Rooftop Gourmet

Seth Kunin has been making wine in California since 1998, and he pays tribute to the Old World Chateauneauf-du-Pape with his 2007 Pape Star from the Central Coast. This wine is a blend of Grenache, Mourvedre, and Syrah just like in the northern Rhone Valley, France except it’s expressive of the Central Coast of California; which gives it a slightly modern twist.

 Most of the time, I pair a wine with whatever I’m making for dinner, but tonight I picked the wine first. I had some extra time, so I walked through Whole Foods with no concrete plans, just an idea of the style and character of the Pape Star.

I strolled past the meat counter and these beautiful, pink veal chops immediately caught my eye. Veal is slightly more delicate than beef and would be a match made in heaven for the medium bodied red.

The Pape Star has smooth tannins and tons of cherry, raspberry and currant flavors with a hint of spice in the finish from the Mourvedre. It’s extremely smooth and gentle on the palate and has some bright acidity, reminiscent of blood oranges.

I wanted to showcase the plump veal chops by limiting the other ingredients I put on the plate, so I stuck with roasted yams to add an element of sweetness to the dish. I made a rich Dijon Mustard sauce freshened up by a fine chiffonade of fresh basil.

The combination of basil and mustard is something new that I had never tried but it worked very nicely with the succulent veal and the char from the grill. It reminded me of Dijon mustard sloshed on a charred Italian sausage from a cart outside of Fenway, only slightly more elegant.

On my way to checkout, I walked past a basket of heirloom tomatoes that were all different sizes, shapes and colors and I just couldn’t resist. I grabbed a bunch of them along with some blood oranges to make a salad.

There are millions of different varieties of heirloom tomatoes (too many to keep track of) with all sorts of funny names that sound like CareBear characters; I think I grabbed some Green Zebras and Big Rainbows.

I sliced the multi-colored orbs nice and thin, and showered them with blood orange zest, blood orange supremes, extra virgin olive oil, and a sprinkle of fancy sea salt crystals. The essential oils in the zest brought the juicy tomatoes to life and added an interesting flavor to the salad. I seasoned the chops and headed out into the cold to throw them on the grill.

They only took about 5 minutes on each side before they were medium in temperature, and I brought them in to rest. The chops were very well marbled for such a young animal and they were loaded with flavor, giving the Pape Star a run for its money as the star of the night.

 Maybe it’s because I don’t have a huge sweet tooth, or maybe my tastebuds are all out of whack, but I love bitter foods. I love hoppy, bitter beers, I drink double espresso straight and iced coffee black. One of my favorite leafy vegetables is radicchio, and I love eathing it raw. Radicchio is an Italian vegetable that comes in a few different varieties, all of which are extremely bitter.

It looks like a purple cabbage and is usually about the size of a softball. One of the most simple ways to eat radicchio (and one of my favorites) is to split the head in half and grill it with a little extra virgin olive oil.

The grilling or roasting does reduce the bitterness level quite a bit, and most chefs usually balance the bitterness with something sweet (like balsamic vinegar). I made a sweet vinaigrette that I served warm over the raw radicchio salad because the heat doesn’t really wilt the vegetable like most leafy greens would succumb to. I started off by sauteing some shallots and golden raisins in pancetta fat.

 Once everything was soft, I transferred the entire mixture to a blender where I then added some whole grain mustard and extra virgin olive oil. The vinaigrette is a perfect balance of rich, tangy, and sweet…perfect for the raw bitter greens. I simply pan roasted the salmon until is was crispy on the top and pink and moist in the center.

 I consider salmon to be a more oily, denser, meatier fish that has a sort of woodsy quality to it depending on how it’s prepared. This quality makes it extremely versatile when it comes to pairing with wine or other foods. I love the combination of earthy mushrooms and salmon because they play so nicely with each other. I grilled some meaty portabello mushroom caps and stuffed them with some minted peas; fresh peas that I simply sauteed with chopped, fresh mint.

Both side dishes to my salmon had impeccable balance which really brought the dish together as a whole. The peas and mint, freshened up the earthy mushrooms, and the sweet vinaigrette balanced out the bitter radicchio. It was a great, wintery fish dish with loads of complexity.

I served an Oregon Pinot Noir with the salmon because I feel that unless it is poached, salmon needs a red wine. The 2008 Forefront Pinot Noir is made by Pine Ridge Winery and uses 100% Pinot Noir grapes from the Willamette Valley, Oregon. Oregon is a great place to grow Pinot because of the warm days and cool nights, which produce tons of overly ripe, generous fruit; a major characteristic of great Pinot Noir.

The fruit in the Forefront bottle is finished for ten months in French Oak barrels which gives it a little more structure and spicyness. The wine has silky tannins, and bundles of fresh ripe, red fruit such as raspberry and pomegranate followed by a spicy, star anise finish. There’s plenty of acidity too which is a reason why it works so well with seafood.

It’s a good thing that I got another healthy dish under my belt before this weekend, because more playoff football and friends from college coming to town equals lots of unhealthy party food.

I am always looking for ways to save money when it comes to food shopping. One way that I have been exploring this summer is buying and cooking whole fish. Even though this is very common in Europe and other parts of the world, this isn’t for everybody. You need to get over the fact that the head (and eyeballs) is still sitting on the plate looking up at you. From a cooking point of view, it is much harder to overcook the fish when it is left whole, and it is extremely cost efficient. You will be surprised at how much meat one whole fish yields. The only downside (other than the fact that it’s whole if you have a weak stomach) is that it takes patience and time to eat. Personally, I enjoy sitting on the deck on a nice summer night and slowly picking the succulent, moist and flaky pieces of a grilled, whole fish out from in between the bones. It gives you more time to enjoy your wine; I would reccomend any crisp, dry white. I chose a Viognier from the South of France: 2008 Domaine Massiac Viognier. I served the whole grilled black bass with an Asian style salad that I came up with, which worked perfectly with the fruity, floral Viognier. The wine had great acidity and minerality probably coming from the region’s limestone hills. As noted in our PostScript, this wine is very versitle and can be enjoyed by itself or with a number of different dishes. Seafood especially, and even a salad with Asian ingredients and flavors. Try this wine with spicy dishes as well. My Asian salad had seared shiitake mushroom caps which were then thinly julienned. Extremely thin julienne of raw, flat sugar snap peas vertically almost to the point where they looked like green noodles or string. Then I added some Japanese noodles which could be substituted for bean sprouts for a lighter version, chopped peanuts and some sesame seeds. I dressed the salad with sesame oil and rice wine vinegar; I served it cold but it would be nice warm as well, especially if you use the noodles. Try serving a bottle of Domaine Massiac Viognier  with your next meal, and if you’re daring and want to save some money on seafood, buy a whole fish. (*Make sure to examine the fish before you buy it. The gills should be moist and red, the eyes should be clear and not cloudy, and it should have very little to no fishy smell to it. Tell the fish monger that you will be grilling it whole and he or she will prepare it for you). This picture is the Asian salad that I made except it’s paired with seared scallops and clams.

 

I signed up for a service recently called Boston Organics (www.bostonorganics.com). This company delivers organic food from local farmers markets right to your door in the city. All I do is request a certain size box, and the specific proportion of fruits to vegetables (I chose 75% veggie 25% fruit) and once a week I come home from work and there is a giant box of produce sitting in my apartment. I figured this would be fun because I have no idea what is coming in the box until it arrives; whatever is fresh that week is what I get. The box came this past tuesday evening and I was somewhat overwhelmed at first but managed to wash and sort everything. It is exciting trying to come up with new dishes based around what comes in the mystery box. Here is the breakdown of what arrived…$39 2/3 vegetable

2 lbs Fair Trade Bananas (Ecuador)

3 Fuji Apples (Chile)

2 Pluots (CA)

1 Red Grapefruit (CA)

3 Valencia Oranges (CA)

3 Yellow Nectarines (CA)

1 bunch Broccoli (CO)

1 head Celery (CA)

1 bunch Collard Greens (MA)

1 Cucumbers (MA)

1 Green Bell Peppers (PA)

1 bunch Kale (MA)

1 lbs Mixed Summer Squash (MA)

1 2oz Pea Shoots (MA)

1 head Romaine Lettuce (MA)

1.5 lbs Sweet Potatoes (NC)

1 lbs Vidalia Onions (GA)

Tuesday night, I made a grilled summer squash and mint salad with Valencia orange zest and supremes along side a grilled salmon and roasted sweet potatoes. With this dish we opened the 2007 Laetitia Pinot Noir which was lush and elegant. Tons of ripe plum and other dark fruits layered with a perfect balance of earth and spice; excellent with the grilled salmon.

Last night I was in the mood for some comfort food. I made braised chicken legs and thighs with some wilted garlic kale and rosemary fingling potatoes. The chicken was braised in the reduction of an entire bottle of northern Italian white, fresh thyme, lemon, chicken stock, and some other aromatics. After about an hour and half, crispy skin on the outside, fall off the bone tender and juicy on the inside. I strained and reduced the braising liquid and turned it into a rich and velvety sauce (with the help of a little butter) to drizzle over the chicken. If you have never braised or slow cooked chicken legs/thighs before I highly reccomend it. The slow cooking brings out such rich flavors of the dark meat and the texture is tremendous. This dish screamed White Burgundy so I turned to one of our “go-to” wines, the 2006 Vincent Girardin Emotion de Terroirs. Perfect balance between tropical fruit and oak. Creamy, buttery on the palate but not over powering. This wine over delivers everytime; like a baby Puligny Montrachet.

For dessert, I halved a few of the nectarines and pluots, rubbed them in some granulated sugar and grilled them for about 4-5 minutes. The grill really brings out the natural sweetness of the fruit; I don’t even think that the extra sugar was necessary. I drizzled some syrupy balsamic reduction over the warm stone fruits. Vanilla ice cream would have been nice but I didn’t have any. Try this quick and easy dessert at your next BBQ.