Food and Wine
12/12/2018
12/11/2018
11/23/2018
Thanksgiving Dinner: Blood orange glazed duck with Ridge 1996 Monte Bello
The Duck
- 5½ pound Rohan duck
- ½ onion, roughly chopped
- 1 stalk celery, roughly chopped
- 2 oranges, quartered
- 1 tablespoon kosher salt
- ½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
- ½ teaspoon 5 spice powder
Preheat oven to 475°.
Trim excess skin from front and tail of duck. Remove and discard giblets etc. from the interior of the duck. Cut off and remove duck neck (which comes tucked into the cavity), reserve for future stock making. Rub duck inside and out with half of spice mix. Combine onion, celery, and orange pieces in a bowl and toss with the remaining spice mix. Stuff into duck and tie legs.
Put a rack into a roasting pan that has a lid
Bring 2 cups of water to a boil (I like to use my electric kettle
Return duck to pan breast side down, cover, and return to oven. Roast 40 minutes.
Raise oven temperature to 375°. Remove lid. Flip duck breast side up. Roast 15 minutes. Smear glaze all over duck. Roast 15 more minutes. Check temperature by inserting an instant read thermometer into the inner thigh near the breast. I like my duck at 160°.
Let duck rest 15 minutes, carve, and serve with orange sauce on the side.
Orange glaze and sauce
- ½ teaspoon 5 spice powder
- 3 tablespoons Grand Mariner
- 8 tablespoons Sarabeth's Blood Orange Marmalade
Combine spice, liquor, and marmalade in your All-Clad 1-Quart sauce pan
Add the following to the remaining mixture in the sauce pan:
- 1 tablespoon Grand Mariner
- 1 tablespoon Sarabeth's Blood Orange Marmalade
- 1 8 ounce can mandarin oranges with their juice
- 2 tablespoons sherry vinegar
- salt to taste
Bring to a simmer and let thicken slightly.
@RidgeVineyards 1996 Monte Bello. Like an old claret. Earth. Tobacco. Leather. Cedar. Prunes. Currants. One of the best aged California Cabernets I’ve ever had. Grade: 99 pic.twitter.com/jdY2ey1Hx7
— Professor Bainbridge (@ProfBainbridge) November 23, 2018
10/12/2018
Butternut Squash Ravioli in a Butternut Squash Cream Sauce with Jayson Chardonnay (Napa Valley) 2013
This turned out really well:
- 3 ounces diced pancetta
- 1 shallot, diced
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- heavy pinch salt
- three or four grinds of black pepper
- 6 ounces diced butternut squash (I used Stahlbush Islands Farm frozen)
- 1 teaspoon dried sage
- 1 teaspoon dried Italian parsley
- 1 cup heavy cream
- pinch nutmeg
- Parmesan cheese to taste
- 1 10-ounce package Rana Butternut Squash Ravioli
Bring 8 quarts of heavily salted water (it should taste like sea water) to a boil in your Cuisinart 12-Quart Pasta/Steamer Pot
Meanwhile, sauté the pancetta over medium heat in your All-Clad 10-inch D3 skillet
Add the squash to the boiling water and cook 3 minutes.
After the pancetta is cooked, transfer it to a paper towel lined plate to drain, and remove all but a tablespoon of the drippings from the pan.
Return the pan to the heat add the shallot and cook for 1 minute. Add the garlic and cook for another 30 seconds. Add the squash, salt, pepper, sage, and parsley, and cook for 1 minute. Add the cream and the nutmeg. Once the cream comes to a simmer, reduce the heat to low and mash the squash using a potato masher (I prefer that to a blender so as to retain some teaxture in the sauce). Grate in Parmesan cheese to taste.
Cook the ravioli in the pasta water for 3 and a half minutes. Transfer the ravioli to the sauce pan using a spider or slotted spoon, but do try to get some pasta water in the sauce.
Plate and top with more freshly grated Parmesan cheese.
We drank a 2013 Jayson Chardonnay (Jayson is Pahlmeyer’s second label). I was expecting a big, buttery, oaky Napa Chardonnay. What I got was a delicious, well balanced, lightly oaked wine with good acidity that made a stellar match for our meal. Stone fruits (peaches and nectarines), green apple, honey, and vanilla. Grade: 91
10/07/2018
Sous vide duck breast with Multicooker butternut squash risotto and Paraduxx (Napa Valley) 2015
I broke out my new Joule Sous Vide machine
I also adapted a butternut squash risotto recipe from Cook's Illustrated
The sous vide machine:
The duck breasts being sealed in my new Weston vacuum sealer
The duck breasts in the sous vide machine:
The risotto rice sautéing in the multi-cooker:
The duck breasts after cooking sous vide for two hours:
The duck breast plated after being seared in a blazing hot All-Clad 12-inch pan:
Closeup:
That's a currant port wine sauce on the duck.
The Paraduxx is a blend of 54% Cabernet Sauvignon, 19% Merlot, 16% Zinfandel, and 11% Petit Verdot. Raspberry and blackberry fruit aromas and flavors, with a touch of spice. Grade: 90
10/06/2018
Sous vide New York strip steak and port sauce with roasted potatoes and 2015 Frog's Leap Merlot
The fall royalty check arrived from Foundation and I bought a new toy: a Joule Sous Vide machine
After setting up the Joule's smartphone app, which was quite easy, I added the sous vide machine to my All-Clad 12-quart stock pot
I took two NY strip steaks and trimmed off the fat. I seasoned both sides with salt and pepper and popped them into heavy duty vacuum sealer bags with a squirt of Pam, a couple of sprigs of fresh thyme, and a clove of garlic. Next I broke out my other new toy, a Weston vacuum sealer
To make the sauce I sautéed about half a tablespoon of finely diced shallot and a minced garlic clove in a large pat of butter. When they were ready I added ¾ cup of tawny port and ¼ cup low sodium chicken broth to the pot, along with a teaspoon of green peppercorns. After the sauce reduced to about a quarter of a cup, I added a tablespoon of Dijon mustard and kept it warm.
For the potatoes I started off by cooking four rashers of thick-cut bacon in my All-Clad 12-inch pan
I combined a half tablespoon of bacon drippings with a teaspoon of sherry vinegar and used it to dress some baby arugula.
When everything was ready, I took the steaks out of the water bath. I patted the steaks dry. I put my All-Clad 12-inch pan over high heat. When it was blazing hot, I added the steaks and seared them for one minute per side.
The steaks before searing:
One of the steaks after searing:
Service:
The interior of the steak:
Close-up:
Notice how the meat is perfectly cooked throughout. As Cook's Illustrated
With sous vide, steaks are cooked to the same temperature, and thus same doneness (of your choosing!), all the way through. This eliminates the gray band of overcooked meat around the exterior of steaks, which often occurs with traditional pan-roasted methods. Once your sous vide steaks are taken out of the water bath, all that's left to do is to give them a quick sear in a screaming hot pan to create the Maillard browning and flavorful crust.
The 2015 Frog's Leap Merlot (Napa Valley) was a pleasant match for the meal. Plums, prunes, and oak. Grade: 88
07/21/2018
07/07/2018
Beef Medallions with Caramelized Tomato Mushroom Pan Sauce, Broken Spaghetti Risotto, Chopped Caprese Salad, and Fattoria di Fèlsina Berardenga Fontalloro 2011
For dinner last night, I made two recipes from Chef John of the Food Wishes You Tube channel: Beef Medallions with Caramelized Tomato Mushroom Pan Sauce (like Chef John I used an All-Clad skillet
I poured a 2011 Fattoria di Fèlsina Berardenga Fontalloro. Still very young with firm tannins, but it's well balanced with deep raspberry, cherry, and plum flavors and aromas. For near term consumption I recommend double decanting. Or cellaring for another 5 years. Grade: 91
04/22/2018
04/09/2018
03/09/2018
02/04/2018
01/05/2018
Not a Cassoulet
Stew
- 2 French garlic sausages
- 2 rashers applewood smoked thick cut bacon, cut into thirds
- 1 duck breast, seasoned with salt and pepper, with skin scored in a criss-cross hatch
- ½ cup diced onion
- 1 carrot, diced
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 tablespoon tomato paste (you do buy it in tubes
instead of those incredibly wasteful little cans, don't you?)
- ½ cup white wine
- 1 tablespoon demi-glace
dissolved in 1 cup hot low-sodium chicken stock
- 1 14.5 ounce can cannellini beans, drained and rinsed
- 1 14.5 ounce can diced tomatoes with their juice
- 1 bay leaf
- big pinch dried Herbes de Provence
instead of those incredibly wasteful little cans, don't you?)
Put sausage and 1 pint water in the non-stick insert of your 4 quart Fagor LUX Multi-Cooker
Heat multi-cooker using the browning function. When the light stops flashing, add bacon. (If bacon starts to cook too fast, switch the multi-cooker to the sauté function.) When bacon is cooked through transfer to a paper towel-lined plate, leaving fat in cooker. Put duck breast in cooker, skin side down. When is skin is golden brown, flip over and cook for 2 minutes. Remove breast from cooker, leaving fat behind. Cut sausage into 1-inch pieces. Add to cooker and sauté until browned on all sides. Transfer sausage to a paper towel-lined plate.
Remove all but 1 tablespoon of accumulated fat from cooker. Sauté onion and carrots (season with a heavy pinch salt) until they have softened and the onions become translucent. Add garlic and tomato paste. Sauté for 30 seconds. Add wine and reduce by about a third. Add stock, beans, tomatoes, bay leaf, herbs, and sausages. Dice bacon and add half to the cooker, reserving the other half. Remove skin from duck breast and dice. Add meat to cooker (discard skin or make into cracklings.)
Seal cooker (make sure valve is set to pressure). Using pressure function and set to cook 5 minutes. Unplug cooker and do a natural release for 10 minutes. Open valve to release any remaining pressure. Skim off any fat on surface of stew. Season to taste with salt and pressure.
Serve in large bowls topped with toasted panko garlic bread crumbs.
Bread crumbs
- 3 garlic cloves, finely minced
- ⅛ teaspoon garlic powder
- ⅓ cup olive oil
- ⅔ cup panko bread crumbs
Heat a small non-stick skillet over medium high heat. Add oil. When oil begins to shimmer add both minced garlic and garlic powder. Cook 30 seconds. Add bread crumbs and mix well. When crumbs are golden brown remove to a plate and allow to cool.
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