Rooftop Gourmet

Whenever I have trouble thinking of something new and creative to make for dinner, my Irish heritage shines through and I typically fall back on a meat and potatoes dish. As beautiful as the simplicity of a great steak and a fresh spud can be, I needed to spruce up last night’s dinner with a little last minute flair.

My wife called me to suggest picking up sushi take-out for dinner while I was already in the checkout line at Whole Foods. I wasn’t planning on blogging, rather slapping two strips on the grill and calling it a night  but sitting in traffic with sushi on my mind got me thinking creatively.

I knew that I had a few sheets of Nori at home, burning a hole in my cupboard so I figured that I would incorporate a sushi ingredient into a rather boring meat and potato, weeknight meal.

Nori is the dried seaweed wrap that is typically used to hold together a Maki roll. They come in rather large sheets and when they receive moisture they loosen up and become incredibly pliable. On a nutrition level, Nori is incredibly good for you. The seaweed is ridiculously high in protein (44g. per 100 grams of Nori), and dietary fiber (36g. per 100 grams of Nori), not to mention healthy levels of potassium, calcium, zinc, iron, and vitamins A, B, and C.

In terms of flavor profile, like many Asian ingredients, Nori is a whopping mouthful of the fifth, sensory taste, Umami.

Other Umami-rich ingredients include soy sauce, fish sauce, mushrooms, fermented soybeans, and especially heavily marbled red meats. So what better way to pack a punch of Umami than to wrap an entire NY Strip in Nori? It was my own little play on “Maki”, which is the term for a sushi roll that is wrapped in Nori.

Technically, my dish has nothing to do with sushi, but the concept of wrapping, or coating my protein in seaweed was enough for me to borrow the term. I sliced three sheets of the dried Nori which looked like glossy alligator skin, into small squares and put them into my spice grinder along with a handful of whole black peppercorns.

I roughly pulsed the mixture and “dusted” my strips with the jet-black powder creating a not-so-classic, classic Steak Au Poive, or in this case, Au Nori-Poive.

The crystal-like shards of seaweed gripped and clung to the fat-laced protein and glistened in the overhead light.

While the steaks came to room temperature on the countertop and took some time getting to know their new rub, I prepped the potatoes. I freaking love potatoes. I can’t live without them. My wife is a rice girl and doesn’t understand my potato infatuation.

Although rice probably would have been more appropriate “sticking”with the sushi theme, like I said, I had already purchased some baby, Yukon Golds. I started fooling around with one of them on the cutting board, slicing them paper-thin, while considering maybe a classic baked Au Gratin, when suddenly my knife stopped about 1/16th of an inch before the base of the spud.

I continued this procedure until the entire potato kept its round shape, with hundreds of little “slits” running throughout the whole. When I fanned out the wafers with my thumb, the potato looked like a baby armadillo.

I decided to dowse them in olive oil, salt, and pepper and roast them whole, the way that I would if I were making a simple roasted potato. About halfway through the cooking process, after the slits opened up a touch wider, I topped each with a pat of butter so that it slowly dripped into each and every nook and cranny.

When the grill was hot, I tossed my black steaks on the grates and eagerly watched what would happen to the previously roasted seaweed. One thing that I noticed is that it formed an incredibly crispy crust and kept the inside of the steak impeccably juicy. The Nori seemed to lock arms with each other and encapsulate all of the beef flavor inside the strip.

I also grilled some halved, spring onions that served as a base for my beef. The charred, bright green stalks are one of my favorite accompaniments to steak. I happened to have a few jumbo shrimp in the fridge as well, so I opted for a surf and turf meal. After all, it was a sushi-themed meat and potatoes dish.

I just sautéed the shrimp in a fiery chili oil and used the langoustines to garnish my Steak Au Nori. When all was plated and devoured, I didn’t know which aspect I should rave about more… the Nori steak or the armadillo potatoes?

Both were so amazing! The steak was perfectly cooked and when I sliced it thin, the rich crust gave a beautiful texture and the juicy beef literally melted on my tongue. The Nori was subtle but completely enhanced the beef flavor without any threat of overpowering. The potatoes were crispy on the outside and soft and buttery towards the middle.

In an attempt to prolong the enjoyment, I slowly sliced each wafer off one by one and ate them individually like saving the last couple potato chips in the bag because you just don’t want it to end. The spicy shrimp was simply an over-indulgence but enjoyed nonetheless.

I paired this dish with the “hot-off-the-press”, 2010 vintage of the St. Cosme Cotes du Rhone; one of my favorite producers in the Rhone Valley because the winemaker is not afraid to bump up the levels of Syrah. In fact, I believe that this vintage is pretty close to 100% Syrah. To me, Syrah gives off an almost Umami-like flavor, with notes of roasted red meat char, bacon fat, and Balsamic vinegar reduction. These elements are exactly what I taste in this wine.

Along with some dark blackberry and blueberry fruit, balanced with some sharp acidity and silky tannin. Big enough to hold up to a grilled NY Strip, but still delicate enough to let the subtle Nori flavors shine through. There is even an intriguing taste entwined in the myriad of flavor during the finish that I couldn’t quite put my finger on; almost mushroomy, or of roasted seaweed-like but hey… my head was elsewhere. After tonight, I have a new appreciation for the intricate complexity of Nori, sushi, and a whole jar of Nori-Peppercorn dust that I’m ready to sprinkle the magic on whatever protein makes its way into my kitchen. Possibly even a late-night popcorn snack for starters. It’s good for me right?

If there was one word that could sum up the evening of December 31, 2011 it would be indulgence.

My wife and I held a dinner party for seven of our closest friends on New Year’s Eve to celebrate the end of what was probably the busiest year of our lives.

When it came to menu planning, I may have gotten a little bit carried away, but as the clock struck midnight, and we all sat at the table, exhausted, clutching our elastic waistbands and simultaneously picking at cheese and coconut cake, it was totally worth the effort. Everyone was happy, thankful, and over-indulged.

There’s something calming and comforting, spending the night with great food, close friends, and delicious wines rather than fighting crowds for cheap Champagne at a bar  or baring the elements in Times Square. Let’s just say that we really ended 2011 with a bang… or was that the sound of someones belt buckle popping off?

Here is a copy of the New Years Eve menu:

First Course:

Assorted Cheeses From Around the World

Foie Gras Mousee’

Marinated Olives

Duck Liver & Black Truffle Terrine

Caviar

Second Course:

Crispy Braised Pork Belly, Carrot Puree’, Pickled Apples

Third Course:

Island Creek Oysters 2 Ways

Classic Baked Rockafeller

Freshly Shucked with Ossetra Caviar, Creme Fraiche’, Tarragon

Fourth Course:

Baked Escargot Gratin; Garlic-Parsley Butter, Warm Baguette

Fifth Course:

Raviolo Uovo

Wild Mushrooms, Thyme-Butter, Parmigiano-Reggiano, White Truffle Oil

Sixth Course:

Sliced Beef Tenderloin with two Sauces;

Classic Bordelaise’ & Creamy Horseradish-Tarragon Sauce

Pommes Puree’, Roasted Butternut Squash & Raw Kale Salad

Seventh Course:

Double Coconut Cake

I get cold sweats just typing that up again! Thankfully, I received a ton of help from some of my favorite vendors and friends. I spent the last week of the year brainstorming, prepping, and and anxiously awaiting our event. Each course represents one of my all-time favorite foods, whether it is in its natural state, prepared classically, or with a new and exciting twist. Thanks to Wasiks Cheese Shop in Wellesley (http://www.wasiks.com/), I had more cheese in my 900 square foot condo than the entire country of Switzerland.

Everything you could possibly imagine, from sharp and nutty Gruyere to oozy gooey, buttery Triple Creme. I also had a pound of Foie Gras Mousse’ that I picked up from the Butcher Shop in the South End. It was so rich but light and airy at the same time.

We spread it like butter on slices of a fresh baguette and let the goose liver melt in our mouths. The texture was like whipped butter and when combined with a few crumbles of the pungent, blue cheese it was heaven in a single bite (That last phrase will most likely become repetitive throughout this whole post). After we grazed the cheese boards, everyone sat down at the table that my wife so wonderfully decorated with white roses and printed menu cards. I brought out the first course which shows off my love for the ever-so versatile pig.

I had braised pieces of fatty pork belly in winter spiced ale, soy and aromatics until it was completely tender, about 3 hours. Right before I served it, I crisped up the outsides of the pork belly in a skillet and served it atop a silky carrot puree. The bright orange color of the puree was a beautiful contrast with the rustic hunk of pig.

For a slight pop of acidity, I used my melon-baller to release little balls of granny smith apples, in which I pickled with cinnamon sticks, and cloves to infuse a wintery spice. It gave the oversized cube of bacon a familiar companion of applesauce and cinnamon aromas and flavors that it’s used to. The juicy belly meat, woven in between layers of succulent fat seemed to dissolve in my mouth. The sweet carrots and sharp pickles were exactly what the belly needed to help balance out the dish.

It was a perfect first bite to lead into an even more extravagant meal. The next course required some serious grunt work. A dinner party set to the theme of indulgence wouldn’t be complete without some fresh oysters. We picked up two dozen of one of my favorite varieties, Island Creek oysters from Duxbury, MA. They always seem to be the perfect size, not too small and not intimidatingly large.

They have striking minerality and freshness with a plump body, and a rather salty finish that I can’t get enough of. With the first dozen, we decided to bake in the classic Rockafeller style. I topped each bivalve with crispy bacon, sautéed spinach, shredded Gruyere cheese, heavy cream, Pernot, and fresh lemon juice. After a few minutes in the broiler, the cheese has melted and the contents of the deep, metallic shell was bubbling away. The rich, creamy and nutty topping had an underlying hint of anise aroma from the evaporated, French liquor.

Trying to shoot them back without making loud, and obnoxious, “mmmmmmm”, sounds was a real feat. In the meantime, I shucked the other dozen and served them on ice with a dollop of creme fraiche, a spoonful of Ossetra caviar, and a sprig of fresh tarragon. In my opinion, this could have been my favorite bite of the evening. It was simple, luxurious, and gratifying; not to mention the balance of flavors really just worked well together. As the last oyster shell was tossed into the garbage, the smell from the next course had already permitted throughout the entire house. I had a baking dish in the oven, littered with baby snails that were all bubbling away in a homemade garlic-parsley butter and topped with breadcrumbs and Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese.

Thankfully, the couples at dinner weren’t on a first date, because this butter was garlicky! We plated this course family-style and all of us dove in with chewy bread to soak up the cheesy butter. The snails were delicate and tender, offering earthy, mushroomy flavors as they swam in the bright green butter.

The oysters and snails course was paired with some Grand Cru Chablis from William Fevre that was crisp and refreshing. Notes of butterscotch, baked apples and puff pastry came off the initial wave of aroma, but the wine was perfectly balanced, clean, and crisp on the finish. Just when everyone thought that the night was dying down, we hit them with the next course which is hands down, one of my favorite pasta dishes I have ever eaten. Thanks to Leigh from Nella Pasta (http://www.nellapasta.com/), this single Raviolo was freaking amazing!

Raviolo Uovo is only one ravioli, filled with a creamy ricotta filling and a fresh egg yolk. Leigh put some serious time and effort into not only making the homemade pasta, but shopping for the highest quality local ingredients. She rolled out the pasta into thin sheets and filled the massive ravioli with a piped, local ricotta mixture that was studded with chopped black truffles. A well was formed in the cheese and she carefully dropped in these gigantic, farm-fresh egg yolks that were so bright and orange that they glimmered through the thin sheet of pasta on top.

Leigh expressed her frustration with the delicacy of the yolks and how they kept popping on her wedding ring, and ended up thrown across the kitchen. Finally, she managed to keep ten ravioli in great shape for the walk over. We gingerly simmered the pasta for a mere minute before sautéing and basting them in a thyme-brown butter sauce. We served the Uovo on a plate with some roasted wild mushrooms and freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, finished with an abnormal dowsing of white truffle oil.

My knees began to buckle while plating due to ingestion of sensual truffle fumes. We all anxiously awaited the”ta-da”,  moment where one of our forks pierced the raviolo, displaying a slow, oozing of the poached egg yolk onto the plate. It was one of the sexiest moments and bites I have ever witnessed in all my days of cooking and eating. We managed to capture the “money-shot” of the fatty yolk swirling on the plate with beads of truffle oil floating atop the surface.

I served this pasta course with a magnum of 2004 Marchesi di Barolo Cannubi Barolo that I had been decanting for over 5 hours. It opened up beautifully and displayed delicate aromas of fresh violets, cherries, and spice. The tannins in the young Nebbiolo cut through the creamy egg yolk and the truffles and Barolo were reunited again. Believe it or not, we were ready for our final savory course of the night… and making good time thanks to our impromptu dishwashers. I had made two different sauces for the beef tenderloin the night before. One was a traditional bordelaise sauce that started off by making one of the most intense beef stocks ever. I roasted pounds and pounds of bones and made a homemade stock for an entire 24 hours, periodically skimming the fat and impurities from the surface.

Then I combined the rich stock with the reduction of two bottles of dry red wine. As the sauce slowly reduced, it thickened and intensified. The other sauce I made was a simple cream sauce with freshly grated horseradish root and sliced tarragon. The balance of spicy and savory was an interesting accompaniment to the tender beef. I simply seared the five-pound roast and rolled in on my cutting board through handfuls of smashed, whole black peppercorns. As it roasted in the oven, it gave us a chance to digest and have a little fun with my new toy that I bought for the evening… a porron!

A porron is a vessel commonly seen in tapas’ bars throughout Spain. It looks like a wine decanter with a spout, and it is filled with wine that eventually gets poured directly into your mouth from very high level. The thin stream gives you just enough time to swallow and allows for pinpoint accuracy when poured from several feet in the air. Here is a video that demonstrates how the porron is used: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCqCp1ot15A. Needless to say, we managed to keep the wine out of our clothes and our carpet, and my wife was able to take a deep breath. I pulled the roast from the oven at the perfect time, and allowed the juices to redistribute before slicing it into pieces. We served it medium rare with a creamy pommes puree’, both sauces, and a roasted butternut squash and raw kale salad with chopped hazelnuts.

We figured that we needed something fresh and green to serve after all these overly rich dishes. You could cut the tenderloin of beef with a fork it was so tender and juicy. I typically prefer cuts of meat that aren’t as lean, but with the two sauces, the flavor was still booming. For the grand finale, we popped a 3.0 Liter bottle of 2006 Ladera Howell Mountain Cabernet Sauvignon to serve with the beef. For the time it took me to pop the oversized cork on this monster, the wine better be damn good.

It was loaded with powerful blackberry, cherry, and cassis up front, and more developed, richer flavors of vanilla, toasty oak, and creamy coffee on the finish. By this time, we didn’t think anyone would be ready for dessert, but we were wrong. I ordered the double coconut cake from Sportello down the street and when we picked this thing up we didn’t realize that it weighed about twenty pounds. I’m not a big dessert guy, but whenever we eat at Sportello, I have to end the night with a sliver; it’s just that good. The shredded, toasty coconut isn’t just flaked on the outside of the frosting, but baked into each layer of cake as well. We sat around, reminiscing about the meal we just conquered, sipping on Pretty Things, St. Botolph’s Old Town Brown Ale fresh from the keg, and small glasses of 12yr old Pappy Van Winkle Bourbon.

At midnight we popped a few bottles of the 2003 Roderer Estates L’Ermitage Brut and washed back some of the leftover caviar and cheese as if we couldn’t get enough, knowing that 2012 was the start to diets and healthy lifestyles. We lasted long into the night playing silly games, picking at leftovers, and enjoying each others company. I hope that 2012 is filled with even more great food, family and friends. Happy New Year to everyone!

For how often they’re used, onions don’t get nearly enough recognition as they deserve. They’re the workhorses of the kitchen, creating basic framework for complex sauces, stews, or braises. What would the culinary world be without onions? As common as they are, onions are probably the most complex and versatile vegetable out there.

First off, think about all different varieties there are that come in all different shapes, sizes, and colors; Vidalia, Bermuda, Maui, shallots, cipolline, Inca sweet, Heirloom Red Wethersfield, Red Zeppelin, Texas Sweet, pearl, Walla Walla, Red Baron, and French Gray Shallots are just a handful. Similarly to how Cabernet Sauvignon grown in France tastes different than Cabernet Sauvignon grown in Washington State, onions are completely different depending on where they’re grown. It all has to do with soil. Ever wonder why chopping onions make you cry?

When they’re growing, the onions take up sulfur from the soil through their roots. Then, sulphuric compounds are formed and stored inside the cells. When these cells are disrupted (via slicing or chopping), new, highly volatile sulfurous molecules are created and exposed to air which causes you to break out in tears. So a sweeter onion doesn’t necessarily contain more sugar, it was just grown in a region that had less sulfur in the soil, making it seem less pungent and harsh.

The purpose of the onion’s strong, sulfury odor and flavor was to keep animals from eating the plants. It clearly didn’t stop humans from devouring them and using technique to change the way that the taste.

There are so many different ways to eat, prepare, and serve onions and some varieties are better than others for certain culinary techniques. You can eat them raw, grill them, caramelize them, pickle them, roast them, sweat them, or fry them; all culminating in a totally different finished product in terms of flavor, appearance, and texture. Think about biting into a raw onion and how drastically different it tastes compared to a spoonful of caramelized onions.

Cooking an onion transforms the vegetable’s chemical composition. Starches are breaking down into sugars, and the sugars themselves are breaking down, with disaccharides splitting into simpler, sweeter monosaccharides. Meanwhile, the onion’s moisture evaporates too, concentrating its newfound sweetness.

Cell walls break down and the onion loses its shape, transforming into a soft, jam-like consistency. The color of the onions change because the carbohydrates and proteins interact with the sugar, creating a dark brown appearance and a rich, meaty flavor.

Now that you realize that onions contain such a complex mix of sugars and aromatic compounds, it is easy to see why they provide the foundation of flavor to so many of the world’s cuisines. It’s transformative nature of these elements in onions that makes them among the most versatile, and inspiring ingredients in the kitchen.

Now that we got the brief science lesson out of the way, I can tell you about how I prepared onions in a way that I never had before.

Just when I thought that I had maxed out every possible way to cook an onion, I stumbled upon a recipe calling for onion puree’. I thought to myself, how the hell does that work, and began investigating.

I picked up a half-dozen large yellow onions, a couple of boneless rib eyes, and a few fresh herbs at the store and I was on my way back to the kitchen to turn roughly four simple ingredients into an elegant and complex meal.

I started off by thinly slicing all six of the massive orbs, and simultaneously bawling like a baby. My wife walked in and thought that either someone had passed away or I caught the tail end of Extreme Home Makeover. But then the sulfur tear gas knocked her in the face and she had to stick her head in the freezer. These were some pungent onions!

I slid the onions from the cutting board into a large sauté’ pan with a pat of butter and let the heat do its work on making them sweet. For this particular preparation, I didn’t want the onions to get any color so I constantly stirred them and kept an eye on the flame. Once they became soft, I added some chicken stock and water, and began steaming the onions for an additional 10 minutes.

Once they tasted sweet enough for my liking, but still retained some of that raw onion bite, I transferred them all to a blender and buzzed them into a creamy puree with just a touch of buttermilk. I kept the puree warm on the stove and seasoned it with salt and pepper while I got my grill blazing hot. I took a few mental pictures of my shiny grill before it gets covered in snow. There’s nothing worse than having to shovel a frosty path, and bundle up just to cook a steak in the dead of winter.

I popped the cork on a bottle of 2005 Chateau Dauzac Margaux and poured its entirety into a decanter because despite being six years old, a wine like this still needs time to open up and breathe. I immediately got whiffs of the wine’s perfume as you would a woman’s while passing them in a hallway and I was intrigued and excited. I finished up my steaks and plated a few slices with a dollop of the silky puree.

I finished the pink flesh with a few drops of 20 year old, aged Balsamic vinegar and a sprinkle of sea salt while the onion puree got some picked thyme, parsley and chive. Extremely simple, yet a complete dish with multiple layers of flavor. The buttery meat and the drops of sticky vinegar were loaded with umami and when combined with the onion puree it was a bite of comfort and desire. The onion flavor was all too familiar yet the texture and form it came in was very new and intriguing to me. As for the wine, a perfect match for this dish.

Some sweet fruit and toasted oak on the nose. The high quality of the vintage produced some serious backbone and firm, tannic core. Loads of dark black fruit, macerated plums, and hints of licorice and vanilla ice cream. A bone dry finish was wonderful with the juicy rendered fat in each bite of the heavily marbled rib eye. My onion adventure was complete and in the meantime, learned a ton about this special vegetable and all of its crazy powers. I will never look at an onion the same way again.

After boiling my first corned beef last St. Patrick’s Day, I decided that this year I would stick to a fresh steak. March 17th is a week-long holiday if you live in South Boston and I needed something hearty before a long day of partying this past Sunday for the parade. I went the traditional route (with a slight twist) last year, so this year was all about modernizing a rather boring meat and potatoes dish and turning it into something to drool over.

Growing up, I ate meat and potatoes in one form or another at least twice a week. That’s all my father still eats to this day, and my mother still caters to his dull palate. You’d think that an Irishman would love the color green, but if there’s so much as a speck of parsley on his plate, he wouldn’t touch it with a ten foot fork.

I decided to break out my brand new cast iron pan that Siobhan got me for Valentine’s Day this year. How romantic. She knows me too well by now. I also had a very festive bottle of wine to go with my meal, and got a chance to meet the winemaker, David O’Reilly earlier in the day.

The wine is the 2007 Owen Roe Red Willow Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon from the Yakima Valley, Washington (it’s not grown in Ireland despite the photographs on the label). The history behind the name Owen Roe lies in winemaker David O’Reilly’s Irish heritage. The winery is named after Owen Roe O’Neill, a 17th century patriot from County Cavan Ireland, where David is originally from. Despite an age-old clan rivalry between the O’Neills and the O’Reillys, the two families were united in the opposition to Oliver Cromwell’s English tyranny over Ireland in the 1600′s. The photographs on all of his wine labels commemorate sites in Ireland where O’Neill lived, fought, and died. David told me a cool story about one of his other wines called Sinister Hand.

Adorned on the label is a giant picture of a severed left hand which turns out to be his own family’s crest. It tells a story of a rowing competition between the O’Reilly’s and the O’Neills. Whoever touched land first after rowing across the lake was to be rewarded with the land he touched. Lagging behind, one of the kinsfolk grabs his sword to cleave his hand and tosses it ashore to touch land first. He won the land and later ruled over it as king. What a perfect wine, deeply rooted in Irish history but grown in a new, up-and-coming area to represent a modern day twist on meat and potatoes.

I didn’t want to mess with perfection when faced with an impeccably marbled ribeye, so I decided to keep the creativity to a minimum. I simply added a fresh, compound butter to the party, studded with freshly grated horseradish and sliced chives.

I softened a few sticks of butter and pulled out this giant, dirty knob that looked like one of my old baseballs that rolled into the corner of the garage, collected dust for a few years, and then was buried by my golden retriever.

Gross right? Peel a few layers off though, and a pristine, ivory colored flesh is revealed with pungently spicy aromas and a great way to add flavor to dishes, especially beef. I violently grated the entire knob into the butter along with some sliced chives before I stirred it all around to incorporate the shavings into every possible square millimeter.

I wrapped the fresh horseradish butter in plastic wrap and stored it in the fridge to harden while I prepared my potatoes.

I just got my knife sharpened so I felt confident leaving the mandolin in the cupboard to prep my potato gratin. I made hundreds of uniform, paper-thin slices of yellow, Yukon Golds until my cutting board looked like I ripped into a giant bag of Lays with my teeth.

I slowly started to layer each starchy wafer into a buttered casserole dish topping each level with grated Parmesan cheese, salt, and pepper.

Finally, the potatoes reached the top of the dish and I ended my potato journey with more cheese, and a few slices of butter.

The only people who eat more butter than the French are Irish-Americans; they have to flavor their boiled food somehow right? I baked my gratin in a 350 degree oven until the spuds were tender and the top was crispy and cheesy.

Meanwhile, I started heating up my new cast-iron pan over low heat until it started smoking. The good thing about cooking in cast iron is that the pan stays hot forever and the heat is evenly dispersed across whatever you put inside. I seasoned the steak liberally with salt and pepper and flopped it in the pan to listen to that sizzle that gets my mouth watering. The cast iron also creates an amazingly crispy crust on meats and seafood.

As the fat in the steak melted, the giant slab of beef started to fry in its own fat, before I flipped it over and finished it in the oven. I let it rest in order to allow for the juices to redistribute throughout the steak and pulled out an ice cream scoop to apply my compound butter. As soon as the giant blob of flavor hit the scorched meat, it started to ooze in between every inch of the flesh.

With all these rich flavors going on I needed some other component to the dish that would have enough acidity, bite, and freshness to liven everything up. I decided to stick with the Irish dinner theme and used a cabbage, except it was a fermented cabbage otherwise known as sauerkraut.

The organic, fermented cabbage, had just enough pop of sour juiciness that helped calm down my taste buds and cut right through the rich butter. As I sliced into my medium-rare ribeye, I admired the cross-section of the thick, potato gratin that looked like the side of a cheesy encyclopedia. I hadn’t cooked in a cast iron pan in years, so maybe it was the luck of the Irish that my steak came out perfectly. Every bite was so decadent followed by a sensual sip of the Owen Roe Cab.

Intense flavors of chocolate covered cranberries, black cherries, and licorice were the striking flavor profiles that jumped out at me. It was definitely plush, and elegant for a Washington State Cabernet. The tannins were like cocoa powder, and the wine was savory and rich. I couldn’t have picked a better wine for a St. Patrick’s Day celebration. I may even go as far as severing one of my limbs for a meat and potatoes dish like this again.

First of all… I want to apologize for the long delay. This is probably the longest I’ve gone in between posts since my start in September of 2009. As you can imagine, running a retail, full-service wine shop this time of year is pretty ridiculous. I have been so busy selling wine and working longer hours that I am usually sound asleep (snoring) on the couch by 9pm. After the Thanksgiving rush died down this weekend, I got the chance to make my way back into the kitchen.

I decided to take a classic recipe from my idol, Julia Child, and put my own spin on it. Julia Child’s Beef Bourguignon recipe has to be the most searched for recipe on the Internet. It just has to be… especially after the popularity of the Julie & Julia movie. Her cookbook, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, is up there with The Scarlett Letter, The Great Gatsby, and The Bible.

The classic French dish is a perfect example of how simple, peasant cooking has been transformed into haute cuisine. Instead of sticking to the classics and braising my beef in red Burgundy wine, I decided to break the rules again and take a trip “down under”.

The Barossa Valley, Austrailia produces some of the most powerful, extracted, fruit forward wines on earth. I wanted to intensify the flavor in my stew by reducing the jammy, dark berry flavors in a Barossa Valley Shiraz opposed to a lighter Pinot Noir from Burgundy.

 I started off my recipe by searing the cubes of fatty, beef chuck, stew meat followed by sauteing some diced red onion, tons of garlic, and some meaty portobello mushrooms. The pungent flavors in the garlic and red onion were a lot less delicate than the flavors in the traditional dish. As the aromatics were sweating in the Le Crusset, I spent the majority of the morning hands-deep in pearl onions. These little bastards are the biggest pain in the ass!

I boiled them to loosen their skins, but then trying to peel them is hands-down the most annoying task in the kitchen… period! It’s even worse than peeling and deveining shrimp. Not to mention, my eyes are so sensitive to onions that I was peeling these golf balls blind, dripping unnecessary tears all over my cutting board.

I dumped one and a half bottles of Australian, Barossa Shiraz into the pot and cranked up the heat to reduce the liquid by at least half. The high alcohol levels burn off and the flavors of blackberry and chocolate reduce into a thick, syrupy braising liquid. I returned my seared meat to the pot and let it simmer at around 325 degrees for about an hour, until it was getting nice and tender. For the final half hour, I added my Yukon Gold potatoes and pearl onions to the pot to tenderize and cook in the braising liquid.

What wine should you serve with Beef Barossa? A wine from the Barossa Valley of course! I chose the 2007 Molly Dooker “Two Left Feet” Red Blend. This is just one of the brain childs of Sarah & Sparky Marquis that continuously gets amazing press and high accolades. This wine is a blend of Shiraz, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Merlot… a “Super Barossa” if you will.

Have you ever gotten unnecessary headaches from drinking wine? Sometimes these cranial throbs are due to the histamines inside of the oak aging barrels, but other times they are from the sulfates that are added to wines to preserve them on long trips overseas. Even though the emergence of sulfates are a natural occurring process in winemaking, the people at Molly Dooker have created a way to eliminate the excess of added sulfates to a wine.

 Instead of adding these migraine inducing chemicals, they have found a way to inject an inert Nitrogen gas during the bottling process that hovers over the level of the wine. This layer of gas protects and preserves the wine but has a tendency to prevent the full flavor profile open up when the screw cap is popped. Introducing the Molly Dooker Shake… a new dance move that will maximize the flavor of all Molly Dooker wines in one simple booty shake. By opening the screw cap, letting the wine breath for a few seconds, returning the cap to the bottle, and shaking the living hell out of the bottle, the roundness of the wine will expand, and maximize the flavor potential the the red blend has to offer.

With melt-in-your mouth cubes of beef, tender pearl onions, and starchy potatoes, the full-bodied red is a perfect match. The bold flavors in the stew went head to head with bold flavors in the wine. Mouthfuls of blue and black fruit, so thick you could cut them with a knife, bombarded my palate but soothed my tongue from the hot stew. After a bottle of this wine, one would clearly be dancing as though they had two left feet. It wasn’t elegant, it wasn’t French, it surely wasn’t your typical Beef Bourguignon. It was awkward as hell and somewhere, Chef Julia Child was turning in her massive grave.