Thursday, November 20, 2014

TWIB Notes: This Week In Bottles

Wine-Searcher does a fantastic job with their 'Producer Portraits.'

I learn buckets with each one. Ponzi this week (40% of their production is pinot gris?). La Rioja Alta last week (They make albariño in O Rosal?). Good stuff.

Quickie round-up. It's 'clean out the freezer' time again.

Monday: Mustardized chicken and asparagus with mashed potatoes, served with 2008 Domaine Fourrier Bourgogne Blanc ($30 - Vin Chicago)

Take freezer breasts, try a "velveting" technique because you hear that's a thing, make a pan sauce with whole grain, dijon and ground mustard, broil the asparagus in the leftover fond, make mash (leave the skins on, you fussy-pants people - skins be good for ya). Put all of it on a plate and go to town. Simple. Basic. Good.

Fancify it with good wine. Frenchy-focused food, so open Frenchy-French wine. It works. This entry-level bottling from Domaine Fourrier has been sitting in the house for over three years, slowly getting lost in the shuffle. Sometimes, the wine you have starts to lose its cachet. You forget why you bought it, why it was a good value, why the person selling it to you thought it was so good (feels like an Amy or Sean rec.). It becomes just another bottle in the house. Then you open it, jus' cuz, gotta drink it, and say, "Holy Hell!"

Jumpy minerals, sparkly Asian fruit mixed with French pear, and a creamy, slate-like accent that makes quality, simple white Burgundy so damn good. Still young. Throw this one in with Domaine de Roally, serve them to people who don't think there's value to be had in France, and show them why they're thinking like a silly person.

Thursday, November 13, 2014

Dirty Rice With 2011 Jean Foillard Morgon Côte du Py

Chicken livers, andouille chicken sausage, and ground pork.

Onions, scallions, wild rice, garlic, celery, green pepper, bay, thyme, and pecans.

Good flavors we like.

And onions and chicken livers were key with this delicious dirty rice recipe from Susan Spicer. Beaujolais likes onions and chicken livers provided the iron-y, blood-like background that matched up with similar notes in this Morgon, turning this next-level Beaujolais into a matchy pairing wizard with the food. While it sucked with an andouille bite, it was so "gee-whiz!" delicious with everything else.

Some alterations. This recipe serves 10. We're not 10 people. So less rice, less chicken stock, and fewer chicken livers. Added pecans, which beefed up the dish but added little in terms of flavor. And the aforementioned chicken sausages (Whole Foods) that brought more beefiness, but just didn't match up with the wine.

The result with dirty rice with more girth, yet stayed in that realm of "this is utterly filling, completely delicious, strangely complex, kinda magical, and I don't feel like I need to buy bigger pants."

We both loved it. Anyone want chicken livers? Cuz we have tons.

Tuesday dinner is the one meal of the week that Mrs. Ney makes certain has a certain swagger-newness-fanciness to it. This meal, on its surface, might not seem like such. We ate it on Tuesday and it lives up to the house Tuesday standard.

And it's easy enough to whip out on a weekday night. Gluten and dairy-free to boot, if that matters to you.

The 2011 Jean Foillard Morgon Côte du Py ($41 - Lush) helped make it that way. This isn't spicy food (though the homemade Scotch bonnet hot sauce we brought to the table...don't go to the bathroom right after you've handled hot sauce THIS hot...jus' saying) and this isn't heavy food. Good Beaujolais has guts inside its medium-light body. Good match.  Crunchy dark raspberries and a touch of smoke, hint of dark chocolate, floral-rosey aroma, and tons of pretty dark forest-y dirt. But really, it was defined by the texture. Silky smooth, almost like thinned out blood that matched up with a touch of iron in very defined and memorable ways.

We don't drink a ton of Beaujolais for some inexplicable reason. Always loved Marcel LaPierre. And we have a few 2011's, a great vintage for Beaujolais, particularly Morgon. Need to drink more.

This was lovely, shockingly light dirty rice with deep flavors. The Jean Foillard made it complete.

Wednesday, November 12, 2014

Thomas Keller Buttermilk Fried Chicken & Biscuits With Trader Joe's North Coast Sparkling











I really should take better pictures...

You can buy Thomas Keller's Ad Hoc At Home, or you can simply search for the recipes. But you really should buy it, because it's enormous (and fussy), and detailed (and fussy), and gets you into the head of the guy who makes damn good food (and fussy), and kinda awesome.

This is our third time taking a fatty-delicious dip into the TK buttermilk fried chicken waters (last two). A lesson to be learned with TK BFC is that you might have the urge to pop a spendy Champagne with such meticulously prepared and somewhat laborious fried chicken. You might. You say it warrants such things, you put in hard work and should be rewarded. Well, you resist that urge. We've done it and the buttermilk gobbles up much of the nuance. You end up separating bites from sips, taking a pause between, in order to find the Champagne goodness, instead of rolling up your sleeves and getting all down-and-dirty with the chicken and bubbles. Thinking about how much you spent on the wine should never enter the equation here. You want to become a remorseless eating machine with chicken like this.

Buttermilk fried chicken recipe here. Buttermilk biscuits here. A frisée salad with Rogue blue cheese, roasted tomatoes and croutons to mimic wedge salad (Ad Hoc recipe as well), because frankly, iceberg lettuce in wedge salad form is something I crave about once every two years, then I have three bites and I'm pretty much done. Frisée is a better choice here. It does a better mop-up job on your throat and tummy with the buttermilk bounty.

Thursday, November 6, 2014

It's Been Six Weeks...

Husk Restaurant
This blog isn't dead and I haven't been busy.

FAR from busy.

Which is too bad in ways, because I've forgotten many of the details of some very good meals and solid pairings that should have been detailed.

But let's try in stream-of-consciousness form.

Ten days in Portugal in September left us wanting, even bordering on annoyed. There just wasn't enough 'vacation' in it, not enough 'holy crap!' to it. So with our first round-number anniversary approaching, getting the heck out of Dodge again was necessary. Personally, I think Portugal might have been fine enough if not for a couple of meals that put the nail in the Portuguese food coffin. "Wait for it, wait for it, I bet we get potatoes AND rice and overdone meat again. Here it comes. Put your bets in. YEP!" I'm a snob and Spain spoiled me. Plus, it might have been fine - it WAS insanely relaxing - but that Newark passport-control line. Oh, that line. 300 people and four booth attendants. Screw you, Newark! Screw you! I no longer love you!