The Disagreeable Recipe

Black and White Cookies

2009-04-30T10:09:00.000-07:00

Ngoc and tried this recipe out on a Friday evening a few weeks ago. New York style Black and White cookies are supposed to have a lemony cake-ness to the underlying cookie, according to Ngoc's Baking Illustrated (Bible). However, I posit that this recipe works with ANY cookie...chocolate chip, white chocolate chip chocolate cookie, even gingerbread if you care for that! The takeaway from this is the frosting, which is made with a small amount of corn syrup. Corn syrup makes for an awesomely spreadable consistency. The recipe goes something like:

Black and White Cookies

15-18 Large sized cookies of your choosing
2 oz. Unsweetened Chocolate
1.5 cups Powdered Confectioners Sugar
1/4 cup Corn Syrup
1 tsp Vanilla extract

Start by melting the chocolate. This is best done in a metal bowl suspended over boiling water. The steam heats the bowl enough to melt the chocolate without burning it. When melted remove from heat, or turn down heat so that water is barely simmering.

Mix together powdered sugar, corn syrup, and vanilla until a smooth even consistency is achieved. Pour off half of this mixture into melted chocolate.

Using a baking spatula, gently glaze the white frosting onto one half of a cookie. Quickly glaze the chocolate frosting onto the other half. You will get the hang of this as you go along! An easy method is to glaze on a generous amount of frosting, turn the cookie so that the frosting drips off of one side, and then a few seconds later trim the excess frosting off the edge of the cookie using the edge of the baking spatula.

If at any time the frosting reserves start to dry up, add in a teaspoon of warm water and stir until smooth consistency returns.

2009-04-06T10:24:00.000-07:00

This weekend was my 27th birthday, and Ngoc planned a grand slew of festivities, not least of which was a Saturday evening dinner at Cyrus in Healdsburg. Herein I'm going to try and accomplish the arduous task of recounting our dinner affair, but first a little bit about Cyrus.

Cyrus has actually only been open for roughly three years now. In that short timespan, it's earned 2 Michelin stars, a 4-star rating from the SF Chronicle, and a listing in Gourmet Magazine's Top 50 Restaurants. In short this place is no joke! The reputation can be attributed mainly to exec. chef/owner Douglas Keane. Douglas Keane started his West Coast culinary career working under Traci Des Jardines at Jardiniere. He eventually worked up to the position of Executive Chef at Jardiniere, along the way taking a short leave of absence to work as opening Sous Chef at Gary Danko. It wasn't until 2003 that he parted ways with Traci and the family at Jardiniere to begin his restaurants ventures in Napa and Sonoma Counties with partner Nick Peyton. For those of you into the local SF food scene, having pedigrees from Jardiniere and Gary Danko on your belt is a career-maker in itself.

Immediately after sitting down, you are treated to a prologue palate cleanser. This was not the Amous Bouche! This prequel plating, so to speak, consisted of a variety of tiny flavors. In order, we tasted small guava puree sqaures with mint, seeded braised shitake mushroom rolls, ruby grapefruit bites, and finally "cleansing" pieces of fresh rhubarb and cucumber with hawaiian sea salt.

Our dinner at Cyrus then began in earnest with a small plating of American Paddlefish Caviar. We shared a couple pours of champagne with this, and enjoyed various "fixings" alongside the caviar, including potato cakes and grits patties.

We prompty signed up for their 5-course menu, and chose a couple glasses of Riesling for the first couple courses, which were from the sea and contained some thai spices/flavors. We then moved on to a Pinot Noir from Sherrer, a local boutique winery that is known for their attention to craft.

Our first post-caviar plating was a small Amous Bouche of yellowtail, onions and small greens over a reduced asian sauce not unlike tonkatsu sauce actually, but a little thinner.

This was followed by our first course, a roll of lobster and avocado in thai spices. The lobster was fresh beyond recognition, and a small round of mango that the roll sat on provided some really great sweetness. This course paired better with the wine we were drinking than any other course, in my opinion.

Second, a foie gras pate served alongside a fig jelly. OMG possibly the most delicious thing I have ever eaten. I've had foie gras plenty of times before, both whole and pate. BUT HOLY HELL this took the cake. We're talking melt in your mouth butteriness that was sweet and savory and fruity and all magical flavors of the rainbow. I hope to immortalize those few bites in memory for the rest of my life.

Third was a seared scallop topped with chorizo alongside a baby clam. This was probably the least interesting dish to me, although the texture was definitely wonderful. I wasn't quite sure what the chorizo's purpose was...purely texture? The flavor of the chorizo was bland, since the meat seemed to be very well cooked onto the scallop. {update} Ngoc wants to make sure I note that, while this may have been my least favorite dish, the singular clam served alongside the scallop was the best clam she's ever tasted.

Fourth were our mains. Ngoc had a duck breast and I had a couple small medallions of lamb tenderloin with greens and white corn grits. By now we were well into the Pinot Noir, and the lamb was definitely up to the challenge that the wine presented! The grits were heaven. Come on, grits! Who doesn't love grits! (sorry Ngoc)

Our fifth course, dessert, consisted of a small triangle of tiramisu, a chocolate cardemon gelato, candied fennel in a chocolate foam, and a small espresso "bubble" spoon. The latter was interesting...essentially a chocolate gelatin bubble with a small shot of espresso inside, buried under a froth of milk foam, all to be enjoyed in one large bite! Impressive.

Just when we thought we were done, they wheeled over the "candy bar", and we were treated to our choices of various sweets and treats. There were wine-flavored chocolate truffles, marzapan and dark chocolate bites, candied lychee fruit squares, caramel squares, etc etc so many I can't remember them all.

And top it all off, they sent us out the door with custom printed menus (including the wines and variety of caviar we ordered!) and small gold leaf baggies each containing fudge brownie squares and which read "Tomorrow?"

Wonderful. Are you as exhausted as I am???

Paella and Pork

2009-03-27T22:13:00.000-07:00

So after the SF Chocolate Salon, Alfred Susan Ngoc and I all tag teamed dinner the next evening. Ngoc and I cooked an old standard, our Paella. Alfred and Susan brought to the table a great 7 lb. pork shoulder braise.

Braising is so phenomenal. EVERYONE should be braising ALL the time, it's THAT amazing and simple. If I haven't said it before, you need (a) meat, (b) moisture, (c) acid, and (d) sustained low to medium heat. In this case, the braise was in a white wine / stock sauce. The meat was also treated with a simple salt and herb rub (thyme, a little coriander if i remember correctly. But you can do any combination of whatever, really). Then, 5 hours covered at 350, and viola. So tender, so juicy, so delicious.

The Paella is something Ngoc and I have done many times before, with great success I might add. However this time it just lacked that saffron punch. I attribute it to an extra step I added, where I soaked the saffron threads beforehand. This is actually unnecessary, since they normally just go straight into the paella soup as it starts to boil down. The soak is a redundant step. Never again!

Paella Valenciana

4-6 drumsticks

2 heads of garlic

15 clams OR mussels

1 dozen shrimp, shelled and veined

16 oz. diced tomatoes, in juice

16 oz. garbanzo beans

2 large red peppers, sliced

2 yellow onions, chopped

1/2 lb green beans, halved

3 1/2 cups chicken stock (homemade, preferred)

2 1/2 cups valenciana rice

10-15 threads saffron, crushed

1 tsp dry paprika

4 tbsp olive oil

1 lemon, cut into wedges

In a paella pan (16"+), heat 2 tbsp oil and saute red pepper and garlic until peppers are soft. Remove and set aside.

Heat remaining oil and fry chicken until golden on all sides only. Add onion and saute until translucent. Add back in peppers and garlic. Add broth, tomatoes, saffron, and paprika and simmer for 25 minutes. Add valenciana rice, stirring gently to evenly distribute all ingredients across pan surface.

Allow rice to absorb paella soup. Keep stirring to a minimum, disturbing rice as little as possible. Rice should become crispy on the bottom most layers and be just barely fully cooked on top most layers.

As rice is cooking, add remaining vegetables. With 10 minutes left, add shellfish, gently pushing clams and shrimp into mixture. Serve immediately

SF Chocolate Salon

2009-03-23T10:05:00.000-07:00

Big weekend for food. Alfred and Susan, our wonderful friends relocated to Seattle, are in town for the week to blitzkrieg the bay area and pilfer all its offerings. Alfred and Susan are no strangers to food, so we kicked things off right and dived into the weekend with a Saturday morning trip to the SF Chocolate Salon.

The Chocolate Salon is an annual event where more than 50 chocolate retailers, wholesalers, artisans, entertainers, etc. gather for an anything-goes tastefest in Fort Mason. We crowded in with the masses and learned, among other things, that our weak stomachs unfortunately cannot eat infinite quantities of chocolate.

After the Salon, we checked out Shanghai Dumpling King in the outer Richmond along with a visit to the best restaurant supply store in the universe. Forthcoming, keep your eye out for a post about the meal we cooked the NEXT day.

classic beef stew

2009-03-10T20:34:00.000-07:00

My latest find has been the $10 enamel coated cast iron dutch oven (mini-sized) that I found at an estate sale a couple weeks back. Have you ever been to an estate sale in Albany? It's no joke. Want a crack at any of the good items, and you're lined up with 30 other people at 8am waiting for the front door to open. Kind of sad, really.

But you'll agree it was worth it after making this beef stew recipe. This was adapted from an oxtail stew recipe out of an old cookbook my grandmother gave me. Not wanting to shell out the $$ for oxtail, I bought a simple 2 lb. beef chuck (shoulder) roast and cubed it for this recipe.

Classic Beef Stew

2 lb. beef roast (chuck, round, tri-tip even), cubed

1 cup flour

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

16 ounce can diced tomatoes

3/2 cups beef broth

1/2 cup water

1/2 cup red wine (the dryer, the better)

1 onion, chopped

1 teaspoon sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon thyme, dry

1/2 teaspoon black pepper, ground

1/4 teaspoon red pepper powder

4 medium carrots, halved and sliced

4 medium parsnips, halved and sliced

1 cup frozen peas

Add oil to dutch oven and heat over medium high flame. Add onions and saute until onions begin to caramelize. Remove onions, add more oil if necessary, and add meat. Cook meat until brown (3-4 minutes). Add onions back in, along with tomatoes, beef broth, water, wine, salt, thyme, pepper, and sugar. Bring to boil.

After boil, reduce to simmer on very low heat and cover for two hours.

Skim off fat from stew and add carrots and parsnips. Cover again and simmer for 25 minutes. Stir in peas and cook an additional 5 minutes.

Steak

2009-02-28T07:02:00.000-08:00

Regrettably it's been a while since my last post. Ngoc has been sick and one of the byproducts is the mother in law coming over every day and cooking lunch and dinner. Not many recipes are getting tried as of late, though not to my dismay I'll admit.

One mini-meal I did create last weekend was the ultra classic steak for two. It goes without saying that the basic grilled/broiled beef steak, almost entirely naked, should be a basic arrow in the quiver of any herbivore chef. Pair it with 1 starch and 1 veggie, and you've got a classic American meal.

There are many ways to heat a steak, but I prefer cast iron for it's high conductivity and ability to really get a crispy black surface on each side of meat. Everyone has their preferred cut, but it goes without saying that the quality of meat is going to pay a major factor in the resulting steak, especially since we're doing very little other than adding heat and serving. I prefer rib eye for its fat content. Ngoc prefers filet for its lean but tender texture. New York and sirloin steaks also will work, but bone-in cuts like porterhouse or t-bone are better saved for the broiling rack.

The meat needs a basic coating of fat. This is the first step in ensuring a hot and crispy burn on each surface. You will also need to rub in some salt for a basic flavoring, but just how much is up to you. I coat each side with a thin layer of vegetable oil and maybe a half teaspoon of kosher salt (do not used iodized salt, EVER!)

While heating up the cast iron to medium high heat, melt a couple tablespoons of butter in the skillet. This will come in handy later. I should not that, if you do not have a cast iron skillet, you need to get your pan over BLAZINGLY hot heat to come close to simulating the amount of direct heat that cast iron can send straight to the meat's surface.

Once your butter is melted and bubbling ferociously, place your steaks in the skillet and begin basting the surface of the steaks with the butter. Do this semi-continuously until you are completely done cooking. For a 1.5 inch steak, rare is about 2.5 minutes on each side. For a medium steak, try 2.5 minutes on each side twice for a total of almost 10 minutes. This is the hardest part to convey, and will probably only be perfected after a bit of practice on your end.

Viola! You should have a crispy, buttery, juicy steak ready to serve alongside a glass of red.

Viva El Mar: Fish for the New Year #2, Arctic Char

2009-02-07T08:03:00.000-08:00

Quickly becoming a household tradition is something Ngoc and I call Crab Night. In the winter months, its not uncommon to find us on an otherwise uneventful Friday night steaming a couple live whole crabs and calling it a night. Yesterday we mixed it up a little, since I'm kind of feeling overloaded on crab as of late.

While Ngoc opted for the traditional Dungeness, I instead scored a half pound fillet of fresh arctic char. The char, as you can probably tell from the photos, is a close close relative of salmon, with a very similar taste and firmness that falls apart in layers. It differs in its higher fat content, due to the frigid ocean temperatures in its nature habitat, the arctic circle. It actually is the found farther north than any other freshwater fish, and is listed by fish watch as a sustainably harvested species. In addition, one observation of my own is that char seems a little firmer than salmon...it held up pretty well on the grill over open heat.

The high fat content and firmness lend themselves to a variety of cooking methods. Last night, I goosed the grill and gave her 4 minutes on the skin side of the filet, and 3 minutes on the meat side of the fillet. Over the grill flame, a crunchy crust starts to develop on the meat side of the fillet after 3 minutes. This is good! BUT, you don't want to overdo it and dry the fish out. Accordingly, use the skin side of the fillet to control your meat doneness. If you want a drier, more well cooked piece of fish, go for 5-6 minutes on the skin side, while still maintaining the same 3 minutes on the meat side. My grill was on medium high. After that, a little salt and some pepper, possible a squeeze of lemon, and you're good to go.

Look at that strip of fat! It's like a frikkin' pork chop!

Hopefully this will give you a laugh. We are without a porch light at our new place, so grilling has been done with everything from car headlights to an open back door that spills light out onto the porch. This method seems to work best thus far:

Also, I developed a little recipe for Sweet Potato Fries on the fly last night to go along with the fish. You'll never believe the secret ingredient. After peeling and slicing a couple of sweet potatoes (variety of your choosing, I used Japanese sweet potatoes) into 1/3 inch thick fries, heat up your wok and about 3/4 to a full cup of vegetable oil until a drop of water really sizzles on the oil surface. In batches, fry the fries for about 2 minutes for each batch. In the meantime, pre-heat the oven to 425.

After each batch of fries comes out of the wok, arrange them on a greased cookie sheet. When they've all made it onto the sheet, sprinkle a half teaspoon of GARAM MASALA per potato over the fries, along with a pinch of cayan pepper. Bake for 30 minutes.

After you pull the fries out of the oven, scrape them into a metal bowl and shake with a pinch of kosher shalt. Viola!

Cinnamon Buns with Buttermilk Icing

2009-02-01T11:15:00.000-08:00

Recently, I've been getting more and more into baking. Blame my cold in December, or a sudden interest in being a more useful wife, but it's a new hobby that's testing both my patience and my ability to stay petite in spite of all the sugar and butter I'm eating these days.

After a few frustrating attempts at trying to find a good source for recipes, I finally caved and purchased Baking Illustrated, published by Cooks Illustrated Magazine. Thanks to Susan/Alfred for introducing me to this amazing magazine! I'll have to get a subscription soon.

Our first attempt is their recipe for Cinnamon Buns without yeast! Yes, you CAN make cinnamon buns with just baking powder.

What I like about this book is that there's always a narrative before each major recipe that describes the steps and thought-process that were taken to develop the recipe. For example, for the below recipe, they went through a series of different options for the liquid base: heavy cream, whole milk, skim milk, and buttermilk. They concluded that whole milk made the buns too heavy, and skim milk made the dough too rough and bland. Buttermilk won out.

You'll need exactly one stick of melted butter. Melt it all at once and use as you need it. The buns are best eaten warm, but can hold up well for up to 2 hours.

Ingredients
1 tablespoon unsalted butter, melted, for greasing the pan.

Cinnamon-Sugar Filling
3/4 cup packed dark brown sugar
1/4 cup granulated sugar
2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon unsalted butter, melted

Biscuit Dough
2 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour, plus additional flour for work surface
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/4 cups buttermilk
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled

Icing
2 tablespoons cream cheese, softened
2 tablespoons buttermilk
1 cup confectioners' sugar

Instructions
1. Adjust an oven rack to the upper-middle position and heat the oven to 425-degrees. Pour 1 tablespoon of the melted butter into a 9-inch nonstick round cake pan, brush to coat the pan.

2. FOR THE FILLING: Combine the sugars, spices, and salt in a small bowl. Add 1 tablespoon of the melted butter and stir with a fork until the mixture resembles wet sand. Set aside. This is key - make sure the mixture is like wet sand. Ours turned out a little too dry with this and as a result, our filling had a hard time staying inside the buns.

3. FOR THE DOUGH: Whisk the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl. Whisk the buttermilk and 2 tablespoons of the melted butter in a measuring cup or a small bowl. Add the liquid to the dry ingredients and stir with a wooden spoon until the dough is absorbed for 30 seconds. The dough will look very shaggy. Transfer the dough to a lightly floured work surface and knead until just smooth and no longer shaggy.

4. Pat the dough with your hands into a 12 by 9-inch rectangle. Brush the dough with 2 tablespoons of the melted butter. Sprinkle the filling evenly onto the dough, leaving a 1/2-inch border of plain dough around the edges. Press the filling firmly into the dough. Using a bench scraper or metal spatula, loosen the dough from the work surface. Starting at the long side, roll the dough, pressing lightly to form a tight log. Pinch the seam to seal. Roll the log seam-side down and cut it evenly into 8 pieces. With your hand, slightly flatten each piece of dough to seal the open edges and keep the filling in place. Place 1 roll in the center of the prepared nonstick pan, then place the remaining 7 rolls around the perimeter of the pan. Brush the remaining 2 tablespoons butter.

5. Bake until the edges of the buns are golden brown, 23-25 minutes. Use an offset metal spatula to loosen the buns from the pan. Wearing oven mitts, place a large plate over the pan and invert the buns onto the plate. Then, place a greased cooling rack over the plate and invert the buns onto the rack. Cool for about 5 minutes before icing.

we didn't realize we needed to roll the dough so tight, so our filling made a bit of a mess

but it's nothing a little sugar buttermilk glaze can't hide

6. While the buns are cooling, line some parchment paper underneath the buns/cooling rack to avoid making a mess. Whisk the cream cheese and the buttermilk in a large bowl until thick and smooth. It will look like cottage cheese at first. Sift the confectioners' sugar over the mixture and whisk until a smooth glaze forms, about 30 seconds. Then, spoon the glaze over the buns. Serve immediately.

Enjoy!

Cioppino

2009-01-27T10:25:00.000-08:00

Here's a fun, simple and somewhat easy recipe that Ngoc suggested we try last Friday evening. The hardest part is getting all the seafood from your local grocer!

As far as I know, the central tenant of cioppino is a tomato-based soup, with, at the very least, crab, some shellfish, and a white fish of choice. Believe it or not, Cioppino isn't some age-old Italian recipe. It was actually developed by Italian fisherman in the wharfs of San Francisco mid 1800's.

Cioppino

From the Sea:

1/2 crab, precooked (bite me)

1 lb white fish of your choice, fresh (cod, red/pacific snapper, halibut)

1 lb either mussels or clams

1 dozen medium prawns

From the Land:

2 medium onions, chopped

4 cloves garlic, diced

1 tsp. dried oregano

1/2 tsp. chili powder

1 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. black pepper, ground

2 tbsp. tomato paste

1 28 oz. can whole tomatos, sliced, juice reserved

1 cup chicken broth

1 cup dry white wine

1 cup bottled clam juice

1 bay leaf

3 tbsp. olive oil

Start out browning your onions in the olive oil in a pot over medium high heat. Add oregano, chili powder, bay leaf, and stir constantly. Once onions are brown, add garlic and simmer for 1 minutes. Add tomato paste, and stir until dissolved.

Reduce heat and add white wine. Reduce for 4 - 5 minutes, and then add remaining wet ingredients, tomatoes, broth, and clam juice. Once warm, taste and season with salt and black pepper as necessary. Allow to stew on low heat for 30 minutes

If using uncooked shrimp, add the shells, shrimp, and fish and cook for 5 minutes. Cooked shrimp should instead be added with crab. Add crab and stew for another few minutes until hot. Serve immediately with toasted sourdough bread.

This should result in a medium hot Cioppino. If you like it spicy, crank up the powdered chili to a full tsp. or more! You can also easily add long grain rice to this and turn it into a Jambalaya-ish stew.

Fish for the New Year #1: Pacific Cod in Coconut Milk Sauce

2009-01-23T09:30:00.000-08:00

[Note: pictures to follow]

Fish! Versatile, agreeable, healthy (omega 3's and 6's!), and delicious. What's not to love? Part one of an I'm-not-sure-how-many part series for 2009 celebrating that adorable un-meat called fish!

Pacific cod is a white, moderately dense fish that responds well to steaming, baking, and even frying. You may remember cod from such memorable wonders as Fish 'n Chips, Cioppino, and the cod-piece. It's also usually half the price of its fresh caught child-prodigy younger brother, Pacific Halibut. There's a good reason for that. Cod, like other fish from the family Gadidae, each produce several million eggs at spawning, making them highly prolific in their habitats and very commercially fishable. Cooked correctly and with care, basic steamed cod comes out pearly white with fleshy, thick pieces of meat separating easily at the grain. Add a little lemon juice, and viola!

On Monday night, Ngoc and I opted to cook a beautiful, fresh 1.8 lb. fillet of cod with a spicy coconut milk sauce. Warning, this recipe is not for the faint of heart. Its a veritable ground zero of ingredients.
Baked Cod in Spicy Coconut Milk Cream Sauce

The Fresh:

2 lb. Cod fillet

2 cups chopped onion

3 garlic cloves, minced

2 tsp. finely chopped ginger (not dry!)

1 tsp. minced serrano chile

1 cup diced tomatoes

4 tbsp. juice of lemon

1/4 cup chopped cilantro

The Dry:

6 tsp. ground coriander

1 tsp. cumin powder

1/4 tsp. ground black pepper

1/4 tsp. cayenne pepper powder

1/4 tsp. turmeric powder

1/2 tsp. fennel seeds, preferably ground (or whole)

1 tsp. salt

The Uncategorized:

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

3/4 cup unsweetened coconut milk

1 tbsp. cider vinegar

Add oil to a pan and cook onions over medium high heat until starting to brown. Add garlic and cook an additional 30 seconds. Add ginger and green chile, cooking for another two minutes. Add tomatoes, dry ingredients, and cider vinegar and saute until tomato chunks break down. Add coconut milk and simmer for another 5-10 minutes on lower heat until sauce thickens.

Meanwhile, rub the cod with the lemon juice on each side and place in a lightly oiled baking dish (cut the fillet in half if you have to!). Bake, uncovered, for 10 minutes in a 350 degree oven. Remove cod from over and cover with coconut milk sauce. Cover tightly with foil and return to the oven for another 15 minutes.

Serve over a carb of your choice, gently sprinkling cilantro over fish before serving.

We actually ate the fish over a smear of mashed creamer potatoes. For those of you unwise to the ways of mashed potatoes, never make them without (1) garlic and (2) cheese! It will change your life.

Also adding to the antics that night was our realization, mid recipe, that our can of coconut milk had separated and gone bad. Canned food going back, wtf? That's where I made a clutch call that if we added a bit of cider vinegar, and a shot of lemon juice, the sauce would be wet enough to eat without coconut milk. Not so. the dry ingredients and serrano really make the sauce inedible without the milk to temper the spiciness. So I threw on some shoes and made a safeway run in record time, salvaging the night and the fish!

2007 Ventoso Toscano Red

2009-01-19T09:59:00.000-08:00

I'll admit that I am not terribly well versed in non-domestic wines. Its pretty easy, living in the Bay, to get locked into domestic varietals. Zins, Cabs, Merlots, I'm pretty comfortable with. But characterizing a good Italian wine is definitely stepping out of my element.

Nonetheless, its one of my many goals for the new year. Get to know French and Italian wines. I started this goal in earnest last Wednesday night by grabbing a 2007 Ventoso Toscano red wine from the Vine Street wine shop.

Only a year off the vine and this bashful little red is already very drinkable. A moderate nose of fruit and a little wood leads to a variety of flavors up front. Cool rose petals and melon as well as some strawberry characterize this somewhat dry wine. Its fruitiness reminds me of a Pinot Noir, with enough clout to tackle medium-heavy meats. The tastes don't stick around, and a few seconds later the flavors are gone, with very little left to linger.

Edit: after a little research, I discovered that this wine is 65% Sangiovese, 25% Canaiolo, and 10% from local Tuscan grapes. Sangiovese is huge in Tuscany. Also, the practice of mixing Tuscan grapes with more popular varietals is a well-known and regionally renouned practice, resulting in wines referred to as "Super-Tuscans"!

Chicken in Sun-Dried Tomato Cream and Israeli Cous Cous

2009-01-15T09:52:00.000-08:00

I'm not much of a braiser. Its not that I don't like juicy, tender, slow cooked meats. Rather, I just always had an excuse...whether it be equipment, time, or know-how...to opt for a much simpler cooking method.

The formula for braising is simple. (1) Low Heat (2) Moisture (3) Acid (4) Time. Braising is designed to break down the collagen and connective tissues in tougher cuts of meat, while at the same time infusing it with deeply flavored and textured sauce. Take a sturdy pot or Dutch Oven, add oil, brown some pork shoulder, add enough wine to half-submerge the meat and an hour or two of low heat, and viola, you've just invented braising in its most basic form.

On Wednesday, I was tasked with using Ngoc's sun-dried tomatos from the ferry building farmer's market to create something delicious.

Braised Chicken Breast in Sun-Dried Tomato Cream Sauce

(makes 2 servings)
1 large chicken breast, halved

3/4 cup sun-dried tomatos, coarsely chopped

2 tsp. olive oil

2 cloves garlic, diced

3 tsp. fresh basil, finely chopped

1/2 cup half&half (or cream)

1/3 cup dry white wine

1/2 tsp. salt

In a dutch oven, deep cast iron skillet or pot, or other thick-walled pot, heat oil and brown chicken for a few minutes on each side. Salt chicken in pot, once on each side, before turning. Add garlic and saute for 30 seconds. Reduce heat to low.

Once pot has cooled, add half&half, wine, and sun-dried tomatoes. Cover and cook on low for 10-12 minutes, or until chicken is cooked through. Remove chicken. Add basil to cream sauce and continue to cook on medium heat until thickened. Serve over chicken.

I'm not gonna lie, Ngoc even commented that this was one of the best dishes I'd ever made. And so simple! If you are wild about the sauce, it'd be easy to double the sauce ingredients, triple the amount of cream, and reduce that down even further after cooking the chicken to a super rich and creamy topping similar in consistency to alfredo. Yum!

On Wednesday I also cooked up some Israeli couscous to go along with the chicken. Previously unknown fact, Israeli couscous is not actually couscous! Couscous is moistened, whole semolina wheat rolled in wheat flour, while Israeli couscous is actually a pasta-like product, similar to Orzo, made completely from shaped wheat flour.

Israeli couscous is so customizable! The basic basic method of preparing is in a pot or high-walled skillet pan on low heat, ladelling in 1/2 cup after 1/2 cup of vegetable or chicken broth until the Israeli couscous is spongy when pressed with the bottom of a fork. A little salt and pepper for tasting, and done.

My simple variation folded in some chopped parsley and a squirt of lemon juice at the end, but the possibilities are endless. Next time I might throw in a spoon or two of tomato paste.

Fettucini Carbonara

2009-01-05T20:51:00.000-08:00

I can't exactly tell you why I had been wanting to make a hearty Carbonara lately. Maybe I have been oogling one too many pictures of cured meat (porn) lately. Maybe I'm just carb-deprived. Either way, Ngoc deserves a silver star putting up with my eagerness all weekend.

This is a laughingly easy and quick dish to make. This recipe is a hybrid of the time-tested (read:outdated) entry in my Better Homes manual, and a popular entry on AllRecipes.com. Not wanting it to be so eggy, and craving a healthy dose of fromaaaage, I added a couple tweaks.

Fettucini Carbonara

8 oz. dry fettucini

1/2 cup cream or half & half

3/4 cup grated parmesan cheese

1 shallot, diced

1/4 yellow onion, diced

2 cloves garlic, dices

2 bacon-thick slices pancetta (2-3 oz.) dices

1 tbsp. butter

2 egg yolks

3 tsp. olive oil

1 tsp. freshly ground pepper

Bring a pot of water to boil and toss in fettucini to cook. In the meantime, dice shallots, onion, garlic, and pancetta. Once the fettucini is cooked, remove from pot and replace with olive oil. Once oil it heated, add onions, shallots, and garlic, stirring until translucent. Add pancetta, stirring occasionally.

In a bowl, whisk together egg yolks and cream until evenly mixed. In a separate pan, melt butter. While butter is melting, add pasta back into the pot and mix with garlic, shallots, pancetta, and onion until pasta is well oiled. Reduce heat to pasta pot, but do not extinguish heat entirely.

Add cream and yolk mixture to butter and whisk thoroughly until mixture is heated evenly. Do not stop whisking or else egg will solidify. After 1 - 2 minutes whisking yolk/butter/cream mixture, pour over pasta. Add parmesan cheese and mix well until cheese is melted. Serve immediately with freshly ground pepper.

Notes: the end product was dangerously yummy, but if i had to do it again, I would try to reduce the saltiness. I think the amount of pancetta used in the recipe is definitely more than enough to flavor the entire dish....Also, parmesan cheese might be reduced to 1/2 cup for you cheese loathers out there. Either of these two edits might help bring down the saltiness a notch or so. This dish is not for the faint of heart, literally! Make sure you do cardio beforehand, or else you'll regret that you didn't.