Other people's food

I love it when other people cook for me.  I especially love it when they do it out of love and for the pure pleasure of cooking for others.  Fortunately, I have several friends who cook, and cook well.  A long-time close friend who always makes my large gatherings a success makes several fabulous things, but I mostly enjoy her crab-stuffed mushrooms and her miniature croissant sandwiches with cranberry mayo, sliced turkey, Gruyere, and arugula.  She also makes a killer good remoulade sauce and some entirely delectable sauteed chicken livers.  She makes a lot of great food--and we've made a lot of great food together--but I first fell in love with her because of her mushrooms.

I have another friend who makes the best fried chicken you'll ever put in your mouth, and another who has unfailing instinct for excellent cheeses and even more excellent wines, but what I remember most about what she's cooked for me was a warm spinach salad with toasted walnuts and shallots, perfectly seasoned and perfectly dressed with EVOO and an excellent red wine vinegar. 

I had another friend who loved Diana Kennedy's recipes and produced excellent carnitas and a seriously addictive pumpkinseed dip.  Then there's my Indian friends, who have treated me on early chilly Saturday mornings to freshly made chappatis with fenugreek leaves and the best cups of chai I've ever had, cauliflower pakoras, samosas filled with spicy potatoes and peas, and my hands-down favorite Indian snack, pani puri.  Pani puri, for the uninitiated, are crispy, light little puffs made of semolina flour that you poke a hole in with your finger, then fill with lentil sprouts, cold seasoned potatoes, and a cool mint/coriander water spiked with ginger and chilies. You pop them in your mouth and all the flavors and juices explode into a delirious melange of pure joy.  I literally cannot stop eating them when they're offered.

I know I'm overlooking others' gifts of love and labor to me and will want to acknowledge them as I remember them.  For now, thank you to all of you who have taken such good care of me with your culinary gifts.  Keep it coming!

When I'm in the mood to spend money, and when I'm with a friend who appreciates good food and good wine, I like visiting high-end restaurants and having a leisurely spell to forage through their appetizer menus and wine lists.  I can count on one hand the amount of times I've actually ordered an entree in an upscale restaurant and can easily say that the most memorable experiences I've had have always included a flight of appetizers and wines.  If you want to see what a chef can do, eat strictly from the appetizer menu because that's where creativity lives.  I'll put my money on lots of small plates with a different experience on each every time.

Most well-trained waitstaff are going to have fun with this approach too.  I always let my server know what I'm planning to do.  Sometimes I let the chef choose the order in which the appetizers are served, and sometimes I choose.  I guess it just depends on my whim--and on the wine list.  If the restaurant I'm visiting has a killer wine list, then I let that guide me.  I will at times also depend on the staff and the chef to recommend the wine s/he thinks goes best with the appetizer I've ordered.  I have yet to have a negative reaction from waitstaff when you ask for their suggestions and help with pairings.  A server worth his or her salt in an upscale restaurant will not only know the menu and the wine list, s/he will have tasted most everything offered on the the menu (or knows someone there who has).  So utilize their skills and experience.  They enjoy showing what they know and they like their customers to have fun.

In recent memory, here's what has caught my attention:  A duck confit tamale with a glass of Bodegas Caro Cabernet/Malbec (Argentina) at Casa Vieja in Corrales, NM (I still dream about this tamale on the astral plane), a pecan-smoked beet salad with goat cheese and vanilla-cane vinaigrette and the Creole crabmeat cheesecake at The Palace Cafe in New Orleans.  At Stories at the Hyatt Lost Pines in Bastrop, TX, I'm totally enamoured of their Crab Salad, a cool, creamy tower of hearts of palm, roasted tomato, avocado and herb coulis (the staff chose Erath Vineyards Pinot Gris, Oregon) as well as their Mushrooms and Chive Crepes with local mushrooms and thyme cream (the staff chose Charles Krug Cabernet Sauvignon, Napa Valley, California).

One of my favorite places to go for inventive appetizers is Olivia on South Lamar in Austin.  This restaurant has a remarkable and diverse wine list and a menu that's always changing because they depend on locally grown, seasonably available ingredients.  Recently, I had roasted golden beets, ricotta salata, toasted walnuts and an herb salad dressed with black truffle vinaigrette with a lovely glass of E. Guigal Cote du Rhone Blanc 2009 (France) that stunned me.  And here is where I encountered my first RED OLIVE.  I mentioned cerignola olives in a previous post.  They are a wonderfully plump, meaty and buttery fruit, but dyed red, they are eye-popping, gorgeous, totally believably red (in the same sense that hair color could be a believable blond) and not "a color not normally found in nature" red (like marschino cherries).  I thought at first that they might be red from soaking in some kind of bitters (I imagined a faint Campari-like flavor), but it seems they are dyed with E127 when processed in Italy.  E127, I discovered, is erythrosine, a commonly-used food colorant (for things like pistachio shells), which of course has been found to cause cancer in lab rats in large quantities.  Originally, I didn't think my consumption of two of these beauties would put me in much danger, but I'm now thinking of purchasing a 4 lb. jar, which could quite possibly put me in the Geiger counter range.  I'll keep you posted.

Prior to my last Red Olive Day at Olivia, I enjoyed more decadence than any human being ought to at Parkside on E. 6th in Austin.  There's a young chef there really knows how to use and balance acid and can knock your socks off with ingenuity.  The night I literally ate my way through most of the appetizer menu in 3 1/2 hours, I had the fried oyster BLT with avocado and green goddess aioli on romaine, the sweetbreads and veal tongue with cauliflower and cumin crisps, the marrow bones with a kick-butt, perfectly dressed herb salad and the blond pate with strawberry relish.  And that was just for starters, because we decided we couldn't leave untasted the lamb with sunchoke gratin entree.  The most memorable wines that evening were the Laxas Albarino 2009 (Argentina) and the Carlos Basso "Dos Fincas" Cabernet Sauvignon/Malbec 2009 (Argentina), which sent me on an immediate hunt at my local Spec's, where I found them both.

Well, that's probably enough to get you started.  I'll think of more great bites--and will certainly be doing some more research in the near future!

May your tastebuds dance.

Forget dinner, I'd rather have hor d'oeuvres

Hor d'oeuvres have always been the most fun part of the meal for me.  Usually the only thing I will order in any upscale restaurant (more on that in a future post), they present opportunities for boundless creativity, surprise and amusement.  They can also be as easy or as complicated, as whimsical or as straightforward as you wish.  Last Saturday night's dinner party started with Villa Jolanda Prosecco (my go-to budget-friendly Italian sparkler that is bright and lemony) and was accompanied by three hor d'oeuvres.  They were all easy to prepare and fairly straightforward.  However, they do require planning ahead because some of the ingredients are only available in places such as Whole Foods and Central Market.

The first of the three were cerignola olives, touted as the largest olive in the world (and they easily are).  Cerignolas come in green, black, and RED (I'm referring to a vivid red, not reddish like a calamata) and they have pits.  I found mine at Central Market and chose the green variety, which have a firm but yielding flesh and a buttery flavor.  Just to make things interesting, I drained the brine, combined them with orange zest, fresh thyme leaves, cracked pepper, a whole clove of garlic and some EVOO.  I let them "cure" a little in the fridge for several hours, but they would have been better prepared the day before.

My second hor d'oeuvre was a little bean I've become addicted to after reading a 2010 Saveur article on readers' 100 favorite gourmet foods.  Lupini beans have turned this girl's head.  Salty, briny, nutty and very firm, they're just plain fun to eat.  You can eat them straight from the jar, or you can do as I did on Saturday night:  drain them of their brine.  Return them to a serving dish (I used an oversized martini glass) and drizzle them with EVOO, then sprinkle with a generous amount of cracked black pepper.  YUM!  There are several brands available (Cento and DeLallo are the two I've seen locally).  My guests really loved them.  They're best at room temperature.  I have a friend who eats them regularly and adds garlic along with the EVOO.  She says she has to have them pretty much every day.

The third hor d'oeuvre took a little more effort to prepare but it's a simple and versatile preparation.  It's also seriously delicious.  I developed this recipe last summer after looking for a fresh "salsa" for grilled halibut.  It's great on grilled tuna as well, or any firm-flesh fish.  But don't think of the typical salsa flavor profile for this--it goes in a different direction.  Straight to the Mediterranean.  Recipe follows.

I also want to include my recipe for Chicken Cacciatore (below), which I've been refining over the years.  I think I'm at the zenith with this one, but I'll wait for your comments.  I served the chicken with polenta enriched with plenty of butter and parmesan, but you could easy serve it with the pasta of your choice.  The main course was accompanied by a bitter winter greens salad seasoned with dried marjoram, basil and oregano, dressed with EVOO, cabernet wine vinegar and splash of balsamic, and finished with flake salt and curls of Pecorino Romano.  We also enjoyed a bottle of Castello D'Albola 2007 Chianti Classico (Italy), a lovely soft, dry red with just a few tannins, lots of cherry and fruit in the mouth, floral nose.  Lovely, full, and a perfect acid balance with the rich main course.  Gorgeous in the glass.  Thanks again, to one of my wine guys at Spec's.

One more note:  I really cheated on dessert.  After my original plans to make homemade meringues with strawberries macerated in Grand Marnier fell through due to the humidity, I caved in and served individual dishes of fresh strawberries with a small cup of warmed Nutella (add a little Frangelico to make it more adult) and Pepperidge Farm Black and White Milano cookies on the side.  Served with great coffee and cordials, it was an easy dessert and not as much as a cop-out as I feared, as evidenced by its quick disappearance.


Tomato, Caper and Parsley Condimento

          Serve this with grilled slices of French bread that have been brushed with olive oil...

2 medium tomatoes (of course, very fresh, very ripe summer tomatoes are preferable, but I used 2 large Romas)
2 cloves garlic, minced
3 Tbs. finely chopped parsley (Italian flat-leaf is preferred)
2 Tbs. capers (non-pareil size)
1/2 tsp. salt (or to taste)
1/2 tsp. freshly ground black pepper
1/3 cup EVOO (make it a fruity one)

Cut the tomatoes into quarters, removing seeds and juice (reserve for another use if you wish).  Cut into 1/4 inch dice.  Mix tomatoes in a small bowl with remaining ingredients.  Serve immediately, or chill until ready to use.  Keeps for 3 days.

Wealthy Peasant

chicken cacciatore

3 lbs. bone-in chicken thighs, skin and fat removed

1 lbs. mild or hot Italian sausage (links cut in half)

Salt and pepper

1 lb. mushrooms, cleaned and roughly chopped

2 Tbs. EVOO

26 oz. jar marinara sauce (use a high-quality sauce such as Mezetta or Newman’s)

1 15 oz. can chopped fire-roasted tomatoes

2 to 3 cloves garlic, smashed and chopped

1 Tbs. anchovy paste (or use half of a 2 oz. tin)

1 cup oil-cured olives, pitted ***

¼ cup capers (capotes-size or larger)

1 tsp. crushed red pepper

1 tsp. dried rosemary

1 tsp. dried fennel

¾ tsp. dried thyme

3 cups dry red wine

1 med. onion, cut into ½ inch wedges

1 sweet red pepper, cut into lengthwise strips

1 green pepper, cut into lengthwise strips

Chopped fresh parsley for garnish

Asiago or parmesan cheese, freshly grated

      1.  Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

2.     Place chicken thighs and sausage in a large gratin or oblong baking dish (approx. 10 X 13 inches).  Season generously with salt and pepper.  Roast in oven until meat is browned, about 20 to 25 minutes.

3.     Meanwhile, sauté mushrooms on medium-high heat in a medium-size sauté pan until well-browned, about 10 minutes.  Salt and pepper generously.  Set aside.

4.     Heat marinara sauce gently and add the canned tomatoes, garlic, anchovy paste, oil-cured olives, capers, crushed red pepper, rosemary, fennel and thyme.  Mix well.  Check for seasoning and correct salt.  Add sauteed mushrooms.  Continue to heat gently.

5.     Pour wine over chicken and sausage.  Scatter onion and red and green peppers over the top.  Return to oven to caramelize vegetables for about 10 minutes.

6.     Pour warm sauce over meat and vegetables.  Cover loosely with foil and reduce oven temperature to 325 degrees.  Bake for at least another 30 minutes.  The chicken should fall off the bone when this dish is done.

7.     Garnish with fresh parsley and serve with polenta or pasta.  Pass plenty of grated cheese.  Serves 4.

***You can approximate the flavor of oil-cured olives by draining a can of small pitted olives and poaching slowly with 1 tsp. salt in1/3 cup EVOO over low heat for about 1 hour.