Wine and Beans

After a long flirtation with beer in Bend, we are back to wine.

Bend has more brewpubs than I can shake a stick at, and—let's face it—after five years in the wine industry drinking nothing but Pinot and barrel sample after barrel sample, a beer tasted good, damn good.

In the last couple of years, we have discovered Viaggio Wine Merchant and become regulars. Regulars to the point that we invited the crew for dinner. An everybody bring a bottle kind of dinner. I made a cassoulet, a perfect foil for a bunch of hearty wine on a cold day.

The Crew

I gave up on trying to get people to pose for a photo, so I snapped the one above where only Butch is listening to my plea to face the camera. I managed to get me and Gordon framed in the mirror.

Mushrooms for the Crostini

Mushroom Crostini with Taleggio

Cooking Chicken Livers, Shallots, and Thyme for
Chicken Liver Mousse (not shown)

Ten Places is a Stretch for our Dining Room

Look at the Crust on This Cassoulet

This cassoulet just started going right from the get-go. It's all down to the super-concentrated stock that I made the day before. All that gelatin started browning in the first hour. I forget how many punchdowns this went through, six or eight, no doubt.

Rogue's Gallery

It was a good night. Right to left: Force Majeure Parvata Red Mountain 2021, Nicolas-Jay Chardonnay Affinités Willamette Valley 2022, Williams & Selyem Zinfandel Bacigalupi Vineyard Russian River 2022, Domaine Guiberteau Saumur Les Chapaudaises 2018, Sylvain Pataille Bourgogne Aligoté La Charme aux Prêtres Marsannay 2022, Quinta do Vesuvio Porto 1991, Sealionne Syrah-Viognier Floyd Walla Walla 2023.

I am fairly certain everyone's favorite was the Guiberteau Saumur in magnum, one of the best Cab Francs I have tasted.

Mandarinquats and Sumo Citrus

Jenny was so kind as to bring us a bag of citrus that I got into after everyone left. I had never had mandarinquats (super-sweet rind, super-sour flesh) or sumo citrus (all around delicious) before.

Cooking up a Birthday Dinner

Annie had yet another birthday to celebrate and because we had just days before gone out to pretty much the only restaurant we like for our anniversary, we decided to stay in and celebrate with a nice meal here at home, just the two of us and Rob and Dyce.

I was motivated to cook. Coming off a busy summer and a three-week trip to Iceland, I really had not cooked a decent meal in months. I am not talking day-to-day cooking which is generally a one-pan meal that takes 15 to 30 minutes to prep. Post-restaurant, a one-pan meal is about all I am inclined to make without some special reason. Ann's birthday provided just such a special reason to put some effort into planning and cooking.

Another Birthday in the Books
Celebrating with Diebolt-Vallois Brut Rosé

The menu was inspired by Ann's recent dental work that left her unable to chew on one side, requiring food that is soft in texture. I do not find restrictions like this a problem. On the contrary, boundaries, such as a vegetarian meal or soft foods as in this case, help me narrow the focus.

Left to my own devices, I could come up with way too many ideas, which is why at the restaurant, trips to the farmers market or walking through our pantry were most helpful in designing a menu for the night. They helped narrow the scope to ingredients that were immediately available. Though many cooks find "Chopped" types of competitions where they must use a specific set of ingredients to be too restrictive, I thrive on it.

For this birthday dinner, I imposed another restriction: the menu should involve as little à la minute, last-minute, cooking as possible so that I could spend time with our guests rather than at the stove. And like an idiot, I got so wrapped up in entertaining that I forgot to take pictures during dinner.

In creating the menu, the restriction to soft-textured foods screamed braised meat to me and what better to accompany braised meat than risotto? A soft dessert would be something like a pudding and do you know a simpler or better-loved pudding-like dish than crème brûlée?

For the starter course, a recent inventory of the pantry left me thinking about a bag of white beans, so a white bean soup would start the meal off. My initial thought was a white bean and rosemary cream with some kind of seafood garnish, something that would pair well with a white wine. And as the recent days were warm, I was thinking a room temperature soup with a cool garnish, a crab salad or something else that Ann could chew easily.

Naturally, a menu is also a reflection of the ingredients that are available at any given time. In this small city in the middle of nowhere, hours from any big city, I must design meals around the products that are available, rather than the products I wish were available. For example, there is no good source of seafood here in the high desert, nor is there acceptable rice for risotto. I order my rice from the internet.

Moreover, in my shopping, I knew I would never find ossobuco or lamb shank to braise; however, Costco sometimes has beef ribs. I got lucky and I bought one of their two packages of beef plate ribs. Plan C would have been to score a chuck roast and shred it into the risotto after braising. In the freezer section at the grocery, I also found serendipitously a package of frozen marrow bones while looking for stock bones.

A bonus, the marrow would finish the risotto with butter and cheese in the mantecare stage, the final stage when fat is stirred into the cooked rice to enrich it. After removing the marrow from the bones, I would contribute the marrow bones to the stock pot. The resulting stock would be the liquid in which I would braise the ribs. And then all the braising liquid would ultimately become a sauce for the ribs and risotto.

This menu naturally divided itself into two day's of work. The first day, I would make the stock, cook the white beans for the soup, and bake the crème brûlée, leaving the oven free the next day to braise the ribs. In addition to braising the ribs, the second day would see me finish the bean soup, design a garnish for the soup, and make the sauce for the beef after the ribs were cooked.

Ann thinks that this is a lot of work, but more than anything, it is a lot of small steps, steps that I scheduled around working in the office and taking walks. I do not look at cooking meals such as this as work.

Cooking Marrow Bones, Chuck, and Veg for Stock

Deglazing the Roasting Pan

To start the stock, I browned the ribs in a roasting pan to start creating a fond, brown bits, on the bottom of the pan. After they cooled, I refrigerated them to braise the next day. To the roasting pan, I added stock vegetables (onion, carrot, and celery), beef chuck, and the marrow bones. It took about 45 minutes in a very hot oven to roast and brown everything on all sides, with one or two turns.

After roasting the marrow bones, I scooped out the marrow and refrigerated it for finishing the risotto. Then all the bones, meat, and vegetables went into a stock pot with a couple of smashed cloves of garlic still skin-on, the peels and trimmings from the stock vegetables, a sprig of rosemary, a couple sprigs of thyme, a bunch of parsley stems, and the outer leaves from a leek.

And I threw in a wee bit of chef magic as well: a tablespoon of estratto di pomodoro (rich Sicilian tomato paste) and some dried porcini powder/bits from the bottom of the canister. Neither will be detectable in the final sauce but will add great umami. Deep flavor does not happen spontaneously; it is a thoughtful process of layering flavors.

When roasting vegetables and bones for stock, the idea is to cook them long enough not only to caramelize them, but to build up a good fond, the glaze of brown bits on the bottom of the roasting pan. After removing the roasted ingredients to the stock pot, I deglazed the roasting pan with water, scraping well to clean the bottom. All that caramelized goodness brings incredible flavor to the stock.

The dark and flavorful deglazing liquid went into the stock pot along with beef stock. Using a stock to make another stock is called a double stock; double stocks have additional depth of flavor over single stocks. In this case, for the first meal after the weather turned cold (snow on the mountains!), I wanted a dish that was deep and rich in flavor, ultra-comforting, and pairable with a Châteauneuf-du-Pape-style red wine. I chose an Italian blend that I find pairs comparably to CdP, a Valpolicella Classico Superiore. Valpolicella does not get a lot of love, but there are some great ones out there.

The stock simmered for most of the day before I strained it, reserved the chuck for another meal, and put the strained stock in the fridge to cool overnight to solidify the fat floating on top.

The next day, to start the braise, I cut some mirepoix (an onion, a large carrot, and stalk of celery) into medium dice. I sweated the vegetables with a stalk of rosemary and a couple of minced cloves of garlic in an enameled cast iron cocotte. Removing the rosemary, I added the gelled stock from which I had removed the congealed layer of fat. Arranging the ribs in the cocotte, I covered it and put it in a slow (275F) oven at noon, planning to serve the ribs around 1900.

Second Day: Adding Defatted Beef Stock to Sautéed Mirepoix

Beef Ribs Seared and Ready to Braise

Braised Ribs, Held Hot for Service

Not knowing how long the ribs would take to cook I checked them every half hour after three hours in the oven. They were perfect, soft and succulent, in four hours. I removed them to a half pan, covered the pan with film, and put it back in the oven to hot hold until dinner. The Keep Warm setting on my oven keeps them about 170F, above the temperature danger zone limit of 140F. The FDA Food Code changed this some years ago to 135, but I am an old school chef who learned 140.

I planned to keep the vegetables in the braising liquid as part of the final sauce, a rustic touch rather than a fine dining touch. Other options would be to strain them out or blend them in. After transferring the braising liquid to a sauce pan, I could see a half-inch or so of grease on top of the would-be sauce, so using a 2-ounce ladle, I carefully defatted the sauce.

Bringing the braising liquid to a simmer, I brought it down to the final volume of sauce that I wanted, carefully skimming any film and fat that rose to the surface. Once at the final volume, I decided that I wanted the sauce thicker. At this point, I could have thickened the sauce by blending in the vegetables, the cuisine minceur technique unabashedly stolen from Michel Guérard, (RIP chef) or using the traditional method, adding bits of beurre manié, equal parts of butter and flour kneaded together. I chose the latter.

On to the soup course which I planned to make with fagioli di Controne which Ann gave to me as a surprise. They are labeled no-soak and so I thought that would be a great time saver in making the soup base. These are a rare heirloom bean reportedly of thin skin and great flavor. I was excited to try them.

Fagioli di Controne, "No-Soak" My Ass

Beans, Sprig of Rosemary, Two Cloves Garlic, Ready to Cook

All I can say is that it is a good thing that I cooked the beans the day before, starting early in the morning. At seven hours in, they were still crunchy. Finally, they softened after eight hours and to get to the super soft stage that I wanted for a cream soup required nine hours and 15 minutes. Never again will I fall for the no soak baloney. That said, they do have thin skins and excellent flavor, but they are no easier to cook than any other dried bean.

The next day, I made the soup base by blending the beans to silky smooth in my big blender which does such an excellent job that I had no need to pass the beans through a chinois to make them silky. For service, I warmed the bean purée with a bit of heavy cream and adjusted the seasoning. Finding it a little flat, I added a couple of drops of Sherry vinegar to perk it up. The vinegar did its job admirably.

Lemon and Rosemary, Ready to Infuse into Cream

Back to the first day, after starting the stock and the beans cooking, I made the crème brûlée, choosing to flavor it with lemon and rosemary. To start, I brought two cups of 40% cream (the good stuff, compared to the garden variety 36%) to the scalding point with the zest of two lemons and a sprig of rosemary. After the cream cooled to the point where I could taste it, I added just enough sugar to barely sweeten it and make the flavorings sing. Adding a pinch of salt, I stirred to dissolve the sugar and the salt in the warm cream, then let the cream cool so that it would not curdle the egg yolks.

I strained the now lukewarm cream into a bowl containing 7 egg yolks (3 for each cup of cream, plus one for good luck, an admittedly rich custard base). After stirring well, I strained the custard yet again into a quart measure to remove any egg strands. In the absence of a sauce funnel which I would have used at the restaurant, a standard lipped measure let me pour the custard into the cups without dribbling all over the rims, a culinary faux pas.

I put the custard cups into a half pan before filling them, then to make a water bath, poured cold water in the half pan to come up to the level of the custard in the cups. Some people advocate using hot water but I think the product has better texture the slower it cooks, so I use cold water to retard the cooking.

Use the Torch to Pop Any Surface Bubbles

Before I bake any kind of custard, I run my torch lightly over the surface of the custard to pop any bubbles that may have formed during stirring or pouring. This is not necessary, but it will create a smooth finish rather than one pock-marked by bubbles that popped during baking. I put the custards into a moderate oven (350F) and checked them periodically. These took 35 minutes, all told.

To tell if the custards are done, grab one with tongs and give it a little shake. When the custards are set around the edges with only a quarter-sized spot in the center that is still loose, they are ready to come out of the oven. Remove from the water bath, dry them, wrap them individually with film, and refrigerate for service.

Moving on to the risotto: I discovered early in my planning that I did not have enough Arborio rice in the pantry for four servings, but too late to order some. Not to worry: Israeli couscous makes a fine fake risotto that people never fail to love. And unlike Arborio that I have to order in, I can buy Israeli couscous in bulk at my grocery. It is a pantry staple at our house.

Making the ersatz risotto milanese with Israeli couscous is identical to making the real thing, but just a little bit quicker, say 14-15 minutes versus 20. Start by sweating an onion and saffron in butter or olive oil, add the couscous and cook for a minute, then add chicken stock by dribbles, and cook until it is done, stirring and topping off the stock as necessary. When done, I stirred in a good bit of grated cheese, butter, and the bone marrow. Ann says she likes this better than with rice.

"Risotto Milanese"
Israeli Couscous with Bone Marrow

I needed to make a garnish for the soup. My original intent, when the weather was warm, was to serve a room temperature cream soup with a seafood salad for garnish. Then, the weather turned cold as it does this time of year, dictating a warm soup and warm garnish, turning my original idea on its head.

Fresh seafood of acceptable quality to a finicky chef is hard to find here and crab season closed in August, eliminating crab as a possibility. That left frozen seafood and I found some small white shrimp that would lend themselves to a salad. I had thought to chop them to help Ann chew them, but they were small enough to serve whole.

My working concept for the shrimp was inspired by the Italian white wine I had selected for the course, Roero Arneis. I would just barely cook them in olive oil, garlic, and a touch of tomato paste that would tint the oil red, to be drizzled on the soup for a contrasting garnish. However, during the course of the day, I kept coming back to the Sherry vinegar that I used to give the soup sufficient acid to perk it up, a Spanish touch and not an Italian one at all.

I hit on a warm salad dressing with Spanish flavors. Moments before serving, I cooked the shrimp in olive oil with a touch of pimentón de la Vera (smoked paprika) to give the oil the red color, then removed it from the pan. In went some shallots to just brown around the edges, then I splashed the pan with more Sherry vinegar to create a warm shallot-pimentón vinaigrette. I dressed the shrimp, so small that I really did not need to chop them as planned, with a bit of vinaigrette and used the remainder to drizzle on the soup for garnish.

Rob and Dyce Brought
André Clouet Un Jour de 1911 Champagne

While I was finishing the soup, we opened the bottle of André Clouet Un Jour de 1911 Champagne that Rob and Dyce brought. Made in a turn of the 20th century style, this wine is interesting, baked apples and yeast on the palate with a hint of oxidation. This is a much different wine than we usually drink and I enjoyed it because it was so different.

Shrimp and White Beans, Warm Shallot-Pimentón Vinaigrette
Served with Paitin Roero Arneis

Short Rib on Israeli Couscous "Risotto Milanese" with
Serego Alighieri Monte Piazzo Valpolicella Classico Superiore

Lemon-Rosemary Crème Brûlée

Happy Birthday to This Girl!

Wine Wednesday in McMinnville

Each summer we try to make one or more trips to our former home of McMinnville over in the Willamette Valley, about 3.5 hours from Bend, give or take, depending on weather and traffic. We go on Wednesday, stay the night, and after breakfast, go to the McMinnville Downtown Farmers Market and then drive home via Newberg to shop for seafood at Northwest Fresh Seafood. Good produce and seafood are hard to come by in the high desert.

Cheers from our McMinnville Favorite, Two Dogs Taphouse

Crossing the Cascades is always a crap shoot based on weather and traffic. Our prior crossing in June coming back from Bellingham went without a hitch, so this trip over, we were due for pretty much all the entries on our traffic bingo card: slow-ass hooptie RV about to tip over in the road, idiot's day out, and 10-miles following a baler and two hay rakes out of Amity, the baler tractor wider than a lane of the highway. We were really only lacking a tandem gas tanker with three miles of traffic behind it to score big.

Our Wednesday plan this trip was to leave late morning, grab lunch and a beer at Two Dogs Taphouse, see some of our old neighbors, check-in to our room at Douglas on Third, then have a light dinner and wine downstairs at HiFi Wine Bar.

After the incredibly slow trip over the mountains and the long, slow crawl into McMinnville behind tractors taking up both lanes of 99-W, we finally pulled into the parking lot behind Two Dogs on a mission to use the restroom, then get a beer and a burger. We were able to catch up with our friends on staff there before returning to our former neighborhood to harass Barb (who was out of town) and Pat and Mary Jo.

We were some of the first customers at Two Dogs when it opened when COVID was in full rampage and we were some of the last customers at their former location on 3rd Street before their landlords booted them out. Just days after they closed, we moved to Bend. In the intervening years, they moved into a new building at 4th and Evans across from the Yamhill County offices. We have been visiting the new building regularly as it has undergone a slow build-out. It is finally starting to acquire its own personality now, but we really do miss the old location. It was a fantastic space.

At Two Dogs: Detect a Dog Theme?

Directly Across from the Clerk's Office

Photos of Customers' Dogs

Twin New Yorkers

How Often is Someone Taller than Me?
Brady is Now Coaching Basketball at Mac High

After visiting with Pat and Mary Jo and getting introduced to their new dog, we made our way back downtown to our room at Douglas on Third, on the second floor above our destination for the night, HiFi Wine Bar. We were some of the first customers at HiFi when they opened and we go back regularly where we trust that Ben will find great wines for us to drink from their massive inventory of great wines.

HiFi is where the industry gathers to taste wines that are not local. After days of working with and tasting Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, wine industry folks really appreciate tasting something different. After tasting barrel samples and doing blending trials for days on end, your palate does get worn out. Mine certainly did. We call it cellar palate, a real fatigue than can make you immune to faults in your own wines compared to wines of other regions.

Tasting Chenin Blanc at HiFi

When we walked in (unannounced; we did not tell Ben we were coming), Ben greeted us effusively with a splash of Champagne while we pondered the list. As we were sitting on the couch up front, we noticed our insurance agent and his wife, Michael and Estelle, sitting at the bar. We caught up with them for a few minutes, not having seen them since we moved to Bend 3.5 years ago.

We Love the Grapevine Chandelier and Live-Edge Bar

We tasted some phenomenal wines. I selected the first wine, a beautifully crisp Anjou Blanc (Chenin Blanc) from Thibaut Boudignon, a master of Chenin and maker of killer Savennières. With food, we asked Ben to pick a Nebbiolo with the instructions, less extracted (more like Barbaresco than Barolo) and highly aromatic. He surprised us with a Valtellina. Most Valtellina is second-rate to Barolo and Barbaresco, but the 2017 Arpepe Valtellina Superiore Inferno was dynamite. I could wax poetic about the 2022 Domaine Fourrier Gevrey-Chambertin that tasted 100% like what it should, a stunning wine. Ann's favorite of the night and a revelation to her about how well Sauternes ages was the 1998 Château de Fargues, once the sister property of Yquem which now is in the LVMH portfolio.

2023 Boudignon Anjou Blanc
Beautifully Crisp and Affordable Chenin Blanc

2017 Arpepe Valtellina Superiore Inferno 'Fiamme Antichi'
Absolutely Top-Class Nebbiolo

2022 Domaine Fourrier Gevrey-Chambertin
Mind Blown! Such Classic Bourgogne

1998 Château de Fargues Sauternes Drinking Perfectly Now

After all these brilliant wines, we took leave of HiFi and walked upstairs to our room to call it a night. In the morning, we decided a big, late breakfast was just the thing because we would not be eating lunch. Ann suggested The Diner, a McMinnville favorite, and far enough off the beaten path (at the hospital) to be away from the tourists jamming the downtown restaurants. We always go there to get our tot fix: locals know to order tots there.

Breakfast at The Diner
My Usual: Chicken Fried Steak and Tots

Ann became ill during breakfast, so we scrapped going back into town to the market, instead continuing on to Newberg to get seafood before heading back south to Salem and home. We did not score all those delicious blackberries, marionberries, and blueberries that we hoped to at the market, but we did get some great fish and scallops for a moqueca on Saturday night with Michelle and Andreas.

Dimitri Comes to Bend

Surprise! Our friend Dimitri texted out of the blue on Monday that he and his friend Joe would be in Bend for the weekend. Dimitri still lives in Northern Virginia just outside of DC, so he was not on our bingo card for weekend visitors. He and Joe, a friend currently from Virginia but from Portland in the past, were flying into PDX. After visiting Oregon wine country and exploring Portland, they would be driving to Bend for a long weekend.

Mediterranean Crew: Greek, Italian, Italian

Dimitri and Joe had plans to dine out on Saturday at the same time we were at the Trevor Noah show at the amphitheater, so we set a get-together for Sunday starting with pre-game at Viaggio Wine Bar. We met them there after they returned from a day trip to Crater Lake, which if you have never seen before like Dimitri, I guess you have to see. But honestly, battling buses of tourists is not my thing and I would have preferred to visit Paulina Lake instead.

Dimitri and Joe are fellow winos, so we thought that a visit to Viaggio would be welcome. There, they could drool over the curated selection of bottles on the shelves and Coravin selections on the glass list. Where else can you find shelves full of Wachau and Kamptal Riesling, Piemonte wines of all sorts, or Rhônes for days? Maybe in large cities, but in the small city of Bend three hours in any direction from civilization, the selection at Viaggio is miraculous.

After a bottle of Pibarnon Bandol rosé, we drove to the house where all I had to do was assemble dinner. In planning dinner, I wanted something that I could put on the table with little to no effort. Gone are the days of à la minute cooking where cooking is the focus rather than our guests. Hence our menu of chips and salsa verde, enchiladas de carne adovada, and posole amarillo with bacon, corn, and green chiles. Ann made another summer berry and brioche pudding and I had plenty of lemon-thyme sorbet base in the fridge ready to go into the freezer.

How I arrived at this menu is anyone's guess. I was definitely looking for a slow-cooker meal that would not involve a lot of active cooking on my part. Probably in the back of my mind was the kilo of Chimayo chile that I scored in New Mexico in December. And then, I found some really good looking pork shoulder at the store. Also, who does not like enchiladas? Chips and salsa as well as posole are natural companions to carne adovada, so that part of the menu should not be a surprise.

Before we get into dinner however, Dimitri came bearing a gift, a 2014 Glen Manor Petit Verdot. I texted Jeff, "A friend showed up with a bottle of this," to which he replied, "Keep that friend!" I remember this wine. I believe I did a pairing for it for a barrel tasting. I could be wrong; 2015 was a hot minute ago.

Dimitri Brought Us a Gift

Chips and Charred Jalapeño Salsa Verde

My usual salsa verde is tomatillos (large can, drained), cilantro (one bunch), garlic (4 cloves), and a serrano chile. When I am lazy, I used canned tomatillos rather than roasting fresh ones. I am often lazy these days. I wanted to change it up a bit with some smokiness, so I charred two jalapeños and used them instead of the serrano. I also threw in an avocado and a pinch of smoked paprika for added smoke.

It was good, but next time, I want it smokier. Maybe I try using a charred poblano. Definitely will char fresh tomatillos on the next iteration. It will be a fun experiment. A batch of salsa verde or chimichurri is usually in our refrigerator: we eat a lot of vegetarian and fish tacos that benefit from salsa.

Saturday, I made a batch of slow cooker carne adovada. Like most dishes, I used no recipe for this super simple stew. I started by cutting the pork shoulder into large cubes, then browning one side of the cubes, followed by transferring them to the slow cooker as each batch browned. I want the flavor that browning creates, but I find that browning all sides of the meat tends to contribute to dryness. Browning one large side of the pork chunks suffices to yield both flavor and succulence.

After the meat was all browned, I added a diced onion to the pork pan along with call it a dozen minced cloves of garlic. Once the onions cooked, I added a a bit of Mexican oregano, rubbed between my palms into a powder, a lot of spicy ground Chimayo chile, and a lesser amount of ancho powder to add some balance to the Chimayo chile. The chile was probably a cup in total, 3/4 Chimayo and 1/4 ancho. After stirring this into the onions well, I added perhaps a couple cups of water, a splash of Sherry vinegar, and a small amount, perhaps a tablespoon, of agave nectar. Once this sauce came together, I poured it over the pork, stirred well, and put the slow cooker on.

I believe that adovada must have acidity; your grandmother may disagree as is her right. Not a lot of acidity, but some. So I always put a bit of vinegar in mine (as I do my Mexican-style chorizo). I also think that spicy Chimayo chile needs just a hint (below the taste threshold) of sweet to help mellow it, hence the agave.

When the pork was cooked, some six or seven hours later, I separated the liquid from the pork. I separated the meat and the cooking liquid for several reasons. With the liquid chilled, I could peel off the layer of pork fat that I did not want in my sauce (and use it to cook anything else; who does not love chile-flavored lard?). Because I was making enchiladas, I wanted a more solid filling that would not bleed through the tortillas. And, I wanted a thicker, more intense sauce to fold into the filling and to cover the tops of the enchiladas.

After defatting the cooking liquid, I reduced it as far as I could without it becoming too salty. I salted the pork cubes during browning. But it was a really mellow thin sauce after hours of braising and I wanted a thicker, more in-your-face chile sauce for the enchiladas. I made a quick paste of a tablespoon of flour (for thickening), half a cup of Chimayo chile, and a little of the reduced braising liquid. After stirring really well to remove all lumps, I stirred this slurry into the sauce and cooked it gently to thicken.

Enchilada Sauce, Thickened with Flour and Chimayo Chile

Once we got back to the house, assembly of the enchiladas was trivial. I mixed some of the carne adovada with some of the sauce and the meat shredded as I stirred it. After seasoning it to taste, I rolled the tortillas around this filling, placing them in an oiled half hotel pan, seam side down.

I digress, but this is my blog, so I will digress if I want to. When I retired from the restaurant, I kept one of the half hotel pans for my home kitchen. If you have worked in food service and are of a certain age, you will remember that hotel pans used to be thick and heavy, not thin and flimsy as they are today. I kept one of the old school thick pans for home use and I use it often. I had some really awesome hotel pans too, but they are far too large for home cooking.

I spooned more sauce over the top of the rolled tortillas to make them into true enchiladas ("sauced with chiles") and then scattered over just a bit of melting cheese. I used mozz, but any melting cheese such as queso chihuahua, queso quesadilla, queso oaxaca, queso asadero, or Monterey Jack would be perfect.

Posole Amarillo with Bacon, Green Chile, and Fresh Corn

I am a huge fan of hominy. I grew up on it, always fried in bacon grease as it is traditionally served in the South. It was good. When I was in grad school in Texas, I learned that the rest of the world does not see the dish the same as I grew up with. Posole is always always a stew with pork, red chile, and white hominy. It was good: I loved this stew at first bite. Then I went to New Mexico and found that they often serve a drier posole as a side dish, more akin to my southern hominy, but with local chiles. It was good. Then I started making casseroles of hominy bound with cream sauce. It too was good. What I figured out is that posole dishes are as numerous and varied as the people that make them. I feel free to riff on this ingredient in any way that seems appropriate to me.

Over the years, I learned that hominy is not always white. It is the color of the corn from which it is made and as we all know, corn comes in many shades: white, yellow, red, and purple. I have used the different colors for effect over the years. I used a lot of maíz morado, purple hominy, at the restaurant. This time, I felt like using yellow hominy.

This time, I fried up some bacon most of the way done, then added diced red onion and garlic and let that cook. Then I added the hominy and diced mild green chile (Anaheims that I torched on my patio). It too was good. I made it Sunday morning and refrigerated it. While the enchiladas were in the oven, I reheated the posole and sliced the kernels off two ears of corn. They went into the dish as a sweet counterpoint to the smoky green chile vibe going on. It was even better.

Enchiladas de Carne Adovada and Posole Amarillo

After dinner, it had cooled off enough to go outside so Ann put the tunes on out on the patio and we all took our dessert, summer berry pudding and lemon-thyme sorbet, outside. I opened a bottle of 1977 Warre's Port, because I save those kinds of wines for fellow winos like Dimitri and Joe. It was a great night!

Dessert on the Patio

Ann's Berry and Brioche Pudding

Lemon-Thyme Sorbet with Summer Berry Pudding