The Rest of Us

[Sneakeater]

Meal planning:  I had one open slot in my week's meal plan.  But then, I pivoted away from a dish I was planning to make this week when I saw that the ingredient I had planned it to use up had already gone bad (yes, even I acknowledge that happens sometimes).  As I was left with some squid and some greens I wasn't going to use in the replacement for that other dish, I saw a way through to filling that open dinner slot.

Roasted squid with chistorra and potatoes (served on a bed of pea, radish, and sunflower shoots, and nasturtium leaves).

I tried to make this once before.  It wasn't a success.  When you look at the recipe, you think the squid would have to come out tough, cooked this way.  And that's just what happened last time.

But if only this recipe worked, it would produce something that's like exactly what I like.  So I decided to try again and see if my now-honed kitchen skillz would save the day.

I don't know what I did wrong last time.  (Actually, I have a few theories -- but they're too boring for me to type, let alone for you to read.)  But this time, it came out great.  The squid had just the tiniest bite, to make it more pungent texturally.  And the slightly smokey roasted flavor was soooooo good.

Now this is the kind of thing that people like us would reflexively pair with a white.  I see that the last time I tried this, I paired it with a Txakoli (a pairing that would seem even more appealing tonight, when I replaced the canonical chorizo with the Basque chistorra I happened to have on hand).

But in the Iberian peninsula (Portugal as well as Spain), they default to reds with dishes like this.  And tonight's dinner shows they're totally right.

2009 López de Heredia Viña Cubillo

I could imagine someone asking why you'd want a straightforwardly fruity L de H.

One answer is tonight's dinner.  A Rioja seemed appropriate.  But not a refined age-mellowed one.  I wanted something pretty simple and pretty present.

Another answer is, it's not that straightforward.  This is simple and fruity for an L de H.  But for an entry-level wine, it's got a lot going on.

You think it's simply fruity cuz the fruit is so gooooood.  Cranberries backing up cherries, I'd say, then going into some plums and redcurrants.  (That sounds like a stupid contrived tasting note, but trust me:  that's what it tastes like.)  Then, some baking spices (my current obsession of nutmeg!).  Some overtones of smoke.  And some forest savories -- not funky, particularly:  just savory.  The mushrooms have been cleaned.

As far as the pairing goes, one reason the Iberians are right to reach for a red here is that the dominant flavor in the dish is really the pork sausage (especially since I used more of it than is necessarily called for).

But another reason is that with a smoky, slightly chewy fish, a red just works.  Think, for example, of grilled octopus:  why wouldn't you drink a red with that?  (If octopi and squids in fact aren't fish, just shut up about that.  They're seafood.)

[Sneakeater]

This being L de H's junior cuvée and all, you worry that it has to be drunken up.

But I'll tell you:  this bottle is the best I've had from this vintage yet.  And it tastes like it could last forever.

There's a reason L de H is one of the best four or five wine producers in the world.

[Sneakeater]

Tuna steak seared on the grill.  This tuna steak was marinated in Shio Koji, which produced exactly the charred-on-the-outside-raw-on-the-inside affect I wanted.  In terms of flavor, it surprisingly seemed to do less for the tuna than it has done for steak and, especially, scallops.

Some Tough Old Lady chili chips sealed the deal.  No way this wasn't going to be delicious.  And it was.

Some by-now-just-about-pickled cabbage on the side.  And some Brazilian beans.

2020 Floral Terranes Abracadabra

This is a 50%/50% Merlot/Chardonnay blend from Long Island.  It is NOT a co-ferment.

People who write about this wine make a lot of how much it drinks like a red.  Some even call it "structured".  I think they're slightly overdoing it.

The Chardonnay is VERY detectable.  This wine has a perfume that a Merlot would never have.  And the exotic and citrusy fruits that Chardonnay usually leads with are tasted (somewhat strangely) at the end.  So yeah, this wine starts like a red and finishes like a white.

None of which was a problem tonight.  Although a seared tuna steak can take a fairly strong red, Merlot would just be too heavy.  Chardonnay is good with tuna (if not especially tuna seared on the grill).  So this vaguely whitish red was quite good with this meal.

[Sneakeater]

This is just showing off, but I even produced those cross-hatched grill marks!

[joethefoodie]

6 hours ago, Sneakeater said:

This is just showing off, but I even produced those cross-hatched grill marks!

This is just showing off, but those cross-hatched grill marks; they're called (in culinary terms) quadrillage.

[Wilfrid]

I must make this for a dinner-party so I can tell them that, adding the phrase “but of course you all know that.”

Which leaves everyone around the table wondering if they should have known it.

:classic-oneupmanship:

[joethefoodie]

43 minutes ago, Wilfrid said:

I must make this for a dinner-party

You don't even need to use tuna.

[Sneakeater]

1 hour ago, Wilfrid said:

I must make this for a dinner-party so I can tell them that, adding the phrase “but of course you all know that.”

Which leaves everyone around the table wondering if they should have known it.

:classic-oneupmanship:

Did it even occur to you there was a word for it?

[Sneakeater]

I guess this is a perfect example of, "the French have a word for it."

[Sneakeater]

When I made those Chitarrine alla Teremana last week, to my surprise my favorite meat out of the ragu was the pork ribs.

So I got some more, to have on their own.  Like last week's these were spareribs, cut the Kansas City rather than the St. Louis way (I say that to show off -- although all I'm really showing off is that I was married to a Midwesterner).  Contrary to the mode when I was first learning to eat seriously, I find I prefer spareribs to baby backs, mainly for spareribs' higher fat content, leading to greater tenderness (back in the day we were told to prefer baby back ribs for what we incorrectly called their more "toothsome" texture).

Since I want to finish my Brazilian beans this week (before they finish me), I made a Brazilian pork rib recipe (although not the most famous one).  They were braised in a very flavorful marinade they'd been soaking in and then caramelized.  Speaking of marinades, they also got the full overnight Shio Koji/fish sauce treatment (but who could taste any difference under that highly flavored Brazilian marinade?).

I made some couve à mineira (those garlicky Brazilian collard greens) -- although in the absence of collard greens I used Tuscan kale (as far as I can tell, in Portuguese they aren't even different words).  And of course some beans.

I had planned a very intriguing wine pairing.  It was based on having very high tannins, to meld with all the sparerib fat, while being still rather light in flavor, to complement pork ribs as opposed to, say, beefsteak.  But then, in preparing the Brazilian marinade, I put in (as is my way) A LOT of smoked jalapeños.  Having eaten this dish, I'm glad I did (I ended up taking the un-Brazilian step of smearing some honey on top of the ribs before caramelizing, to counterbalance all those chili peppers -- a total win, if I may say).  But it queered my planned wine pairing, cuz now the last thing I wanted, with all that pepper spice, was tannins.

So what do you know?  I got to default to what I'm always drinking anyway.  Which is known to have a way with pork.

2018 Domaine de Robert (Patrick Brunet) Fleurie "Cuvée Tradition"

Given all the flavor in the pork dish, I was toying with idea of one of the bigger Beaujolais crus -- a Morgon or a Moulin-à-Vent.  But they tend to be pretty tannic, at least for Beaujolais -- the last thing I wanted with all that chili.  Then I thought about my prior bottle of this Fleurie from the hot and sunny (after the debilitating hail storms) 2018 vintage, which I complained was bigger than what I want out of a Fleurie.  But that meant, tonight it would be perfect!

I mean, this worked really well.  Lots of bright acid to counter the red hot chili peppers.  Enough flavor to stand up to the highly flavored rib preparation.  But a thin enough texture -- it's big for a Fleurie, but it's still a Fleurie -- to refreshingly was those ribs down without crowding them.

I could have this meal every night (I'd live for like a week, though).

[Sneakeater]

The unheralded Patrick Brunet remains one of my very favorite winemakers.  His wines aren't exciting like Anne-Sophie Dubois's.  But they're so solidly what they are, in an exemplary way.  It's like if you wanted to show someone what a good solid straight-down-the-middle Beaujolais was, you'd put Brunet's bottles in front of them.

And they wouldn't stop drinking.

[Sneakeater]

You don't use exciting words like "ethereal" or "racy".

You use boring words like "balanced" and "correct".

But boy do they drink.

[joethefoodie]

6 hours ago, Sneakeater said:

You don't use exciting words like "ethereal" or "racy".

You use boring words like "balanced" and "correct".

But boy do they drink.

There's a word for that.

[Sneakeater]

Tongue on rye. Potato salad.  Super garlic pickle.

Löwensenf Düsseldorfer Medium turned out to be like a perfect mustard for this.

So yeah this tongue I pickled is GOOD.  It was so good on this sandwich that I'm pretty sure I'm going to abandon my plan to make a Tuscan green sauce for the remaining portion and just make another sandwich.  Nothing could be better.

I was considering a Riesling with this, but I just wasn't feeling it.  I couldn't shake the feeling that pickled tongue just tastes beefier than corned beef and pastrami (both of which are nice with Riesling).  I was trying to think of another light red.  In the middle of a very hectic work day, it hit me:  a wine from a place where they know from simmered beef.

2019 Castello di Verduno Pelaverga "Basadone"

Good work, me!  This wasn't a perfect pairing, but it was a nice one.  (A Freisa:  that might have been perfect -- if I still had any.)

Palaverga is in fact a light red.  It has a lot of mellow spice, which sort of complements the flavors from the pickling.  Its flavor isn't sharp in the least bit.

Mainly, though, it was just the right weight for this sandwich.

[Sneakeater]

Since it was on some of that (delicious) Lost Bread Co. rye that looks more like a whole wheat loaf than the "deli" rye it's designated as, this sandwich as served raised the question:  is there a fancy French kitchen term for cutting a sandwich in half on the diagonal?