Tag: wine

We've known for bazillions of years that wine is subjective, but it's interesting to learn that white chocolate goes well with caviar, that Slim Jims are made of mechanically separated chicken, that there's a drink made of bird's nest, or that you can eat fish poop. I feel a bit patriotic about my regional specialty, but then again, that's pretty normal, in a world where disgusting vegetarian clones of the already amorphous chicken nugget is sold outside of the endless army of chicken restaurants that all want to look the same. It can be cheaper to make your own breakfast foods, not to mention healthier in a day and age where butter flavoring gets abused and trans fats take all the blame.

I'm still formulating my article for my Greek Night dish, but in the meantime I thought I'd share something I had stumbled on the other day while making steaks.

First, a little background info. We bought some Omaha steaks from some wholesaler for pennies on the peso, and as a sort of celebration, we decided to have them with a pan sauce.

I get home, throw the cast iron 12 in the oven at 500 degrees, wait until its rocket hot, and start searing my steaks. While it's sizzling along, I start to look for things for my pan sauce. Button mushrooms, sure, those will work, butter, got that, garlic salt, check, white wine.... crap. There wasn't any white wine in the house. I did, however, find an old bottle of Nigori Sake, so I decided to give that a shot. For those who don't know what I'm talking about, Sake-wise, go here.

Anyway, I finish up the steaks, a la Alton Brown style, and throw the cast iron back on the stove. I put two tablespoons of butter in the pan, and waited for it to melt completely before adding the mushrooms. I know, some of you are screaming "YOU SHOULD'VE DEGLAZED FIRST!@#!#!". The reason I didn't? Sake is acidic, acid + nicely seasoned cast iron = bad. Editor's note: You wuss. It's cast iron. Just do it.

So, I started with the mushrooms to provide some cover for my nicely seasoned pan. I digress. I garlic salted and peppered the mushrooms while they were doing the saute mambo. Then, carefully, I added about 4 tablespoons sake, and deglazed the pan with that.

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p>After deglazing was finished and the kitchen was filled with a smell not unlike a Japanese bath house, I added 2 tablespoons (approximately) of heavy whipping cream and combined. All in all, the sake made a fantastic substitute for white wine. It had a subtle sweet sake flavor, paired with the earthiness of the mushrooms and creaminess of the, well, cream. It just goes to show that necessity is the mother of.. something.

Tonight, I'm doing lamb chops and tzatziki sauce. In fact, it's broiling while I type.

I started the tzatziki last night, draining some plain yogurt, grating a cucumber into it, and mixing in some dill, grated garlic, red wine vinegar, and pepper. It has been sitting in the fridge for a full day, but not without several inquisitive spoonfuls being borrowed...

Tonight, I mixed a stick of melted butter, some fresh thyme and mint, a couple squirts of dijon mustard, a quarter of an onion (chopped), some cayenne, and some black pepper and dill into a mess, then dipped the lamb chops in it and rolled them into breadcrumbs (pouring the rest of the mess in between them).

After broiling on both sides for five minutes apiece, I put a baguette from a local bakery on the bottom rack and turned the oven onto three-fifty. Give me a second to check on it...

Alright. The lamb is going to come out pretty soon; pictures (hopefully) at eleven.

...

Update: Rare is definitely the way to do lamb; it got barely any oven time after its broiling and I wouldn't have had it any other way.

The tzatziki had a little too much red wine vinegar; I'd suggest tasting it regularly and adding the vinegar (especially) at a slower pace. Remember that the tzatziki is going to be a bunch of separate flavors before it goes to the fridge, and taste accordingly.

Lamb is an interesting ingredient. It plays better with those obscure herbs in your spice rack than the standard American meats do; lamb with a little tzatziki is certainly a complex and wonderful experience.

Just a note: before tonight, I've had lamb three times and hated it each time.

I loves my spicy foods. Unfortunately, the same can't be said of my four year old son, so there have to be compromises made.

Or do there? Southeast Asian cooking styles have been around for a long time, balancing capsaicin-induced heat with sweetness.

First, I chopped up a couple of center-cut pork chops into long strips, and seasoned them with black pepper and red pepper. While those sauteed in butter, I put approximately two cups of cranberry juice and one cup of white wine in a saucepan to reduce. Finally, I pulled out the frozen california mix (broccoli, cauliflower, and carrot) and steamed it.

Once the pork got going, I poured some sirracha on it, browned it, and set it off to the side. Then, I cooked the steamed vegetables (with a little more pepper and sirracha) in the same skillet. Finally, I reintroduced the pork, and poured the cranberry reduction (now about 2/3 its original volume) back over the top.

It was like a Taiwanese Thanksgiving. I wholeheartedly endorse this type of cooking- just make sure not to go over the top with either sweet or spicy.

This isn't so much of a traditional Tapas recipe, as something I want to make but haven't had the time. Stolen from here, credit goes to them.

Vinaigrette: * 1/2 cup pomegranate juice * 1 teaspoon finely minced shallot * 1 tablespoon champagne vinegar or white wine vinegar * 2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice * 1/4 teaspoon sugar * 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil * 2 tablespoons walnut oil

Salad: * 4 ounces Earthbound Farm Organic Mixed Baby Greens * 1 Fuyu persimmon or ripe pear, thinly sliced * 1/4 cup toasted or candied walnuts * 1/3 cup pomegranate seeds

To make the vinaigrette, place the pomegranate juice in a small pan and reduce to 2 tablespoons over medium high heat. Combine the juice and the remaining vinaigrette ingredients in a small glass jar and shake vigorously to combine.

Place the mixed greens in a large bowl and add half of the vinaigrette, tossing to coat the leaves. Add more dressing as desired.

Divide the salad between 4 chilled plates and decoratively arrange slices of persimmons or pears atop the greens. Sprinkle each serving with walnuts and pomegranate seeds and serve immediately.

Thats the cut and paste version from the website. I'm probably going to mangle it a bit, because of time, money, and treasure hunting reasons. I'm going to omit the walnut oil, at least.

Romano's Macaroni Grill 2001 N Rainbow Blvd Las Vegas, NV 89108

Teleolurian It must have been a busy night.

When we got to the Macaroni Grill, we faced the usual line-out-the-door setting that you get when you decide to go to a popular restaurant on the spur of the moment. Since I wanted to review the food, I decided to forego showing off my crayoned press pass and instead settled in for the half-hour wait.

In recent years, the Grill has gotten quite the menu facelift. Dining here is now more in the vein of classical Italian signature dishes and less of an upscale Olive Garden; however, the prices are still decent, with most dishes in the $10-$20 range.

Upon reaching our table, the server informed us that they were out of bread dishes and wine glasses, finding us some tumblers for drinking the house Red. Luckily, I'm not a bouquet snob, so I used the wine for fuel as I wrote scathing commentary ("she's just using you for your bed") on the paper tablecloth. With a communal bread plate, oil and balsamic vinegar, and an unspoken no-double-dipping rule, we sat around and chatted while our dishes came out.

For me, it was chicken scallopine ($9.49)- a bit heavy, but absolutely superb. The lemon-butter sauce didn't wimp out on the lemons, and the capers were heavily drenched and therefore delicious. Tender was the chicken, and tasty; the leftovers were even rather tender the next day (something you don't get in, say, a country steakhouse).

Savory Masochist

Ding dong the traditional dish is dead. Wait. no. I just didn't get one.

After we got our red wine in tumblers and tore off a few chunks of bread, I decided to go with a build-your-own pasta deal. Macaroni Grill offers these little checklists that you insidiously mark as if you were building your own Frankenstein. I decided on a Penne, with Tomato Cream sauce, and Sun Dried Tomatoes, Roasted Red Peppers, Pine Nuts, and Chicken. It was pretty good, although I can't say as I would get it again. It's my own fault really, for just hitting rand when I was looking at the menu. Oh well. The company was good and we hadn't had a date night in near a decade, so it made up for my pasta. After that, we wrote some generally strange things on the table paper, and we were off! to another crazy adventure.

Oh, I would write a longer review, however Tele pegged most of it in his.

Queen of Tarts
Okay, so when Macaroni Grill opened they had food that was so-so. In recent years the flavors had been stepped up and they redeemed themselves, until...that fateful night. If we offered to do the dishes I think they might have allowed us to do so. They were obviously understaffed being the day after Christmas, but no bread plates and no wine glasses wasn't the end of it. When the SM put in his original order it included artichokes. The waiter had to come back and let us know that they were out of those too. Apparantly not only did we need to do our own dishes, but we needed to go do our own grocery shopping for the ingredients before arriving at the resturaunt. Crazy!

Usually if I am at an Italian place I automatically order manicotti (if its Mexican then it is a bean and cheese burrito enchilada style), but I am trying to branch out a bit. So, on this evening I ordered Chicken Cannelloni (Hand-rolled pasta stuffed with oven-roasted chicken, melted cheese and spinach, then baked in an Asiago cream sauce. Topped with tomato sauce) for $9.99. The dish smelled and looked wonderful. I immediatly dug in and ate one out of the three stuffed pastas. Half way through the second shell I started to wonder "Where is the chicken?" I am a "recovering vegitarian" (as Tele calls it) so it really didn't bother me that I couldn't taste it or find it until I realized I am paying for chicken I can't find. Must find the chicken. So I tore apart the third shell in search for chicken. I eventually found a small sliver of shredded chicken. If this was Iron Chef the plate wouldn't have gotten high marks for the "theme ingredient" being the dominant flavor. Overall the taste of my dish was excellent, but I was dissapointed that with the name Chicken Cannelloni the chicken was not easy to find in the dish.

I have not given up on the Macaroni Grill yet because I must say that there bread rocks (mmm, bread), but I hope to never have the lack of service that we had that night again.

One sushi bar ingredient I have a love-hate relationship with is kappa, known in English as the cucumber. Apparently, the Japanese term is based on a river goblin, named Kappa, who has a fondness for cucumbers. Nice circular logic, there; if I were going to name members of my family for the things they ate, I could name my daughter Random Scraps Of Paper and my wife Tasteless Vegan Filth. But I digress.

Cucumbers aren't exactly my favorite sushi ingredient, mostly because the fresh taste and crispness seems somehow wrong inside something made of raw fish; it tends to make me think I just bit willingly into a bone left in by some sadistic itamae, getting revenge for me not pointing my chopsticks towards magnetic north when I put them down on my plate. But in cucumber salads or sunemono, they come into their own.

Looking at online recipes, I saw an awful lot of recipes that include sake and rice wine vinegar. Since I'm too lazy to drive to Chinatown for one ingredient, and my children don't really need any extra sake in their diet (says the woman; personally, I believe that drunk children are sleepy children), I decided to play with the recipe a bit. And by 'play', I mean get retardedly creative.

I like rice wine vinegar, and I use it in an awful lot of foods. In fact, it's my second favorite vinegar upon God's slightly fermented green earth. However, I do hold true to the belief that the Japanese would have never invented rice wine vinegar if they'd had the miracle that is balsamic vinegar. I'd gush and all, but I believe the Masochist detailed his unending love for the purple here.

Now, people who know stuff about cooking, like to complain, and have way too much time on their hands to search the internet for blogs may interject that "balsamic vinegar is nothing like rice wine vinegar", on the basis that the first is sweeter, thicker, and much more complex. Thanks. Gee, I didn't know that. Of course balsamic and rice wine vinegar are different. Read the previous paragraph.

However, there is a very important factor here- the differences mean that you can't adulterate balsamic vinegar with salt and sugar in the same proportions as rice wine vinegar and end up with a similar salad topping. In fact, Italian cuisine purists might even argue that to adulterate balsamic with anything at all is akin to blasphemy, like some massive malediction called down upon Vatican City.

Luckily, I'm Protestant.

After cubing two cucumbers and mixing them with alfalfa sprouts (no mung beans... darn), I contemplated the balsamic like some sort of scrying pool. And the oracle revealed to me that mixing the vinegar with one third its volume in sugar and microwaving to combine was, as it were, All Good. And there was a tiny amount of salting and peppering, but not enough so as to offend the NeoRomans.

For a final flavor kick, I put about two tablespoons of sesame seeds on foil and put it under the broiler on high for about four minutes, just to toast them for salad purposes. And you know what? I thought it was superawesome. Our resident Tartologist thought it even better the next day (today).

So maybe I'm crossing roads that aren't meant to be crossed. The point is, make do with what you have, be aware of subtle (or blatant) differences, and always smile like a killer when someone else takes their first bite.

(10:03:38) 26350698: i updated again this morning

(10:04:23) synikal: woot

(10:18:34) synikal: give me a description of the blog for technorati, darnit

(10:18:59) 26350698: um

(10:19:09) 26350698: TRANSCENDING THE TYPICAL RECIPE FORMULA!

(10:19:20) synikal: heh

(10:19:23) 26350698: INTERPLANETARY GASTRONOMY FOR THE UP AND COMING HOBO!

(10:19:51) 26350698: THE MATHEMATICS OF FOOD! SANITY AS RELATES TO PASTA AND WINE! FOR GOD AND COUNTRY!

(10:19:54) 26350698: ...that should do it.

(10:21:45) 26350698: THE PIZZA OF BEATIFIC JOY! UNFATHOMABLE DELIGHT IN A GUTTER KITCHEN! A HOMESTYLE BREAD-AND-METH LAB!

(10:21:49) 26350698: i can do this all day.

(10:23:22) 26350698: HERB RUSH KEKEKEKEKEKE

(10:23:43) synikal: hehe, I got it

(10:23:44) synikal: lol

(10:23:55) 26350698: we're on technorati now?

(10:24:08) synikal: yup

(10:24:22) 26350698: IM IN UR KITCHEN COOKING UR F00DZ

(10:24:38) 26350698: ALL YOUR SAUCE AM BELONG!

Pasta, in general, can be found in decent quantity for tremendously cheap prices; exactly what you'd expect for something that is essentially one step removed from bread. I suppose the original idea was to combine angel hair with Immensely Chunky Mushroom pre-made sauce; however, using my plus three diplomatic skills, I was able to make an argument against it (angel hair has a pretty delicate texture. Why destroy it with a thick sauce?)

My approach was simple. After cooking to desired tenderness (at least removing all traces of al dente), I added some butter, milk, pepper, and garlic. Exact quantities? About half a stick of butter and a quarter cup of milk to half a package of pasta. I'm a bit overboard on things like garlic, pepper, and garlic pepper, so feel free to experiment. After draining and adding these ingredients, I put it back over medium heat and moved it. Like a washing machine. Those noodles weren't going to scorch on my watch. When the butter had disappeared, I proclaimed it done. Loudly.

The sauce was perfectly thin and absolutely divine. My only regret was that I only had half a stick of butter; if I could double the quantity of butter and milk I might have generated a bit more sauce. As it was, it was just perfect enough. That's what you get for spending time around italian friends.

I abhor recipes; they teach you to follow rote instructions and not to experiment. Here, however, is something Tele-approved and much more flexible. Allow me to present the UNRecipe (thanks, minipulator) for what I generated:

• X packages angel hair pasta
• X sticks butter
• X/2 cups milk
• Spice Combo In my case, garlic and pepper. Try basil/thyme (tiny amounts), white wine/bouillon powder, or garlic with 2X tablespoons of olive oil replacing X/2 sticks butter.

Mix over medium heat until awesome. Serves {2,4}X.