Food Night

The Food Night Cheeseburger

2012-01-19T21:32:00.008-06:00

One of Food Night’s most crowd pleasing and easy to make dishes is…. The Cheeseburger. Food Night’s “slider” is inspired by the cheeseburger at the 112 Eatery. Simple, tasty, and guaranteed to turn a vegetarian into a carnivore (at least for one night), the slider comes together in no time.

But before we get into the how-to, let’s go over the fundamentals. Food Night’s Four Burger Commandments, if you will (and even if you won’t);

1). CAST IRON. It’s how Food Night cooks burgers. Grilling is great of course, particularly in the summer, but try cast iron. Mkay? A pan costs $18 and lasts for life. Or longer.

2). FAT. Moderation makes every good thing better by preserving its “wow” factor. Not this gal’s version of moderation, but ACTUAL moderation*. If you are going to make a burger… make a REAL burger. Don’t make some 95% lean crumbly dry beef frisbee. Fat is part of a proper burger. And as such, there will be fat in this recipe. Do not be afraid. Embrace it, and treat yourself once in a while, in moderation.

*Food Night is obviously not happy about anyone’s misfortune… but it kiiiiiiinda seems like Paula Deen contracting Type 2 Diabetes is about as surprising as getting wet while taking a shower. If Food Night is remembering things correctly, “gluttony” is one of the Seven Deadly Sins, while “moderation”… is not.

3). THE ENGLISH MUFFIN. Can you use your favorite hamburger bun instead? Of course. Will it be as good as an English Muffin? No. Get a nice thick English Muffin like Wolferman’s, available at Kowalski’s in the Twin Cities. Brands like Thomas and Crystal Farms are great for toasting and holding your favorite morning preserves… but will fail miserably as a burger delivery system.

4). GARNISH. Quality Triple Cream Cheese and pickles. The End. Nothing else. Bacon, ketsup, mustard, mayo, lettuce, tomato, fried egg, foie gras… all wonderful things. All don’t go on this burger. Food Night uses a super delicious Delice de Bourgogne, also available at Kowalski’s. You want a cheese that isn’t overly salty (there is plenty of salt in the burger already), and has some ripeness/acidity/tartness that will cut through the richness of the burger. The Delice de Bourgogne is a fabulous choice.

The Food Night Cheeseburger is rich, decadent, and delicious. Please do not operate heavy machinery after consumption, as the consumer of said cheeseburger has a tendency to nap shortly after consumption. Kinda like this guy.........

The Food Night Cheeseburger
Serves 4

For the Cheeseburger
1lb ground beef (80% lean, at most)
4 egg yolks
3T butter
1 medium shallot, finely diced
1T fresh tarragon, finely chopped(optional, but encouraged)
Kosher salt
English Muffin
Triple Cream Cheese

For the Pickles
1 English or pickling cucumber
Rice wine vinegar
1 Fresno chile
Salt

1). Make pickles. Slice cucumber and Fresno chile as thinly as possible on a mandolin. Layer cucumber in a very small bowl, add small pinch salt and as much sliced chile as you like. Add additional layer(s) of cucumber and chile and salt. Add enough vinegar to mostly submerge. If your bowl is small enough, you should only need ½ cup or so of vinegar. When your burger is ready, the pickles will be too.

2). In a large bowl, add beef, yolks, tarragon and salt to taste (don’t be bashful with the salt, Food Night uses about 2 teaspoons for a pound of beef, perhaps more). Saute the shallot in the butter over medium heat until translucent, and add the butter/shallot mixture to the beef. Mix everything together with your hands. Let stand at room temp for 20 minutes.

3). Heat a well seasoned 12’’ cast iron pan over medium-low to medium heat (maybe 4 out of 10). Form beef into thick ¼ lb patties.

4). When hot, but not smoking, place burgers into the pan. Do not overcrowd the pan. If you made the burgers thick enough, you will have enough room to cook all 4 at once. Cook for approx 3 minutes per side, a tad longer if you must. The goal is to achieve a nice crust on the exterior and a medium (hot pink) center.

5). Remove burgers to a plate when done, turn the heat down to low-ish on the pan , and put the cut* side down of two English muffins in the pan. Press down, cooking until caramelized. Yes, there are burger remnants in the pan, and yes you want them on your English Muffin. You’ll be able to toast two English Muffins at a time, add more butter to the pan for the second batch.

*It’s worth using a sharp knife to make a clean cut in the English Muffin, rather than separating it with a fork or your fingers as you may do for breakfast. The cleaner cut caramelizes better in the pan.

6). Place burger on English muffin, top with a hefty slice of cheese, and cover with the hot English muffin top. Wait 1 minute to allow cheese to begin to melt (yes, WAIT. 1 minute. You can do it). Devour with the pickles. And beware of your neighbors at the table.........

Happy Thanksgiving

2011-11-24T20:55:00.004-06:00

Food Night would like to take a moment to express thanks to everyone that has brought their time, resources and intellect to the table these past few years. And of course, thanks to every one of you that has read the musings on these pages. This is just the beginning.

Happy Thanksgiving!

P.S. – If you are looking for how to prep your turkey in future years, look no further than this roast/braise combo from Michael Ruhlman. That's how Food Night rolled this year, to absolutely perfect results...

Proper Pan Roasted Chicken

2011-11-15T20:01:00.013-06:00

Chicken. Some say it’s boring. Some even use it as a catch all “flavor” descriptor for bland and boring food stuffs. “Tastes like chicken” has basically become a punch line. So take your chicken to the next level by following these simple steps, and you’ll be amazed how delicious chicken can be.

Before we get to the technique involved here, let’s touch on three things you can do before the fowl hits the frying pan that will facilitate success:

1. The pan. Use properly seasoned cast iron. Or, use a nice stainless steel pan (such as All Clad). A 12’’ pan will allow you to cook 1 or 2 pieces of chicken. Never exceed 2 pieces in one pan.

2. The pan must be hot. Not warm, not nuclear… but hot.

3. The chicken. If at all possible, buy your chicken at Heartland. Why? Because the chicken there is fresh, properly butchered, and air dried in the cooler so the skin is DRY. Which is a very good thing, since it’s impossible to crisp up wet, soggy skin. If you can’t get to Heartland, buy an ethically raised, hormone free, skin on chicken breast, leave it UNCOVERED on a plate in your refrigerator for two or three days to dry out the skin. And yes, this step is worth it if you don't get your poultry at Heartland.

Pan Seared Airline Chicken Breast

1 (or 2) Kadejan Farms Airline* Chicken Breast(s)
Oil (not olive, ideally peanut or grapeseed, but canola would suffice)
Butter
Salt (kosher for seasoning, Maldon for garnish)

*An “Airline” chicken breast leaves the first joint of the wing (i.e. the “drummie”) attached to the breast. Also, the skin is left on, which is key, since it’s hard to get crispy skin without, you know… the skin. And you absolutely do want crisp skin on your chicken.

1. Take the chicken out of the refrigerator 30 minutes prior to cooking, pat any moisture off the chicken with paper towels, and place skin side down on a plate. Sprinkle kosher salt over the flesh side. Preheat the oven to 375.

2. Put your dry pan on the stove over medium to med-high heat. When it’s hot (not warm, not nuclear), film your pan with oil, a generous teaspoon per piece of chicken. It should instantly ripple, perhaps smoke slightly. Add the chicken skin side down, and note the loud sizzle when it hits the pan.

3. Saute for 2 to 3 minutes on the stove, add butter (approximately 1 tablespoon per piece of chicken) to the pan, gently lift* one side of the chicken so that the melted butter has a chance to get between the skin and the pan.

*If your chicken is stuck to the pan… forget lifting it, and just put the pan with the butter in the oven. Maybe try to lift it again after it’s been in the oven 5 or 10 minutes.

4. Put the pan in the oven for 15-20 minutes, depending on size of chicken.

5. Chicken is done at an internal temperature of 165F. If chicken isn’t done after 15-20 minutes, turn chicken skin side up and return to the oven until done. Note chicken will continue to cook approximately another 5 degrees after it’s removed from the oven. When done, allow chicken to rest on a plate for 4ish minutes before slicing.

6). Garnish with Maldon. Devour* while standing over the sliced meat in the kitchen, or in a civilized manner at the table with your favorite accompaniment(s) (Dijon mustard? Sriracha? Mixed green salad? Caramelized brussles sprouts and a sunny side up duck egg?........).

*Make sure you freeze the wing bone in a freezer safe bag, to reserve for making chicken stock. You’ll be making this chicken often enough that you’ll have a bag full of wings in no time.

Grilled Sweet Corn Ice Cream

2011-10-30T17:58:00.003-05:00

Food Night is excited to bring you this timely* post at the height* of sweet corn season in the upper Midwest;

*False. Though it was timely a short while ago.

Do you have in ice cream maker? Well, if you have one of these…

… then, yes, you do. And if you do have a Kitchen Aid, and you are reading this, then you should own this and this. The pasta attachment and the ice cream attachment are two things Food Night really wouldn’t be the same without. Well, those two things and plenty of this…

Anyway, Food Night VERY passionately endorses making your own ice cream. In all seriousness, it is A). Easy, and B). Vastly superior to anything you can buy in a grocery store, and you can buy some pretty deece stuff these days.

So if you’ll allow Food Night to spend your money for you; buy the ice cream attachment, and then buy this book. It’s all you need. Well, that and this recipe for…

Grilled Sweet Corn Ice Cream

5 egg yolks
1c whole milk
1c cream
6T sugar
2 ears corn
Pinch salt
1T bourbon
Pinch cinnamon (optional, but recommended)
Pinch paprika (smoked, preferably… optional, but recommended)

1). Grill corn on med-high direct heat, while still in the husks, until husks are blackened on all sides (seriously, blacken the hell out of them). Remove husks, some kernels should have slight to moderate char. Cut kernels off cobs, cut cobs in half and reserve.

2). Combine milk, cream, sugar, corn, cobs, and salt in a sauce pan. Bring to a boil. Add cinnamon and paprika if using. Remove cobs from the pan, puree corn/cream mixture with an immersion blender, retrun cobs to pan and steep for an hour.

3). After an hour, remove cobs, squeezing liquid from the cobs back into the pan. Set up a medium bowl in an ice bath. Wisk yolks together in a separate medium bowl. Rewarm corn/cream mixture, and temper the yolks by pouring the warm cream mixture into the yolks very slowly while constantly stirring.

4). Return mixture to the pan, and the stove, and cook slowly on med-lowish heat, stirring constantly and scraping the bottom of the pan, until the mixture reaches at least 170 degrees, or the custard coats the back of a spoon.

5). Pour mixture through a (medium mesh) strainer into the bowl in the ice bath, add bourbon, and stir to cool for a moment.

6). Strain. Strain. Strain. And once you’ve finished straining the mixture, strain it again. (Recommend; start with the medium mesh strainer, as the mixture isn’t pureed terribly finely by the immersion blender. Then do at least 1 preferably 2 passes through a fine mesh strainer. Straining is KEY to a smooth result).

7). Cover the mixture with plastic wrap pressed directly on the surface of the custard. Chill overnight. Then freeze in your ice cream maker according to manufacturer’s instructions.

Have a Passion

2011-09-18T23:04:00.001-05:00

Random thoughts reflecting on an absolutely perfect Food Night last night….

My favorite apron, a gift from Niver + Grandma Eastman's napkins + Calera corks + a broken glass = Food Night.

At the table last night, we discussed when a wine becomes “more” than just a beverage. It’s a hard concept to convey, and is certainly a subjective topic. One person’s perfection is another’s blahsville. Last night we had a wine that approached the wine stratosphere. 2003 Solaia…

Can there be a “best” Food Night? Each one is so unique and gratifying and memorable. That’s why we started documenting these things on the WWW’s, so we could remember them all. The flawless summer night we sat outside and enjoyed the 1996 Calera Reed. The night we had the 1999 Fay, or the 2001 Monte Bello, or the 2000 Dunn. All the truly fabulous guests we’ve shared the table with. Each experience lends something to the collective. And the collective has become something I honestly can’t imagine being without.

The lineup of wines last night was bordering on ridiculous. 2007 Clos Des Papes. Antinori….. not once but twice. 1997 Tignanello and 2003 Solaia. Calera…. not once but twice. Both Mt. Harlan Chardonnays, 2009 and 2004, and a cool discussion about “I thought white wines didn’t age”. Well, clearly certain ones do.

We are wine-obsessed. We care a little too much, and get a little too excited about wine. But it’s brilliant to have a passion. If you’ve got a passion, share it. Cultivate it. Grow it. Some get to go to work and immerse themselves in their passion. I know lots of those people, and I admire, respect and somewhat envy them. Others work to have the means to do what they love. I’m starting to get comfortable living on that side of the coin. The important thing is to have a passion, or four, or twelve. Care so much about something that it makes you want to grab random strangers and inundate them with said passion. Whether that passion is music, legos, the color blue or wine. Have a passion. And be passionate.

The Food Night table was filled with passionate people last night. And that was a beautiful thing.

Food Night hopes you are indulging in your passions as often as possible.

Chicken Skewers

2011-09-06T09:27:00.005-05:00

Sticks. They can put an eye out, says your mother. But they can also stab portions of protein slathered in a spice paste. In this iteration, we have chicken… the humble* boneless skinless chicken breast, in fact. It’s on a stick, it’s not deep fried (copyright MN State Fair), and you can whip it up in no time. Food Night had some extra time on it’s hands, so we went a little ga-ga with the garnish, so feel free to edit as desired.

*And by humble, Food Night of course means BLAH.

Chicken; On a Stick
Serves 4 as a first course/small plate

For the spice paste
1 clove Garlic, shaved thin
1/2t caraway seed
2t coriander seed
1t alleppo chile flakes (find at Penzey’s)
Zest from 1 lime
White peppercorns to taste
Salt to taste

Combine all ingredients in a large mortar and pestle and pulverize into a paste. Stir in a couple tablespoons of toasted sesame oil.

For the Chicken
1 whole boneless skinless breast*, cut into large, equally sized chunks
Skewers, soaked in water for an hour or more

*And by “whole”, Food Night means all of the breast meat that would be found on a chicken.

Slather the chicken chunks in the paste, let stand for at least an hour, preferably 4hrs. Overnight would actually be ideal.

For the pickles
Juice of ½ the lime
Pickling cukes, halved lengthwise, seeded, cut into pea size dice
Serrano chile, shaved thin on a mandolin (optional)
White wine vinegar
Salt

Combine all ingredients in a small container, let stand at least 30 minutes.

For the Garnish
Fresh peach, chopped
Mangalitsa coppa, from Heartland*, shaved thin
Blanched, shocked, grilled garlic scapes, from Heartland*
Microgreens (Heartland*)

*Obviously.

To assemble
Remove the chicken in the paste from the refrigerator, skewer (2 pieces per skewer), leaving space between each piece of meat. Then, ALLOW CHICKEN TO REST ON THE COUNTER 20 minutes prior to grilling.*

*As you can see by the capital letters, Food Night is trying to emphasize that this is an important step. Food from fridge to fire results in faulty food lacking in proper caramelization and doneness. And honestly, it’s about the EASIEST thing you can do. Actually you don’t even have to “do” anything… just let the skewered bird sit there… and walk away.

Food Night grills it’s skewers on a gas Weber grill over direct high heat, with the grill uncovered. Turning as appropriate, this usually takes roughly 5 minutes total. Grill the garlic scapes (if using) when the chicken comes off in the same way – high heat, uncovered.

Allow your skewers to rest post-grilling for a few minutes, then plate on top of some of the pickles, peach dice, garlic scapes, and top with the coppa and a drizzle of olive oil.

Cucumber Gazpacho

2011-08-14T22:48:00.011-05:00

How about a short and sweet little ditty on Cucumber Gazpacho? Cukes are everywhere in the Farmers Market right now, and we just had a little impromptu Food Night last night, so… circumstances seem ripe for such a ditty.

I recently had some cucumber gazpacho at Heartland, and of course subsequently had discussions with the gents there about how exactly they made it. The following is how Food Night made* it, which much thanks to Dan, Chad and Aaron at Heartland for their knowledge (** fist bump **).

*What follows is the recipe exactly how Food Night made it. Included “optional” ingredients are highly encouraged, but shouldn’t prevent you from buzzing up a batch of this stuff if you don’t want/have/need/like any of these ingredients.

Cucumber Gazpacho
24ish ounces cucumber (used; pickling cucumber), roughly chopped
1T creme fraiche
2T fresh dill
2T fresh parsley (blanched for 5-10 seconds, shocked in an ice bath)
1T fresh cilantro (blanched, shocked)
Juice from 1 lemon
Splash white wine vinegar
4 ice cubes
salt

Optional (but highly encouraged) Ingredients
6 raw almonds
1/2t smoked paprika
1/2t ground coriander seed
Pinch ground caraway seed
4T dry white wine

Garnish (again, obviously optional but highly encouraged)
Tomato
Maldon salt
Fresh dill and chive
Diced poblano chile
Crème fraiche thinned slightly with a spash of water

1). Combine all ingredients in a blender. (I usually salt each cucumber as I put it in the blender to help track approximately how much salt to add. It's easier to salt "a" cucumber, rather than a pile of them, right?)

2). Puree to desired consistency.

3). Check for seasoning, adding salt/acid as necessary.

4). Serve, with garnish.

So yeah, basically gather ingredients. Put ingredients in blender. Turn blender on. Consume*.

*With a glass of Calera Rose.......................... but you knew that already.

Chicken Wing Confit

2011-07-22T20:00:00.002-05:00

The exception that proves the rule. That’s what we have here on Day 2 of our Fantastic Four Food Night Grilling posts. Course #2 – not grilled. But it DOES touch on a technique Food Night is extreeeeeeemly fond of; Confit.

And in this case, Chicken Wing Confit. There is no question that the wing is not exactly the most glamorous part of the bird. When you think “chicken wing”, you likely think of deep fried, smokin’ hot, somewhat forgettable bits of bird that are typically drowning in buffalo or other cloyingly sweet and/or sour sauce. Not to put words in your mouth, of course. But if you confit the wing... look what fun that can be...

Food Night assures you, the confit process is INSANELY easy, and produces results that are preposterously good and disproportionate to the level of effort required. The simple three step "how to confit poultry" process is as follows;

1). Cure. Season your poultry with a healthy does of salt. More than you normally would use if you were going to simply grill or sautee the item. Seasonings? Optional, but encouraged. Add them now. Garlic, fresh herbs, fennel, clove, peppercorn, etc. Cover, and let the product hang out on the cure in the refrigerator for 24 hrs. Or more, preferably, like say 72 hrs.

*Those are duck legs from Heartland on the cure.

2). Rinse, pat dry. Place in an oven going pot. Cover completely with fat (traditionalists would use fat from whatever protein you are using…chicken fat, duck fat... but I’ve been using olive oil to great success thanks to Michael Ruhlman). Bring to a bubble on the stove, then place in a 180 degree oven for 12 hours.

*Whole Foods currently has very cost effective large format containers of olive oil.

3). Remove the pot from oven, skim any gunk off the top of the pot, and let cool. DONE. You now have confit’d… whatever. Duck legs. Chicken legs. Chicken wings. Duck wings. Go crazy. Store your “whatevers” COMPLETELY submerged in the fat in the refrigerator*, where they will keep pretty much indefinitely. Please make sure your whatevers are totally submerged in fat to preserve them safely and properly.

*Here is where a Le Creuset vessel comes in handy as it will go from refrigerator, to oven, to cool on the counter, and back to the refrigerator. Very convenient.

From here, you can simply remove your preserved legs/thighs/whatever from the fat, and reheat them on a sheet pan in the oven, perhaps broiling them a little at the end to crisp up the skin.

For the GrillTastic Food Night, I had some leftover chicken wing confit that I’d made a few weeks earlier. And I found some of the season’s first killer heirloom tomatoes at the co-op. So… this happened…

Honey Bourbon Glazed Chicken Wing Confit with Heirloom Tomato Salad
1). Make chicken wing confit, using the technique above. This can/should be done WELL in advance. Food Night added a whole pile of fresh herbs (tarragon, thyme, oregano) and lots of shaved garlic, in addition to allepo chile flakes, fennel, coriander seed and cumin to the cure. And the wings were actually on the cure for 72 hours.

2). Get started on Heirloom Tomato salad (recipe follows). You’ll want the tomatoes seasoned and sitting in a colander as you warm the wings in the oven.

3). Heat the oven to 375 degrees. Remove wings from fat (fat should be at room temp so it isn’t solidified), arrange on baking sheet, and place in oven to warm.

4). Whisk together the Honey Bourbon Glaze (recipe follows) while wings are warming.

5). Baste wings with glaze a time or two while they are warming.

6). Remove wings from oven. Turn on broiler. Reduce glaze in a saucepan to thicken. Baste again with thickened glaze and broil to char SLIGHTLY. Remove from oven, and baste again.

7). Lovingly arrange wings on a plate, scatter with tomatoes, garnish with more shaved radish, chives, and a few flecks of Maldon on the wings (not on the tomatoes… those are plenty seasoned).

8). Devour. But don’t eat the bones…

Heirloom Tomato Salad
Heirloom Tomatoes, of various colors
Breakfast Radish, shaved thin on a mandoline
Olive oil
Kosher Salt
Finely diced fresh green or red chile (optional)
Finely diced chives

1). Dice the tomatoes into smallish (pea sized or larger) chunks. Place in a colander, season with salt, and let stand for at least 20 minutes. The tomatoes will throw some moisture, concentrating their flavor.

2). Toss the tomatoes with the remaining ingredients and reserve for use with the wings.

Honey Bourbon Glaze
2T honey (or brown sugar if you find yourself honeyless)
Juice of half a lime
Zest of half a lime
2t sriracha hot sauce
1T whole grain mustard
1T Dijon mustard
1T soy sauce
2T bourbon
2t smoked paprika

Whisk all ingredients together. The end.

Food Night goes Grilling

2011-07-20T20:15:00.004-05:00

As you probably have heard, it’s a weeeeeeee bit steamy here in the nation’s mid-section. How do we combat the heat at Food Night? We stand over a hot grill, that’s how. Because when you move AWAY from the grill... the sauna that is the atmosphere doesn't feel so bad! Anyway, it recently occurred to me that we have not had ONE single grilled item at Food Night.* Ever. How is that possible?! That’s a Food Night fail right there.

*Not including the braised pork shoulder which gets seared on the grill prior to braising.

For grilling inspiration, Food Night looked to the best restaurant in St. Paul… The Strip Club.

(photo by Tom Wallace, for vita.mn)

When not Food Nighting, you can sometimes find me enjoying proper food and drink at The too-fabulous-for-words Strip Club Meat and Fish.* Chef JD does a killer little ditty there called “meat on a stick” that changes daily and is typically served with fun little accoutrements. Who doesn’t love grilled bites with accoutrements?! Inspired (and after standing over the grill, excessively perspired), Food Night fired up the grill on a recent Saturday that was so sweltering, even the wine was sweating...

*Suggestion – if you would like to experience a perfect Saturday morning… begin at the St. Paul Farmers Market, cruise across the Street to the Heartland Market to pick up Saturday dinner proteins and whatever else, then scoot up the hill to TSC for brunch while sitting at the bar. Bang. Perfection. See you there.

Hell, we even grilled the SALAD at Food Night!

So let’s do this; let’s see if Food Night can pound out a post a day for the next four days – one for each course at the recently completed Food Night on a Stick. Yes? Yes.

Grilled Summer Salad

Like lots of things at Food Night, what follows is ripe for your brilliant and learned improvisations. Whatever you’ve got and wanna grill and make a salad out of… be my guest. But I must say… the following was super summery and delish.

- Garlic Scapes (pictured above, get ‘em at the Heartland Market, Farmers Market, etc); blanched for 30 seconds, shocked in an ice bath, patted dry,
- English Peas (shelled, blanched, shocked)
- Cherry Tomatoes
- Brussels Sprouts, halved through the core, excess leaves removed and reserved.
- Herbs (purple basil, arugula, tarragon, lemon thyme, whatever you want)
- Cucumber broth (recipe follows)
- Shallot (finely diced)
- Lemon juice
- Maldon sea salt

1). Fire up the grill, and get it HOT. (Food Night uses a gas Weber that gets blazing hot). Season scapes, tomatoes, Brussels sprouts separately with salt, pepper, and olive oil.

2). Skewer the tomatoes (soak the skewers for an hour in water if they are wood), and grill the tomatoes long enough to just blister the skins a tad and soften partially. Toss Brussels sprouts directly on the grill, they will pop and fuss a little bit, turn once to mark and soften, and remove. Grill garlic scapes to desired level of charredness.

3). Sautee reserved Brussels sprout leaves in a modest amount of olive oil for a couple minutes over med-high heat, finish with a little finely diced shallot and a splash of lemon juice.

4). Combine tomatoes, scapes, sprouts, peas, and herbs in a large bowl. Drizzle with cucumber broth, olive oil, lemon juice. GENTLY toss to combine, and sprinkle with a dash of Maldon sea salt.

5). Arrange lovingly on a plate, and finish with your favorite cured pork product from Heartland Market… Food Night used the utterly insane Wild Boar Prosciutto. Get it while you can (it’s very limited) – that stuff is funky delicious. Garnish with sautéed sprout leaves, micro arugula, and a drizzle of the cuke broth. Or, don’t.

Cucumber Broth
- 1 English cucumber, washed, rough chopped
- Handful bright green herb(s) (parsley or tarragon work great, blanch and shock for brighter green color)
- Salt (enough to season the cuke)
- Handful of Ice
- Water (maybe a ½ a cup… enough to get the mixture moving)
- Lime juice (roughly juice of ½ a lime)

Combine all ingredients in a blender. Puree. Extensively. Strain if you must, but not required – really depends on how finely your blender can puree the food stuffs. I like it unstrained for use in this salad as it retains some body/structure and seems more like a salad dressing substance. If strained, I’d probably emulsify it with oil for the salad dressing (as you would vinegar for vinaigrette).

Use as directed above. And with seafood. And in your favorite Hendricks Gin cocktail.*

*YEAH. Definitely use with Hendricks.

A Very Spring-tastic Food Night

2011-06-09T19:02:00.017-05:00

Food Night. Spring. Spring + Food Night. What an opportunity!! Ramps. Asparagus. Peas. Eggs. Mushrooms. Oh, and Durden is in the house (literally). The outdoor dining zone is in play…

So please, witness what happens when Spring and Food Night collide....

Spring Orgasm Soup is what we called this. And full disclosure… Food Night got that terminology from Dan Step. This Spring, when all the ramps and asparagus and greens started appearing at Heartland, Dan sent me a text to the effect of “It looks like Spring had an orgasm in here!”. That slayed me, so I retained and reused that here. Yes, Food Night is so eco-friendly, we even reuse clever wordplay. So what... we've got here... is...... asparagus (blanched and shocked), English peas (ditto), ramp greens (ditto), parsley (ditto), all vitamix'd with a little half and half, and lemon. Silky springy goodness. That vitamix is a life altering apparatus, don't let anyone tell you otherwise. (Thanks again Mpls Auxiliary Chapter!!)

Pasta. Pasta is never a bad choice. Unlike milk, which yes… is sometimes a bad choice. But this time Food Night tossed a bit of white wine into the dough, to great success. The pesto was a little disappointing – I mean it worked, but I was efforting this (HIGHLY encourage you to check out that link… really). If anyone knows how to get pesto to look like that… like it’s had cream added to it… please let me know. My right arm is now twice as strong as my left from all the mortar-and-pestling, but my pesto did NOT look like that. Sure it tasted fine, delivering fresh basily and pine nutty goodness, but let’s just move on.

Chicken confit. Pea puree. Seared oyster mushroom. This....... was the REAL DEAL. One of the best things ever at Food Night. Just ask Alex. D-Step taught* Food Night the mushroom technique – mushrooms, tossed in oil, roasted in a 375ish oven until they have some color (10ish minutes? Maybe more… free country remember), then finished in a HOT pan with butter, hit with some fiiiiiiiiinely minced shallot and garlic, finished with a healthy pinch of fresh herbs and a tablespoon or two of lemon juice. So literally the time from when the mushrooms enter the pan until they are done (if your pan is HOT enough…) is like a minute. Bang. That just happened.

*And apparently Adam Vickerman taught Step that technique... you want to cook (good) mushrooms like this is all I can say.

Hash. Smoked lamb shank (via Heartland), duck confit (via Food Night), fingerling potato, oyster mushroom, fresh herbs, brussles sprouts. Pea puree. Couple bacon lardons. And a perfect sunny side up egg. Looks good enough to eat, right? We thought so….

*We really aren't doing the pea puree justice here. I think Food Night first-timer Scott said "I could eat this stuff like yogurt". Yes - what he said.

To drink? This ......happened........

It's been a debate here at Food Night Home Offices... how much to really say about wines? Because after all, how interesting is it to hear about a wine that someone else drank? It can be informative, it can be interest peaking, it perhaps can even be mildly entertaining. But Food Night thinks... maybe less is more when it comes to the wine frothing at the mouth? So let's just say two things about this incredible wine...

1). The Dunn 2000 Howell Mountain (in Food Night's opinion) was vastly superior to the 2005 Clos Des Papes Chateauneuf du Pape, which we also (thoroughly) enjoyed that evening. And the '05 Clos Des Papes was not exactly Yellow Tail, seeing as how it earned Wine Spectator's "Wine of the Year" distinction in 2007. So... there's that.

2). The Dunn drank like high end bordeaux, and was consistent with the two prior Dunns we've had (the 1992 while on Food Night Field Trip, and the 2001). It was decanted for 10 hours prior to consumption, and drank perfectly. It probably elicited between 10 and 20 "Holy S&%t is this stuff amazing!!!" type comments during it's consumption from various consumers. Rich, full bodied, balanced, with a minty/eucalyptus tinge that we found very appealing, and a finish that I think I'm still tasting a week later.

Let's leave it at this - if Food Night was stranded on a deserted island, and could have a lifetime supply of one domestic CABERNET producer's wines (thus eliminating Calera from consideration....) dropped from a C-130 onto said island (a likely scenario, obviously)... Food Night would request Dunn Howell Mountain Cabernet.

Yes... it's that good. Easily.

Goat Cheese Ravioli

2011-05-01T19:47:00.010-05:00

Clearly you have been perfecting your duck egg pasta dough technique. So now, it is time to turn said sheet of silky succulent pasta into a goat cheese carrying apparatus. Also known as “proper food”.*

*Ever watch Jaime Oliver’s “Jaime at Home” TV show? I don’t think he is making new episodes anymore, but I believe it is being rerun on Cooking Channel now. It is completely reflective of why I’m such a massive fan of his, and probably where my Jamie Olive man-crush was born. If I could cook and/or eat and/or have a beer with and/or share an apartment with one “celebrity” chef, it would be Jaime, hands down. Anyway, I heard him say as he was finishing making something that “this is proper cooking”, and now “proper” is my favorite cooking adjective. By far. Feel free to incorporate it into your everyday vocab as I have done. I think you’ll enjoy it.

Goat Cheese Ravioli

1 duck egg pasta recipe
Egg wash (1 egg beaten with a tsp or two of water)
Soft goat cheese (such as Donnay)

1). Lay sheet of pasta on a floured work surface. And flour a sheet pan or other “landing zone” for your finished raviolis

2). Dot the pasta sheet with roughly a tsp of goat cheese. Place goat cheese on top half of the sheet, as shown, as you’ll be folding the bottom half over it.

3). Brush egg wash between the cheese, and along the top of the sheet. Egg wash will help make a good seal, serving as pasta cement, if you will. Mmmmmm, pasta cement.

4). Fold bottom half over top half, and seal. Work from the folded side of the sheet, forcing any air out the top. You are essentially molding the soft pliable pasta around the dollup of tart goat cheesy goodness.

5). Divide into individual raviolis using a knife, ring mold, or preferably this $5 pasta wheel (best $5 gift I ever got). Transfer to afore mentioned floured landing zone.

Here is where you also have a chance to gently squeeze out any air pockets, and make sure all 3 sides are sealed. The most important thing here is a good seal. If there is a smidge of air trapped in there, don’t stress.

6). Plop into heavily salted water that is GENTLY boiling until done. Usually a minute or two. Or, freeze, and they go from freezer directly to the water.

I tossed these with a little diced carrot, sunchoke, and butter.

Proper cooking.

Game Changers

2011-03-11T21:25:00.002-06:00

Diner commentary at the Food Night table (pictured) has always led me to believe that the seared scallops at Food Nights past have been up to par.

And looking back, I honestly do think they were pretty good. But Food Night isn’t satisfied with “pretty good”. So in a quest to turn that culinary par into a birdie (or better), Food Night tried something new with the seared scallops this time. The results? I’ll let this picture say a thousand words………

I mean………… THAT is how you sear a scallop! End. Of. Discussion.

Food Night actually has a bit of a foodgasm every time it looks at that picture. I may even go to Sears and get wallet sized copies of that picture made and pass them out to strangers on the street, like some people do with pictures of their grandkids. And you think I’m kidding…

I guess what I’m saying is, this scallop searing methodology “tweak” was a bit of a GAME CHANGER. And actually it was only one of TWO game changers that transpired at “Food Night – Quack Edition”.

Game Changer #1; The shockingly simple scallop searing scenario.

Game Changer #2; DUCK CONFIT. Please witness….

Food Night is a bit ashamed it took this long to confit some duck. You know how sometimes when you are reading the letters to the editor of your favorite magazine, and someone writes in to say something like:

“Dear Sports Illustrated, it was actually Sven Blimpenberg and not Hugo Richalds that scored the game winning goal for Canada against Greenland in the Frozen Tundra Cup in 1962”.

And after printing the correction letter, the editor usually follows it with a “SI regrets the error”. Well, Food Night regrets the error, and will be confiting the bejezuz out of many fowl legs in the weeks and months to come.

And you should too! Therefore, Food Night is gonna show you how. That is…. if succulent, moist, rich, tender, literally falling off the bone goodness like this…

… would be of interest to you. And if it isn’t, well… I don’t know how to help you. You’re on your own.

So, two game changers, and we haven’t even BEGUN to discuss the wines of the night! Some were new and unique, some were familiar favorites, and then there was this guy… the winner of Best-In-Show for the evening…

*This seems like a good time to mention that, obviously, someone that knows what they are doing with a picture taking device was in attendance at Food Night. That would be Dan Stepaniak, the very same Dan from Heartland that provided the incredible duck product for “Food Night – Quack Edition”. THANK YOU Dan for your excellent contributions, culinary and otherwise, to Food Night!

To sum up; in the coming posts, we are going to revolutionize your scallop searing skills. We are going to build on your duck egg pasta making skills (that you have no doubt been practicing) via goat cheese raviolis AAAAAAAND via course #4 at “Food Night – Quack Edition”, dubbed Duck Three Ways...

*Come on, I can’t show you ALL the photos yet!!! But I can tell you, Duck Three Ways was located in the plates above, about 10 seconds after that picture was taken. And, I dare say, it was the highlight of the evening’s food stuffs.

So have a look at the menu for “Food Night – Quack Edition”, and your server will be along shortly to take your order…

Heartland Duck Charcuterie
procuitto, sausage, duck fat fried chipotle ciabatta

Soup
tomato, roasted red pepper, guajillo chile, foie gras buttered crouton

Scallop
braised fennel, chipotle salsa, orange zest, hedgehog mushroom

Duck Three Ways
duck egg pasta, duck confit, foie gras butter

Sweets
Goat Cheese Ice Cream, Mocha sherbet

France
Louis Latour, Pommard-Epenots, Premier Cru
2005

Chateau Pichon Longueville, Comtesse de Lalande, Pauillac
2002

Leroy, Bourgogne Blanc
1998

Domaine des Remizieres, Hermitage Blanc, Cuvee Emilie
1999

Italy
Le Are, Amarone della Valpolicella
2000

Casanova di Neri, Pietradonice
2000

Parusso, Barolo, Bussia Vigna Munie
1996

Antinori, Guado Al Tasso
2001

Australia
The Standish Wine Company, "The Relic", Shiraz, Viogner
2006

Clarendon Hills, Old Vines Grenache, Kangarilla Vineyard
2002

Other
Sutter Home, White Zinfandel
1993?!?!?

Food Night - Quack Edition

2011-03-04T19:12:00.009-06:00

Before we get to the deets on how to turn the duck egg pasta you've no doubt perfected into a succulent goat cheese transportation device, I thought you might be interested that...

FOOD NIGHT is happening tomorrow, March 5th!!! Yes, I know, it's a big deal. Food Night shunned it's day job today to prep and shop and generally freak out about the menu, which... if things go according to plan... is really going to be special and rather thematic. Thematic in two ways...

MARCH 5th FOOD NIGHT THEME #1;

Yep, Food Night is throwing down a mass quantities of DUCK. Now, Food Night knows what you are thinking; "Wow, cute duck! But, isn’t this a new protein for you, Food Night? Have you ever cooked duck before?". And the answer is "Yes, that is a cute duck and his name is Fritz, and he was unharmed by Food Night. And no, of course I've never cooked duck before." But I was inspired and encouraged by, you guessed it, Ruhlman. Ruhlman basically said I was insane if I wasn't confit'ing duck. And since I'd basically jump off a bridge if Ruhlman told me to, I thought I better get on this duck confit thing.

But there was a problem... where do I buy duck? Grocery store? Um, no, not gonna buy frozen Donald legs from the grocery store. Nope. And no, not gonna mail order some Quacker legs from D'Artagnan. Doesn’t seem right, poultry via mail. So what does one do when one lives in Mpls/St. Paul and one wants duck stuffs? One goes to theme #2...

MARCH 5th FOOD NIGHT THEME #2;

Heartland Farm Direct Market! This place is transforming the way I shop. The proteins they pedal are so pristine, perfectly portioned, and properly procured, I cannot walk in there and leave without grabbing something to throw in the cast iron skillet. And it just so happens that they offer duck stock, too. And duck eggs. And duck prosciutto. And duck fat. But Heartland is more than a duck emporium, sometimes you can get things like wild boar chops, or the most succulent and tasty beef tenderloin you've ever had… (you remember how to cook beef tenderloin, right? Thought so.)…..

…and a million other things like house made sausages and other cured meat treats that reside in their glass case of food-emotion!!!....

Food Night has shopped the living hell out of Heartland recently, buying this, trying that, eating this, cooking that. And when you frequent a place enough, sometimes you strike up a vibe with the people on the payroll. So when a spot at the Food Night table recently opened up, I offered the vacancy to Dan at Heartland. And I’m happy to announce that Dan will be joining the festivities on Saturday! Dan has contributed a pile of knowledge and product to this Food Night table, and we are fired up to have him dine with us.

This Food Night also has an "A" list of Haskell's folks coming, so the wines are guaranteed to be completely ridiculous. And in case anyone brings a small child, Food Night's resident pediatrician Dr. Tom will be on-site.

PLUS - courtesy of said pediatrician and the rest of the gang at the Minneapolis Auxiliary Chapter of Food Night, this marks the first time Food Night has had THIS little beauty at its disposal....

As you can see, things are shaping up quite nicely this Food Night's Eve. We are churning out a menu full of new flavors and ingredients… stop back soon to see how it shakes out.

How to make Fresh Pasta

2011-02-10T23:32:00.001-06:00

Fresh pasta is a staple at Food Night. Why? It’s easy. It’s economical. It’s delicious. It’s wine friendly. It’s incredibly versatile. It’s the star of the show, or it’s a perfect background vocalist. It cooks up quickly. Need I go on?

And for cripes sake, you can make fresh pasta with two ingredients… eggs and flour. TWO ingredients are all you technically need, so yes, you can do this. And you SHOULD do this, which is kind of the whole point of whole post. Not only is the end product incredibly satisfying and delicious, but making fresh pasta quenches your inner child’s fingerpainting and play-doh mashing desires. It’s fun to get your hands into your food – assuming you have clean hands, of course.

So here is how Food Night has been making fresh pasta lately. I say “lately” because until recently, Food Night would use chicken eggs to make fresh pasta dough. After all, nothing wrong with a nice organic free range chicken egg, right? However, on a recent trip to the incredibly inspiring and wonderful Heartland Farm Direct Market* in downtown St. Paul, Peder recommended these duck eggs to me...

That night, I put them to use in a fresh pasta dough. How did it go? Well, I haven’t used a chicken egg to make pasta since.

*Post coming on the Heartland Market. If you live in the Twin Cities, and you like to cook (and if you are reading this I have to believe at least ONE of those things is true…… ) you simply must go to Heartland’s Market, pictured below. More later.

What follows is what I’m calling Food Night’s recipique* for…

*Recipique [Res-eh-PEAK] – a combination of the words “recipe” and “technique”, meaning that the recipe amounts should not be taken TOO literally, and that there is probably as much importance in the “HOW” vs the “how much” part of the recipe. If we wanted to be exacting here, we’d weigh everything and give you an exact recipe featuring X grams of egg yolks and Y grams of flour, etc. But, alas, that has not happened here. Thanks for understanding. Plus, this recipique will make you think and read and react to your dough. And it’s how I imagine little Italian grandmothers made pasta dough. So channel your inner child and your inner little Italian grandmother and make some pasta from scratch already.

Duck Egg Pasta Dough
1 ¼ cups all purpose flour
3 duck egg yolks, procured from Heartland’s Market
1 whole duck egg
3 finger pinch salt
Small drizzle olive oil

NOTE; If you must, use chicken eggs. If the yolks are normal sized chicken egg yolks, toss in an extra one. The duck egg yolks are quite substantial. I’ve never seen a chicken egg yolk as big as one of these duck egg yolks. Food Night wants you to make fresh pasta, because you CAN. So don’t let a lack of duck eggs stand between you and your fresh pasta.

1). Mound flour. Make a well in the center of the mound.

2). Place remaining ingredients in the well.

3). Using two fingers, bust up yolks, and stir with said fingers, incorporating flour into the mixture gradually. If you are simultaneously taking pictures of this process, it would help to either grow a third arm, or have someone else take the pictures. Either is fine.

Continue incorporating...

4). THIS STEP IS BASICALLY THE KEY TO THE ENTIRE PROCESS. Hence, the capital letters. They signify “importance”.

After you combine most of the flour into the eggs, the mixture should be getting thicker, and resemble something like this...

At this point, use your hands and a pasta scraper to collapse the well, sort of cutting the flour into the wet mass that is forming …

… and form a ball with the dough, leaving say a scant ¼ cup of extra flour on the board to add to the dough if needed. Understand that as you form this ball initially, the dough will be sticky, so it helps to have a pasta scraper to remove wet dough from your fingers and the board to add to the ball.

IMPORTANT: Don’t force more flour into the eggs than the eggs want. If you are making ravioli, I like the dough to be a little wetter, more flexible. If you are just making noodles, the dough can be a little drier. But, it’s ALWAYS ALWAYS easier to add flour to a wet dough than it is to add moisture to a dry dough.

If your dough is quite wet, add some of the leftover flour here. You are looking for a ball of dough that is workable (not so dry that it resists kneading). Once you gather it all up it should look something vaguely like this…

5). Flatten out the ball of dough with the heels of your hands, then form it back into a ball, and repeat. Again. And again. And again. And..... again. This process usually takes several minutes. In the summer, sweat forms on my brow. This is not cooking for sissies. But you aren’t a sissy so, no worries.

Maybe you need more flour here too, could happen. Has happened. Read... and react. As you knead, the dough should begin to take on a uniformly smooth texture and appearance. What you are after is a smooth dough…

… that passes the “spring back” test. As in, when formed into a ball that looks like the above, if you drag your finger across the dough, does it “spring back” into shape. If it doesn’t, if the dough just sits there like a stuck pig when you poke it, knead some more, understanding that you basically can’t overwork the dough. If the dough is relatively lively, elastic, and bounces back fairly well, you are done. Wrap the dough tightly in several layers of plastic wrap, let it stand on the counter 30 minutes (or in the fridge for up to a day), then move on to the final step.

6). Pass the dough through pasta machine.

I use a pasta scraper to segment off about 1/3 of this ball of dough. Trying to pass much more than that through the machine tends to get unwieldy as the pasta sheet gets thinner and thinner and longer and longer. Flatten out that chunk of dough you separated with the palm of your hand, then pass it through the pasta machine according to your manufacturer’s instructions…

I finish on my machine’s #6 setting of the thickness (or would it be thinness…). Setting #8 is the thinnest setting on my machine, if that helps at all. #6 seems about right for most pasta applications.

If you lack a pasta machine, you get to roll it out by hand like your inner little Italian grandmother (let me know how it goes, as I’ve never tried it).

At this point – you can cut your sheets in to whatever shape noodle you want. Boil them up in heavily salted water until al dente (which will only take a minute or two) and toss with your favorite sauce/oil/fixins/what-have-you.

Or, you could make………

UP NEXT; Goat Cheese Ravioli

Pan Seared Beef Tenderloin

2010-12-28T13:10:00.013-06:00

The polls are closed. The votes are in. The winner has been notified. And the latest Storm of the Century is due to pummel the Twin Cities later this week.* So I thought before the world as we know it ends (again), it would be a good time to pound out the deets of Food Night Nation’s recipe request…

* I honestly have no idea where we are going to put any more snow here. I really don't. Can someone please hit the "no vacancy" sign or something? We are full. No more room at The Inn for aaaaaaany more snow this winter. Mkay?! Great.

Food Night nation loves it some beef, apparently. Can’t say I blame you, as this preparation is a tasty as it is easy to prepare. You can go all minimalist on this bit, or you can dress it up with garnishes, fresh herbs, blue cheese, etc. But all you really need as far as equipment is; a cast iron skillet, a sauce pan, and some heat. And look at you, you’ve got ALL of those things!

And in all honesty, what you do BEFORE you begin cooking is about as important (if not MORE important) than what happens once you put pan to flame.* What are these important pre-cooking things? I count three…

*Or pan to electric coil, or pan to ceramic stove top…

Pre-Cooking Must Do #1). Buy good beef. Goes without saying, right? But more specifically, we are looking for perfect little cubes of beef tenderloin here. And if you are planning on cooking more than one, you want them to be EXACTLY the same size. Otherwise they won’t cook at the same rate, will they. So have your butcher cut you nice, even, chunks from the center of a tenderloin. Yep, the center, not the ends where the tenderloin tapers down to something too thin to cook properly. We are looking for a perfect cube-o-meat here. And how about buying your meat from a reputable source, too. Humanely raised, happy cows make the best steaks.

Pre-Cooking Must Do #2). Only room temperature meat goes in the pan. Or, perhaps I should say, meat that is right out of the fridge definitely does NOT go in the pan. Why? Think about what would happen if you took a frozen cube of meat, and tried to cook it. You’d get done/burned outsides before you had properly cooked insides. So give your steaks that you lovingly procured the proper treatment. Take them out of the fridge, sprinkle each with a little salt, and let them take a 15 or 20 minute nap on the counter prior to cooking. Your patience and planning will be rewarded.

Pre-Cooking Must Do #3). Use cast iron to cook your beef. A properly seasoned cast iron pan will give you a fabulous sear on the outside, and can go in the oven if you need to cook your steaks a little longer after you have seared both sides.

One more bit of knowledge for you before we get to the recipe… do not try to sear 17 steaks at once. When searing, the steaks enjoy a bit of elbow room. They don’t want to be all touchy-feely with the neighbor steaks, as they are a bit anti-social. Don’t try to change them, that’s just how they are. So just make sure there is plenty of unclaimed real estate in the pan during the searing process. Food Night usually only sears 4 (maaaaaaaaaybe 5 if Food Night is feeling really daring) tenderloin steaks at a time in its 12’’ cast iron skillet, if you must have a number.

Pan Seared Beef Tenderloin
Serves 2

- Two 6oz beef tenderloin steaks, of equal thickness/size/proportion, seasoned with kosher salt, rested at room temp for 20 minutes
- Oil (peanut if possible, canola/veggie otherwise, not olive oil)
- Butter
- Fresh Thyme (optional)

Heat your seasoned cast iron skillet to med-high heat. On my stove, this means turning the heat to medium, and letting the pan sit there for roughly 10 minutes. The objective isn’t to get the pan SCREAMING hot, but hot enough to make the steaks really sizzle (but not burn) when they enter the pan. Flick some drops of water into the pan, and when it sizzles vigorously, you are ready to proceed.

Toss a tablespoon or two of oil in the pan. If your oil immediately burns (you'll know if it burns...) your pan is too hot. Cool down the pan a bit, wipe out the burnt oil, and begin again. Add steaks to the pan, and sear on first side undisturbed for approx 4 minutes...

Turn steaks to opposite side (look at the killer krust you just kreated!!!!), toss in a few tablespoons of butter (more the merrier)…

… plus the optional sprigs of thyme, and sear 4 minutes.* While steak is on this second side, tilt pan and baste with butter/thyme.

*NOTE; These 4 minute times are not set in stone. Use your eyes, ears, and nose… if the steaks are burning… turn them (and turn the heat down). If they aren’t properly caramelized at 4 minutes, up the heat a bit and leave them in a bit longer. Simple.

How do you know when your steak is done? Use your finger (NOT your knife). Pressing down on the top of your steak while it’s in the pan should resemble pressing your finger against your cheek* for medium-rare. You do want your steak medium-rare… right?!

*The cheek on your FACE, please. Come on now.

If your steaks are too thick to cook solely on the stove top, you can slide the pan into a 450 degree oven. Once you’ve reached the nirvana that is a lovely medium-rare, take your steaks out of the pan and place them on a plate covered loosely with aluminum foil for 4 minutes or so. Once done, cut steaks in half, serve with red wine sauce (see below), blue cheese, and a sprinkle of Maldon sea salt. Don’t forget the Maldon.

Red Wine Sauce
1 cup good quality red wine*
1 cup stock (chicken, lamb, beef, pork, turkey, squab, rabbit… whatever)
Butter

*When we say “good quality” red wine, we mean use something here that you would enjoy drinking. If you use crappy wine, reducing it is going to concentrate and magnify its crappyness. So choose wisely, and drink the rest of the bottle with your lucky dining companion.

Combine stock and wine in small sauce pan. Reduce until it thickens slightly, you’ll be left with ½ cup or so, give or take. Remove from heat, whisk in a few pats of butter one at a time. Taste, and season with salt and/or lemon juice as needed. Bang. Done.

Time to revel in your greatness with said dining companion.

If you try this, let Food Night know how it goes! Toss out any questions in the comments too, and the Food Night staff will answer them to the best of our ability.

Recipe Poll and the Three Wise Men

2010-11-23T21:39:00.001-06:00

Food Night is curious about something. Would you wonderful people like more recipes with your food and wine related musings found on these internet pages? Food Night isn’t going to turn this place in to simplyrecipes.com* or anything. But I thought I'd but up a little poll to let the people of Food Night Nation vote on what they want to see documented in recipe form from the most recent Food Night, held on 11/12/2010.

* Food Night is a big fan of simplyrecipes.com. The recipes there work. And isn’t that the best thing you can say about a recipe… that it works? Skip epicuriwhatever.com, go to simplyrecipes.com. End of endorsement.

At this "Three Wise Men and a Cook*" Food Night, we had myself (the cook), and Alex, Andy and Phil. These three gents manage various Haskells Wine & Spirits locations here in the cities, and let’s just say they have tasted a few decent bottles in their day. It was a really great group, which lends credence to a point Georg Riedel mentioned that we spoke about earlier, which was “Enjoy the company of the people you are drinking with”.

*Please do not confuse this recent Food Night with this…

Similar… but different. Remember when Steve Freaking Guttenberg was a big deal for like 17 minutes? Cripes am I getting old.

So anyway, you don’t have to have an encyclopedic knowledge of the Burgundy vintages from 1992 to 1995 or some such B.S. to enjoy Food Night, or any dinner party. Just enjoy the people you are hangin' with! Heck - I was an infant Skywalker compared to the The Wise Mens' collective Yoda when it comes to wine knowledge and tasting history. But just listening to the banter and observations about wine from people who KNOW is extremely fun and educational.

And now, the candidates, for your consideration...

Scallops Two Ways
Carpaccio & Seared. Pork belly. Salsa verde. Black olive oil.

Autumn Soup
Squash. Apple. Beet. Brown butter.

Ravioli
Sheep’s Milk Ricotta. Squash. Brown butter. Sage.

Beef Tenderloin
Red Wine. Lamb Stock. Blue Cheese.

Unleash the Voting!

At Long Last... the Emergency Food Night, starring Hollandaise Sauce, and a Beet Soup Recipe

2010-11-16T23:32:00.004-06:00

Remember the EMERGENCY Food Night, when Tyler Durden came to town? Of course you don’t. It happened in June. Heck, I barely do. BUT – via my magic picture taking machine, allow me to regale you (in as much detail as possible) with what went down at Durden’s Emergency Food Night.

As an added bonus, let’s toss in a recipe, related to said Emergency Food Night and to the WILDLY successful initial “Food Night Poll”… as seen on the right side of this interweb page. Food Night likes beets, and wants you to like them too. Beets get a bad rap I think because lots of people grew up eating icky canned beets at school lunch in 2nd grade. See, if you don’t like beets, I’m thinking perhaps you and beets just didn’t start off on the right foot. The recipe at the end of this post… is the right foot. Deets upcoming… but first… one thing I DO remember about this Food Night was that it was an absolutely EPIC evening outside…

So epic in fact, that we had a Food Night First… Course #1 was served outside, on the Food Night Mansion’s spiffy new patio furniture. This first course was a salad I learned from a cookbook that I ~~stole~~ got from my folks called “Cypress”. It’s the companion book from a restaurant of the same name that they enjoy visiting in Charleston, SC. I hope to make it there someday, but until then… I used the book as inspiration for this little ditty…

Very simple and elegant. Take an English cucumber to a mandolin, the long way, so you get long strips. Then just form a ring with said cuke strip, and BANG! Your salad container is ready. Toss some farmers market greens with some herbs (tarragon, dash of julienned mint, lemon thyme) and a vinaigrette. Then for the hell-of-it, I painted* a stripe on the plate to lend some added visual appeal.

*Yes, I did use an actual paint brush. No, said brush is not used for anything other than painting plates.

The “paint” was actually the next course…

BEET SOUP! Your favorite beets, lovingly roasted, and pureed into a silky soup! Only one issue with my particular execution of this soup… it was a titch* spicy. We like spice at Food Night. After all, "spice" is the spice of life, right? Or something. Anyway, spice doesn’t always play well with the wines at Food Night, so we try to strike a balance in the spice department. Obviously we don't want to demolish our uber-deece wines with too much heat, right?

*Titch = ½ of a Tad

To combat the titch of excess heat, I chilled the soup overnight, added a little sugar which tends to mellow the heat a bit, and served the soup chilled, too. This resulted in the final product being only sliiiiiightly more spicy than I intended; an acceptable result for an off the cuff Beet Soup (recipe follows).

Rounding out the lineup of dishes, was one of the most rewarding things I’ve ever made. Salmon cakes with……………….. hollandaise sauce! Holy MOLY was this hollandaise fabulous, the recipe and inspiration from the ever inspiring Michael Ruhlman. I decided to take a leap of faith, and attempt this sauce for the first time live-without-a-net, during Food Night. No practice run. No backup sauce. Nada. Just… get it RIGHT… the first time. Which after some whisking… ok, a lot of whisking…

… it was not only right, it was heavenly. It was like yellow ribbons of rich lemony silky goodness enveloping the (oh by the way) French Laundry inspired salmon cakes with grilled lemon. While there would certainly be nothing wrong with this dish without the hollandaise…

... WITH the hollandaise… well, you could say the dish sounded its BARBARIC YAWP over the rooftops of the world.*

* Thanks, Uncle Walt Whitman. I had forgotten about that scene in "Dead Poets Society" until I tried to describe yummy hollandaise sauce (now there is a sentence you never thought you'd read in your life, right?!) I don't even think I knew what hollandaise sauce was when I first saw that movie. But anyway, invest the 2 minutes and check out that scene. Great stuff.

The lesson here is… make hollandaise. You can do it. You absolutely can do it. And your life will taste better as a result.

The final course was a second iteration of Sameh’s cucumber broth, this time with salmon instead of halibut, and crème fraiche with pickled tomato instead of yogurt. Not shabby.

My favorite dish? The Salmon Cakes. That hollandaise was so rewarding. But what do I want you to take from this Food Night? Beets. Yes, beets. Beets are your friend. Roast them, saute some aromatics, toss them in the pot with some wine and/or water, garnish… and you’ll have beauty in a bowl.

Beet Soup

Beets – red, one pound or more
1 small onion, chopped
1 or 2 cloves garlic, thinly sliced.
Carrot/celery – chopped (optional)
Ginger - peeled, chopped
White wine or sherry or madiera or…
Bay leaves
Guajillo chile – optional (lends spice and earthyness)
Salt, lemon juice, brown sugar; for seasoning
Crème fraiche, quality blue cheese, chives; for garnish

Line an oven going sheet pan with tin foil. Toss beets in olive oil and roast in sheet pan in a 425 degree oven, approximately 60-75 minutes, tossing the beets every 20 minutes or so, until tender. Peel (your fingers probably will want them to cool a bit), and chop into chunks.

While beets roast, sauté your onion to your desired doneness (lightly translucent, or caramelize the hell out of it… it’s a free country). Toss in the garlic, and carrot/celery if using. Saute for a bit and add the ginger toward the end. Gently salt each addition to the pot, remembering you can always add more later. Deglaze pot with wine or sherry or water and reduce.

Add peeled beet chunks, and cover by an inch or so with water, and season with salt. Add (optional)chile and bay, and simmer partially covered for at least 30 minutes. Remove chile and bay. Puree. Adjust consistency of soup as needed, by either reducing to thicken, or adding water to thin. Check for seasoning, adding salt, and lemon juice as needed. Use sugar in 1tsp increments to tame heat a bit if necessary.

Serve chilled or warm, garnished with a spot of blue cheese, crème fraiche thinned with lemon juice or water, and chives.

Glassware. Yes... It's important

2010-10-27T23:28:00.001-05:00

Yes, yes, yes... the beet-o-riffic post from the Tyler Durden Emergency Food Night is almost done. Really it is. It's more done now than it was when we last spoke. But I thought the following article from the heavytable.com was worthy enough of a Food Night Breaking News Bulletin...

Georg Riedel at Kitchen Window

Two positevely BRILLIANT points Mr. Riedel makes in the article...

1). "Enjoy the company of the people you are drinking with." (Food Night Editor's note; Truer words have rarely been spoken. Wine always tastes better in the company of good people. Always.)

2). "How much do you spend on glassware a year? Zero, right?" (Food Night Editor's note; Buy yourself some decent Riedel/Spieglau/Whatever stems. If you are reading this... you care about food and wine. Treat yourself. Spend $50 on 4 decent Riedel stems. Please. And yes - you have to hand wash them. This will not cause the world to end. You can do it. Food Night believes in you. And Food Night is right about this... drink your wine out of proper glasses. Please trust Food Night on this one. We've gotten you this far....)

Food Night loves the heavytable.com. And Food Night loves its Riedel stemware. And Food Night loves it's loyal and fabulous readers. So, I thought you all should meet.

Happy Stemware Shopping.

One more thing... The wine on the left in this picture (from the above heavytable article)...

...the Roberts & Rogers Cabernet Sauvignon from Howell Mountain... um..... yeah. You want a bottle of this stuff. It's AWESOME. I just had it last week and it is drinking beautifully. And, It's on sale at Haskells right now... for half price. Come see your Food Night fellas at the Woodbury Haskells and pick up a bottle or two... and your life will immediately be better.

You say TAHG-nee, they say TAWN-yee; Our visit to Togni Vineyards

2010-10-07T20:33:00.003-05:00

St. Helena, Napa Valley - Food Night is coming to you live, from the shotgun position of the sporty VW Jetta as we attempt to locate Togni Vineyards.*

* Let’s briefly touch on the proper pronounciation of this place, which the owners lend their last name to. As best I can tell, from listening to our hosts pronounce it, it is TAWN-yee. It is definitely not TAHG-nee… which is the way we had been pronouncing it. Linguistics experts we are not. Please forgive us.

After some back and forth, we finally zero’d in on our target. You see, the enterances to wineries typically look something like this…

Or this…

Togni’s enterance? It looks like this…

Yeah. A simple gate with a padlock. No signage to alert you to your proximity to world class cabernet, almost as if to say “We let the wine speak for itself here.” It was later explained to us the gate is useful in keeping deer out of the property. So world class wineries don’t like the deer either... I knew I was going to like these people.

After calling the winery from just outside the locked gate, because we (obviously… and predictably…) forgot the combination to the lock, we coasted down a little hill to a charming little vineyard scene. There were lovely rolling hills, a house further down the hill and what looked to be a winemaking facility next to the “parking lot”. And when I say “parking lot”, what I really mean is the parking SPOT. It was immediately evident that this is not some high traffic tourist trap scenario. This is a small (2000 cases a year, max) family operated winery that the Togni family has taken much care and pride in cultivating.

The experience at Togni was a true highlight of our trip to California. Let’s have a look at we saw…

As we climbed out of the Jetta, Birgitta Togni greeted us and proceeded to show us around the property. I couldn’t help but think it’s probably a good sign that the last name of the person showing us around coincides with the name that is on all the wine produced here. Just an observation. I like to state the obvious sometimes, bear with me.

One of the first things we saw was this awesome medieval-looking door…

What do you think it leads to? I half expected to see a bunch of bearded fellas wearing fur garments sitting at a table drinking meade and gnawing at turkey legs the size of footballs on the other side of that door, but no… twas not to be. What actually WAS on the other side was far better (and less dangerous) than that. That door leads into…

… the barrel rooms. Pristinely clean barrel rooms, I might add. Here, the pressed and free run juices rest in new oak barrels… like this one…

It was here we got the INCREDIBLE opportunity to taste wine from said barrels (I believe it was the 2008 vintage)… a first for me to be sure. I figured we’d be tasting from bottle, obviously, but all of a sudden…

… there goes Birgitta with the “wine thief”, siphoning off juice and releasing it into glasses as I tried my darndest to suppress my inner 5-year-old that was desperately trying to illuminate the room with a joyous rebel yell. I mean, two days ago at that time, I was sitting in a stale cube while staring at a computer screen in St. Paul… and now here I am drinking wine out of a Barrel at Togni Vineyards that ROBERT PARKER drank out of. For you math majors out there… (Wine out of a Barrel at Togni) > (Cube Farm) x 1,000,000.

First we tasted the “free run” juice, which is the juice that is… well, think of this this way. You put a couple of tons of grapes in a tank. The ones on the bottom… they get crushed by their brothers and sisters sitting on top of them. So the juice resulting from that natural pressing is called “free run” juice. This juice is removed from the bottom of the tank via a valve or similar relief device, and is sometimes/often distributed back over the remaining grapes in the tank.

Next we tried the “pressed” juice, which is juice that is extracted from the remnants of the naturally crushed grapes via this bladder press…

I thought the free run juice was fabulous, but the pressed juice….. WOW. That stuff was uber complex and fat and unctuous with massive amounts of structure and acid and sophistication. World Class, the Togni cabernet sauvignon.

After Birgitta showed us around the barrel rooms, we exited the barrel rooms through a different door*...

* What is it with crazy wicked cool old doors at wineries???

... and were led into the warehouse where we met Philip Togni, gentleman, winemaker. Philip started making wine at Chappalet back in 1960’s, and has been growing grapes on the 25 acre plot of land where he and Birgitta live since 1981. These were such “real” people, true masters of their craft, yet completely down to earth, humble and affable.

One of my favorite things about this family owned and operated business I found over in the corner of the warehouse. The label making “station”…. shown here…

I mean, can you imagine how the labels are put on bottles at a place like, say, Sutter Home? Or Yellow Tail? At Togni… there is a table in the corner with a roll of labels and a chair with no back to sit on. Soooooo charming. And real. Loved it.

As we made our reluctant exit, I noticed Philip was somewhere out of view, fudging with bubble wrap or some such thing. Then as we were about to head up to the car, Philip, every bit the gentleman, hands us a bottle of Tanbark cabernet that he has wrapped in bubble wrap and explains in his fabulously articulate and distinguished English accent “I thought you might be having a bit of lunch next, perhaps you might like to enjoy some of our wine with your meal.”

I mean………. Does it get any better than that?!?!? No, it doesn’t. So classy. For the record; we were late for our subsequent appointments, so lunch was quite rushed, and as a result we enjoyed the bottle at dinner that night.

Thank you to the fabulous Philip and Birgitta Togni…

… for your gracious hospitality. Making the connection between a wine and the people that make it takes the enjoyment factor of said wine up an immeasurable amount.

And so we made our way back up the hill, past the padlock, bound for more tasting appointments, knowing full well our day had already peaked.

New Shoes, and new Blog Stuffs

2010-09-24T22:54:00.002-05:00

If you are anything like me, when you were a kid, new shoes made you positively giddy. Unfortunately new shoes also typically coincided with the beginning of a new school year, which was certainly not cause for celebration. But the new shoes provided a nice distraction from the impending 9-month ~~prison term~~ school year. They signaled a page turning of sorts, a new chapter, a fresh start.

So, since it's that time of year, and the old blog here could use a bit of a shake up and wake up... I thought it might be wise to unfurl a few new ditties* here to keep things fresh.

*Ditty (noun). Definition; a thing.

Ditty #1. We are gonna have a go with messing around with the photo on the right side of the page on a daily (or semi-daily) basis. I've got a pile of pictures from various Food Nights and the trip to Cali that are sure to never see the light of day otherwise. Like this one...

I thought the Golden Gate was just a bridge. False. It is not just a bridge. It is a REALLY BIG bridge. And it's REALLY red. And REALLY cool. Ultimately yes, just a bridge. But it is one of those rare things in life that lives up to the nearly ridiculous levels of hype and hyperbole.

Only slightly less transcendent than the picture of one of the most monumental engineering marvels known to man is... the picture of Durden and Alex that is up there now. Or as I like to call it... "Shark Food". That was taken Sunday morning of our Cali trip, when we drove out to the coast, just for the heck of it. Remember, Minnesota boys like us don't get to see the ocean every day. I just love the pose/faces; what a couple of tools. Cracks me up every time I look at it.

So yeah. More pictures. Which is what I wished "Grapes of Wrath" had when I "read" it in high school.

Ditty #2. I'm going to put up a little blog-roll at the right. Basically, these will be links to blogs and/or websites that A). Food Night uses/references often, AND B). you like-minded people might find interesting and/or inspiring. Stuff like Ruhlman, Bittman, Simply Recipes, etc. I'm sure it'll be great.

Ditty #3. As the mood strikes, we'll fire up polls on the right, to query you... the faithful Food Night reader. As you can see... we've already got one going right now; Beets - your preferences. Food Night loves beets, and Food Night thinks you should too. Not to be pushy or anything of course, but they are good, colorful, good for you, AND... easy to prepare. Not to mention, one of Food Night's faithful readers is into beets, and Food Night is trying to cultivate his love of beets. So, more on beets later.

Ditty #4. Most if not all of you no doubt recall that... there is an UNDOCUMENTED Food Night still floating around out in the universe of past events! *** GASP ***. Yeah, I know. The horror. You recall the "Emergency Food Night" I teased a while ago I'm sure. So, to fix this, and since this undocumented Food Night happened in JUNE... I think I might run a quick and dirty version of it... kind of First Grade style. Which is to say, more...

... pictures...

...than words. We'll see. My thought is that way you'll get a little more meat on your Food-Night-bone, without me having to try to remember exactly what went down back in June. Cripes, I can barely remember what I did 20 minutes ago.*

* Which I'm told is perfectly normal. For a 93 year old.

And that's about all I know for now.

Oh wait, that's not true, I also know the post on Food Night's visit to the fabulous Togni Vineyards is on the Food Night Editor's desk awaiting final approval. So you've got that going for you...... which is nice.

Culinary Interlude... Tomatoes

2010-09-05T18:06:00.000-05:00

I hope you are enjoying the deets of the trip to Cali as much as we enjoyed being there. But as you surely know, TOMATO SEASON is upon us, so I think it’s appropriate to sprinkle in a tomato focused culinary interlude. Included here are a couple of my tomato-centric recommendations and one recipe from the uber-deece-and-talented Sameh Wadi that is not to be missed.

First, have a go with Jamie Oliver’s simple yet brilliant compilation of tomatoes in what he accurately dubs “The Mothership Tomato Salad Recipe”. It’s elegantly rustic, if that is possible, and above all… the taste is amazing. Make sure you have some crusty bread to sop up the juices from the tomatoes and olive oil and other goodness that’ll be left loitering on your plate as you gobble up the tomatoes. And riff on it… it’s not a soufflé… you aren’t going to wreck it. Toss in some tarragon, some cucumber, some feta… go crazy. One thing to note… I usually skip or drastically reduce the garlic in this recipe. I feel like it overwhelms the tomatoes.

Difficultly level for Jamie's tomato salad recipe is literally ZERO. If you can slice a tomato, you can do this. And what’s more, you SHOULD do this recipe. Now is the time, when tomatoes are plentiful and at the height of their powers. Check out the beauties I saw at the St. Paul Farmers Market this weekend... pictured above, and right here...

Secondly, as a seasoned Food Night devotee, you undoubtedly know that I am a huge fan of the French Laundry Cookbook. Please know that just because the book says “French Laundry” on the cover doesn’t mean it’s out of your league. Case in point… the Heirloom Tomato Tart.

In my opinion, the Heirloom Tomato Tart recipe ALONE is worth the $35 sticker price of this book. I’m telling you… buy the book, and make that recipe. It has changed people’s lives. I’m not even going to say anything more… just buy it… and make it. Perhaps use the above tomatoes, lounging in the French Laundry’s garden,* as inspiration.

*No really, that is a photo I took on Food Night’s recent trip to California** of tomatoes in the French Laundry’s garden. I understand I do a fair amount of kidding and leg pulling around here, but this is not one of those times. Those are actual French Laundry tomatoes. I mean who knows… maybe those tomatoes found their way into an ACTUAL French Laundry Heirloom Tomato Tart!

**Which you have no doubt been reading about……… right?

Difficulty level for the tart is slightly higher than zero, but easily doable for anyone that cares about cooking. And that would be YOU if you are reading this. And if you opt for store-bought puff pastry (as I have done) instead of making it from scratch… I won’t tell anyone. The dish will still be fabulous, too.

Finally, I must point you to Sameh’s recipe for Tomato Jam that appeared in the August issue of Metro Magazine. This issue has a plethora of fun food stuffs in it, including a mouth watering pictoral of Sameh’s BLT… where the “T” is the following Tomato Jam.

You no doubt recall the Bacon Jam that we had with scallops at a Food Night last February. This Tomato Jam is a lot like that… except… with tomatoes! So get blanching and peeling, and your “B” and “L” will be forever grateful to be associated with this “T”. And please, make this recipe year round… just be sure that when you make it in February, use quality canned San Marzano tomatoes, mkay? Great.

Sameh’s Tomato Jam

2 T chopped shallot
2 T olive oil
2 T red wine vinegar
2 T honey
1.5 t Spice Trail Ras El Hanout* (see NOTE below)

2 28oz cans San Marzano tomatoes (peeled)
or
3 lbs fresh tomatoes, peeled, de-seeded, chopped

Saute shallots in oil until translucent. Add honey and continue to cook until shallot is caramelized. Add vinegar and ras el hanout. Add the tomatoes and cook for approx 1 hour, until the mixture thickens to desired consistency. Taste, and season as needed with salt and vinegar.

Bang. Done. You now now have the uber-condiment. Use daily.

*NOTE: You can successfully make this jam without the ras el hanout, but, I would highly recommend picking some up either at Saffron Restaurant and Lounge, or online HERE. It adds a interesting depth of flavor. In addition to its use in this jam, use ras el hanout as a dry rub on pork, chicken, lamb, beef, in stews, and as a way to keep rattlesnakes out of your kitchen. Yep - it's true - ever since I bought that stuff, not one rattlesnake in my kitchen. Nice fringe benefit, huh.

Difficulty level here is “easy”, and the end result is so delicious and versatile, it’s worth whatever effort you put forth and then some. As for uses for this spreadable delight? Use it as the “T” in your BLTs as Sameh does. Top a piece of fish with it. Slather some on a steak that is fresh from the grill (as I did last night - fabulous). Use it as a dip for French Fries or on top of the afore mentioned tomato tart! Just don’t let this season pass you buy without making it.

So get yourself to the Farmers Market, and find yourself some rosey red (or green, or yellow, or orange…) orbs of summery goodness. Then get cooking, because life is better when we cook for ourselves....... especially during tomato season.

Resources/Acknowledgements;

Mecca Bos-Williams, Metro Magazine Food and Drinks Editor

Sameh Wadi, Saffron Restaurant and Lounge

St. Paul Farmers Market

Food Night Field Trip - Calera, part 2

2010-08-19T17:55:00.003-05:00

By now, I’m sure you’ve noticed that the interweb is absolutely, positively buzzing about Food Night’s Field Trip. We are even linked to on heavytable.com’s blog roll. Thanks, heavytable! On the off chance you are a new Food Night reader… I offer you parts one, two, and three of our Field Trip extravaganza to get you caught up as we resume our blogcast, already in progress from….

11300 CIENEGA ROAD, HOLLISTER, CA – We are here at Calera, Food Night’s wine Mecca. While we sample the day's offerings, we are roaming all over the Calera Campus, like teenagers in a comic book store, or wolves in a henhouse… not sure which is a more apt analogy. As we roam, we are bombarded with images of mountains and boxes and stacks upon stacks of Calera…

… not to mention treasures like this… a case of 1990 Jensen Pinot Noir…

It’s a sensory overload of Calera!!! I cannot even begin to imagine the Food Night we could throw down here in Calera’s warehouse. And speaking of aged Jensen Vineyard Pinot Noir, about a year ago, Josh Jensen came to Minnesota for a tasting in Bloomington, which your Food Night correspondents happily (and obviously) attended. While there, we got a sip of 1992 Jensen out of a magnum. And um, yeah, that wine was preposterously good. A Top 5 wine of all time, for yours truly. The only thing I can compare it to… Leroy. The uber-Leroys that is, not the simple little Cotes du Beaune Villages discussed previously on these pages.

Anyway, I don’t even remember how this happened, if everyone gets this treatment, or if you have to practically foam at the mouth and act like 10 year olds at Disneyland for the first time… but eventually our very gracious and PATIENT hostess Lindsay was leading us up a staircase to Calera’s barrel rooms. I don’t know if there is a more technical term, but I’m going with “barrel rooms”. Some of the barrels Calera uses are brand new…

… while some barrels are older…

But all are made of French Oak, which imparts more subtle and gentle aromas/flavors/textures to the wine than does American Oak. And of course the older the barrel the softer still the impact it has on juice it contains. I believe Calera keeps barrels around for a max of 4 years, before they are put out to pasture in the great “barrel room” in the sky. There is certainly a TON of expertise that goes into blending wines from barrels of various oak volumes, and Calera does it brilliantly.

This first barrel room was fairly dark and even eerie feeling. Water sprayed/dripped from the ceiling in an effort to… I have no idea but it was certainly a moist environment.

Then there was barrel room #2, or so I’m calling it, where we saw cool stuff like this… remember this…

What do you think that is? Wow, why yes, that’s correct, it IS the inspiration for the tattoo I just got! How did you know?! But, it is ALSO a close-up of the absolute coolest door in the history of the world…

How neat is that??!! If you can't tell, the doors are like 13 feet tall... roughly. Don't they look like something out of a Medieval Castle?! Or from Lord of the Rings, like these are doors that keep the Orcs out. But actually, these doors lead up to the unloading zone, which I believe is where grapes picked up on Mt. Harlan arrive for processing. I could be wrong. If anyone who actually knows what they are talking about is reading… BY ALL MEANS… chime in. I’m just your host here, I don’t claim to know much of anything about anything*.

* Except for scallops. I can sear you a helluva nice scallop.

Next, we went to a pretty special place... Calera's Wine Cellar. Residing here are things so completely and utterly awesome that my head nearly exploded. Things like the first* Reed Pinot Noir ever bottled…

*At least I'm pretty sure 1978 was the first year the Reed was bottled...

And these “Leaking” bottles of 1996 Selleck Pinot Noir, that all of us would have GLADLY taken off the premises so as to prevent them from leaking all over anything but our mouths…

And even THIS…

A magnum of 1980 Calera Zinfandel?!??! Are you kidding me?! And speaking of Calera Zin, remember that one additional bottle I said we tasted at the end of the last post… YEP. We got to try a bottle of 1979 (NINETEEN SEVENTY NINE!!) Calera Zin!

I was absolutely shocked at how disparate the aroma and flavor of the wine were. The nose was almost… how do I say this delicately… the nose smelled nearly rotten. Decaying organic matter was all I could come up with for a description.* My expectations were immediately reduced to virtually nothing as I smelled this seemingly off-putting wine.

*”Decaying organic matter.” Not something you often see on a wine’s label as a selling point.

But then we tasted it, and of COURSE it was spectacular. Smooth, silky, and still totally alive. Absolutely astonishing. I don’t even know how to process a 1979 Zinfandel… but that just happened!

Finally, we purchased some wine (Pinot Noirs – 1996 and 2000 Mills, and 2002 Jensen), some t-shirts, and scooped up some dirt from these sacred grounds to take home as a memento. OK – I made that last part up, but I would have likely done so had I thought of it at the time. And you think I’m kidding…

Well, I suppose that about wraps up our visit to Calera. As we drove away, we couldn’t help but think… where do we go from here? We thought; "We are going to be in the Napa Valley all day tomorrow, but, how can we POSSIBLY top a day that featured a Monte Bello tasting, AND a tasting at Calera?" It’s like Usain Bolt running the 100m in like 2.73 seconds or whatever he does… that's simply as good as running gets. Monte Bello and Calera in one day? That's as good as wine tasting gets in America.

As we navigated our way north back toward San Francisco, we contemplated just cancelling all our appointments the next day and flying home a day early. Actually no, that is totally false, we did not consider that at all. What we DID do was stop by K&L Wines near Palo Alto, where we secured a little something to enjoy with dinner at the Market Bar in San Fran (the view from Market Bar is pictured above)...

The wine we bought at K&L was a 1992 Howell Mountain Dunn Cabernet. That's it above, along with one of the best Chardonnays you will ever have, from Navarro Vineyards. If there is a better pairing than Drake's Bay oysters and that Navarro Chardonnay... I'm not aware of it. Also pictured is the 1996 Mills we bought at Calera, which went unopened due to our relatively brief stay at Market Bar (you’ll understand why it was a brief stay in a moment). I won’t belabor the details of the Dunn other than to say 1). Dunn is atop the destination list for the next trip to Napa, and 2). all three of us thought the Dunn was EASILY in the top 3 wines we tried on the entire trip. Spectacular stuff, even out of these preposterously tiny B.S. wine glasses they had at the Market Bar.

Apparently the owner of Market Bar decreed that all wine and spirits (and maybe even beer, I’m not sure) shall be consumed out of these thick little glasses with 1 inch stems and small bowls. Mind you, this is a pretty nice restaurant. Maybe not this nice...

... but pretty dang nice. And as the manager of the restaurant was relaying this bit of flawed glassware logic to us, he was actually simultaneously asking us to LEAVE because we had stayed until the preposterously late hour of……….10pm. I kid you not. Anyway, my inner wine-snob may be showing a bit here, but it was borderline criminal to drink the Dunn out of these glasses. Imbibing from these “stems” was like trying to listen to a live performance by Miles Davis... underwater. The fact that the Dunn was STILL so spectacular blows my mind to this day. Dunn makes two wines… the Howell Mountain and the Napa Valley. The Howell Mountain is the top label, and contains 100% fruit from Howell Mountain. The Napa Valley label contains up to 15% fruit from the Napa Valley floor, the rest from Howell Mountain. Do yourself a favor, and get some. Post haste.

In any case... wow, Calera. We actually went to Calera! Here's the proof...

Thank you to Lindsay, Dora, and to Josh Jensen and every single person at Calera. There is nothing else like Calera in this country.

Up Next; Food Night Field Trip A.C.*

*After Calera. And yes – it was worth it. Very much so, in fact.

Food Night Field Trip - Calera

2010-08-09T18:52:00.008-05:00

If you missed part1 or part2 of Food Night Field Trip, please consider checking out part1 here and part2 here. And understand that what follows here is a VERY special post for Food Night. Kind of like in the 80’s when you’d hear TV promos for “very special episodes” of your favorite sitcoms. Like this; “On a very special episode of ‘Silver Spoons’, Ricky gets caught lying… “, or this; “On a very special episode of ‘Diff’rent Strokes’, Arnold asks Kimberly what she is talkin’ ‘bout”. You get the idea. Anyway, let’s get the ball rolling from…

11300 CIENEGA ROAD, HOLLISTER, CA – Calera. We made it. We awoke Friday morning and thought “Holy Shizzle Sticks, we are actually going to go to Calera today”. How can I even begin to convey the anticipation? The sense of “This is actually going to happen. We are actually going to go to Calera."

Allow me to attempt an analogy, to try and lend some perspective. Imagine you are a hopelessly devoted Red Sox fan… but you live in Nebraska. You DVR all their games. You collect memorabilia. You wear Sox gear, are rote on the rich history of the franchise, and generally spend an irrational amount of your free time obsessing ABOUT, thinking OF, and spending your cash ON all things Red Sox. But you’ve never been to Fenway Park. And then, an opportunity presents itself to go to Boston... so, you go. You get on a plane, and the anticipation begins. You land in Boston. You get off the plane, trying to keep calm, trying to retain some sense of composure. After all, you are thirty-sizjheuhhhh years old, come now! It’s just a baseball game, a baseball park, bricks, mortar, grass… but no, there is history there. There is depth. Tradition. Excellence. It’s more than just a physical space, or an address. The "contents", if you will, of that building have made your life better, have given you untold hours and enjoyment.

So you climb in a cab, and as you ride, your mind races as you realize your previously held perspectives and visions and assumptions are going to get a massive dose of REALITY. From now on, you won't have to imagine what Fenway is like anymore. You'll have actual, tangible experience to draw from. It’s really happening, and you don’t know what to expect. Have you built the experience up in your mind to a point where your fantasy and reality cannot possibly intersect? Will you be underwhelmed? Overwhelmed? Plain-old-whelmed? Who knows. You just know, you literally can barely sit still as you anticipate that first glimpse of the Green Monster…

So yeah, going to Calera is a pretty big deal to Food Night. We’ve smelled and tasted and ranted and raved and hooted and hollered and recommended and re-recommended and sought out and pondered and reminisced about dozens of different bottles of Calera’s wines. It is hard to capture exactly how excited three grown men* were as we pulled into the gravel parking lot next to the warehouse. Calera is our Fenway Park, so to speak. It has history. Depth. Tradition. Excellence. Calera is, in our opinion, the pinnacle of what can be achieved in wine in this country.

* "Grown men"... as in, men that are all grows up. Yeah, like that.

To visit Calera, one needs to make a point of doing so. That is to say, you aren’t going to happen upon Calera on your way to… pretty much anything else. Unless perhaps you are trying to get lost. Because it seemed to me we were about a stone's throw away from downtown "Lost" before we pulled up Calera's driveway. Check out the view out the front door at Calera…

Looks like something out of an old Clint Eastwood Western, right?!? Calera is indeed a destination, and one absolutely worth seeking out. Before we dive into the tasting deets…

… we should briefly go back to the start, where this fascination with Calera began. It was one bottle… the 2001 Calera Selleck Pinot Noir. I believe it was Alex, Tyler and Tom that opened it one night. So utterly profound was this one bottle of wine, that in subsequent weeks we began buying up and opening others. Without fail, each new bottle we tried was absolutely astonishing in its own way. But all of them, every one (of the pinot noirs, that is), had that “Calera perfume”. I would say without exaggeration that any of the Food Night fellas could pick out a Calera pinot noir via smell alone. Recently, I had the 2004 Calera Central Coast Pinot Noir out of a lowball glass in a hotel room, and even THEN I could easily pick out that unmistakable aroma.*

* I'm not even going to attempt to describe the Calera smell, as it defies my powers of description. Just buy some Calera, and see for yourself.

Calera. Even out of a hotel lowball glass. Josh Jensen, if you are reading, feel free to us that little beauty in future marketing campaigns.

One final (I promise) quick point before we get to the bottles we tasted. Without oversimplifying things too much, Calera’s wines can be divided into wines produced from grapes grown on their vineyard sites on Mt. Harlan, and wines produced from grapes purchased from other growers in the Central Coast Region of California. The Mt. Harlan wines are Calera’s top shelf offerings, while the Central Coast wines are a more cost effective (and still fabulously delicious) alternative to the singular Mt. Harlan offerings.

So, the tasting. Let’s begin before we run out of bandwidth. You’ll notice right away from the roster above that the world’s greatest Rosé was in play. I have to stress to you… it is soooooo faaaaaaar superior to any other Rosé any of us have ever had. The level of richness, the perfect balance of subtle sweetness, crisp acidity, bright fresh fruit flavors, and lush, creamy mouth-feel are simply unheard of in other Rosés. It is a wine that is at home by itself, and with virtually any cuisine you could think of.

Before writing this, I had no idea why Calera called their Rose “Vin Gris”. For you non-link-clickers… here is the most interesting nugget from that link; “Producing a small volume of Vin gris (or rosé) can also be used as a technique to improve Pinot noir. Removing some clear juice increases the concentration of colour and flavour compounds from the skins in the remaining juice intended for making red wine.” Makes total sense, right? We’ve all had Pinot Noir that tastes… to be blunt… watered down. Well, what if after crushing pinot noir grapes, some of the clear juice is removed from contact with the skins. Strike the right balance, and I would assume you have not only improved the richness and concentration of your red wine juice, but you also have a killer Rosé to boot. Obviously I’m oversimplifying here a bit, and generally have no idea what I'm talking about since I'm not, you know, a winemaker. But I think you get the idea.

Moving on, also tasted were two Central Coast white wines; the 2008 Chardonnay and the 2009 Viognier. At the risk of sounding repetitive, Calera’s Mt. Harlan versions of these two wines are easily and securely among the top chardonnays and viogniers we’ve ever had. I would say the Mt. Harlan Viognier is EASILY the best viognier we’ve ever had, and the chardonnay is definitely in the running in that race as well. And get this… they both retail for under $30!!! That’s INSANE for wines of this quality. Yet another reason to love Calera, the extraordinary price the value ratio.

The Central Coast whites we tried were “baby” versions of their Mt. Harlan parental units. Pleasures to drink, and at roughly $16/bottle, absolutely incredible values.

And now, the Pinot Noirs. First up was the 2008 Central Coast Pinot Noir, which was delicious, but perhaps not as “Calera-like” as the 2004 I had in that hotel room. Who knows why it was not as Calera-like, and frankly who cares, it was still fabulous. Then we moved into the Mt. Harlan single vineyard pinot noirs, beginning with the newest vineyard site, the de Villiers. This 2007 is the very first bottling of the de Villiers, and I believe we were told the grapes from this vineyard had previously been used in the Central Coast cuvee. What a treat it was to be able to taste the first edition of what will surely be another classic label.

Next was the 2007 Ryan, which was more restrained, subtle and softer than some of the blockbuster Mills and Selleck Pinot Noirs your Food Night Fellas have come to admire so much. This Ryan is certainly a great wine, and adds diversity to the Mt. Harlan offerings.

Finally, we got a splash of the 2002 Mills. Ho. Lee. Cow. This wine had absolutely incredible funky, earthy, organic notes exploding out of the glass (in addition to that special Calera perfume), to go along with lush pinot noir sophistication on the palate. All kinds of non-fruit things happening in that bottle – we could have lingered all day and still not gotten to the bottom of every inch of intricacy this wine had to offer. One of the best pinot noirs I have had, no question.

Finally, there was the 2006 Dessert Viognier, a wine I didn’t even know Calera made. And of course, it was all you’d expect… a near perfect balance of sweetness and acidity. You know how some dessert wines you have leave you practically licking a film of sugary residue off your lips? Not this one. Lots of concentrated viognier flavors like melon and citrus, without the sticky sweet finish, yet retaining the fuller texture that perhaps you would expect in an “after dinner” libation. Brilliant.

There was one more wine we tried, but that will have to wait for the second part* of this Calera posting. The mere EXISTENCE of this wine at Calera blew us out of the water. What was it? The answer, and glimpses “Behind the Scenes” at Calera are coming up next.

* You didn't really think I could pack a two hour visit to Calera into one post, did you?

So don't wander off. From the looks of the landscape out here, you might get lost and run into these fellas. And that wouldn't be good, but rather bad... or even ugly.

Food Night Field Trip - Ridge

2010-07-29T23:36:00.002-05:00

If you missed Part 1 of Food Night Field Trip, please click here. Otherwise, we resume our narrative from…

MONTE BELLO ROAD, CUPERTINO, CA – After Tyler Durden collected Alex and I from SFO at about midnight local time on Thursday, we retired to our palatial accommodations at La Quinta Inn. After circumnavigating the building and not finding one available parking spot, we thumbed our noses at a “Denny’s Parking Only” sign, and matriculated up to our room. We needed to rest up for our journey south the next morning to…

That’s right. We had a 10am appointment at Ridge for a little Monte Bello tasting! And hey, that's Noon Central Standard Time, so... stop freaking out. I’m sure you recall that the 2001 Ridge Monte Bello was one of THE best wines we have had at Food Night. Hence, we were pretty stoked for this initial tasting.

On our way up the mountain, we noticed lots and lots of signs indicating multiple consecutive and DRASTIC changes in direction, and couldn’t help but think…

… if there happened to be a truck of any consequence heading down the mountain as we were heading UP the mountain... well, our zippy li'l Jetta would be on the losing end of that equation. The end result of said equation would be us going from an elevation of 2300 feet (where the Monte Bello vineyards reside… yeah… they are way up there) to the bottom of the mountain in an entirely unacceptable manner.

We later learned that there are “procedures” in place for when the large trucks that ferry the grapes/juice/whatever to and fro are present on the mountain. A wise policy to be sure.

Once at Ridge, we were greeted by the extremely affable* Christopher Watkins who took us on a tasting tour that began with one of the best domestic Chardonnays we’ve had… the 2007 Monte Bello Chardonnay. Very Burgundian, fresh and lively, beautifully balanced acidity and fruit, this Chardonnay certainly lives up to its pedigree as a wine from Monte Bello.

* From the Merriam-Webster OnLine Dictionary... "Affable (adjective); being pleasant and at ease in talking to others". Bang. That was Christopher. In such a potentially snobby situation, where too many people seem to want to engage in a verbal wine-wits war, Christopher's vibe couldn't have been more on point. Relaxed, chill, yet extremely informative. So refreshing.

After that delicious Chardonnay, we tasted through a handful of very delightful zinfandel blends. Included here was the 2008 Pagani Ranch Zinfandel…

This blend included 10% Alicante Bouchet, which is not a grape I had heard of before. The resulting wine was very autumnal in nature I thought, with beautiful spice aromas, yet still young, fresh and almost Sangiovese-esque maybe? But what do I know. Regardless, it was really cool stuff.

We concluded the tasting with not one but TWO Monte Bellos. And since I was the dumb kid in the room, I decided to ask Christopher “What exactly IS Monte Bello?”

Is Monte Bello a road?

Is Monte Bello a wine so uber-deece and massive and unctuous and broodingly brilliant that it will only fit in large format bottles?

Is Monte Bello a place William the Conqueror visited on vacation in 1066* after the Norman Conquest?

* We all noticed the "EST 1066" part of the above sign outside the Tasting Room at Ridge and thought... um... not much was established here in "California" in the year 1066. So I decided to pose this conundrum to the Ridge website after we got home, and I got the following explanation; "The principal writer and marketer at Ridge in the early days was a Stanford classmate of Paul Draper (Ridge's winemaker), and a philosophy, literature, and history major. The humor in those days popped up in all sorts of ways. For many years, that 1066 portion of the sign was actually turned backwards. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms didn't find it funny and declared it to be false advertising. No sense of humor. Just in the last year or two, it made a reappearance, signifying that the feds aren't paying attention anymore, or someone explained the joke." Classic, no?!

Apparently, Monte Bello is both a “property” and a “vineyard designation”. The wines from this location focus on terroir – vineyard specific characteristics that express themselves effortlessly in these stunningly beautiful wines. First we tasted the 2007, and then a 375ml bottle of the 1995 Monte Bello.

The 07 had a preposterous nose to it… singular. Almost Paulliac-like in nature, with hints of graphite/pencil lead, it screamed sophistication and elegance. And the 1995 was gorgeous, almost like a distinguished gentleman sitting comfortably in his recliner knowing full well the breadth and depth of his well constructed existence, yet completely friendly and accessible. Like a wise uncle, perhaps. The bouquet on the 1995 hinted that this was not a recent vintage, and the palate revealed a wine well within it’s prime. An absolute gem.

So there you go! Ridge Monte Bello Tasting - that just happened!! We would like to send our thanks to Chris Griese at World Class Wines for coordinating this tasting for us, and of course to Christopher Watkins for sharing and discussing these beautiful wines with us, and for starting off our wine sojourn on such and enjoyable note.

Oh wait, one more little ditty before we conclude the Ridge chapter of Food Night Field Trip. While we discussed wine as it relates to food, and wine as a food accompaniment, Christopher gave us the gem that “Some wines come alive via culinary juxtaposition”. How beautiful is that?! And how true. Well said, sir. You can get more excellent wordsmithing from Christopher via Ridge’s blog.

And so with this memorable experience under our belts, we descended the mountain’s hairpin turns, hoping subsequent tastings could rival a bar set this high. 2300 feet high, to be exact.

Food Night Field Trip

2010-07-25T23:55:00.006-05:00

SAN FRANCISCO, CA -- You are reading Food Night LIVE, from San Francisco International Airport, where Food Night has just concluded a weekend of EPIC and absolutely game changing proportions. Perhaps you are aware that one of the principle players in Food Night, Mr. Tyler Durden, has fled the Upper Midwest and is back living in his native northern California.

Since life is short, and wine is good, Alex and I hopped on a plane bound for SFO where Mr. Durden collected us in a rented VW Jetta for a weekend that saw us log 800 miles in said German Engineering. That is not a misprint… 8-hondo-miles. I'm pretty sure there isn't an inch of twisted, narrow, paved earth that we didn't navigate between Hollister and Napa

Of course, I’m going to save the details for subsequent posts. But… in keeping with tradition… perhaps a brief taste of the roughly 400 photos I took would provide you with ample motivation to check back frequently for the full deets… yes? Good.

We of course went here….

… which, you knew we would. Not going to Calera on a trip like this would be like going to Paris and not seeing the Eiffel Tower. In addition to feeling (and probably, acting) like 6 year olds at Disneyland for the first time, during our time at Calera we saw MANY…

… NEAT…

… and RARE things.

That right there, ladies and gents, is a 375ml bottle of 1978 Calera Reed Pinot Noir that resides in Calera's wine cellar. In 1975, Josh Jensen planted pinot noir in three separate parcels of land on Mt. Harlan that he named the Selleck, Jensen and Reed vineyards. So we are assuming that bottle has got to be one of the first single vineyard Pinot Noirs Calera ever produced. Incredible!

Besides going to Calera, and six other wineries, we ate some fabulous food...

... and basked in the glow of how lucky we were to have been hooked up so royally at some WORLD CLASS wineries. So did we have a good time? How about I let Mr. Durden tell you….

And he isn’t excited about the price of gas there, I can tell you that! We have got lots and lots of pictures and experiences to share with you fabulous Food Nighters. So reserve some time to check back soon for the next installment of FOOD NIGHT FIELD TRIP. We’ll be right back…

Food Night Wine List

2010-07-11T23:33:00.017-05:00

You don't need a special occasion to buy or open a special bottle of wine. The wine IS the occasion.

White

Spain
Les Brugueres, Priorat Vi Blanc........................2006

France
Zind Humbrecht, Gewurztraminer, Turckheim..............1994
Leroy, Bourgogne Blanc.................................1998
Domaine des Remizieres, Hermitage Blanc, Cuvee Emilie..1999
Ballot Millot, Meursault Genevrières, 1er Cru..........2002

Etienne Sauzet, Puligny Montrachet,
William Fevre, Chablis, Champ Royaux...................2007

Rosé

United States
Calera, Rosé of Pinot Noir.............................2008

France
Perrier-Jouët, Fleur de Champagne, Brut Rosé...........1995

Chile
Montes, Rosé of Syrah..................................2008

Red

United States

Pinot Noir
Calera, Reed Vineyard....................................1996
Calera, Reed Vineyard....................................2005
Calera, Selleck Vineyard.................................2001
Calera, Selleck Vineyard ................................2002
Calera, Mills Vineyard...................................1996
Calera, Mills Vineyard...................................2001
Calera, Mills Vineyard...................................2002
Calera, Jensen Vineyard..................................2006
Calera, Ryan Vineyard....................................2005
Calera, Ryan Vineyard....................................2007

Merlot
Northstar, Columbia Valley.............................2002

Cabernet Sauvignon
Mayacamas, Napa Valley.................................1979
Stag's Leap Cellars, Fay Vineyard......................1999
Dunn, Howell Mountain..................................2000
Freemark Abbey, Napa Valley............................2005
Swanson, Alexis Napa Valley............................2005
Opus One...............................................2005

Syrah
Rock, Hudson Vineyard, Carneros........................2005

Zinfandel
Ravenswood, Dickerson Vineyard.........................1989

Blends
Ravenswood, Pickberry Vineyards
(Merlot, Cabernet, Cab Franc)..........................1994
Ridge, Monte Bello
(Cabernet, Merlot, Petit Verdot).......................2001
Joseph Phelps, Le Mistral
(Syrah, Grenache, Petite Sirah)........................2003
L'Aventure, Estate Cuvée
(Syrah, Cabernet, Petit Verdot)........................2005
Kenefick Ranch, Picket Road Red, Napa Valley
(Merlot, Petite Verdot, Cabernet, Cab Franc)...........2006

France

Bordeaux
Château Léoville Barton, Saint Julien..................1995
Château Léoville Barton, Saint Julien..................2002

Château Calon Segur, Saint Estephe....................2000
Château Pape Clément, Pessac-Léognan...................2001
Château Pape Clément, Pessac-Léognan...................2002
Château Clerc Milon, Pauillac..........................2002
Chateau Pichon Longueville, Comtesse de Lalande,
Pauillac...............................................2002
Carruades de Lafite, Pauillac..........................2003
Château Léoville Poyferré, Saint Julien................2003
Château Cambon La Pelouse, Haut-Médoc..................2005
Château De Fieuzal, Pessac-Léognan.....................2005

Châteauneuf du Pape
Chapoutier Barbe Rac...................................1998
Clos Des Papes.........................................1998
Clos Des Papes.........................................2005
Clos Des Papes.........................................2006
Vieux Télégraphe, la Crau..............................2000
Cuvée du Vatican, Réserve Sixtine......................2000
Villes Julienne........................................2000
Château de Beaucastel..................................2004
Clos du Mont-Olivet, la Cuvée du Papet.................2007

Northern Rhone
E. Guigal, Hermitage...................................1999
Patrick Lesec, Cornas, le Vignon.......................2001

Burgundy
Domaine Leroy, Côtes de Beaune-Villages................1996
Domaine Leroy, Pommard Vignots.........................1997
Claude Dugat, Gevery Chambertin........................2003
Domaine Henri Perrot-Minot, Bourgogne..................2005
Nicolas Potel, Chambolle-Musigny.......................2005
Joseph Drouhin, Clos des Mouche........................2005
Louis Latour, Pommard-Epenots, Premier Cru.............2005

Spain
Rotllan Torra, Tirant, Priorat.........................2001
Vega Sicilia Valbuena, Ribera del Duero................2002
Clos Mogador, Priorat..................................2005

Italy
Silvio Grasso, Barolo, Ciabot Manzoni..................................1996
Parusso, Barolo, Bussia Vigna Munie....................................1996
Rocche dei Manzoni, Barolo, Vigna d'la Roul............................1999
Le Are, Amarone della Valpolicella.....................................2000
Casanova di Neri, Pietradonice.........................................2000
Casanova di Neri, Brunello di Montalcino, Tenuta Nuova.................2001
Antinori, Guado Al Tasso...............................................1999
Antinori, Guado Al Tasso...............................................2001

Antinori, Solaia.................................................................2003
Pio Cesare, Barbaresco.................................................2003
Ciacci Piccolomini, Brunello di Montalcino.............................2003
Manzone, Barolo le Gramolere...........................................2004
Domenico Clerico, Barolo, Ciabot Mentin Ginestra.......................2004

Australia
Clarendon Hills, Old Vines Grenache, Kangarilla Vineyard......2002
The Standish Wine Company, "The Relic", Shiraz, Viogner.......2006

Cucumber broth, Halibut, and Shakespeare

2010-06-27T22:49:00.006-05:00

Approximately a month ago, I dined at Saffron to celebrate a birthday. Sameh's course of softshell crab in cucumber broth was so insanely good, I used that dish as inspiration for what I hoped would be the "main" dish at the Midspring Night’s Dream Food Night.

And by now, surely you are asking “E, what up with this 'Midspring Night’s Dream' moniker? What in tarnation is that supposed to mean?”. Very well, the time has probably come to enlighten you. While coming up with this Food Night's menu, I only knew I wanted to do a take on Sameh’s dish. The plan was for it to be light, subtle, very fresh and green and Spring-like in it’s flavors. All the other courses were up in the air, but I didn't want anything to outshine this halibut dish. Enter - The New York Times.* First, I found this, as you already know. THEN, I found this**... are you kidding me?! Asparagus + Pesto. Yes, please. And after making it, I now cannot imagine Spring without it.

* I’m telling you… the NY Times Dining section is a virtual cornucopia of inspiration and ideas.

** If you are not a link-clicker, and didn't go to the Times website to watch Bittman make asparagus pesto.......... just know you are going to be subjected to that link again in the next post. So, it's really up to you, click it now, or click it then. Either is fine. Just do everyone a favor and make asparagus pesto in the Spring with fresh, local asparagus. Not in the winter with asparagus flown in from Peru. Cooking seasonally is really important. Not only will your cooking taste better, you won't be supporting atrocities like this.

Once I flushed out the details of the dishes I had planned… raw salmon; ceviche with lots of fresh herbs; halibut with the greenest ecto-cooler-like broth; and pasta with the quintessential spring veggie – asparagus… I thought one thing; Spring. That menu screams "Springtime" to me.

During my brainstorming, I recalled the time in 1985 when my parents and grandparents took my sister and I to a production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the old Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis. Despite my folks admirable attempt to provide culture to a 12 year old growing up in Appalachia, I remember struggling mightily to say awake during the play. Much like I was on the deck with that Leroy after another killer Food Night. Anyway, eventually I combined Spring with Shakespeare, and voila… A Midspring Night’s Dream! While sitting on the deck after Food Night with that bottle of Leroy, surrounded by trees and the sounds of frogs chirping in the distance, Spring was never so apt a description for a particular point in time.

Halibut
cucumber broth, pickled tomato yogurt, lemon thyme, kumquat

Before our Shakespearean interlude, we were starting to discuss Sameh’s brilliant soft shell crab in cucumber broth dish. Of course the flavors were absolutely spot on, but I found the color of the broth simply amazing. I don’t think I’d ever seen, and certainly had not eaten, anything quite like it before. I knew I wanted to try my hand at something like that. But could I make a liquid taste great, and be so freaking GREEN!? Where do I begin?!

Naturally, I thought of Barrio’s salsa verde. About a year ago, I was in there and couldn’t get over how insanely green this stuff was. Eventually I asked Mark if he could perhaps get me a clue from the kitchen as to how this greenness happens. A couple minutes later, chef Tyge Nelson is standing at our table, happily detailing how they use cilantro, ice, salt and a blender to produce a liquid so vibrantly green, it greens up even the drabby colored roasted tomatillo/onion/garlic/chile mixture. Genius. Here's what I did...

Cucumber Broth

Note that, this isn't baking, there are no "musts" here. Quantities and ingredients are ripe for your brilliant improvisations.

120g diced cucumber, most of the skin still on
Juice of half a lime
Couple Tablespoons of fresh cilantro*, to taste
optional - sprinkle of other fresh herbs like chives, tarragon
3 finger pinch kosher salt
Roughly 2'' piece of serrano chile, or to taste
4-6 ice cubes
1/4 cup water, perhaps more if needed to get the mixture moving in the blender

* If you don't like cilantro, use parsley instead. And adjust the chile content to your preferred level of spicyness. A 2'' inch piece in this recipe produces a modest but noticeable amount of heat.

Puree all ingredients thoroughly in a blender. Strain with the finest mesh strainer possible. The End.

How easy is that?! James actually had a fantastic idea to use this resulting liquid in a cocktail. A Hendricks Gin cocktail, to be specific. If you think I'm not going to be enjoying said libation on the deck soon, you're crazy. I could even see freezing the liquid into ice cubes for a fun cocktail on ice. The possibilities are endless.

To finish the dish... halibut was portioned into 2oz portions* and then pan seared. Like so...

* Here is the beauty of doing a dish like seared halibut AND ceviche of halibut at the same Food Night. When dissecting the fillet into 2oz portions, the bits of fish I trim off the portions for the seared halibut dish find their way into the ceviche. No waste. Maximum usage of a beautiful product. Cost effectiveness. All things Food Night loves.

The way I pan sear portions of fish like this is really, really easy. Get a non stick pan. Get it screamin' (and I do mean screamin') hot. Add some peanut or other high heat oil, enough to film the bottom of the pan. Season fish with salt, and add to the pan, presentation side down, and walk away for two minutes. Don't even CONSIDER touching the fish during these two minutes. After two minutes, add butter. Add a ton if you want, the more you add, the more color the final product will have. Reduce heat from med-high to medium. Baste fish with the butter/oil mixture in the pan for approx 1 minute. Bang. Done. You bought your fish at Coastal, so, overcooking it would be a food-crime, remember.

So now we've got seared fish. We've got cucumber broth. Next we take a little greek yogurt, we add a little pickled tomato dice to it, and start plating...

* At this point I have to say, again.... HOLY PHOTOGRAPHY!!! Are you kidding me?! Wow, James. Just... wow.

And now, finally, here is the finished product... complete with uber-fun microgreens supplied by Sameh...

I have to say, I think this may have been the most satisfying thing I have ever made. Setting out to do something, then actually doing it up to your own standards... very rewarding. Let's have one more shout out for Sameh, because without his inspiration this dish would have never been made. I've learned more things by just sitting at his bar, and talking with him about food than should be possible without paying tuition.

And for the enduring success of the dish, which enables us to recall the dish so well, like we just finished eating it... we have James to thank. Have another, closer look...

I can recall the different textures and temperatures of that dish, in addition to EXACTLY how it looked, smelled, and tasted just by looking at that picture. That picture is literally like a window into the kitchen at Food Night. Thanks again, James.

So there you go. Halibut, cucumbers, water... other stuff... BANG... deliciousness! And the great thing about a successful dish like this, or about a brilliant bottle of wine is... we at Food Night always want to top it. We'll continue to push the boundaries of what can be produced and consumed in a modest home kitchen by a bunch of regular people, if you agree to keep reading about it. Do we have a dealio?!

Up Next: Asparagus Pesto, and you clicking the link.

Colicchio, ceviche, and agreeing to disagree

2010-06-22T22:38:00.000-05:00

How many of you watch Top Chef? Yeah, me too, I love it. It’s clearly the best cooking reality show*, which may be akin to saying that I would be the tallest person in a room full of Smurfs, but whatever. I was reminded of an episode from last season as I prepped for the MidSpring Night's Dream Food night. The aspiring chefs were thrust into the Nevada desert, overnight, then asked to cook lunch for a bunch of cowboys/ranchers the next day in the blazing heat. It was sun, sun, more sun, sand, a hole in the ground with fire in it, and your imagination. Good luck!

* Iron Chef America isn’t a “reality” show in my opinion. I mean, clearly, it’s REAL, but it’s just straight up competition. There are no elimination challenges, no cooking with one hand tied behind your back, no wildly over matched contestants that are kept around because they are cute, etc. It’s serious business, your food against the Iron Chef’s Food… and the judges. And yes, I still cannot believe the "judges" on ICA thought Morimoto beat Sameh. Give. Me. A. Break. Anyone who watched that show knows Sameh won. I knew there was trouble when they introduced one of the judges as the “Senior Executive Chef of Red Lobster”, and no I’m not making that up. I'm sure he's a swell fellow and a great cook, but, um....... no. Just, no.

Well, a couple of fellas (I refuse to say "cheftestants") decided it was too hot in the desert kitchen for them, so they made ceviche. Ceviche, as I’m sure you already know, is a dish that typically uses fresh fish or shellfish, and is “cooked” by acid (citrus juice, vinegar, etc) rather than by heat. Well, Top Chef head honcho Tom Colicchio was rather unimpressed with this approach, at one point saying “This is a cooking competition, and they didn’t cook anything!”. He went on to say that the dishes themselves… well, it wasn’t so much what he said, its that he spit out the one made by Frenchie McFrench-guy (nice scarf). And the guest judge actually said the same dish made him sick. When that happens, yeah, you are probably not going to be the next Top Chef.

But what do you think? Is making ceviche “cooking”? Either way, ceviche and other raw dishes align very nicely with Food Night Food Law #1 – buy high quality ingredients, and treat them simply. So can Food Night put together a ceviche that A). guests don’t spit out, and B). doesn’t make anyone sick, and C). actually looks good and tastes good? The answer……… after we detail the first course and hand you the menu for Food Night.

Salmon Tartare
almond orange tuile, meyer lemon crème fraiche

Ceviche of Halibut
parsley, cilantro, lime, cucumber, avocado

Halibut
cucumber broth, pickled tomato yogurt, lemon thyme, kumquat

Agnolotti
asparagus pesto, braised pork belly, parmigiano-reggiano

David's Chocolate Chip Cookies
flour, butter, chocolate, butter, pecans, butter

Two of Food Night’s faves were the inspiration for the first dish; Thomas Keller and David Lebovitz. Keller’s French Laundry cookbook is a source of inspiration, wonderment, and longing. I decided to start the night off with a spin on his cornets (pictured), which are little tuiles in the shape of a tiny ice cream cone, topped with crème fraiche and salmon tartare. And for some reason, reasons known only to the inner recesses of my brain that I don’t fully have access to, I decided NOT to use Keller’s recipe for the tuiles. I think it had something to do with the fact that I’d recently bought Lebovitz’s new book, which contained a recipe for these almond orange tuiles… and I wanted to give ‘em a go. And so, they went.

Get the book* if you want to recipe, but essentially you combine some butter, almonds, black and white sesame, flour, orange zest, and orange juice. Then you spoon in some sugar. And after you spoon in some, you spoon in a little more, and then a little more, until you have TEN tablespoons of sugar in the batter. This is where panic, or at least "concern" set in. When I got to the sixth or seventh tablespoon, I considered stopping. I mean, GEEZ, this was a savory course after all! But they actually turned out really well… after I burnt the first batch to a crisp. The second, third and fourth batches that came out of the oven… sheer brilliance...

* This book also contains the single GREATEST recipe for chocolate chip cookies ever. I’m telling you, they are better than any other such cookie I've tasted. Yes, even yours. It doesn’t mean yours are “bad”, these are just better. Check out David's little video on them here, really well done.

The tuiles certainly had some sweetness, but not anything ridiculous or out of place in the dish. The uber fresh salmon from Coastal Seafoods, and the cool slightly tart crème fraiche that I kicked up with a little meyer lemon juice combined with the crunchy and sweet cookie to make for a pretty dang cool bite or three of food. The only problem was eating them gracefully.

I got the idea for the second course from the New York Times Dining section. If you don’t already, you really need to make it a regular stop on your internet visits. This particular dish caught my eye because of the name attached to the recipe….. RICK BAYLESS.

Rick's book Salsas that Cook was given to me by Cynthia, who happened to be in attendance at this Food Night. That book marked the first time I'd ever made anything from a cookbook that made me say... "WHOA... that is GOOD!" And it really is essentially an introductory level book - you don't need an immersion circulator or $4000 range to make these dishes. I highly, highly encourage you to pick up that book if you are at all interested in cooking. The techniques and flavors in that book are simply incredible.

Anyway, back to the dish. This ceviche was something he was making at a White House State Dinner. So I figured, if it’s good enough for that, it’s probably good enough for Food Night. Plus I have a ton of fond memories of living in a little one bedroom apartment in Bloomington and churning out Bayless recipes from Rick Bayless's Mexican Kitchen from a little alley kitchen with a coil electric stove while listening to the Joshua Tree. Aren’t really specific memories cool?!

The full recipe is here, but essentially… parsley, cilantro, roasted garlic,* serrano chile, salt, olive oil… meet Mr. Food Processor. After a spin, combine with lime juice, gorgeous fresh halibut from Coastal Seafoods, fish, cucumber and avocado… like so…

* Roasting cloves of garlic still in their papery skins in a cast iron pan is such an underrated little piece of culinary flair. First time I ever heard of it was..... in Salsas That Cook! Anyway, roasting the cloves like this mellows the harshness of the raw garlic, sweetens it even, gives it a nice little charred flavor, and really softens the clove so you can... incorporate it into a vinaigrette, a marinade, or slather it on pork shoulder before roasting. Or you can buzz it up into an herb paste as we did here.

Something about the dish screamed to me "TORTILLA CHIP"! So I made that happen since there were some nice little corn tortillas in the fridge. Cut into wedges, then fried and immediately Maldon'd... and no, I didn't bake them in fat free oil or some other crazy thing to try to minimize fat content. Each person got one chip... I think you can put down the defibrillator.

Served in a martini glass, with a fine dice of red chile, some rocket from the garden (i.e. arugula... but isn't "rocket" SO much better), a couple radish slices and that tortilla chip, this dish was so light, refreshing and flavorful. Texturally very compelling too, with the fish, crunchy cucumber and creamy avocado, not to mention the crisp tortilla chip. Another Bayless Beauty that A). nobody spit out, B). nobody got sick from, and C). definitely tasted fabulous. Does this mean I should try out for Top Chef? Ah, negative. But, regardless of what uber-chef Tom said, I think making ceviche is cooking.

I got the impression that Food Night attendees would tend to agree with me. And if they thought otherwise, they were nice enough not to tell me.

* Maybe my favorite photo of the night above....... just phenomenal. Thanks James!

Up Next: Halibut a la Sameh.

Emergency Food Night

2010-06-20T22:22:00.002-05:00

We don't have many rules at Food Night.* But one of them is... if he who has become known as "Tyler Durden" hops on a plane bound for Minneapolis with three bottles of wine in tow, one of them being this.......

... if that happens, then we have to sound the alarm, break the glass, flip the safety off, and push the "Emergency Food Night" button. And that is exactly what transpired this past Father's Day Eve.

* We discovered one more rule, actually; "No making microwave popcorn while Food Night is in progress. Or any other time, for that matter." Sorry, Max. Just too olfactorially debilitating, the micro-pop. However, apparently it's OK for the Food Night host to boil vinegar for a hollandaise. Interesting paradox.

Obviously you are thinking "Whoa, whoa, whoa... what about the rest of the MidSpring Night's Dream Food Night, with all that KILLER photography you mentioned?!?!". Fear not, faithful Food Night fanatic. We will finish documenting that memorable evening first, of course.

But we thought you should know that you have the details of not one but TWO Food Nights coming to your internet machines. Lucky you! How did the Tyler Durden Emergency Food Night go, you ask? Why don't I let Mr. Durden himself tell you......

And since we always like to give you a little ~~preview~~ amuse to wet your appetite for what's coming... how about something like this...

Would that be something you'd be interested in hearing more about? Yeah, I thought it might be.

Now back to your regularly scheduled Food Night, where the next post is at the printing press as we speak....

Stag's Leap and the "Say Fay" Kid

2010-06-10T20:53:00.018-05:00

What comes to mind when you think of the word "Fay"? For me, it's Fay Vincent, former commissioner of baseball. Why? I have no idea. For you, perhaps it is Irish Dancing Shoes. Or ~~weirder~~ better yet, perhaps you enjoy raising fairies.* Or perhaps you remember that stellar ballplayer for the Giants back in the 1950's and 60's called the "Say Fay Kid".**

* I realize that there is a whole wide world out there of unique and different and worthwhile interests that don't necessarily intersect with mine. But if you are raising fairies online, you have moved in from the suburbs and right into downtown Weirdville.

** I know, it's Say Hey Kid. Thanks.

In any event, my word association with "Fay" has taken a DRAMATIC shift, thanks to the recently completed Food Night, as you soon shall see.

We had a nice crowd of 6 at Food Night this time, which is my personal favorite number for a dinner party. Not that I don't enjoy EIGHT (don't worry, no links to 80's TV shows this time), or five, or ten, or four. But six* really is where a proper dinner party's bread is buttered (pun intended). In addition to Food Night regulars Tom and Alex, the fabulous duo of James and Cynthia were in attendance this go round. In addition to being wonderful guests and food/wine appreciators, James is quite adept at snapping a photo or two, so I asked him if he would like to bring his new Leica to aid us in documenting the evening. Thankfully for all involved, he obliged.

* Sorry. I just couldn't resist. The Six Million Dollar Man. A bionic man... with an eye with a 20:1 zoom lens, two artificial... excuse me... bionic legs enabling him to run at 60mph. A bionic arm "with the equivalent strength of a bulldozer". And obviously the arm contains a Geiger Counter. I mean, that's so obvious I almost didn't even bother to mention it, of course the arm has a Geiger Counter, of COURSE! You may think I'm making this up, but, I'm not. This is a show that happened. It actually happened, and was very popular. Hell I remember watching reruns and enjoying the heck out of it as a kid. Maybe James Cameron should do a remake of it as a 3+ hour movie where Leonardo DiCaprio stars in Lee Major's role, is sent back from the future to kill Sarah Connor, crashes on his way back, and doctors rebuild him into the Bionic man (complete with Geiger Counter Arm), who then goes on to save the world from nuclear annihilation at the hands of Crazy-Ruthless-Dictator-X. Since he has a Geiger Counter in his arm and all. I think this idea may have legs.... real ones.

This Perfect Storm of guests, cameras, technology and of course... food and wine... culminated in an incredibly enjoyable and stunningly photographed Food Night!! Yes, I snapped a few clunkers myself, but James' shots are absolutely incredible in my humble opinion. But let's start by revealing the wine list at Food Night, where we pour EVERYTHING by the glass, and every bottle in the cellar is fair game*.

* Remind me to rant about "Wine Bars" and wine lists later. I mean, are you really a Wine Bar if you pour wine that retails for $5/bottle by the glass? But later, remind me later.

United States
L'Aventure Estate Cuvée
2005

Stag's Leap Cellars, Fay Vineyard, Cabernet Sauvignon
1999

France
Perrier-Jouët, Fleur de Champagne, Brut Rosé
1995

Chateau de Beaucastel, Chateauneuf du Pape
2004

Clos Des Papes, Chateauneuf du Pape
1998

Chateau Clerc Milon, Bordeaux, Pauillac
2002

Domaine Leroy, Côtes de Beaune-Villages
1996

Chile
Montes, Rosé of Syrah
2008

Let's hand out the awards, shall we? The Gold Medal winning wine of the night, by a LONG shot, destroying all comers like a bully on a playground, went to...

The 1999 Stag's Leap Fay Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon! This gem was brought to Food Night by James and Cynthia, and easily secured the spot atop the podium. Not to shabby considering a couple of top flight Chateauneufs were in play, not to mention a measly little 98 point wine from Paso Robles. We tasted this one blind, and thought it was older (late 90's, early 2000's) high end Supertuscan. Tom guessed the 1999 Guado al Tosso. I thought it could be something like Solia.

The wine itself was very "cab" like, but most of us felt it had an Old World treatment about it. There was layer after layer of flavor and texture, and the juice absolutely coated the glass with its fleshy, inky goodness when swirled. This was top notch stuff. A real treat to add to the tasting database. And more enjoyable than raising fairies.

Next, the Silver Medal went to...

2002 Chateau Clerc Milon Bordeaux, Pauillac! That's it there in the middle. Another wine we tasted blind, Tom thought it was California or Washington Syrah. And I actually came pretty close with a guess of 2005 Pauillac. I must have smelled it 10 times before I finally locked into the trademark 'pencil lead' characteristic wines from this region are known for. Really cool aromatics, including smoke and leather poured out of the glass. Very Bordeaux-like on the palate, refined, and not overly tannic. A fabulous wine courtesy of Alex.

And finally, the Bronze went to...

The 1998 Clos Des Papes Chateauneuf du Pape! This is a bottle I pulled out of the cellar for Food Night. Normally the deal is, I supply the food, and other peeps bring the wine. But given the guest list... I had to call a little audible. Quick bit of background on this bottle... years ago, probably 2001 or 2002, James and I were playing golf out in Stillwater somewhere. Afterwards, we strolled into town to eat at La Belle Vie, which at the time was still in Stillwater. We sat in the back, where Cynthia joined us, and we ordered a bottle of this 1998 CDP. At the time, I had pretty limited exposure to wines of that caliber, and this wine completely floored me. So shortly thereafter I went out and bought a bottle for my cellar*, and ever since I've been searching for the right occasion to open it. This Food Night was clearly the perfect occasion.

*My "cellar" at the time consisted of a cardboard box in a closet.

There is a great saying that you don't have to search for an occasion to break out a special bottle of wine. The wine IS the occasion. And while I'm not saying that this bottle was some otherworldly, life-changing wine, it represented an introduction into the world of fine wine for me. The occasion and the wine intersected at the perfect crossroads on Food Night. Tasted blind, most thought it was older Chianti. And honestly, when I opened the bottle before people arrived, and tasted it... I KNEW someone would think it was older Chianti, it had that exact color and aroma of fine Chianti. But Tom... um, well.... Tom gave it some thought.... then all of a sudden said....

"I'm gonna guess 1998 Chateauneuf." BANG. Bullseye! Pretty good, Tom. Pretty, pretty, pretty good. (That's actually Tom and a couple DEECE bottles at a tasting at the store, not at Food Night. Whatever.)

The rest of the wines were as strong a supporting cast as we've had at Food Night. The L'Aventure Estate Cuvee was rich, pure and another tooth staining powerhouse. The Beaucastel was very representative of that producer's consistency. But would you look at the bubbles that Alex brought....

Are you kidding me??!?? Look at the color of that stuff! And look at the BOTTLE... absolutely gorgeous. This vintage Champagne is certainly one of the most interesting wines I've ever had. Apparently it was stored in a hot Arizona garage for a spell, which made how good it still was all the more remarkable. And while it may have been starting to ease into the twilight of its life, it was a massively cool tasting experience. Almondy. Appropriately dry, but not cloyingly so. And soooooooo food friendly. I thought it was absolutely brilliant with the first course of....... well, you'll just have to tune in next time to see what we had first. Thought I was gonna give it up, didn't you.

And one more wine I have to make mention of is... the Leroy*. Ahhhhhh the Leroy. With the end of another Food Night comes... the morning after. As in, dishes. As in, why didn't I clean up a little more the night before? In an effort to delay that not-so-great-feeling as long as possible, as the proceedings were winding down I asked if anyone would like to open one more bottle. And I had just the bottle to open...

*One thing you'll soon come to understand if you attend Food Night (which, by they way, I hope each of you do at some point...), is that we like to have a little fun with pronunciation. Leroy is pronounced "Leh-WAH". But, obviously, we like to call it "LEE-roy". I mean, that much should be clear. Another thing you'll realize is that, we love us some Leroy wines. I would say Calera and Domaine Leroy are Food Night's favorite producers. Put it this way, I have gotten voicemail at 4am telling me how utterly profound a Leroy that was CURRENTLY being consumed was. Yeah, it's like that.

We like to talk at Food Night about when a wine gets to a certain quality, a certain abstract level of "goodness", or "deeceness" if you prefer, it almost becomes...... some other thing. As in it's almost not wine anymore, but of course it IS still just fermented grape juice, but yet it is so NOT just fermented grape juice. Does this make sense? It's like a Ferrari is a car, and so is a Chevy Chevette, but it's not like you'd go around talking about them in the same sentence. Some of the best, most spirited and enjoyable conversations at Food Night revolve around this concept that once a wine gets to a certain level of quality... is it wrong to clutter the experience with (gasp!) food? It's a subjective issue to be sure, but I've had two wines from Domaine Leroy that fall into this "some other thing" category, and never once while I was drinking those bottles did I think "Wow, I wish I had something to munch on with this unbelievable beverage."

I know that picture is a little dark. Ok maybe a LOT dark. But it actually captures the cloudy nature of the color of the wine. It's almost "emulsified" with the particulate matter in the wine. I can remember the smell and the texture of the wine perfectly just by looking at that picture.

To be sure, this particular wine from Domaine Leroy we had at the conclusion of Food Night was not one of those "some other thing" wines. It is basically the lowest level wine that Leroy produces, made with bought Pinot Noir juice, not juice from grapes that were grown by Leroy. But what's so cool about this 1996 Domaine Leroy Cotes du Beaune Villages is that... you can tell it's a Leroy. Of course it has the FILTHY dirty foil, the saturated cork, the bottle that began leaking prior to uncorking. But most importantly, in the nose and on the pallate, this little baby Leroy says "Hey, I'm something special... stop what you are doing, and ponder me for a moment."

And so we did. On the deck, after a hard rain, and with a distinct chill in the air, we donned our fleeces while we sat and enjoyed simple conversation over that bottle of Leroy.

Next up; The Food posts from the "A MidSpring Night's Dream" Food Night, complete with uber-deece photos. See you back here shortly.

Great Expectations

2010-06-04T18:14:00.004-05:00

No, I don't mean the Chaz Dickens "masterpiece" that I read (cough, cough) in 10th grade. I mean that your expectations invariably color how you perceive a given experience. If you expect nothing, and you get something… HEY… neato! But if you expect something, or worse yet, if you expect GREATNESS… and you get nothing, well… that’s no good is it. For example, I expected Clash of the Titans to be epic, mindblowing, and devastatingly cool. The Kraken was all that, and it had creepy lawyer guy from The Usual Suspects which is always nice, but the rest of the movie… eh. It was fine, but since I expected so much more, my overall impression of the movie suffered. And since you asked, I was particularly annoyed about Liam Neeson's Zeus - I just couldn't take him seriously with that constant white glow about him. I know he's supposed to be a God and all, but, really... pull down a window shade or something.

So recently when I arranged a little gathering at the preposterously fabulous Saffron Restaurant and Lounge, naturally I expected great things. The food there as you may know is simply fabulous, and we’ve gone there often enough that we have a little vibe with Chef Sameh and the staff. So I decided to ask him if he’d be interested in putting together a little tasting menu of his choosing for the occasion. My recollection is that I asked him if he would like to do “a few courses, maybe including the watermelon curry he did on Iron Chef America*, or a soft shell crab if the little critters are deece enough right now”. So I’m thinking maybe three or four courses and dessert. Sounds reasonable enough, no?

* You did know Sameh was on Iron Chef America, right? And was the youngest ever challenger on the show, right? Yep. True, and true again.

What transpired when we got to the restaurant so far exceeded our already lofty expectations, that I wish I could hire a DW (Designated Writer) to do the experience justice. Sameh made an eight course tasting menu just for our little four person birthday party that night. EIGHT*.

* Link too predictable? I don’t care. If there is one thing I can’t get enough of, it’s Dick Van Patten. A true master of his craft. What that craft is, I'm not totally sure, but he has certainly mastered it. Go ahead and take a look at his body of work. IMDB could easily condense that list and just say "Dick was on one or more episodes of every show ever made between 1970 and 1990. Thank you.". Go ahead, look at the list... "I Dream of Jeannie", "Baywatch", "Family Guy", "Wonder Woman", "Happy Days". That's gold Jerry, GOLD.

Now, finally, let’s have a look at the utter riduclousness that Sameh unleashed upon his unsuspecting guests that night, a night that came complete with a personalized menu that I forgot to have him sign. (Closed Circuit to Sameh… have your sharpie ready next time you see me.). And not all dishes are pictured, some were devoured before the picture-taking-apparatus could be queued up. And yes, the pics aren't perfect but hopefully they get the point across.

This was our first course, and it is really hard for me to imagine a better way to start a meal than this. That's pea soup on the left, with juuuuuust the right amount of mint in it. And black truffle. (Remember, Food Night loves it some black truffle). And lobster with succulent sweet fresh peas on the spoon. I mean, are you kidding me? THAT right there got the taste buds going let me tell you. The soup was liquid velvety silky goodness. The earthyness of the truffle, with the barley there tinge of the mint, the texture of perfectly cooked lobster. I honestly was worried that subsequent dishes would have a hard time topping that first one. And of course, I was wrong........

Brown butter and veal carpaccio. Yes, please.

Favorite dish of the night. The soft shell crab was perfectly crisped, fresh and succulent. The cucumber broth... perfection. I'd need to go back to school to learn how to describe it further.

Right there we have some spice crusted mahi mahi with a little pickled ramp, and an incredible puree of fava beans (I believe). Just phenomenal, that puree was to die for.

Finally, we had beef with Parisian gnocchi (pate a choux dough, that I think Sameh boils like regular gnocchi, then pan sears. That's what I'm going with anyway). Rich, full bodied and an incredibly satisfying conclusion of the savory courses. All desserts were inhaled prior to photographing, but I have to mention the black olive ice cream. Yes. That happened. And was fabulous.

The point of this post is to say… Thank You… to Sameh and everyone that works at Saffron for a truly singular dining experience. We really appreciate the effort you put forth on a busy Saturday to make our evening truly memorable.

And by now, you may be wondering.... "Um, what the hell does this have to do with Food Night? I came here to read about Food Night, dammit". Well, since you've made it this far and asked so nicely, I'll tell you.

In honor of that meal and of the incredible soft shell crab dish Sameh made with the cucumber broth that I personally think should be in the Smithsonian, I tried to come up with my own take on that dish for the recently completed and (dare I say) wildly successful Food Night! And in general, going to great restaurants and talking about cooking and ingredients inspires me and influences my cooking. Thanks be to EVERYONE I've ever talked food with, from Sameh to my Mom, and everyone in between. Food Night wouldn't be the same without all your collective contributions to my foodiverse. Foodiverse... that's a word, right?

How did my take on an Iron Chef quality dish turn out? And are you really cooking if what you serve is not.... "cooked"? Check back for all the deets,* which will be coming along shortly. No really, they will be. I promise.

* Link provided for hipster-lingo-challenged persons only, not you. You obviously know what “the deets” means. But for others who might not be sure what it means...... it's OK to click the link.

Food Night, Halley's Comet, and Rabbits

2010-05-25T21:50:00.013-05:00

Halley’s Comet. The Olympics. Home runs at Target Field by the home team. Food Night.

What do all these things have in common? Well clearly they are all funtastic, super duper neat things that don’t come around often enough!

It would be difficult for us to alter how often a comet visits our solar system, and actually the Olympics are probably fine just the way they are come to think of it. I mean how many down hill half pipe mogul triple lutzs can one person take? And the Twins will hit a few more taters once the weather warms up (or so they say…). But Food Night… now that is something we have some control over. So I'm happy to report that....

FOOD NIGHT is back, and on the books for Sunday May 30th!

Since you all know I'm NOT a fan of previews, I'll just tease the menu by saying there could be a recipe (or even two, depending on TIME......... Home Depot.... Bed Bath & Beyond.... etc.) from the master of Mexican cuisine in play. Obviously I cannot tell you who that Chef of Chefs might be, but I have a feeling if you are reading this you might already know.*

* Hint; his name rhymes with "Rick Bayless".

Also, it is that time of year again, when I go to the Farmers Market and buy WAAAAAY TOOOOO many plants* for the herb garden. This year, I had magic tarragon that shot up from the ground like a Russian Nuke-u-ler missile at the first hint of warm temps in April, brutally cold winter be damned. I have more tarragon than I can shake a wooden spoon at, and believe me, I can shake a wooden spoon with the best of ‘em.

* I have “X” amount of space to plant things. And I always buy X + 17 plants. What is wrong with me? And yes, that is the Nuke-u-ler tarragon, above.

This year I got some tomatillo plants in addition to my usual suspects, as I’ve heard they are pretty prolific producers, as well as fairly easy to not kill. The plan is to have a bounty fresh tomatillos for use in salsa verde. And since you asked, no, I have not even bought any rosemary or basil yet! I know, geez! I have no idea where it is going to go… perhaps in the neighbor's yard.

So obviously, we are excited to have some fresh herbage at our disposal for this upcoming extravaganza. The Taj-Ma-Food Night has also recently been equipped with new outdoor dining apparati (read: table and chairs). And there is a possibility that an uber-talented photographer will be in attendance this time. The possibilities, as you can clearly see, are endless.

* OK look. I've said here several times that I'm not a photographer. And if you have visited the blog before, you know that. (If this is your first visit... Welcome! Where have you been?). But I have to say... LOOK at that picture?!? That is the most deece picture I could possibly take with a point-and-shoot camera. I woke up early (7:30am is early, right?) after a recent rainstorm, and wanted to take a shot or two of the garden for this post. And much like the 29-handicapper that shanks his way around the golf course, then tops a 3-wood on a 160 yard par-3 that rolls up onto the green and into the cup for an Ace, well... that picture is my topped 160-yard 3 wood. I wish there would have been a witness there to attest that yes, I actually did point the camera at the pea plant and push the button all by myself. I'm sure a rabbit or four saw me do it. And speaking of rabbits........

Finally, if you are a rabbit, and you are reading this…

1). Wow. That is impressive. I didn’t even know rabbits had computers.
2). Stay away from my plants. I’m warning you. Don’t do it.

So to sum up; Food Night... 30th... Rick Bayless... Deece.

Beef Short Ribs - the most bestest kind

2010-05-05T22:22:00.002-05:00

Hi. Remember your friends at Food Night? We've been strangers, haven't we. Please accept our apology. But fear not, we are back and ready to unleash many words into the interwebosphere...

Braising. Braising can do no wrong in my book. As such, I suppose I am a self aware braising apologist. Braising transforms the mediocre into the magnificent. I started braising cheap cuts of meat (pork shoulder, beef chuck roasts) on a regular basis about 8 years ago, and that is really what kicked my fascination with cooking into high gear. Paying a couple of bucks a pound for a very pedestrian cut of meat and transforming it into succulent goodness was, and still is, extremely rewarding. And cost effective. And crowd pleasing. And a million other things. But until this past New Year’s Eve, I’d never made a decent beef short rib. You know why? Two reasons:

1). Inferior short ribs.
2). The damn periosteum.

Don't you hate when the periosteum screws up your short ribs?!?? I know, right??! So frustrating! Geez!! We'll address that later. But as we have discussed here before, step #1 in making good food is to BUY QUALITY INGREDIENTS. This is not a difficult concept I understand, but it is so, so important. The $10/lb Mad-Cow-infused-inhumanely-raised-filth-laiden filet mignon you get at Cub or Costco or Sams Club or the like are absolutely NOT as good as the locally raised grass fed beef you can find at Whole Foods, Kowalski's, and the like. I'm sorry, but they just aren't. It's the difference between a Matchbox and a Mercedes. Between a Top Flite and a Titleist. So let's get this post rolling by diving into...

Beef Short Ribs

carrot mascarpone agnolotti, red wine, stock, parm, maldon

Two main components to this dish; Agnolotti.... and Short Ribs. First, the Agnolotti. We'll need to have a separate post on The French Laundry Cookbook, otherwise this post would be 10,000+ words, and I respect you too much to make you sit through that. Suffice to say - the recipe for the pasta dough that was used to make the agnolotti was from TFL cookbook. Agnolotti are basically ravioli, except that they are sealed via a fold on one of the four sides, where as ravioli are sealed on all four sides by pressing the top and bottom layers of pasta together to form a pocket. The filling is totally up to you. Just keep it relatively water free... when you freeze water, it expands, things constraining it (like pasta) burst, and bad times ensue. Agnolotti are positively some of the most freezer friendly food there is, so keep the water in the filling to a minimum and your diligence will be rewarded.

The pasta dough, the filling, the assembly of the agnolotti... all that can be done ahead, and the individual agnolotti frozen. That way you are ready to unleash culinary madness on your unsuspecting guests as a moments notice. They'll never know what hit them. Just look how at home the agnolotti are in the freezer....

* Yes, that is a thing of (gasp) store bought ice cream on the top left, and NO I did not buy it (not that there is anything wrong with that). It served it's purpose here balancing the agnolotti.

I featured carrots in the agnolotti filling this time, roasting them, combining them with sinfully delicious mascarpone cheese in the Food Processor, along with a little pork stock to get things moving, thyme, and crispy bacon bits (no, not these*... ACTUAL bits of bacon crisped up in a pan... shame on you).

* Just look at the ingredient list on that page... I dare you. "Defatted Soy Flour". What?! "Partially Hydrogenated Soybean Oil". Of course, because fully hydrogenated stuff is bad for you. And the every popular "Artificial and Natural Flavor". Funny, I just picked up a can of Natural Flavor at the store yesterday. I'm quite sure no Food Night readers are using imposter bacon, but if there are, call me... I can get you help. I know people. People who can teach you how to put a strip of bacon in a pan and turn on the heat. It's not as difficult as it sounds.

Have another glance at that the filling and a few of the finished product...

After piping the mixture onto a sheet of silky fresh pasta and forming the individual agnolotti, it was time to consider... the short rib.

Here is all you need to know about making short ribs... Alton Brown. Whatever your opinion of him, he is a freaking culinary genius. But again, you have to start with GOOD SHORT RIBS. This was the root of my prior short rib short comings (pun intended). I would buy fatty, non-meaty, boney, iffy short ribs and think "Oh, I guess short ribs are just bones with mostly fat on them". False. Proper beef short ribs are sucullently marbled hunks of beefy goodness. For Food Night, I went to Whole Foods, got some freshly cut, uber-meaty, sinfully delicious looking short ribs, and Alton Browned the hell out of them. As in, I got a cast iron pan screamin' hot, seared the heck out of them, then braised them in a tin foil packet with mixture of tomato paste, good quality vinegar, lemon juice and thyme. They come out of the oven a few hours later looking like this...

* Awful picture quality, I know. Walter Iooss I am not.

And here, is where the periosteum amputation comes into play. The periosteum is essentailly a membrane that surrounds the bone.* But when you braise short ribs gently for hours, the periosteum becomes soft, gelatenous, yet still unyielding to extensive chewing, which I find incredibly unpleasant. Its unchewable texture is just plain unpleasant to attempt to eat. But if you CHILL the short ribs overnight after braising, the periosteum siezes up, and you can EASILY remove it** to the delight of your diners. And hooray!!!... you now have periousteum-free short ribs! If you like eating grizzley oddly textured grossness, by all means skip this step. Otherwise, it is well worth your time to perform this amputation. The damn periosteum - don't like it ruin your short rib experience.

* If you know your anatomy, feel free to comment any corrections or further explanations.

** I like to remove the bone while the short ribs are still hot and then use a kitchen shears to carve out the easily distinguishable periosteum once they are thoroughly chilled.

The final, leisurely step is to have the chilled, periosteum-free short ribs hang out in a low 225ish degree oven just prior to serving for... however long, hour, two hours whatever... in a sauce constructed from the juices from the braising process and some extra red wine (which, wasn't exactly in short supply... )

Plating consisted of boiling the frozen agnolotti, then tossing them with some of the sauce from the sort ribs, and topping that with parmesan, maldon salt, and a couple of pickled tomatoes that were lying around. The verdict? Well, since a new atomic element called Deliciousonium was created in a big-bang sort of way, with a "HOLY COW how can food stuffs taste this good?!?!" sort of proclamation, yes, the dish was a success. Just look at it...

So what did we learn? Make fresh pasta, and make it often, as it is other-worldly. Buy good short ribs, braise them and remove the periosteum. And if all else fails... open a bottle of Monte Bello... your concerns will be immediately destroyed by a wave of vinicultural deeceness.

Finally, check back soon as the posts will be more frequent and more compelling. The Haskells "After Sale Tasting/Party" is in the works, as is the next official Food Night. I think I'm even going to put up a poll to see what topics you glorious people are interested in. And we may even join the rest of the free world on Al Gore's Invention called "Facebook" so people can "Follow" us at Food Night. Am I saying that right? I dunno. Anyhoo, stay tuned... and thanks for reading and caring.

The Beet Salad, with a Twist

2010-03-24T22:55:00.000-05:00

Beet salads. When I dine at a decent restaurant, particularly in fall or winter, I usually go for the beet salad if there is one on the menu. Beet salads done right are absolutely phenomenal. But in truth, this fall/winter, I got a little beet salad'd out. They seemed to get stale, unimaginative, yesterday's news, blah. Perhaps I just saw a few too many of the usual suspects; some greens, some roasted beets, some blue cheese, and yadda yadda yadda, a $10 beet salad. We can do better than that, can't we? So for the Valentine's Food Night, I thought I'd try to turn the fun-meter up a few notches past "the usual". Let's see what happened.

Beets

Blue Cheese, Maldon, toasted almond, preserved lemon, blood orange vinaigrette

As you can probably surmise from the photo... there is a little dollup of "something" in the middle of the plate. We'll get to that in a bit. But first... beet chips! The texture of beets, beets, and more beets can get a little monotonous, no? I can remember one beet salad I had this winter at a restaurant that was so infiltrated with beets that... A). I wasn't hungry anymore after finishing it, and B). I was SO SICK of that roasted beet texture after finishing it, I didn't eat another beet salad.......

UNTIL NOW.

Anyway, beet chips. I used the ever present yellow handheld mandoline* to shave some thin slices of raw peeled red beet. Next I got a small dutch oven of peanut or other high heat oil hot - round about 340ish degrees. Toss in the beet chips, I think I did about 5 or 6 chips at a time. Trying to fry too many simultaneously will lower the temp of the oil too much, and you'll get oily, greasy, lame chips - which have to rank between stale triscuits and spoiled milk on the fun-meter. Yuck. Turn the chips a few times in the oil, and remove the chips from the oil when they stop bubbling.** Transfer to a drying rack of some kind, immediately salt them, let them dry and cool completely - then test. They should be crispity-crunchity. If not, mess with your oil temp, your frying time, your beet slice thickness, hell change your underwear maybe if you think it'll help.

* I'll stop harping on this little tool after this, but it really is my favorite kitchen gadget. I use it for potatoes, cucumbers, chiles, garlic, shallots. And yes I realize it is a uni-tasker, and no I don't care, Alton.

** It is pretty amazing how much smaller in diameter the chips are when they come out of the oil. I'm assuming from the water that is expunged from the beet by the hot oil? Alton - any input here? No? OK, anyway, keep that in mind - if they go in the size of a manhole cover, they'll come out the size of a quarter. And hey, don't limit yourself to round chips. Go CRAZY and cut them into strips before frying. Use the chips/strips to garnish tortilla or other soups. Put them on green salads. In your kids lunch. Go ahead - do it! The Beet Police won't find you - you're too smart for them. Whatever you do, if you make beet chips... make lots. You'll want lots and lots of beet chips. Lots more than pictured below. Trust me here, mkay? Swell.

So now, we have our beet chips. Those were done ahead of time. As were the toasted almonds.* As was the preserved lemon. As were the beets themselves - roasted in a 425 degree oven, then cubed up and reserved for plating. About all that was left to do was throw together a blood orange vinaigrette using the blood orange "carcases" that remained from the supremes that were used in this dish.

* Do not, I repeat NOT, walk away while toasting your nuts in the oven. Do not multi-task. Do not go to the bathroom, take a phone call, or water your plants. Maybe it's just me, but I absolutely cannot toast nuts properly in an oven and do anything else at the same time other than take in air. Nuts burn easily and quickly and without remorse. Consider yourself warned.

Oh yes, there is one more thing to the dish isn't there. That little-something that is sitting atop a beet chip at the center of the plate. That little something is......... wait for it......... BLUE CHEESE ICE CREAM!!!!

Fear not though! It worked really, really well in this dish if I do say so myself. And actually there were other selfs at Food Night that said the same. Namely distinguished guest Matt, who said he had blue cheese ice cream one other time (at a restaurant that shall remain nameless, but rhymes with La Belle Tree), and he indicated that Food Night's presentation of blue cheese ice cream was superior. Somewhere, I picture the impossibly nice Tim McKee grinning (as pictured) and saying "I'm sorry, what? I couldn't hear you, my James Beard Award was clogging my ears, can you repeat whose blue cheese ice cream was better?". So yeah, anyway, I was pleased all the guests seemed to think the blue cheese ice cream was deece.

A big key in a successful blue cheese ice cream experience is exercising a little restraint. Nobody, not even me, wants to dive into an entire bowl of blue cheese ice cream the way you would Rocky Road or Mint Chocolate Chip. Please. A tablespoon sized scoop of blue cheese ice cream sitting on a nice crisp beet chip fit the bill nicely.

Also, when you make blue cheese ice cream (which I know you are going to run out and do) spend a little coin on a good quality, creamy blue cheese. You only need a few ounces, so get a good one. Of course the ice cream recipe I used comes from the brilliant David Lebovitz, who I'm going to dub the "Official Unofficial Ice Cream Czar of Food Night". I know David will be thrilled. Look - see below? That's David being "thrilled"... I hope. Either way, ALL ice creams made at Food Night are either verbatim Lebovitz recipes, or are my creations inspired by Lebovitz recipes.

And let us not forget one of the perks of making your very own blue cheese ice cream; leftovers! That means, you can get yourself some high end balsamic vinegar, some little ramekins, and top a dollup of blue cheese ice cream with yummy balsamic. Place this fabulous combination of flavors in front of your wonderful guests WITHOUT telling them what it actually is... and watch the hilarity ensue as their eyes say "Mmmmm, vanilla with chocolate sauce", and their mouths say "NOT SO MUCH"!!!

So, you now have all the components needed to make the above dish. Plate the dish as you see fit. The composition options are limitless. And if you have a stray pickled tomato or two, as apparently I did, I'm sure the beets would be happy to have them along for the ride.

Up next - a more conventional dish that was so freaking amazingly fantastically good... scientists have decided to add a new element to the periodic table in honor of this dish. It will be called "Deliciousonium", and will have an atomic weight of infinity.

So, check back, you obviously don't want to miss that.

The Scallop/Bacon Nuptuals

2010-03-17T23:30:00.000-05:00

* If you are looking for a brief account of course #1 at the Valentines Day Food Night... look elsewhere. I have edited, re-edited, paired down, and deleted all I can. This is what's left. Maybe I'll post the "Directors Cut" of this post in the future, for those of you that just can't get enough of my ramblings.

Studies show, if you are reading this there is roughly an 81% chance you know who the bearded fellow pictured here is. That, of course, is Kevin Gillespie, contestant on the recently completed Season 6 of the wildly successful Bravo TV series "Top Chef". Kevin is your typical MIT scholarship-turner-downer-to-instead-attend-culinary-school. So, he clearly is genius material, and I do mean that literally. Furthering his case for Culinary Jedi status was the "Escargot Quickfire Challenge".

In a Quickfire Challenge, contestants have a brief period of time (in this case it was 45 minutes) to create a foodgasm-inducing dish for a celebrity chef (in this case it was uber-chef Daniel Boulud) The contestants were instructed to "Make a winning dish, using snails as the main protein". So what does Kevin do? He makes BACON JAM. I repeat; Bacon. Jam. He makes Jam... with Bacon in it. And of course he still has time to russle up some snails and other stuff in under 45 minutes. I can barely boil water on my stove in 45 minutes, let alone make bacon jam and snails. So the next time you are trying to dig that Smuckers* garbage that is only 43% fruit and 57% partially hydrogenated xanthan gum fructose red dye #40 out of that sticky-ickey glass jar, know that if you have bacon... and stock (obviously)... you could be spooning some baconey goodness onto your english muffin instead of that ridiculous smuckers.

* See what word you are left with when you take the "m" out of "Smuckers"? Yeah. I'm just sayin'.

But enough preamble... let's dive into Food Night's first course...

Scallops
bacon jam, stock reduction, citrus, maldon, cilantro, chile sauce

Can you turn on your oven and push "start" on your blender? Then you can make bacon jam. Look, it's just hanging out in the oven, practically cooking itself.... all you need to do is apply heat and stir.

Since I had it in my head that I wanted to recreate Kevin's bacon jam, and scallops with bacon are a frequently matched pair*, I thought I'd try to raise the bar a little on the usual "bacon wrapped scallop".

* You'll often see scallops wrapped in bacon skewered up and pre-packaged at your grocery store. Only problem is... it is near impossible to cook both the bacon and the scallop properly simultaneously. And frequently the grocery store will sell you inferior wet packed scallops** this way. Do yourself a favor; if you want to join some bacon and scallop in culinary matrimony, make this bacon jam and go to Coastal for your scallops (and for ALL your seafood needs for that matter). Food Night Truth #1; make your own stock. Food Night Truth #2; buy your seafood from a trusted source, that gets fresh product daily.

** Scallops that are without any additives are called "dry packed" while scallops that are treated with sodium tripolyphosphate (STP) are called "wet packed". STP causes the scallops to look "nice" and white, and to absorb moisture prior to the freezing process. More moisture means they weigh more, and thereby cost you more (only you are paying for water, not scallop). And the excess moisture in these wet scallops makes them literally IMPOSSIBLE to sear properly. Moisture + High heat = Steam = No Caremlization = Rubbery Seafood = Bad times. So please. Get your seafood from a reputible source. And no - Coastal Seafoods does not contribute monetarily to Food Night. Quite the opposite, actually.

ANYWAY. Let's get on with the method...

Bacon Jam a la Kevin Gillespie

1 cup bacon (roughly 8oz), cut into 1'' pieces (get the good bacon from your butcher, please, not the prepackaged stuff packed with preservatives)
1/4 cup yellow onions, julienned
3 tablespoons dark brown sugar
1 tablespoon honey
3 cups chicken stock*
1 tablespoon honey

* If you don't have any stock because you are waiting for me to post on how to make it, use water instead. Do NOT use anything that came out of a can or a box. But you knew that already.

Render bacon in heavy saute pan (cast iron works great) in 500 degree oven until crisp. Pull from oven, remove bacon, and saute onion in remaining bacon fat until onions are golden. Return bacon to pan, and add brown sugar, stirring to coat.

Add 1 cup stock. Stir, scraping up all browned bits from the bottom of the pan. Return to oven. Reduce until thick, and nearly dry.

Repeat with another cup of stock.

Add remaining cup stock, season with salt/pepper, and pour contents into blender. Process to fairly smooth.

Pour contents back into pan, stir in honey. Put pan back into oven, stir frequently until deep brick red color is attained. Remove from oven, swirl in butter.

Now that you have your Bacon Jam, you are ready to join said Jam, and a dry packed scallop, in blissful culinary matrimony. That process starts by searing the bejezuz out of the scallop, as follows...

Use a pan* like the one pictured above and add a film of high heat oil (peanut, grapeseed) while pan is still cold. Get the pan rip-roarin' hot, and only when pan is screamin' hot, add the scallop(s). Sear for maybe a minute, some browning will happen, the pan will hiss, and smoke, and you will want to poke/prod the scallop but DO NOT under any circumstances poke and/or prod your scallop. Leave it alone, you don't want to mess up the matrimony do you?! Didn't think so. After a minute or so, add a knob of butter to the pan (and garlic clove(s) with skin on, and thyme sprigs if you want, but you MUST add butter). Tip the pan, and spoon the melted butter oil over the scallop for another 30ish seconds, things should be noticeably brown around the scallop by now, but you haven't poked or prodded the scallop, have you. Remove scallop(s) from pan and invert onto paper towel (so browned side is up) when browned to your liking. Bang. Done. The End. How easy was that?!**

* You'll notice this pan is NOT a non-stick pan. Non-stick pans have many uses. Searing a scallop is not one of them. Nor is searing anything, for that matter.

** Answer; very easy! Please, if you haven't already, try it. It's not rocket science. Buy a good scallop. Sear the living daylights out of it. And revel in your accomplishment.

Note you did not turn the scallop over in the pan either. And if you have a bunch of scallops to sear (like we did at Food Night), work in batches, don't overcrowd the pan, and change the oil/fat between batches. The keys here are the proper pan, and making sure it is hot as the sun. And yes; I exaggerate. Again. But only slightly. That pan has got to be mega-hot.

The finished dish actually involved TWO kinds of scallops. When buying the sea scallops, I snagged some Nantucket Bay scallops* since Coastal had them on hand, and proceeded to sear them as above (except in a fraction of the time since they are a fraction of the size of sea scallops). You can see the finished product below... the bacon jam on the left, the supremes of grapefruit and blood orange on the right...

* These little guys (and gals. At least, I assume there are guy and gal scallops right? If there is an ichthyologist reading this... maybe he can enlighten us... Dad.......) are the candy of the seafood world. They are so sweet I think you could sear them just by THINKING of putting them in a hot pan. They are a seasonal product, available only November t0 March or there abouts... so get them while you can. There are four on the plate below...

The dish probably didn't need the reduced stock (which was kind of hidden under the citrus). But what was key to melding the flavors was Maldon salt. It functions as garnish, texture and flavor enhancer. Great stuff the Maldon.

And there you have it. Scallops & Bacon. Food Night style.

Valentine's Food Night - The Wines

2010-03-07T17:45:00.003-06:00

Have you ever tried to follow an act that was wildly successful? Rarely is Act II as good as Act I. Unless you are Larry David, and you follow "Seinfeld" with "Curb Your Enthusiasm". Or unless you are Tim McKee and you follow La Belle Vie with Solera and Barrio. But clearly, I don't do comedy, and I don't qwiiiiiiite have the culinary acumen of a James Beard Award winner like Tim McKee. So I did what anyone would do - I panicked. And right after panicking, I set out to create a menu that would be a worthy Act II to the wildly successful Act I that featured...

The first Food Night ever documented on the Internets.
A Food Night that featured a freaking truffle (and not the chocolate kind, either).
A Food Night whose wines included the best Priorat I've ever had, and Lafite's second wine.

One thing is never in question at Food Night... the wines will be Rock Star caliber. The food takes a bit of luck and thought and effort and luck and more luck and then a miracle happens and then I trip over a rabbits foot onto a four leaf clover patch, and then if all the happens the food turns out deece. OK, I exaggerate slightly, but the wines... the wines are never in question. Let's have a look at the Star Studded lineup this time that featured not one, not two but THREE Chateauneufs...

United States
Calera, Selleck Pinot Noir
2001

Ridge, Monte Bello
2001

Northstar, Columbia Valley Merlot
2002

Swanson, Alexis Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon
2005

France
Clos Des Papes, Chateauneuf du Pape
2006

Vieux Télégraphe, Chateauneuf du Pape la Crau
2000

Cuvée du Vatican, Chateauneuf du Pape, Réserve Sixtine
2000

Chateau Cambon La Pelouse, Haut-Médoc, Bordeaux
2005

Spain
Les Brugueres, Priorat Vi Blanc
2006

Rotllan Torra, Tirant, Priorat
2001

Italy
Manzone, Barolo le Gramolere
2004

By now, you are no doubt aching to find out which of these wines were the fave's of the Food Night crew. So let's not keep you waiting any longer... the prestigious GOLD MEDAL from the Valentine's Food Night goes to....................................

The 2001 Ridge Monte Bello! Absolutely no surprise there, it was certainly a notch (or two) above all other wines that night. The best domestic wine I have ever had was the 2004 Phelps Insignia, and the Monte Bello seriously made me reconsider that position, as it was absolutely spectacular. A sort of ripe banana aroma was incredible, as were the layers of texture and concentration. Certainly one of the better wines we've had at any Food Night. There was actually a great article in the New York Times this week about Ridge, and the Monte Bello in particular. You can imagine hard time I had convincing them to run it in conjunction with this post. Amazing that this little blog has gotten so much pull in such a short period of time, no?! In any case, I highly encourage you to check out the article.

When Tom extracted the unmistakably Ridge labeled bottle from the paper bag that had been concealing it during our blind tasting... many loud "OHHHHHs!!!!" were heard, many fists bumped, and chants of "We are not worthy!" filled the air. So many of us had been wanting to try this bottle for some time. A dream had been realized. Because that is what we do at Food Night. We make dreams... come true.*

* If your dreams happen to involve drinking great wine, that is. If you dream bigger than that, we probably cannot help you. Thanks for understanding.

Moving on, the SILVER MEDAL goes to.........

The 2006 Clos Des Papes Chateauneuf du Pape! The first (and last, prior to Food Night) Clos Des Papes I had was a the 1998 vintage at the old La Belle Vie in Stillwater. My wine knowledge at the time couldn't have filled a flea's bathtub, but I knew enough to say... wow... that's good. Fast forward several years, and Clos Des Papes is making even BETTER wine now, so says Wine Spectator, Robert Parker, and others who "know". And while it was absolutely fantastic, I think Tyler captured it accurately when he mentioned we probably did not max out this bottle's potential. It was decanted OVERNIGHT in TWO separate decanters for maximum aeration. Rich, decadent, and ripe, I'm really glad there are three left in my cellar. We'll break it out again for a Food Night in 2015.

And finally... rounding out the medal stand with the BRONZE is...

The 2001 Calera Selleck! If you know anything about the Food Night crew, you know we are pretty obsessed with Calera wines. The 2001 Selleck is what started that obsession. Perfume? Check. Bright acidity? Check. Gobs of Asian spice and other "non-fruit" aromas? All present and accounted for. Amazing stuff the Calera.

Personally, I really loved the Tirant Priorat too. I actually gave it the Silver on my ballot. Fantastically structured, with awesome aromas of asphalt and rich tobacco and smoke. Plus, check out the hand written bottle numbers! How cool is that?! Very classy.

And speaking of labels, how regal are these Chatty labels...

In the middle is the 2000 Vieux Télégraphe. That stuff (as Tim commented on) was indeed fantastic. I think it had the most terroir (ter-whah) of any wine of the night. You could smell and taste the soil the grapes were grown in, and the musty funky air of the cave that the wine was aged in.* The Clos Des Papes even goes so far as to print the word "TERROIR" right on the label! (Check out the picture below if you don't believe me). Above on the right was the 2000 Vatican Sixtine, and unfortunately it had a definite hint of TCA (or, it was slightly "corked"). It wasn't as prevalent on the palate, but once that smell is in my head, I have a hard time getting past it. A shame too, as the 2001 Sixtine was one of the best Chateauneufs I've ever had, so I was really looking forward to trying the 2000.

* I have no idea if it was stored in a cave, but it sure wouldn't surprise me.

Rounding out the wine summary, was a 2004 Manzone Barolo, which is a wine I've had twice before. First time was the 2001 vintage, and at the time, it was the best Barolo I'd ever had. I distinctly remember it's leathery bouquet and wonderfully acidic structure. The second time was the 2004, and I decanted it for hours and hours, but was unable to extract it from it's youth. That seems to be a pattern for young Barolos. Sometimes you can give a young powerful wine some air and time in the decanter, and it will reveal itself to you. Not so, the Barolo. It is the most stubborn wine I've come across in that regard; it seems there is simply no substitute for bottle age with Barolo. That isn't to say the 2004 Manzone wasn't enjoyable - it certainly was, and it will surely be a gem in another 5+ years. But like the Clos Des Papes, another wine we opened before it's time.

And now, sadly, I must wrap up this riveting post on the wines of the Valentine's Food Night. I could go on, but, A) it's almost St. Patrick's Day, and B). I need to save my energy for detailing the food of Food Night. And as you might imagine... there was a lot of pretty deece (and this time, unique) food to detail.

Valentine's Food Night Preview

2010-02-22T21:42:00.008-06:00

I know I'm in the minority here, but I cannot stand previews. Previews at the movies, previews on TV that show what's coming on the next episode of my favorite show "24", previews of anything that gives away anything more than a tease. I went to the movies last weekend, and the previews were 23 minutes long*. That's a bit excessive, don't you think? Previews have become the bane of my electronic media existence. I understand they serve a purpose in that they attract new viewers. They say "Hey, look how funny this movie is going to be" or "Hey, look at the scrum Jack Bauer has gotten himself into THIS time".

* Yes, 23 minutes. I timed it. Twenty. Three. Minutes. I think there is something like 23 minutes of content in your typical half hour sit-com. I can deal with and actually enjoy a couple of previews, but after one or two SHOW THE FREAKIN' MOVIE ALREADY!

Is it really necessary to give away so much during the previews? Less is more. Previews should be like the Amuse Bouche. A little statement that wets your appetite, teases you, shows you what's possible, but doesn't spoil your dinner. Last weekend I saw a preview for a movie with the Guy from 300 and Friends Gal and the jist of it was that they were lovers, but not anymore, and now he is a bounty hunter, and she has run afoul with the law somehow, and now he needs to haul her off to jail, and she hits him in the neck neck with a taser, and she wears short skirts, and he wears a towel as he's getting out of the shower, and he chains her to the bedpost, and she chains him to the bedpost, and the Mafia gets involved, and they get into this massive car chase, and AHHHHHH !!!!! Cripes, if I wanted to see such a ridiculous movie in the first place I wouldn't NEED to any more because I've seen everything there is to see! I've seen him, I've seen her, I've seen them, I've seen their dilemma. But of course what what I'm TRYING to see are 10 foot tall blue computer generated human/alien hybrids with tails battling rocket ships with bows and arrows while riding on the backs of monsters that they have "bonded" with via their special nervous system that extends out the end of their magic hair braid. Obviously.

Less is MORE. Show some restraint. Quality, not quantity. If you have a quality product, people will take notice, and they will come. Channel the Amuse Bouche. Wet the appetite. And people will come. They will most defintely come*.

* Wow. Is that a goose bump inducing monologue or WHAT?! That movie hits me right where it counts. Fathers and sons, James Earl Jones, "...and it'll be as if they dipped themselves in magic waters". I could be wrong, but if that speech doesn't move you, or doesn't make at least one hair on the back of your neck stand on end, then there is something wrong with you, my friend.

What I'm trying to say here is.... previews suck.

So naturally, I give you... a Preview of the Food and Wine at the Valentine's Food Night! A preview done right, of course. A few photos, and a few words* to hopefully wet your appetite for subsequent posts. So enjoy the Amuse, and check back later for the Main Courses.

* As for the words, before continuing I suggest you find your inner Don LaFontaine. No really... click on the link. And turn up the volume. OK? Good. Commence ~~preview~~ Amuse...

"In a world, where people gather and bottles of spine tingling wines flow, like so many juice boxes at a Girl Scout Field Trip...."

"... and with that wine, various Food Stuffs descend from the heavens (or, Whole Foods)..."

"... and are transformed before your very eyes into dishes so shocking, they can only be described as.......... DEECE...."

"Only one group of dedicated, impatient souls would DARE open wines YEARS before their time..."

"Food Stuffs and wines and fabulous company like this can mean only one thing; another FOOD NIGHT has transpired, and is coming............ to your interweb machine!"

"Tyler is ready....."

Are YOU???.............................

Calling all Valentine's Food Night Participants...

2010-02-17T21:21:00.001-06:00

Before I begin documenting the happenings at the Valentine's Food Night, there is a little housekeeping I need to do. We are going to start a running feature here at Food Night. Those in attendance will vote for the Gold, Silver and Bronze Medal winning wines of the night. And you most definitely can vote the a wine that you brought. Additionally, participants will vote for their favorite food course of the evening. Won't this be fun?!

So.

If you attended Food Night on 2/13, please cast your ballot in the Comments below for your Gold, Silver, and Bronze medal winning wines of the night. Then while you are at it, toss out what was your favorite course of the evening.

If you are having trouble remembering what we drank, here is a little reminder...

And if you need a refresher on what we ate...

In the future, we'll collect this information at Food Night, so as not to use up interweb bandwidth that could be used for far more important pursuits. Like this.

Thank you. Posts on Food Night details coming to your internet machine shortly.

To the cook, go the Leftovers

2010-02-09T23:33:00.002-06:00

Invariably, the day after Food Night my kitchen looks like a grenade went off at the Sigma Lamda Delta Alpha Beta kegger* on Halloween. And the worst part of it is not the dirty dishes, it's the fact that... aw, man... Food Night is over. Kind of like the day after Christmas when you were a kid. That day, and the day after my birthday, I recall being the worst days of the year. The mental hangover, the knowledge that you are a full YEAR away from the joy and jubilation those days bring, was always a drain that day after. But on the bright side, there were the toys you got to play with that lessened the disappointment. Similarly, the day after Food Night has it's own set of toys.... Leftovers!

* A kegger where the cheap beer is replaced with Priorat, Chateaunuf du Pape, Bordeaux and Chardonnay. Which happens from time to time, I'm told.

You remember the pickled tomatoes? Yeah, no leftovers there. Every one of those flavor grenades had it's pin pulled, so to speak. However, I couldn't bring myself to toss out the brine I pickled them in, so it sat in my fridge for a few days. And then I remembered that in that brine were some strips of meyer lemon peel. What a treat that was, to discover that after a few days, the peel had become really intense and bursting with flavors from the brine! Almost like a poor-man's version of the preserved lemon that Sameh garnishes dishes with at Saffron.* Leftover lemon peel. Who knew?

* Sameh and his restaurant Saffron deserves a post of it's own. I'm sure that'll happen. For now, please know that the preserved lemon he GARNISHES his dishes with is about the best thing you can eat. It's a foodgasm, and if I have to explain what that is to you, then just nevermind. And it he uses it as a freaking GARNISH. Yeah. Dude has some game in the kitchen. To say the least.

What we did have after the Truffle Food Night was leftover venison. And the sauce, the silky rich sauce. The chards of leftover venison and the plethora of sauce called for one thing; pasta. So after work one Tuesday night, I brought the venison back to life in a skillet full o'sauce, and then tossed it up with some goat cheese, chili flakes and cilantro.

Deeceness ensued........

One of the best things about braised meats is that the deliciousness factor of said meat increases as it chills in the refrigerator post-braise. Flavors intensify. Textures meld. Goodness is amplified. I don't know the science of what is occurring, but rest assured it is good (eats).

Just another reason to braise more meat.

Scheduling update

2010-01-25T19:12:00.004-06:00

A song, to announce something way cool that is coming up very shortly, sung to the theme of this all time classic...

Food, Exciting and new,
Come aboard, we're expecting you.
Wine, life's sweetest reward,
Let it flow, it floats back to you...

Food Night! Soon we'll be making another run,
Fooooood Niiiight, promises something for everyone.
Set a course for Feb 13,
Your mind on a new bottle of vino.

Ok, sorry, I dunno where that came from but here's the deal.... FOOD NIGHT... is back on the books! Mark your calendars for February 13th. That's right, the day before Valentine's Day. And since we haven't exactly "done" that Food Night, we may go heavy on the red themed ingredients. You'll understand, won't you? Then again, perhaps we'll completely ignore the Hallmark Holiday. Who knows. Or maybe I should just stop talking now and let you go about your day...

But before I go, just an FYI that I'm almost done with one more post from the Truffle Food Night. I hate it when day jobs get in the way of recreation! But it's just a brief little number about what happens after Food Night, once the guests have gone home, and the food stuffs* that are left in the fridge are begging for attention... stay tuned......

* I love that term. "Food Stuffs". When I think "food stuffs", I think of DEECE ingredients. Pheasants, parmiggiano, good olives, heirloom tomatoes, micro greens, anything from Coastal Seafoods. Food Stuffs. That, is where Food Night begins... with simple Food Stuffs.

Oh, and happily, one of the main Food Night Players will be making a return appearance. You might think "Oh, I didn't even know anybody left". And you'd be RIGHT! You didn't know because I never told you. It wouldn't exactly seem right to say "Howdy, here's Food Night, and one of our main dudes is moving to California". I don't know much, but I know telling you that one of the main Food Nighters fled to Cali right after Food Night is not how to build momentum. But he's coming back. And if I had a picture of him, I'd put it right...... here. But I don't, since we seem to take more pictures of food stuffs* at Food Night than we do of ourselves.

* Told you it was fun to use that term. Food Stuffs. So delicious, yet so vague!

The Truffle Food Night, the dramatic conclusion

2010-01-10T18:18:00.009-06:00

The Truffle Food Night transpired on 12/12/2009. My watch currently reads 1/10/2010. You see how massive Food Night has become?! One decade is not enough to contain the international phenomenon that is Food Night. Some might say the Truffle Food Night has been "dragged out". Others might say that Christmas and New Year's got in the way of finishing up the posts (and they would be correct, by the way). But who cares about all that, let's get going on the details of what transpired when I attempted to cook the leanest hunk of meat I've ever seen.

Braised Venison

fingerling potato confit, pickled red onion, meyer lemon cream

If there was a molecule of fat on this Top Round Roast* of venison, I didn't see it. Probably because fat molecules are really, really small. And this deer's muscles were definitely properly pumped up. So, given that this roast was 99.999999999% lean**, much like the Austrian gentlemen pictured here, I decided to chat with a few very, very talented and incredibly friendly local chefs about how I might want to go about cooking it.

* Really excellent diagram of exactly where this roast is located on the animal here (it is a part of the Whole Round), and a close up photo of the roast here (click the 'click to view' next to Top Round Roast on that page for the close up).

** What is going on with deer these days? I think all they do is eat (in my garden), work out, and make little deer. And they do all three of those with GREAT proficiency. I can't throw a rotten egg out my back door without hitting a deer. Currently I think there might be a deer pilates class on the north side of my house on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Stop by if you are interested. And bring your rifle, please.

After getting the advice of the aforementioned super chefs, I settled on a fairly traditional braise. Braising is something I do virtually every Sunday in the fall/winter, so that is something that is in my comfort zone, something I thought would work for the venison, and something I could do a little ad-libbing with if anything went wrong. The first step was to sear the roast in the workhorse 5qt Le Creuset. Then I caramelized some onions in the resulting mess that was on the bottom of the pan after searing.

Those are the caramelized onions on the right side of the stove, along with some chicken stock right before the aromatics (carrot, onion, celery, etc) were added... but of course, you already know stock is another post.

I made some seeeeeriously delish pork stock the day before, so during the onion caramelization process I dumped some of that stock in there a few times to pick up all the crusty goodness on the bottom of the pan. Then when I was out of pork stock, I used maybe a cup of this very slightly smoked dopplebock beer from New Holland Brewing (buy it at Haskells in White Bear Lake). The stock was actually smokier than the beer, and the beer had a pleasant touch of sweetness to it. Plus it had a cool pig on the label. And it was already open... so, why not use it, right? Indeed.

To the pot of caramelized goodness, I added a bunch of San Marzano tomatoes, rich brown chicken stock, some delish green olives from Kowalski's, garlic, ancho chile, bay, a little honey, and other seasonings, covered it*, and stuck it in a 210 degree oven, and waited. Actually to be more specific, I went to bed. The venison went in the oven at 10pm Friday night, and came out at 8am Saturday morning. I know I mentioned in a previous post that I couldn't really classify this dish as "simple". But dang it, sure it is! Braising is amazing AND simple. Father Time does most of the work in a braise. So, sorry if I misled anyone... won't be the last time I'm sure.

* One of the coolest, and simplest, things I learned from The French Laundry Cookbook was that Chef Keller rarely has a lid on a pan in his kitchen. On page 190, there are instructions for how to make a parchment paper lid, which allows for some evaporation/concentration of the braising liquid, but keeps the meat from becoming too caramelized. Simple, yet effective. If it is good enough for Keller, it is good enough for Food Night, so that's how we roll - parchment lids.

The potatoes were done ahead of time as well. Thursday I gently poached them in olive oil and garlic, and stored them in the oil and garlic and a couple dried chiles until Food Night. Then Saturday night, I tossed them in a cast iron pan to put a nice sear on them. This was a quality, and painfully simple, do ahead preparation that I'll definitely use again. In fact I can't believe I haven't done this before. Plus I like saying "confit" potatoes. Sounds so regal and impressive, when it's actually easy as falling off a log. Can you simmer olive oil in a pan? Of course you can - and therefore you can make these potatoes, the inspiration for which I got here. Confit'ing is gonna become more common in my kitchen, I can tell. I wish I had done the venison that way, actually.

So, while I put together the first three courses of the evening, the venison was back in a really low oven, in the braising sauce had since been buzzed up with an immersion blender. When it was time to "slice" the roast, a small wave of panic passed over me. After poking and prodding the roast a bit, I could tell this thing wasn't going to be quite as succulent and tender like a lot of other braise-friendly cuts of meat I had worked with before. When I finally did take a knife to it, it flaked apart. Kind of like pulled pork, only without the moisture provided by fat (which as we've discussed, was nowhere to be seen here). It was indeed fairly dry, yet still tender, if that makes any sense. It certainly did not slice, so I did the only thing I could think of; I tossed the now "pulled venison" with plenty of that delicious sauce. Have another glance at the finished product... (there is venison in there, trust me, it's just being a little bashful)...

The final dish turned out really well. Better than I thought when I realized the roast had gotten somewhat dry. It had a nice slightly earthy/gamey flavor, without being overwhelming. Certainly nothing that I'd call an overwhelming success or anything. But the potatoes were very good, and the meyer lemon cream (basically sour cream, meyer lemon juice, salt) lent a nice contrast to the rich sauce.

In the end I was happy that I didn't completely ruin Tom's venison that he graciously donated to the Food Night cause. A week or so after Food Night, I was at Brasa for lunch and was talking to Tony about how the dish turned out. He suggested perhaps a brine would have helped. Great idea. Next time, I'll probably do that, or try to confit it, or use a gift that Santa brought me this year (pictured, from the interweb).

So that about does it for what the Food Night crew deemed "the best Food Night we've ever had". But fear not, because we of course have another Food Night coming up! It's looking like early February, but there certainly could be something done ad-hoc between now and then.

Finally, I'm really excited to announce that I have managed to convince a VERY special guest to attend a future Food Night! This guest is truly a gifted chef, not just some yahoo with a house, a couple cookbooks, a knife and an internet connection like yours truly. No, when this mystery guest goes to work every day, he goes to a restaurant. A freaking amazing, unique and fabulous restaurant. HIS restaurant, actually. OK, I need to stop there or I'll give away the surprise or have a stroke, and both of those things would lessen my enjoyment of the next Food Night.

So keep checking back as there certainly will not be a dearth of posts between Food Nights. I've actually got a few in the queue already, not the least of which is the one you've been clamoring for. The one I had to call Comcast to request extra bandwidth for. The one that will change your life.* The Stock post. I'm telling you, my cooking life is divided into B.S. and A.S. Before Stock, and After Stock. Wait, what did you think B.S. meant?

* Individual results may vary.

I guess what I mean to say is, we are just getting started here at Food Night. Glad you are along for the ride.

The Truffle Food Night, part 3

2009-12-28T19:44:00.001-06:00

Just when you thought you had opened every Christmas gift under the tree, Food Night went and hid one more in the back corner of the closet next to the Scrabble board you never use. Now, before you get too excited, our gift to you is more of the intangible variety. You can't really put this gift in your fanny pack to take over to Aunt Mable's New Year's Day pot luck. You can however use it as inspiration to make some fresh pasta for yourself, or to at least take a step in that direction by investing in that pasta roller attachment for the Kitchen Aid you've had your eye on. Worst case, you can use it to kill 10 minutes of your life that you'll never get back. So rip off the bow, tear open the paper, and enjoy Food Night's gift to you...

Fresh Pasta
reduced stock, tarragon, parmigiano-reggiano, black truffle

Looks fairly deece*, eh? Midday on Saturday, I made the dough for the pasta. Semolina flour, couple eggs, salt, olive oil, stir, knead, bang - pasta dough. So simple. I think making fresh pasta deserves it's own post, so I won't belabor the details here. Recently I've been trying to keep the fresh pastas relatively simple around here. Six ingredients - pasta, stock, butter, parmigiano, fresh herb, salt. But at Food Night, we gave those six a + 1. The Truffle.

* Deece. An abbreviated form of "decent", that though the magic of irony, means "yummy, fantastic, delish, and all-around super-duper" here at Food Night. But you, the dedicated and loyal reader, already knew that from post numero uno.

Let me first say the truffle was WAY harder to slice than I thought it would be. It wasn't as firm as a titleist, but it was close. I definitely used a little extra caution while passing it over the mandoline since it took more force than I thought to slice it. The texture of the exterior was absolutely incredible; all kinds of knobs, nooks, crannies, patterns, randomness, roughness, curves - it looked "important". Does that make sense? You could just tell this thing was something. If you are like me, you contemplate things like "Who was the first person to eat X, and why did he or she think eating X would be a good idea?", where "X" is something like sea urchin or tripe. I thought of the truffle along those lines before this one arrived on my doorstep, since it's basically a dirty hunk of fungus buried underground on the root of some tree. But once you see it, it is quite impressive. It has presence. You can tell it is... kind of a big deal.

Once it was sliced... wow. The aroma; the intricate, delicate, yet assertive aroma. Not to mention the texture, and the amazing color and pattern of the truffle's interior. Prior to slicing, the smell was somewhat muted, but that scent of what I thought a truffle would smell like was definitely there. And when I think of how a truffle should smell, lacking experience in handling actual truffles I unfortunately think of the often extremely pungent and slightly manufactured smelling truffle oil. A little dab will do ya there. But once sliced, the truffle released organic smells of fresh, wet potting soil and other delightfully earthy scents. And I mean that it the best possible way. Really, I do.

And so, the Six + 1 ingredient pasta came together quite easily. The dough - done ahead of time. The water - on to boil. The stock - reducing nicely in a nice wide skillet. The herb (tarragon) - diced and ready. All that was left was to roll out the pasta through the brilliant and utterly genius Kitchen Aid pasta rolling attachment. From there, the noodles were cut, a knob of butter tossed into the reduced stock, pasta plunged into the water for 3ish minutes, then into the sauce with the herb and parmigiano. Toss to coat, divide amongst the five plates, and top with more parmigiano.

Then, it was of course time to shave the truffle over each dish. Steaming hot pasta, topped with shards of black truffle, and a glass of profound wine. Thankfully, nobody lost consciousness. The dish was clearly a success. However, it was unanimous amongst all the Food Night attendees that... we needed another truffle. One just wasn't enough to properly truffle* five pasta portions. We definitely got the essence of it, but because of the relatively modest amount of truffle each person received, the dish was not as "decadent" as I had hoped. The truffle shavings tasted a lot like they smelled - very much like wet earth. Now, before you say "Well why didn't you just go dig up your backyard and toss a hunk of that in with your pasta", I'll tell you that 1). I currently have about two feet of snow in my backyard thank you very much, and 2). this was the coolest earth smell and taste ever. It was exactly what I've always wanted truffle oil to be; a flavor enhancer, but not a palate dominator. I think a few more shavings on each plate would have pushed the dish to another level.

* Yep, I just used "truffle" as a verb. Cool, huh.

Conversely, perhaps we should take a page from Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David. They brought "Seinfeld" to an end while the show was still at the height of its powers because they wanted to go out on their own terms, instead of being shown the door. They wanted to leave the audience wanting more.

The truffle definitely did that - it left all of us wanting more. And that is probably just the way it should be.

An Epic Food Night, part 2

2009-12-17T16:15:00.029-06:00

If you missed the eagerly anticipated and highly acclaimed part 1 of the recent Food Night, fear not. Through the magic of linking, I can send you there if you click here, or even here.

I mentioned previously that sometimes Food Night happens on a weeknight. That means, I don’t exactly have all day to grocery shop, cook, prep and whatnot. OK, yes, I have used vacation time at my day job to cook, prep, and grocery shop for Food Night, but that is beside the point. The point is that I didn’t really HAVE to do that, I just wanted to because cooking makes me happy. So in an effort to achieve that euphoria via cooking, and still hold a day job, there are two main concepts that I try to adhere to (for the most part) when it comes to the food at Food Night;

1). Prep in advance. Cook something that lends itself to doing at least some of the job ahead of time, without sacrificing the quality of the finished dish.

2). Simplicity. Use great ingredients, treat them simply, and get out of the way.

Of the four dishes served at the most recent Food Night*, all four fit into (1) and three fit into (2). The outlier was the venison. It’s not like the dish was rocket science or anything, but there were definitely more than a few moving parts it, so I think as a whole it falls outside the simplicity zone. Braising itself? Simple indeed. But that's another post. And today I’m going to focus on two of the simple dishes. Shall we begin?

* I think we are going to have to assign names to the various Food Nights, because I'm sick of saying "the most recent Food Night". And we'll likely need to refer back to Food Nights past at some point, so they should probably all have names. I was thinking we could go with something simple, kind of like how Larry David named episodes of Seinfeld. "The Contest", for example. So, from this point forward, we shall refer to the 12/12/2009 Food Night as....... "The Truffle Food Night". So let it be written.

Bruschetta
avocado, pickled tomato, arbequina olive oil, Maldon sea salt

The fabulous Bar La Grassa was the inspiration for the pickled tomatoes, which were really the star of the dish. I had them as an appetizer on a recent outing there, and of course they were fantastic. I’m beginning to think Isaac Becker could cook a shingle or an old shoe and make it taste good. Maybe he'd even serve the shoe on top of the shingle and call the dish "Fiddler on the Roof"? No? Yeah, probably not. Anyway, I decided if I could still find little Minnesota grown cherry tomatoes at the store I’d attempt to pickle the dickens out of them. Thankfully, I did, because these little flavor grenades are immediately going into the “killer accompaniments” folder on my PC.* I’d never even thought of pickling tomatoes before!

* I know, I know, I’m sooooo not cool because I have a PC and not a Mac. But in my defense, I think I bought it around the time of iPod v1.0, so, the jury was still out for me at that time as to what direction to go. In hindsight, yeah, I probably zigged when I should have zagged. Whatever.

Pickled Tomatoes a la Grassa
1). Cut cherry or other small tomato in half through the equator

2). In a container that will fit the tomato halves relatively snugly, fill with white wine vinegar (but leave enough room for the tomatoes, I'd say I used roughly 7oz of vinegar), and add a tablespoon of sugar, and a couple pinches of kosher salt,

3). Stir to dissolve sugar and salt, then add a few strips of the peel from a lemon (meyer, if you have it), small pinch of saffron threads (again, if you have it), a dried chile or two, and some thinly sliced garlic. I had some fresh tarragon, so I tossed a good sized stem in there too.

4). Add the tomatoes to the brine, cover, refrigerate overnight.

And that’s it! Top creamy soups with them, toss them in salads, or with feta, or with goat cheese, or stick them on some lightly toasted baguette with some avocado, good olive oil and salt like I did. Drizzle the plate with more olive oil and some of the pickling liquid, and there’s your appetizer. I cannot recommend these little gems highly enough. Unfortunately, we are every so slightly past prime tomato growing weather here in the midwest. But how about trying this with fresh picked little sungold tomatoes right from the garden, hm? I’ll try to remember to post this recipe again next summer. That is of course is assuming we actually HAVE a summer next summer, unlike this summer which was decidedly unsummerlike. Let's move on to the next dish before I pack a bag and move to Fiji.

Crudo Duo
Zucchini, Hawaiian striped marlin

I think this was the most successful dish of the evening, and it was the simple melding of two great tastes that taste great together.* The first was the Zucchini Crudo that Michael Ruhlman posted about recently. He authored the new Michael Symon cookbook, and featured this zucchini crudo recipe in a recent blog post. I had occasion to make it recently, and was absolutely amazed that something that simple could taste that good. And if it is simple, and good, it is definite Food Night material.

* Are you kidding me with that commercial??! You of course noticed that one of the participants in this culinary Big Bang event is walking down the street eating peanut butter. Out of a jar. With her FINGER. And did you see the size of their iPods?! They were huge! I bet they only held like 512MB of music back then. Prehistoric.

The second component to the dish was... raw fish! Who doesn’t like raw fish?! Of course the genius part about a raw fish course at a dinner party is the cooking time. As in, there is no cooking time! Obviously there is some effort that is required, but that effort can be made before your guests arrive. The fantastic fishmongers at Coastal Seafoods steered me towards this gorgeous Hawaiian Striped Marlin, which just so happened to cost HALF as much as the sushi grade tuna I tend to buy. $6 got me all I needed to use this in a dish for five people. About an hour before people came over, I cubed up the fish, tossed it in some stuff that sounded good like olive oil, soy sauce, cilantro, green onion, sesame, pickled chile, a little dash of this Rick Bayless smoked chile sauce I like, and plenty of lemon zest.

This dish was a snap, provided you have one of these (which, you do have, don’t you?). Slice and toss the zucchini with salt 10 minutes before serving. Then arrange the zucchini on the plate, dot with some of the marlin, a drizzle of good olive oil and a couple flakes of Maldon, and there you go! And if you had some pickled tomatoes in the fridge (check) toss those on the plate too. Some pickled red onion?* Sure! But definitely finish the plate off with a drizzle of good olive oil, and a couple flakes of Maldon.

* I make these pickled red onions frequently. Find the recipe, which takes all of 5 minutes to throw down, here from the brilliant David Lebovitz. The work great on a multitude of things, but I absolutely cannot imagine tacos and carnitas of all kinds without these little gems now.

This was such a great dish, and one that came together without one of mankinds most important discoveries. Previously when I looked at zucchini, I'd shrug my shoulders and think “I dunno, grill it?”. And I’m usually wasn't all that jazzed about the results, either. But through the wonders of a simple yet effective naturally occurring substance, the previously uber-blah zucchini just found a spot in the Food Night rotation.

Salt. It’s not just for your margarita glass anymore.

(Still to come; Posts starring "The Venison" and "The Truffle"...)

An Epic Food Night, part 1

2009-12-14T23:03:00.009-06:00

Every Food Night is an occasion we look forward to with great anticipation. Of course they are all unique and fun and provide us with an opportunity to sample and discuss some really great wines. However, the Food Night that came together Saturday December 12th was completely off the charts. Epic, even. The food turned out great (after MUCH consternation about the leanness of the venison), and the wines were absolutely special. That's the only word I can come up with; special.

In today's post, I'm going to focus on the wines of Food Night. I've been stressing out about how I can possibly organize and detail what transpired at Food Night in some logical and (somewhat) succinct manner. I thought about just beginning at the beginning, cranking out around nine thousand words, and then twenty eight days later I'd be done with that post, and you'd spend your entire day reading a rambling, unorganized, meandering diatribe that would probably end up being the last Food Night post you ever read. And we certainly don't want that. You deserve something a little more focused and entertaining as you sip your morning coffee.* I'll absolutely throw out some photos (above) of the food that I made to hopefully wet your appetite for the soon to follow food related posts. And heck, I'll list out the full menu too. But I really think you will be thankful for this more organized approach. Really. Trust me. I've been doing this for a week now. I know what I'm doing.**

* I'm sure that's how you start your day, right? Shower, drive to work, coffee, check for Food Night updates. And Food Night has no problem playing second fiddle to your morning coffee, or other bevie of choice. Clearly, that is the priority.

** I do not have a clue what I'm doing.

Enough preamble. Let's get started with the menu and wine list from Food Night!

Bruschetta

avocado, pickled tomato, arbequina olive oil, Maldon sea salt

Crudo Duo

zucchini, Hawaiian striped marlin

Fresh Pasta

reduced stock, tarragon, parmigiano-reggiano, black truffle

Braised Venison

fingerling potato confit, pickled red onion, meyer lemon sour cream

When we discussed the wine possibilities for the evening, lots of us focused on Northern Rhone, figuring the funky, gamey nature of a lot of those Syrahs would play well with the venison. And in general, at least from my recollection*, we do tend to have more European wines at Food Night because that is where the preferences of some of the participants lie. Not so, this time. Out of the ten (that is not a misprint.... 10) wines we sampled, six were domestic, like this gem...

*See, this is a huge reason why I wanted to start the blog; to keep a tally on exactly what we've tried. I'm going to even start a running post or document of some kind here to keep track of the counts for various countries. I know, I think it's going to be awesome too! Moving on to the wines of the evening....

United States

Calera, Rosé of Pinot Noir

2008

Calera, Jensen Pinot Noir

2006

Calera, Selleck Pinot Noir

2002

Rock, Hudson Vineyard, Carneros Syrah*

2005

Joseph Phelps, Le Mistral (Syrah, Grenache, Petite Sirah), Monterey*

2003

Freemark Abbey, Cabernet Sauvignon, Napa Valley*

2005

Spain

Clos Mogador, Priorat*

2005

France

Carruades de Lafite, Bordeaux (Pauillac)*

2003

Chateau De Fieuzal, Bordeaux (Pessac-Leognan)*

2005

Joseph Drouhin, Clos des Mouche (Cote de Beaune, Burgundy)*

2005

The *'s in the above wine list indicate that these wines were tried blind. We've probably had a dozen undocumented Food Nights and amazingly this was the first time we'd tried anything blind. As we learned from experience working at Haskell's, there is no better wine education than to taste good bottles blind in a setting with someone who really knows wine. Blind, as in, a glass of wine is handed to you, and without having any idea what it is you have to name the country of origin, the varietal(s), and the vintage. This really doesn't work terribly well with say $8 wine. But last night, Alex* really went crazy and brought some astounding wines for everyone to try blind. The results, were impossibly cool.

*I should really work on a post that introduces you to the "players" at Food Night. Until then, what you need to know is that Alex is the C.W.O. of Food Night. Chief Wine Officer. Alex knows his wine, and actually he knows YOUR wine too, and he's disarmingly unpretentious about the whole thing. Honestly, the reason why the results of this maiden Food Night Blind Tasting were so cool was because Alex has taught all of us a ton about wine by sharing his knowledge and his bottles.

Let's talk about the bottles we tasted blind.

Blind Bottle #1

Everyone initially thought it was grenache, or certainly Spanish wine of some kind. But it had low tannins, and lofty jammy fruit, and a really cool nose. I thought it lacked that white pepper sort of thing that I get out of most grenache, so my final guess was 2004 California Syrah. Tyler and Tom both went with Spanish grenache, but the year they guessed escapes me. I know, huge error on my part, I hope you'll still be able to sleep tonight.

The Bottle; 2003 Joseph Phelps Le Mistral . 57% Syrah, 36% Grenache, the rest small amounts of other varietals. So, I kind of, um well, I kind of nailed this one. Tyler and Tom also were also basically right on here as well. Just not as right as, you know, me.

Blind Bottle #2
I took one whiff and said "This is Burgundy". But before you roll your eyes at the author, know that while Tom and Tyler were in agreement with me, they actually whittled it down to the exact freaking town in Burgundy where the wine came from. You might ask, how is this possible?! How can so much wine knowledge be concentrated in so few people?! Maybe they born with it? Maybe it's Maybelline?*

* Answer; No. It is not Maybelline. Don't ask me where I came up with that one either. I remember commercial tag lines. What can I say. I'm every every advertising big-shot's wet dream. The answer is actually that we've all tried quite a few bottles of wine, and if you are interested in wine like we are, you learn a few things along the way. And actually, the better quality the wine, the easier it is to pick out what it is (and, what it ISN'T) blind. Of course there are exceptions, and books are probably written about this, so, I digress.

Back to Blind Bottle #2, Tom said it was a 2005 Cotes de Beaune (pronounced "bone"), while Tyler said 2005 Pommard or Volnay (which are both in the Cotes de Beaune). I had no idea what plot of land it was from, other than I was sure it was Burgundy, and was pretty sure it was 2005. This would probably be a good time to state the obvious and say that Alex, Tyler and Tom are all very, VERY well schooled in French wine country knowledge. Not only do they know the aromas, the tastes, the textures, they know the towns, where they are, what they are near, how big and/or famous and/or reputable the towns are, etc. Perhaps you think possessing this knowledge is even more impressive than recalling the tag line from a make-up commercial. And I would tend to agree with you.

Anyway, while we discussed the possibilities for this bottle, I was asking the guys questions about were exactly the town of Beaune was located in the Burgundy region of France, culminating in this classic, age old question; "How long is Beaune?". Now, the fellas diligently did their best using wine glasses, knives and other objects on the table to illustrate to me how things were situated in Beaune. But as the follow up questions pertaining to the "length of Beaune" kept spewing forth, one guest finally broke down and said what needed to be said. (And there was much laughter.)

The Bottle; 2005 Joseph Drouhin Clos des Mouche, Cotes de Beaune, Burgundy.

Blind Bottle #3
One of the most complex, most aromatically astounding wines I've ever tried. The only other bottle in my tasting history I can compare it to from an aromatic standpoint is the 2002 Chateau Margaux. I know. Heady stuff. But I'm not kidding. In the end, ALL of us guessed Priorat, and Tyler even nailed the varietals, cabernet and grenache! I don't think I can even describe the utter ridiculousness of how good this wine was, so let's just reveal the bottle.

The Bottle; 2005 Clos Mogador, Priorat.

Blind Bottle #4
It is said the the Pauillac region of Bordeax produces wines that have a lot of "pencil lead" or "graphite" characteristics about them. This wine immediately exhibited those characteristics, so all of us said Bordeaux. Tyler even went so far as to say that the wine tasted almost like (ahem) "sucking on a pencil", in a good way of course. Not the... nevermind.

The Bottle; 2003 Carruades de Lafite . This wine is the "second label" of Lafite Rothschild, which is one of the five First Growth Bordeaux chateaus. This means that the juice in this bottle was the stuff that wasn't quite good enough to go into the chateau's best label, which is one of the five best Bordeauxs in France. An awesome bottle to add to our tasting rolodex.

So yeah. Not a shabby little lineup of blind wines. And how about your Food Night crew absolutely crushing and nailing every single bottle?! I told you the results were impossibly cool. And we haven't even talked about the other six wines yet! Relax, I'll spare you all the gory details, but I do want to say a couple words about Calera wines. One of the best wines of the night was the Calera Rosé. This $18 Rosé is fairly available here in the Twin Cities, and is hands down the best Rosé any of us have ever had by a long shot. It has a gorgeous color, something darker than usual, yet still very elegant. I'd love to show you the color, but, um, yeah, I was a little tardy with the camera as you can see. My bad (tapping my chest). It is soft and round yet still vibrant and fresh, with lively acidity, and is a breeze to pair with food (it was absolutely phenomenal with the somewhat bold flavors of the Crudo, pictured here). Really amazing stuff for under $20. Oh, and anyone who tells you that you should only drink Rosé in the summer is cracked. Last I checked, there was no season on good wine.

And while we are talking about Calera, I may as well tell you that you could probably go ahead and call Calera the Official Winery of Food Night. We've intentionally not opened bottles of Calera Pinot Noir next to other VERY expensive high end bottles because Calera so thoroughly destroys damn near everything else that is opened along side of it. It's like the mercy rule in Little League. But once you smell a Calera Pinot Noir, you'll know. As I sat at my kitchen table writing the previous post, two bottles of Calera were decanting next to me. Their singular perfume literally filled the air around me, which only served to heighten the anticipation for that evening's Food Night. With Calera wines, it doesn't matter what year, what vineyard site, what score some wine magazine or website gave it, if it was raining acid rain in buckets at harvest... whatever. Josh Jensen makes brilliant wine. Every year. Period.

If only everything in life was so predictable, right? One thing I can predict, are posts about the actual food we had at Food Night (imagine that!). Coming shortly, to a computer near you.

One last wine note, I promise. The 2005 Chateau De Fieuzal Bordeaux. Robert Parker gave it a somewhat modest 90 points, but his description of the wine was too tempting to pass up; smoke, black truffles, crushed rock (?), fresh mushrooms and cassis. And it was tremendous, but we got more dried fruits out of it than earthy notes. And actually, Parker's review of the wine a year before he wrote the above tasting notes indicated notes of plum and fig, which was totally on the mark with what we experienced. Note that this wine is quite closed down, and we actually opened it the night before Food Night, poured it into a decanter, poured it back into the bottle and then let is sit overnight. Then about 6 hours before we drank it, I poured it back and fourth from decanter to bottle a few more times, and let it sit in the decanter for the remaining time before consumption. I did sneak a sample of it before decanting, and the acids were sky high, but calmed down after the decanting process. This stuff can be had for under $50 as well, and is a great bargain in my opinion at that price.

Finally, I have to give an e-shoutout to Alex. The reason these Food Nights are so over the top is because of the wines. When you think about it, that only makes sense. I'm just some dork with an electric stove and a very narrow, modest culinary skillset. On the other hand, these wines we get to drink out of Alex's stash are crafted by truly brilliant winemakers from grapes grown on the best terriors in the world. I say that literally and without exaggeration.

So on behalf of Tyler and Tom, thanks Alex - you really outdid yourself this time.

Tuber Unicinatum

2009-12-12T17:00:00.000-06:00

It arrived Thursday, right on schedule. The "very special guest ingredient" of tonight's Food Night. Tuber Unicinatum. The French Burgundy Black Truffle.

Just look at this orb of goodness, and all it's funky textures and curves and....

Maybe some sense of scale is necessary. Here it is positively dwarfing $.01...

That, my friends, just happened! Shake and Bake!

I don't know if I'm more nervous, excited, fascinated or awed by the mere presence of this culinary diamond in my kitchen. I seem to have snapped more pictures of it than most people do of their first born child. Not sure what that means, but I'm sure it's perfectly normal.

Food Night did not see it fit to take out the requisite loans required to procure an Italian white truffle at $260/oz. I think I would have been shaking like a leaf* while trying to shave it on my handheld mandoline, and would have probably sliced off a finger (or two), which would have significantly altered how I grip a golf club, not to mention greatly upset my dear Mother who serves as the unofficial Chief of the Mandoline Police. (Love ya, Mom).

* For you Top Chef watchers, I'm sure you recall how Jen was shaking like a polariod picture as she was serving Thomas Keller and friends during the Bocuse d'Or elimination challenge a few weeks back. Yeah, she would have looked positively comatose compared to me trying to slice a hunk of fungus I paid $260 for.

So, at Food Night we are going to be slummin' it with the mere $40/oz French Burgundy Truffle. You'll notice that the D'Artagnan link indicates they are "out of season". I called last Friday to check the price of the white truffles (because the website says "call for pricing"... never a good sign for the consumer), and the fine gentleman told me they were $260/oz. After a LONG pause to collect my thoughts and organize my priorities in life, I went ahead and had him send me one black truffle. When I went back to the website a few days later, bang... out of season. See you next September.

Food Night dodged a MAJOR bullet there. And we can't wait to share our good fortune with you fine readers. Check back soon for all the details on tonight's Food Night!

It's all downhill from here

2009-12-11T17:09:00.010-06:00

We may have peaked here at Food Night before we really even began.

This arrived at Food Night HQ yesterday... and there was much jubilation...

Accidentally Great Risotto

2009-12-07T19:21:00.030-06:00

Risotto is a tricky one to tackle at a Food Night. Normally, risotto involves standing over a pot of simmering rice goodness for some time while constantly stirring. I've never found it to be a very guest friendly dish, because if I start the dish ahead of time and try to magically "pause" it in the middle... it just never comes out right. It ends up overdone, underdone, too dry, too brothy, too something. I know this is my shortcoming, and thousands of restaurants make very good risotto every day using the pause button, but I'm just not there yet. Another thing is, making risotto is a calming process for me. The slicing and dicing of ingredients, having a sip of the wine I'm cooking with, the rhythmical stirring of the pot, it's all very relaxing.

At the end of a long week, I often like to relax and wind* down by doing a little cooking on Friday night if at all possible. However, sometimes a balance needs to be struck between cooking and... being social. For example, this past Friday was movie night. So in the interest of both scratching that cooking itch AND leaving the house on Friday evening to go see ~~Meryl Streep's~~ Sandra Bullock's alleged tour-de-force performance in The Blind Side**, I decided to try to execute a satisfying risotto in a reasonable amount of time (reasonable to me in this case was 90 minutes, give or take. Not anything rushed, but not an all night thing either).

* Attempting to spell the word "wind" in that scenario took approximately 10 to 15 minutes of back and forth "e" or not to "e" debating. Wind. That is what blows across the flat earth here in the upper Midwest. It's what I cannot play golf in. It's what rustles the leaves in the trees. I was utterly convinced that "wind" (pronounced wine-d) MUST have an "e" on the end of it. I must be channeling my inner Dan Quayle or something.

** Very enjoyable movie, made even more enjoyable by the three cans of Surly Bender that were sitting in the seat next to us. You mean that's never happened to you? You've never gone to the movies only to find some beers from your refrigerator went to the same movie at same theater at the same time and sat in the seat right next to you? Hmm, sorry about that. I thought Bullock was actually very good, too. My expectations for her were admittedly low however, as I haven't seen a Sandy Bullock movie since this mess that even Keanu Reeves knew to avoid.

I've made risotto ever since I first started to get interested in cooking as something other than a hunger suppressant. Risotto is a blank canvas, ready to accept whatever flavor combinations you dream up. Red wine risotto with sausage and tarragon? Sure! White wine risotto with mushrooms and carrots? Of course! Risotto with bourbon, rabbit and caramelized onions? Go for it! (and let me know how it turns out). It can be a fridge declutterer, a leftover user-upper, a semi-quick weeknight dinner, or the centerpiece of a really elegant meal.

Before I give a brief run down of how this risotto came together, I will say that I can be a bit of a Nervous Nelly when it comes to my food. I'm often not sure it's any good until it's done, and even then I'm not sure until someone other than me actually likes it. This dish, was different. It was the perfect storm of ingredients that I knew were going to work as soon as I got home from the store.

Ahhhh the store - I had a grocery dilemma thrown in for good measure, too. See, I had it in my head that risotto was going to be what's for dinner, but time was a factor. I didn't really have time to leave work and fly way past my house to get to Kowalski's and their killer cheese department to grab the usual parmeggiano reggiano, then retrace my steps back toward the house by which time I'd really be pressing my luck to make a leisurely risotto and be on time for the movie.* The store that is on the way home simply doesn't cut it when it comes to Parm. They put strangely shaped triangles of parmesan into these waxy, oily vacuum sealed pouches which seem to vacuum and seal all the flavor and freshness and texture right out of the cheese. Ish. But again, TIME. There is no time! No time for Home Depot, certainly not for Bed Bath and Beyond, and definitely not for the extra 30 minutes it would take for a Kowalski's run. So, I stopped at the store on the way home, hoping for some inspiration.

* On time for the movie for me means about 20 minutes after the published showtime. Sure, I'd like to see some previews....... but not 20 minutes worth, geez.

Then, BANG, it happened. As I wandered around the store feeling sorry for the waxy, oily parmesan, I saw it... Goat Cheese. Who knew? I enjoy goat cheese as much as the next person, but I'd never used it in risotto before since I'm such a parm-a-holic. So I grabbed some goat cheese, a hot Italian sausage from the meat counter, and a rotisserie chicken (why not... it'll get used at some point in the near future if not tonight). But what really set the dish off was apple. A freaking APPLE. Peeled, and diced into pea-sized pieces, added at the end.

Risotto technique undoubtedly will get it's own post at some point, but I'll just throw out the basics here. I sauteed some shallot in butter, and after a minute added some fennel thinly shaved on the mandoline. Then added the rice, some more shaved fennel and uber-thinly sliced garlic, and the white wine (and plenty of it, pictured here. Probably a 1:1 ratio of wine to rice, at least. I used Helfrich Pinot Gris, which is absolutely fantastic stuff for under $15, find it at Haskell's). After the wine, ladle in stock*, slowly, maybe 1/2 or 3/4 cup at a time, while stirring constantly. As I was "stocking the risotto", I took the sausage out of the casing, broke it up, sauteed it, and kept breaking it up into little pieces until they were crispy. Ditched the fat in the pan from that, deglazed it with some shallot and wine, and dumped that deliciousness into the pot of simmering rice.

*Stock. There is nothing that will improve your cooking faster than to make your own stock. It's magic. And it's a whoooooole different post, which I cannot wait to write because it really, really, REALLY is the truth. I'm not here to lecture, or to cause trouble, I'm just here to do the Super Bowl Shuffle. No wait. I'm hear to tell you that if there is one thing that the old Food Night blog is 100% certain about, it is that stock is magic. And I DEFINITELY am not talking about anything that comes out of a box or a tin can. To be continued.

To finish; I stirred in a pat of butter and the goat cheese, another splash or two of wine until the desired creamy consistency was achieved. Stirred in a little dark meat from the chicken, the crispy sausage and some fresh parsley, and the apple.

Good times ensued. And the beauty was, I knew as this dish was coming together that it was going to be exceptional. Which again is really, really rare for me unless I'm making toast. Goat cheese, sausage, fennel, apple. The rest (shallot, chicken, parsley, etc) is really optional and completely up for debate. It's risotto - a blank culinary canvas. Just be sure to go a little heavy on the wine. Wine is your friend in risotto. I also can't overstate how good the apple was from both a taste and textural standpoint. Each bite with apple was like getting blindsided (ever so gently blindsided, mind you) by a crispity, crunchity palate pleasing flavor surprise. An apple. The simple* things sometimes really do make the difference.

*There's that word again, "simple". Food Night loves simple things.

In the end, this dish turned out so well I put risotto back on the map for future Food Nights. To go with the risotto, I opened a 2000 Barde Haut Bordeaux from St. Emilion which was out of this world good for the small price I paid for it. I can only imagine how good this dish could have been with a Barolo or Brunello or some other Food Night caliber Italian wine.

I suspect we'll find out soon enough.

Here goes nothing!

2009-12-06T17:31:00.011-06:00

Greetings, and welcome to “Food Night”. To get right to the point – Food Night is a small gathering of friends that make it a priority to get together and share some simple but (hopefully) well crafted cuisine and some fantastic wines. Often times Food Night happens on a Friday or Saturday, but sometimes we break it out on a random Tuesday or Wednesday. After all, life is too short to make weeknight meals an afterthought. The enjoyment of sharing the company of friends and acquaintances old and new, of making food to share with friends, and of bringing bottles of exceptional wine to the table to share should not be reserved for Saturday night alone. That’s why any night is fair game for Food Night.

Here’s what happens at food night; I make food, my guests bring wine, and happiness ensues. Pretty simple formula. The food I make is crafted with one eye on the budget*, and the other on taste. And where do taste and cost effectiveness intersect? Simplicity. Simplicity will be a recurring theme at food night, and one that we will explore more later. For now, suffice to say it is much easier to create good food from good ingredients (imagine that).

* The Budget. There is no formal budget here at Food Night. I'm a regular guy, with a regular job, and a plethora of regular bills to pay, so I’m not spending hundreds of dollars to feed my friends. In fact, not counting what I already have in my pantry, it’s not uncommon for me to spend $50 or less to create 3 or 4 courses that will feed 4 people.

A brief note about the wines that we have here at Food Night; most do lean towards the spendy side. We aren't talking stratospheric dollars or anything, but most probably cost more than the typical bottle that is purchased on the way home from work on a given night for most folks. To be clear, great wine doesn’t have to be expensive, and all expensive wines certainly are not great. What I think tastes like gold, you might think tastes like gasoline. But really, there is only so much to say and/or discuss about a wine that is one dimensional or blah or "eh". And the wines really serve as the basis for most of the conversation at Food Night; comparing bottle X to bottle Y, reminiscing about bottle Z we had two Food Night's ago, etc. One of the most enjoyable things about Food Night is hearing what everyone else thinks of the wines for that particular night, predicting who will like what, and being blown away by a relatively unknown bottle that comes out of nowhere to steal the night. The beauty of Food Night is often in the unknown, the chance that tonight your wine universe will be turned upside down by a bottle you never saw coming.

The goals of the blog from both a food and wine perspective are to document, and to (hopefully) entertain a little while tossing out some opinions, recipes, techniques, favorite products, favorite wines, and who knows what else. And if you, the like minded brilliant reader, have any thoughts, comments, suggestions, feedback, complaints, be sure to chime in. We’d love to hear from you.

Incidentally, nobody here at Food Night is a professional photographer by any means, but there will certainly be photos on the blog (they will just not look like this or this). Whatever direction the blog takes from here is somewhat up in the air. My personal hope is that it will be somewhat informative and entertaining to at least one person who does not share my last name, but let’s just see what happens.

Let’s get down to business, since what would the Food Night blog be without… an actual Food Night! I’m excited to say that the first blogged Food Night is fast approaching! I fully intend to come up with a catchy phrase to announce the impending arrival of the next Food Night*, but for now… I’ve got nothing.

* Perhaps something Jack Buck style (“And we’ll see you… tomorrow night!”), or maybe Walter Cronkite style (“And that’s the way it is…. then recite the date of the next Food Night), or maybe even Ron Burgundy style (“I’ve just been handed an URGENT and HORRIFYING news story, and I need ALL of you to stop what you are doing, and listen!”). Who knows. If you have a suggestion, by all means throw it out in the comments!

Before I announce when the first Food Night will be, as an added bonus for your blog reading pleasure, I have procured one special "secret" ingredient for the occasion. I've never worked with this ingredient before, and could not be more excited to smell, see, touch, fondle, smell, caress and smell it. Yes, I said fondle. Should be deece.*

* Deece. As in, an abbreviated form of “decent”. At Food Night when we talk about something being “deece”… we mean it’s special. It’s great. It’s yummy, fantastic, delish, and all around super-duper. If something is “real deece”… then it’s almost too good for words. Thanks in advance for playing along.

Next Food Night; December 12th, 2009.

Initial menu thoughts; Tom’s venison, raw white fleshed fish (possibly ceviche’d… if that’s a word... and even if it's not), fresh pasta.