dark fruits were gone, replaced by exclusively red fruits with some raspberry and cherry, medium-to-short finish, medium tannins, somewhat concentrated but not in the least distinctive.

Had that in-between mouthfeel that good Australian GSMs have, something between the New and the Old World. Not syrupy, more like deep. But everything had a manufactured feel to it and the fruit had an over-extracted sense that showed well two years ago but now is coming off a bit flat.

Just didn't distinguish itself. Would be a decent little table wine under $12 but this one used to sell for $40 once upon a time.

Pairing: Meh

Clunky. Good enough with the hanger steak but didn't enhance anything. Got by on its fading glamour, but didn't deliver the goods.

One bottle left of this. What used to be somewhat held back to match a meal in the very least has become a sandwich wine. If the wine would have stayed in the dark and deep range it showed previously, that could have brought the meal to a different level where the mustard-red wine rub began to pop and the onion tart went deeper.

It's not a bad wine - nothing disjointed. It simply isn't interesting anymore.

The same world last night compared to Tuesday when it comes to wine.

But fish tacos is a top 10 meal in our world.

Food: Mahi Mahi tacos with jalapeño sour cream, Mexican slaw, guacamole and hot sauce

Recipe taken directly from here.

Duncan Gott, the brother of winemaker Joel Gott, has a place in Napa that serves up some serious deliciousness.

Spectacular marinade on the Whole Foods mahi, garlic-y with a deep spice. Jalapeño sour cream that I could drink by itself. Easy slaw that adds crunch and depth without getting cabbagey. Insanely fresh guacamole.

It can't be emphasized more, this is great stuff.

We've had it one other time since the beginning of FWW with the ridiculously good purple corn sangria, swapping out mahi for tilapia and altering the slaw.

On that purple corn sangria, there's no better match for these fish tacos. Nothing.

And certainly not these.

Wine: 2003 Prager Riesling Bodenstein Smaragd ($14 - WDC) and 2007 Bokisch Albariño ($4 - Binny's)

I could be fine with the Bokisch albariño. It was $4. Not offensive. Not good, but not offensive. Mrs. Ney found some hard-boiled egg notes, which was worth the $4 by itself for its hilarity.

But the 2003 Prager Bodenstein is done, over, finito. Felt kind of burned by the signage at WDC on this one that said it was still drinking beautifully despite the major critics saying it was done three years ago.

Even the faintest hint of fruit is hanging on for dear life. As it came to near room temperature, I thought I found something that might have resembled orange peel or kumquat.

It's done. I have another bottle. Anybody want it?

Pairing: Nothing

Both wines added nothing. But in our world, that didn't matter. Unlike so many other meals that scream for good wine to make it better, nothing was going to detract from the greatness that is fish tacos with this recipe.

#71 - Beef Filet & Pan-Roasted Potatoes With '89 Clos Fourtet

It's important to keeping learning as you age in life.

Last night, we learned to never play a drinking game involving a new mother looking for a house on House Hunters. We had a drink every time she mentioned her son's name "Jackson". Seemed innocent enough, except we ended up plowing through a 20 year-old Bordeaux in the process.

"Jackson would love to play on this carpet. He's used to hardwoods." "Jackson would love to play in this backyard." "This would be a good place for Jackson's toys." "I love this open kitchen. I could cook and keep my eye on Jackson."

Jackson was two.

Coupled with a lunch drinking game involving Sandra Lee on Semi-Homemade saying "great fla-vor," we've come to the conclusion that drinking games result in wasting wine.

Food: Beef filet with shallot-parsley butter, pan-roasted potatoes and arugula and parsley salad

Beautiful beef filet from Paulina Meat Market cooked perfectly. Just pretty-looking stuff. Simple salt and pepper rub roasted in the oven and seared off in the cast-iron skillet. A shallot-parsley compound butter to French it up for the wine. Potatoes pan-roasted in salt, pepper and rosemary with mayo for dipping. I don't know why arugula and parsley together is so tasty but it is. Get a bit of meat juice bleeding into the salad on the plate and it's a taste explosion - clean yet almost a meal in itself.

The entire meal was created for the wine. It was wine first, second and third in the preparation thought process. Simple French was the goal with a tilt toward smooth, mushroomy, earthy, vanilla Right Bank Bordeaux.

And it was delicious.

But the pairing fell a bit short.

Wine: 1989 Clos Fourtet ($80 - Knightsbridge)

Grape: 90% Merlot 10% Cabernet Sauvignon (15 months in oak)

Region: Saint-Émilion

Vintage (WS): 98 Drink or hold - Bold, dramatic fruit character, tannic and long-aging

1988 through 1990 was a great vintage string in Bordeaux. Clos Fourtet, up until that point, was mired in a prolonged period of producing somewhat mediocre wines. Two things coincided, though. The favorable vintage string hit and Clos Fourtet had just started a modernization of the winery. Not too much info on the web as to the drinkability of the '89 but at $80 (at least $20 below most other places) and within driving distance to buy, why not?

(On Knightsbridge, they're currently carrying the 2005 Gourt des Mautens Rasteau for $60. Very difficult wine to find. Best high-end wine shop in the area and it's not even close.)

Drinkable Clos Fourtet? Not...really. Some life but it was a few years past its window.

Opened for about a half-hour total before drinking. An old look in the glass with brown edges and a tired red. Mushroom, vanilla, dust and faint berry on the nose. Dusty and weedy initially on the palate. The dust blew off but the weedy element hung around a bit. Plenty of mushroom and vanilla but the fruit was limp. The former essence of the wine could be grasped, though. Very smooth. Very Clos Fourtet. We've had enough Clos Fourtet to pretty much know it blind and this had it - that Clos Fourtet-ness, that Clos Fouret-vapor. This '89 was not unpleasant, it was just hanging on for dear life...and losing the battle.

Pairing: 80 Had its moments but not enough to change our opinion of the wine

The good: paired best with the potatoes and mayo and perked up with a pepper-intense bite. At times, the red fruit showed up, bringing it into the realm of acceptable and almost good.

The bad: felt worn out overall. Too much vanilla clouded everything. Needed more lively fruit and more tannin to separate the flavors out of its muddled mess.

The wine started to get a bit thicker as the meal went on but the fruit didn't improve and the meal needed it to do just that, along with a longer finish. On the finish, it was one that got progressively shorter. Right out of the bottle, some nice lingering earth and a wee hint of heat. That disappeared rather quick.

A French meal bordering on the rich with a Merlot-based wine probably wasn't the best choice for a nearly 80 degree day, either. That's on me. I wanted to try it.

A few notes (playing catch-up):

Mahi Mahi tacos with jalapeño sour cream, Mexican slaw and guacamole with purple corn sangria on Monday nearly reached the perfection that was #27 in January. My Golly, this is good. Easily one of our favorite meals. The purple corn sangria wasn't as deep in flavor but that was fine with us.

And it was a god-send after lunch. We had a quick smoked duck with mahon, aged cheddar, blackberry jam, roasted garlic onion jam and baguette. Cheap wine seemed appropriate and we started with the 2006 Eric Ross Carignane. Nothin'. Dumped it. Thought it was the wine and opened the 2005 Pirramimma Shiraz. Nothin'. The 2003 Pirramimma Shiraz. Nothin'!!!! The 2007 Domaine du Vieux Télégraphe "La Crau"!!!!!! NOTHIN"!!!!!

Most bizarre thing we've ever experienced. Something in something destroyed something! We settled on the smoked duck. Some sort of chemical reaction killed our palates. Screw you, smoked duck. You ruined four bottles of wine. Your fault, not ours for freakin' opening them. The "La Crau" had its usual fantasticness the next day.

One last note. Trader Joe's Spinach Pie with 2008 Trenza Blanco. A Californian blend of Albariño and Grenache Blanc, the Trenza is an interesting blend for where it comes from that isn't anything spectacular for the price. At $16 (WDC), better wines in that "let's try an odd blend for California" category are out there.

#172 - Greek Flank Steak & Skordaliá With '07 Boutari Xinomavro

Happy St. Patty's Day to everyone.

We're celebrating with fish tacos and purple corn sangria. You know, for all the Irish-Mexican-Peruvians in the world. I feel like they're under-celebrated and should also get a tip of the glass.

It's funny to think that a frozen product from Trader Joe's introduced us to Greek wine. For a good stretch in 2010, it was our Monday default lunch that kicked off our weekend. Quick, easy, delicious and great with Greek white in many forms. All apples and creamy lemons, a pinch of salt and great acid with creamy spinach-phyllo goodness. A $20 lunch that utterly satisfies.

But a trip to Purple Pig and two wines we had there made us more intrigued about Greek reds, especially the Alpha Estate Axia, a 50/50 split of Syrah and Xinomavro.

Greek food in general recently has hit a pleasure zone in us similar to Spanish food five years ago, Moroccan accents two years ago, home-cooked Portuguese in the last year and simple Italian preparations very recently with the use of Italian and southern French basics pretty much always.

In short, Mediterranean cuisine has always always our food love and constant strand, picked and prodded here and there, but it happened incrementally and built. Greek was the next, natural step and it's quickly turning into our next love.

We like hot climate food. You can taste why it's made and consumed. Like much good wine, it tastes of a place.

And the great thing about last night's meal was it was mostly freezer food.

Food: Greek-influenced flank steak, skordaliá and pearl onions and rapini

Medium-rare flank steak marinated in onion, parsley, evoo and lemon juice. Still tender and melty with charred herb hits. Great meat but it wasn't the star.

Became a side dish because of the stellar skordaliá, a blend of potatoes, ground toasted almonds, roasted garlic and extra virgin olive oil with bits of oregano and a splash of red wine vinegar. Dipping heaven with pita. Perfect, balanced shots of every ingredient.

But the real star of the meal came from the pearl onion and rapini combination made with sundried tomatoes rehydrated in white wine, dill (oregano & mint, to a much lesser extent), lemon zest and pecorino romano (standing in for feta). Complex stuff with everything in balance. The rapini with sheep's milk cheese brought an unexpected, deeeeeep depth to the entire plate of food with dill serving as a bridge to the onions, lemon zest and the parsley that was spread over everything.

This was a spectacular meal with a flurry of flavors all playing nicely together. And it was that way because of diligent attention paid to keeping it Greek. They've been around for centuries and know what they're doing.

Like most pairing attempts, if you make a meal that pays heed to cultural traditions, those cultures usually make wine that goes with their food.

Wine: 2007 Boutari Naoussa Xinomavro ($15 - Cardinal Wine)

Our first 100% xinomavro, an indigenous, fickle grape grown mostly in Macedonia. Go here for a great write-up on xinomavro.

Herbed-up stewed tomatoes and meat on the nose. Tough to explain the palate. Like a blend of cabernet franc and carmenère that's aged beautifully, maybe. Fruit isn't the game here. It's fresh, stewed tomatoes and herbs with fruit of cherry and a touch of blueberries (?) only serving as the supporting cast, rounding out things. Nice, light hit of sweet oak and pleasing acid. Vacillated between being a bit brawny and graceful but always a great medium-bodied weight overall. In the end, the wine was defined by its constantly changing tomato and small olive notes, like a spicy tomato stew that came off fresh and light. Original.

By the end of the bottle, it was a winner. Completely interesting and worth every bit of the $15 price tag. I wouldn't have felt ripped off if it were $25-30. Good stuff.

Pairing: 91 A couple of extra points for its Greekiness

Only an occasional isolation of the tannins in the wine with the flank steak was our only criticism of the pairing.

Overall, the wine served admirably as a catch-all, playing up the herbs while the tomato and tiny olive quality in the wine slid right in with all the other flavors in the meal.

Greek food and Greek wine. We are just getting into it whole hog but this was the kind of meal that is only going to bring about oodles more of such things.

#149 - Bittman Chicken, Skordalia & Pea Shoot Salad With An 8 Year-Old Muscadet

I've had a tough time figuring out if the 2002 Muscadet drank last night is, in fact, Michel Brégeon's Reserve. The company I bought it from assured me it was, saying it was the only one Kermit Lynch imported when they bought it.

Doesn't say it on the bottle (exact picture to the right) but it was worth a shot given both the regular bottling and the reserve each spent seven years (!) on its lees before being put in the bottle.

And Kermit Lynch said it was the best Muscadet he's ever had.

And it was an eight-year-old Muscadet for $25.

And while we've only had about ten different labels of Muscadet, we just love the snot out of it.

And this one, of those ten, is the best one I've ever had.

Food: Chicken under a brick, skordalia with pita for dipping and a pea shoot salad

A Mark Bittman instruction of cooking chicken taken from Italy and one of the quicker chicken preparations for the quality out there. Alter the herbs and rubs as you like. Mrs. Ney did and does.

Used this recipe with the touch of brightness and lift coming from the use of one lemon to tie into the wine. Juicy chicken, tasty skin, fine stuff. Used six boneless thighs instead of a whole chicken.

Skordalia (see recipe above) turned into a favorite in this house about a year ago and become one of those entrée accompaniments that slide so beautifully into the Muscadet/Albariño/Greek white/better bubbly vein. Fits like a glove. This one without breadcrumbs (gluten and dairy free!), subbing boiled and peeled potatoes and using roasted garlic instead of raw. Tasted like Eastern European hummus in a great way.

Pea shoot salad to finish with sliced cucumber, gaeta olives, scallions, mint, parsley and dressed with lemon zest, white balsamic vinegar, and extra virgin olive oil.

Enjoyed everything immensely but worried about some of the elements overpowering the wine.

In the end, no problems at all.

Wine: 2002 Michel Brégeon Muscadet Sèvre-et-Maine Sur Lie Reserve ($25 - SFWTC)

Probably the most balanced crisp white I've ever had. Light but substantial. Complex yet quick to transition. Stony as all get out but developed in the most pure way. If I were rich, THIS would be my ideal spring-summer drinker and I would never get sick of it. Just so pretty, graceful, welcoming and stupid good.

Typical Muscadet melon and citrus notes with bright fresh acid intermingled with a white grapefruit note, all of it light, graceful and sparkly. Wet stones in the middle with a subtle yeasty note and finished with the lightest spring rainwater coda that refreshed, cleansed the palate and left me wanting more...quickly.

Eight years old and it tasted like it was made yesterday. Beautifully put together and, as I said, the best Muscadet I've ever had in my rather limited Muscadet life. I'll up it. It's the best light, crisp white I've ever had with only a couple of Heredias, a Hüet and maybe a Champagne or two beating it in the all-around white category.

Pairing: 90 One of those pairings where "absolutely no problems" made it that much better

Worried about the pairing a bit but the shockingly youthful acid in the wine quelled those fears; the wine and the food remained their delicious selves. Enhancement? A bit here and there. The wine accented the olive oil in the skordalia nicely, like when you have good hummus made with good olive oil and the purity of the olive oil jumps out at you. Nice bridge with the lemon in the chicken and the wine that changed course and brought out the white grapefruit mingling around in the wet stone core of the wine.

Overall, it was only subtle touches here and there in the pairing. Cracked a 2007 Domaine Saint Martin Muscadet ($15 - Binny's) to finish the meal and drink with the salad and some of the green elements in that wine played with the salad in more direct, pleasing ways than with what we got from the Brégeon but the Brégeon's grace and subtlety was a one-of-a-kind in our world.

I want two cases of the Brégeon. It's one of those wines that will become a benchmark for me.

A quick note: Mahi mahi tacos with jalapeño sour cream, Mexican slaw and guacamole served with purple corn sangria (recipe here) a few days ago. I've written about this a few times before (go to the January entry for a full description). Probably a top five meal. A couple of notes. We've found that following the sangria recipe to the letter and using a quality sauvignon blanc is essential (Kim Crawford is ideal in our world). More money but entirely worth the bones. Don't get "look at me!" creative. Recipes are out there for a reason.

#32 - Scallops With Rice Cakes & Kim Crawford/Spanish Viognier

Has the world gone topsy-turvy?

Last night's meal should have been a perfect pairing with one of our favorite value sauvignon blancs. It wasn't, but a cheap, close-out Spanish viognier, a wine I thought might have been bad upon first sip, turned out to be freaking sublime.

Food: Whole Foods sea scallops with bee pollen in a tomatillo-coconut milk sauce, rice cakes and pea shoots

Large, quality sea scallops rubbed in bee pollen and seared in butter, salt and pepper. Frontera tomatillo salsa mixed with coconut milk and lime zest. Trader Joe's rice cakes, pea shoot salad and pickled ginger and ponzu sauce on the side.

The progression of opinion of the meal from beginning to end: This is pretty good; this is actually very good; I think I love this meal; Crap, this is freakin' great!

And gloriously clean to boot.

The tomatillo-coconut milk sauce is an alteration of a recipe by Rick Bayless when he appeared on Simply Ming. The addition of bee pollen, something we'll be adding to more recipes in the future, offered a nice subtle earthiness to balance out the lime zest and acidity of the sauce.

Rice cakes doused with ponzu has become a new favorite after having them with Asian beef filet a week ago. The pea shoot salad at the end of the meal, mixing in the leftover sauce and drizzling some ponzu over the top made for a great cap to the meal. Stupid European influence. I used to get annoyed when people finished off a meal at the restaurant I work at because the pizza was already light and breezy while never being something you wanted to cleanse from your palate. I'm beginning to see the value after every kind of meal.

Wine: 2008 Kim Crawford Sauvignon Blanc ($15 WDC) & 2007 La Casa De La Ermita Viognier Jumilla ($10? - WDC)

Kim Crawford was covered here when we used it in purple corn sangria. It's a good value wine that everyone on the planet thought would sell like crazy but didn't. Now it's down in the $13 range everywhere. The last time we had this one it showed a more balanced fruit profile with grapefruit, lime and some passion fruit with the typical New World grassy sauvignon blanc notes and a bright zippiness. Still good this time but the fruit was a bit one-dimensional with mostly grapefruit, grapefruit and more grapefruit. The 2009s just came out. We'll give it a roll.

The 2007 La Casa De La Ermita Viognier comes from the Jumilla wine region in southeastern Spain and was bought in the early days of the great "Sam's was sold to Binny's" closeout sale down at the Lincoln Park location. $12.

An odd wine upon first sip. To me, it was either slightly bad or was attempting to replicate the oddness that comes with a Savennieres. First time we had that, it was weird as well, but after a few sips we got into it and came to love what it was doing. Different grapes, of course, but the same sort of musty strangeness right out of the gate. Savennieres typically comes off like a mineral, musty nuts (ha!), acid and dry adventure before getting to the understated fruit. Tough to describe, but that's the joy in it. They're elusive and coy.

This viognier is the same but it's different (a favorite saying of my 8th grade math teacher). Musty basement initially turns quickly to a fermented honey quality. Dried flowers and dry overall with subdued fruit and a balanced acidity. Fennel and a disinfectant note are in the description. Sure, why not? For $12, it's a huge bargain. NOT AT ALL what I expected from this wine.

Pairing: Each worked nearly perfectly with different aspects of the meal

The Kim Crawford should have matched up perfectly with so much of this meal. It fell short, mostly due to dominating grapefruit in the wine. Fine enough but nothing was particularly enhanced. With the pea shoot salad, though, it was perfect. Great top-off to the meal. The acidity in the wine lifted the salad and played with the ponzu in great ways.

The star, though, was the viognier. Its fermented honey quality played off the bee pollen while bringing everything in the sauce down a level, making it even more delicious and earthy than it already was. Compared to the Kim Crawford, the meal became something entirely different and kinda great.

For a meal that cost, all together, around $60, it was better than most anything we could have had at a restaurant last night.

Food: A Recipe

Mrs. Ney's step-by-step guide to The Delicious:

Do you want to serve an excellent meal that ticks every box, but isn't fussypants?  Here's what you do.  Since last week you've been wondering what to do with that ridiculous amount of pickled fennel you made for god-knows-what reason:  that's now the lumpy ingredient in the tzatziki you've been craving ever since Purple Pig was mentioned.  You didn't want Purple Pig, you wanted tzatziki.  And dinner grows from this craving.

Paulina Meats sells a very nice lamb-based gyro sausage.  It's lamb, but it's also sausage.  Which means 8 minutes of virtually mindless cooking time.  Buy one sausage for each person @$2.5/.  You may think it's not enough:  it is.

Whole Foods and Mariano's sell baby greens, locally- and hydroponically- grown.  They're delicious.  Buy one container for every two people @$5/.

You'll need fresh oregano and mint.  $2 at Mariano's or $3 at Whole Foods.  One onion and fresno pepper per person, too.

365 Days Of Food And Wine: A Year In Review

This breakdown will be changing over the next week or so as I whittle it down to more specific food and wine things.

But here's a (very close to very accurate) broad breakdown:

Total Cost for (nearly all of) Food and Wine for the Year:  $7307 for food, $8161 for wine = $15,468

Times We Ate Out: 24 (that includes vacations up the California coast in September and New York at the end of March) - Le Bernardin, Prune, Pok Pok, The Breslin, Momofuku, Keste, Rustic Canyon Wine Bar, Chez Panisse, Fish, Pig In A Pickle, Gioia Pizzeria, Bocadillos, Spacca Napoli, Bill's Drive-In/Jimmy's Pizza Cheese Fest, Nando's (thrice), Pizza Art Café (twice), Bistro Campagne (twice), Hema's Kitchen, Spiagga, Semiramis,

Protein

Note: I went with the main focus of the meal for the most part. If there were a couple of anchovies in a veg-centric meal for depth, I went veggie (which is only a handful of the veg meals). If there were a lot of anchovies (i.e. - pissaladière), I went fish. Charcuterie is probably more than half of the pork category.

Vegetarian meals: 61

Chicken: 78

Pork: 67

Fish: 47

Beef: 36

Lamb: 22

Goat: 13

Cornish/Guinea/Poussin: 7 

Rabbit: 4

Boar: 4

Duck: 2

Turkey: 2

Quail: 2

Bison: 1

Venison: 1

Wine

Note: If it had bubbles, it's under sparkling. I did not parse out natural wines. Might get to it. If a blend was predominately (more than 60%) one grape, it's under that grape. 

Rosé (still): 44
Sparkling (Champagne, Cava, Malvasia, Baga, Rosé, Chenin, Erbaluce...): 34
Others: Pineapple Wine: 3, Sangria (watermelon, purple corn, grilled fruit): 3, Lillet Rosé: 1