Pasta and Red Wine

I'm at day 16 of a 21-day stretch without a day off and I am exhausted. Despite all this work, I am determined that we are going to have some family time, if only a few minutes during dinner, before I pass out. About all I was up to making (and truth be told, all I wanted to eat) was a nice plate of pasta.

Paccheri with Pork Ragù

So Sunday night, we reheated a bag of pork ragù from the freezer and tossed it with some beautiful artisanal paccheri, called ondulati or wavy after the big ridges in the pasta. Topped with a sprinkle of pecorino romano, hot pepper flakes, and a bit of kosher salt, this is a hard meal to beat. We paired it with a pretty decent Malbec.

OK Malbec from Moët et Chandon

And Monday night, I quickly cooked some perciatelli while Ann reheated some marinara in the microwave. I made the marinara at the restaurant on Sunday during some down time while getting our catering job together. Your nonna would love this sauce, but she would roll in her grave if she knew I used Peruvian rocoto chile paste and Vietnamese fish sauce to season it! She has her pepperoncini and acciughe and I have mine. This we paired with a Sardinian wine made from the Monica grape, a grape that I have never experienced before. I found it medium-bodied, ruby-colored, and displaying decent tannins and acidity, a good pasta wine.



Perciatelli Marinara

Monica from Sardinia

Valentine's Dinner

Like Thanksgiving, Valentine's is a big deal to Ann. Because I am in the restaurant business, we can never celebrate Valentine's Day together, so Ann has taken to hosting Valentine's dinners at our house on the Sunday before Valentine's Day.

Here is the table that Ann set, all festive in red, black, and silver, complete with gift boxes of chocolate dipped pretzels that she made for everyone.

We had a great time this year with friends Kelley and Marco Due who joined us for cocktails and then had to run, Mike and Dennis, and Jen and Dewi. Unfortunately, I failed to get photos of Kelley and Mark. Here are the rest of the characters. Mike, thanks for the photo of us!

I Like the Shot of Dennis Through Ann's Glass

Ann is not one for starting a party without a cocktail, so I reprised the grapefruity St. Germain cocktail that I invented some weeks ago. Naturally, the glasses are rimmed with red, white, and pink sprinkles! This gave me an excuse to get out the big Mexican citrus juicer. I am not a fan of single purpose cookware, but when you have to juice a lot of citrus, these guys are indispensable.

We started with three hors d'oeuvres—the plan was only two, but I brought home from the restaurant a surprise terrine that was begging to be tasted. For the first appetizer, Ann stuffed dates with goat cheese, sprinkled them with toasted panko, and warmed them in a moderate oven for about 10 minutes. These guys are deliciously and decadently rich!

Next up, I made crab-stuffed, prosciutto-wrapped shrimp. I meant to make a dipping sauce too, but that seemed to get lost in the shuffle. I butterflied the shrimp, packed a little crab into them (a dozen 16-20 shrimps took about 6 ounces of crab meat) and wrapped them in prosciutto. I broiled them 8 inches from the broiler element for about 10 minutes.

Crab-stuffed, Prosciutto-wrapped Shrimp

For the main course, we had a cassoulet made not from the traditional Tarbais beans, but from an American heirloom bean called the Steuben Yellow Eye which is famous for holding its shape while becoming deliciously creamy inside. Besides a lot of mirepoix, garlic, and fresh herbs, the other garnishes were duck confit that we put up in early January in anticipation of this cassoulet, local bacon ends, guanciale, and Surry sausage.

The guanciale (Berkshire Jowciale) and Surry sausage both come from Edwards Hams in Surry, VA, a company whose products I have eaten all my life and long-time supplier to the restaurant. We moistened the cassoulet with a stock made from the goodness that accumulates in the bottom of the roasting pans when we cook our pork belly.

 

Cassoulet

Dewi brought along a Clos la Coutale Cahors 2008, the traditional Malbec wine from Southwest France that often accompanies cassoulet. We kicked in a SonVida Argentinean Malbec 2008, a very modern style wine. I expect Cahors to be a big, dark, brooding wine, but this one was not. It was educational to taste the lighter, more traditional, and more rustic French import from Kermit Lynch against the juicy, darker, sleeker, and more modern Argentine offering. But great minds think alike: cassoulet = Malbec.

 
And what better to accompany a cassoulet than a mixed green salad and wonderful rosemary bread?

Finally, dessert queen Jen brought a bittersweet chocolate pie topped with crème fraîche. We opened a bottle of Warre's 1977 Port to go along with this. A fruitier wine would have done the chocolate more justice, but we needed a slim excuse to open the '77!

Kudos to Ann for orchestrating yet another fabulous dinner!

Thanksgiving 2011—Spectacular Eats

Let's get one thing clear from the start. Although Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, planning the menu and executing it is Ann's thing. She plans and plans and plans and plans for at least two months for Thanksgiving. Me, in my officially designated role as The Kitchen Bitch, I just prep tons and tons of mirepoix, herbs, shallots, and vegetables and do all those things that Ann does not want to do. This is a long-winded way of saying that all kudos go to Ann.

And kudos are due her in spades this year. Our dinner, with family and friends, was spectacular; I would not have changed a dish and I would gladly eat this very same meal for years to come! And kudos are also appropriate for the table: she sets a gorgeous table as you see below.


And now on to the food:

We started the day just after noon with sparkling wine and oysters, a hardship to be sure! The oysters were super-briny Wellfleets from Cape Cod. I love these oysters, but the shells are very soft and are prone to flaking apart (just like Chincoteagues), making them a bit touchy to shuck. Sparklers included Bailly-Lapierre Crémant de Bourgogne, Schramsberg Blanc de Blancs, and Schramsberg Blanc de Noirs. As much as I like Schramsberg, I have to say that the Bailly-Lapierre blew it away.

Cindy Barry in the process of assembling her appetizers; here, green pea pesto on baguette.

And now for a couple of art shots before we proceed with the main meal.

A shot from the night before when Ann and I were prepping shallots and herbs for the big day.

And not to be forgotten, the 2008 SonVida Malbec from Mendoza. This is a great Thanksgiving wine. And the Williamsburg Pumpkin Ale for Bob. And a not so subtle plug for the restaurant.

And now for the guest of honor, before cooking. This free-range turkey was a bit small (12 lbs.) for the 12 people we were feeding, but it was delicious. A small bit of trussing helped open up the chest cavity for better air circulation. And we prepared it the same way as we have for the past three years because there is no better way: brined in apple cider for three days; stuffed between the skin and the breast with pancetta-sage compound butter, cavity stuffed with sage, thyme, and rosemary; and skin rubbed with olive oil, salt, pepper, and lemon thyme.

And the after shot. Roasted at 300F with the fan on until it hit 140F in the thigh and then basted once more with olive oil and finished at 400F with the fan on for 10 more minutes to brown the skin. Rotated every 30 minutes. Total cook time about 3:15. The reason I know all the details: fooling with the turkey is one of those few tasks delegated to The Kitchen Bitch.

And because there is never enough dark meat on a turkey for anyone at our table, here are 8 more thighs, also brined and roasted, along with the roasted neck and gizzard, both of which went into the gravy.

Speaking of gravy, here is my masterwork in action. Pan drippings from the turkey and the thighs, the leftover pancetta-sage compound butter, turkey stock that we made two weeks ago in anticipation of gravy, extra pancetta and sage, turkey fat from roasting the birds, and flour. Super incredible! The only issue—salt. Because the turkey had been brined, the drippings were already salty. No need for salt in the gravy.

And the vehicle to carry the gravy: Ann's incredibly delicious bread and saltine cracker (yes, you read correctly) dressing. Because she made one with and one without mushrooms (thanks, sweetie!), I spent a good while the night before prepping leeks, celery, and onions for the stuffing. The result is well worth it. This is a dressing for the ages, light, airy, and incredibly flavorful. Primo stuff!

Here are the gorgeous baby carrots just out of the boiling water. Big thanks to Bob Aberegg at Stoney Lane Farm in Hedgesville, WV for these beauties! The only downside to baby carrots: the prep work. It took me 35 minutes to prep all these.

And here they are after Ann glazed them with butter and agave nectar. A fresh carrot is an awesome carrot and these were so incredible that there were none left.

And from Kent Barley in Marlboro come these spectacular baby brussels sprouts, blanched and sautéed with pancetta and sliced shallots. Never was there a finer thing to grace a Thanksgiving plate! The sprout crop has been terrible this year and beg, beg, beg I had to, to receive these. Kent, my hat is off to you!

Ann's "bistro" mash, half redskins and half sweet potatoes. I wasn't sure I was going to like this amalgamation, but it turned out super and the old chef has learned a new trick. Not, not, not that I am of a mind to serve mash at Thanksgiving. Mash at Christmas, yes, de rigueur; mash at Thanksgiving, weird. This has been an ongoing mock battle between Ann and me for weeks (years?). According to a non-scientific survey at the dinner table, I am in the minority. Just about everyone else expects mash at Thanksgiving. Weird, I still say!

For some reason, cranberry sauce was not in Ann's plan. But it got there in the end! This is my old standby recipe of oranges, cranberries, and sugar. There is no finer or easier cranberry sauce recipe anywhere.

And before we move on to dessert, here's Patty filling up her plate with all the delish veg. I should give a shout out here to Beth and Gene Nowak of Mayfair Farm in Bunker Hill, WV, who supply almost all our fruits and vegetables for home and for the restaurant. Any vegetable not attributed to anyone else came from Freight Station Farmers Market thanks to Beth and Gene.

Now I am decidedly not a dessert person, so dessert rarely figures into my holiday planning. Of course it would not be Thanksgiving without way too many desserts. Thanks, thanks, thanks go to Jen and Dewi for their handiwork that made a fine dessert table in the company of Ann's pumpkin cheesecake.

Ann pulling caramel swirls through her maple-pumpkin cheesecake with spiced wafer and pecan crust. The cake as it appeared on the dinner table had piped rosettes of sour cream around the top edge. Very light and delicious, though I am a bit jaded about cheesecakes, having turned out many hundreds in the last year. Great job Ann!

Jen's molasses cookies. These are incredible. They looked so good that I sampled a tiny bite of one and they are easily the best that I have ever tasted. Bravo.

Spice cake cupcakes, as delicious as they are pretty. I failed to get a picture of the beautiful gingerbread cake baked in a Bundt (remember My Big Fat Greek Wedding anyone?) pan with homemade lemon curd.

And finally, pecan pie truffles from Jen and Dewi who outdid themselves. Four desserts? Who makes four desserts to take to Thanksgiving dinner? Awesome.