Wednesday, February 29, 2012

#256 - Ethiopian Beef & Plantain Stew With Two New World Rhône Blends

Happy Leap Day!

Legend has it that nothing you do on this day counts.

I say with all those quarter-days stacking up, only to burst out into a full-fledged calendar day every four years, it counts!  It counts four times as much as a regular day.

So get outside, go for a jog.  It's beautiful out.  Call your mother and tell her you love her.  Everything counts four times as much.  For the lazy person, this day is "Gold, Jerry!"

Went to the Horn of Africa last night for Ethiopian flavors and came out liking it enough to possibly put it into the weeknight rotation.  Easy to make and a nice diversion in our spice world.

Didn't love it but a solid balance that played well in the world of medium intensity flavors bouncing off each other rather nicely in a small box.

Food:  Ethiopian beef and plantain stew over rice

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

#255 - Jerk Chicken, Biscuits & Pineapple With Two Wines

Here's jerk a Rastafarian would respect.

Heat that permeates every level, delicious citrus complementing the heat with spice and herbs that keeps everything in line.

Not surface heat here.  This went deep along with everything else seeping deeply into the chicken while the heat never crossed the line into eye-watering, mouth-blazing territory.  Marched right up to that line but never crossed it, allowing every other flavors to take its turn at bat.

Instead of cooking the chicken under a brick, this one was roasted upright in the oven in the cast-iron.  The results were something spectacular, bringing a more dirty-delicious caramelization to bits of the chicken skin.

This was one glorious looking chicken when it came out of the oven and the taste delivered on that promise.

Food:  Jerk chicken, cheddar-scallion biscuits and pineapple with radishes

Monday, February 27, 2012

#254 - Sausage, Rapini & Tomato With '09 Palmina Barbera

Everyone frets over the authenticity of foods: its provenance, its ingredients, its handling, the people behind it, etc.

All those things are important but we prefer terrible and terribly funny instructions on the back of, say, a package of orecchiette that tells us to stir "approximately carefully" to tell us what's in the package and who made it.

No faceless corporation or mass-produced factory product allows that!  That's some tremendously small operation that goes to freetranslation.com, cuts and pastes and calls it a day.  Good for them.

Orecchiette, sausage and rapini is a house favorite.  We don't know what we did before discovering it a few years ago and promptly put it in wide rotation.

The joy comes in its simplicity and rusticity.  Soul-satisfying stuff to the nth degree.

Last night's Oscar food was a diversion from the well-worn path, incorporating tomato, carrot, celery and onion, making a stew and mixing it into the traditional form.  A Mario Batali recipe taken from the Palmina site, it's a good one, deep and rich and tasty.  We just ever so slightly missed the rustic, simple Love of the more simple version and its delicious white wine accompaniment.

That said, we ate and drank very well here.

Food:  Orecchiette, sweet sausage and rapini with a mirepoix and tomato base

Thursday, February 23, 2012

#253 - Bison With El Jefe & Lamb Curry With Tavola

Sandwiched between these two meals was a drunken trip to Bar Toma and the Gambero Rosso wine tasting at Union Station.

We're glad we went to Bar Toma.  It's a beautiful space offering an interesting, pan-Italian collection of vittles (revolving around Rome and broadening out) with a nod to something a touch more Mediterranean.  Didn't love it.  Some salting and temperature issues (really across the board on temp) kept it firmly in the world of Like while never sniffing Love.

But the sandwich bread, these two meals along with Shrimp Lunch, brought enough goodness to keep the food weekend (Monday thru Wednesday) in the camp of "That's a break from the workweek and that's the point!"

And I think we wrote off the Ponzi Tavola way too soon a few years ago.

Meal #1:  Bison flank steak with chimichurri and yuca fries with smoked paprika mayo

Monday, February 20, 2012

#252 - Mantuano Shrimp, Sheep Feta & Arugula With Two Wines

Shrimp Lunch!

We finished up the Argiolas Rosado with this meal, which was the wine served with red beans & rice, my first tweet on the Twitter machine for this here blog (look over there --->).  I'm late to things but still patently refuse to Facebook.  No need in my world to know what Johnny McDouchington from high school English is doing these days (Johnny McDouchington, you know who you are).

Today's shrimp recipe is brought to you by Tony Mantuano, he of Spiagga fame (and The Purple Pig collaboration).  We'll be partaking in Bar Toma before the Tre Bicchieri tasting at Union Station tomorrow.  My expectations are...tempered.

But Mr. Mantuano is some crazy genius.  When taking into account the time it takes to prepare black garlic shrimp (infuse the oil, let it cool, blah, blah, blah), this one is too easy-peasy for words.  Five minutes and it's summertime refreshing and delicious.

Food:  Ouzo-flamed shrimp with lemon, parsley and garlic, sheep feta with pink peppercorns and honey and an arugula salad

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

#251 - Blood Orange & Black Olive Tuna With '08 Antica Terra

Boy, the 2008 Oregon pinots are going to be a fun follow.

I have no idea if I'm going to love them but the development and life should be a long, great romp.

If only a touch more fresh acid on the finish existed.  IF. ONLY.

Right now...right now...the 2007 Antica Terra seems to be more together, more composed and expressive of what it is and is going to be.

The 2008 is a bit scatterbrained but precocious.  The talent is there but too many thoughts are floating around in its brain to know what it wants to be.  "I want to be a scientist!  I want to be a astronaut!"

There's no doubt this is going to be a good wine.  Right now, it's a waiting game. Delicious stuff but too all over the place to enjoy it by itself.  With food, with the best freakin' tuna on the planet, the wine followed the food lead like a good little soldier waiting for its time in the sun.

Food:  Blood orange, black olive and pomegranate seed tuna over frisée with Seeduction bread, rose petal jam and Kerrygold butter

Still.  Best.  Tuna.  Ever.  

Monday, February 6, 2012

#250 - Oxtail Ropa Vieja Over Rice With '08 Villa Creek Mas De Maha

Super Bowl dinner.

I'd like to thank NBC for delivering a broadcast so much less LOUD than anything FOX has ever done.  And no dancing robot.  Life is better without dancing gladiator robots (though the trumpets before the trophy ceremony was a bit much).

I'd like to not thank NBC for being less loud because I rather enjoy hating on the Super Bowl.  Haters always be hatin'.  And I'm a hater.  I admit it. It's just so much spectacle for spectacle's sake.

Cassoulet with pink wine used to be Super Bowl tradition.  It's a riff on ropa vieja with Villa Creek Mas de Maha now.  Last year was ropa without the vieja and a 2006 Mas de Maha.  This year, it's oxtail ropa vieja with our second drinking of the 2008.

Food:  Oxtail ropa vieja over white rice and an arugula salad

Thursday, February 2, 2012

#249 - Fregola 'Risotto,' Borlotti Beans & Pancetta With '05 Colonial Estate Exile

We had something close to pairing perfection two days ago.

Right after cracking the Colonial Estate Exile, taking a sip and tasting a chunk of Rogue Smoky Blue, I thought we were going to beat it.  At least approach it.

We didn't beat it but got close.

Tons of extreme like here.

Blood marinated in balsamic.  Who doesn't want that?

Drink it with a big mound of slightly goopy goodness and you got yoself sum lovin'.

Food:  Fregola 'risotto,' borlotti beans, La Quercia pancetta, fennel, shallots, pine nuts, pearl onions, carrots, chicken stock, basil and Rogue Creamery Smoky Blue Cheese

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

#248 - Braised Endive & Tomato Stew-Salad & Scallops With '02 Michel Brégeon Muscadet

Putting the scallops at the end of the title description was on purpose.  They weren't needed and weren't particularly good.

What was good, even great, was everything else.

A Jonathan Waxman recipe, the stew-salad tasted like a garden in the best possible way.  Braised endive!  Who knew?

Mrs. Ney gussied it up with preserved lemon, sunflower seeds and sprouts, lemon thyme and parsley leaves.  While Mr. Waxman might guffaw at such piling on to his more simple, 3-4 ingredient approach to things, with the scallops so lacking in scallopy goodness, we both think the end result might have been better than if the recipe was followed to a tee.

That's because this wine drinks so freakin' well and I'd venture to say this pairing sits in the top 1% of pairing perfection in our world.