Random Casual Meals
I usually write about our fancier meals on this blog, but Melissa and I like good casual food as well. Here are some of the things we've been eating as moving and work have slammed us both.
Moules marinières. This is one of my favorite shellfish dishes, and is among the easiest things on the planet to make, even though I add an extra step. I simmered a finely diced shallot in a 1/4 botle of white wine (Roero Arneis, leftover from our wedding), until the wine had reduced down to virtually nothing. This is sort of like what you do to make a beurre blanc sauce, except I believe that uses vinegar. I then added another 1/4 bottle of the wine and some butter, dumped in 2 pounds of mussels, and covered the pot. Roughly ten minutes later, the mussels had all opened up, which is how you know they're done. The best way to serve mussels is with some bread and in a big bowl with a healthy amount of the broth from the bottom of the pot. Put another large bowl in the middle of the table for the shells. Find an empty shell and use that as the "fork" for getting other mussel bodies out of their shells.
We had hoped to enjoy some Txacolina with the meal. It's a Basque wine from Northern Spain, and it's not a terribly complex wine. It has perhaps just the tiniest bit of effervescence, and goes wonderfully with shellfish. Unfortunately, our bottle was quite corked. We settled for the last half of the bottle of Roero Arneis, but this was at room temperature, so was not quite as satisfying.
The night before our friends descended to help us move, I decided to make us some dinner. Not, perhaps, the best use of my time, but I was desperate to cook something. I did sautéed chicken breasts, which I dredged in flour, let sit for an hour (in the fridge) and then dredged them again to help get a nice crust on the chicken. I heated up a pan, threw in a splash of oil, and then dropped in the breasts, letting them sit on one side for a while to again develop a nice crust. All this concern about the crust paid off; the skinless breasts had a noticeable crunch as one bit into them. I made a pan sauce with some Eberle Viognier made with grapes from Glenrose Farm; the rest of the wine we enjoyed with dinner. It's a Paso Robles wine, from one of the most extreme vineyards in the area. I was surprised, though. Red wines from that particular vineyard are usually very distinctive, and white wines from the area in general usually showcase their vineyards pretty well. I was expecting something pretty potent from it. But, it mostly just tasted like Viognier, albeit an alcoholic one. I served the breasts on a bed of rice, and made little ramekins of baked cucumbers, a recipe from Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking. I varied the recipe a bit, though, tossing the cucumbers in melted butter and garlic before putting them in the oven, and finishing them off by topping with grated Parmiggiano and sticking them under the broiler for a minute.
Finally, I recently made homemade pizzas. Pizza dough is pretty straightforward, especially with commercial yeast. I didn't feel like reviving my starter for this. But we had some tomato sauce that a friend had given us when she was cleaning out her freezer, and we picked up some Roma tomatoes, some prosciutto, spinach and a pecorino. I also made a salad with more of the spinach and some raw onion, dressed with a very simple mustard vinaigrette. The whole meal was quite good, and the pizza came out deliciously. We tried an experiment with a bit of the dough; a friend of ours freezes her pizza dough and thaws it out when she needs it. We froze a little after its second rise, and at some point I'll see how it works out. This dinner we served with a Costerie de Nimes from the Languedoc-Rousillon. It's one of my mom's favorite wines, and we had an extra bottle she had brought over. It's got a nice tobacco-ness to it, and quite a bit of complexity given its price.
Coming soon: Local restaurant reviews, and reviews of Charlie Trotter's and Guy Savoy. And a dinner party this weekend!
- Do I Love Wine That Loves?
My friend Phil reminded me about the Wine That Loves line of wines. The idea is that you buy a bottle of wine to go with the food you're eating. The labels show you the food that the wine loves, with bottles for pizza, chicken, steak, pasta with tomato...
- Hold On To Your Wine
You and a friend sit down to dinner and open a bottle of wine. You eat, you talk, you drink, but when the meal ends, the bottle isn't empty. You don't feel like finishing it, but the sink's drain is an ignoble end for good wine. You could...
- A Good House Wine
Melissa and I always keep our eyes open for a good house wine. This is the wine we pour for a simple dinner for the two of us or for just a couple glasses when we get home from work. If friends meet us at our place before we go out to dinner, this is...
- Zachary's
You all know how much I love to cook, but sometimes Zachary's pizza is the best idea for dinner. Lots of people in the Bay Area know Zachary's. They win the local papers' "Best of " awards so often I'm waiting for the various publications...
- Dining With The Bloggers - September 7th.
That's right, Cathy and I are back with tried and tasted recipes from our favorite source: YOU BLOGGERS YOU! I can't believe (again, I think I've mentioned this before) the amount of new blogs that just springs up all over - it's amazing,...