Super Bowl Dip

After many years of cord cutting, we're finally able to watch the Super Bowl at home for the first time in ages. When we realized this, of course, we had to have some food to go along with the game. Pretty much immediately, I thought of the quasi-traditional 7-layer dip that so many people serve. And I asked myself, "How can it make it tastier and more fun?"

Ready to Watch the Super Bowl

I spent a little time thinking about what might comprise the layers in the dip and started making a list of things that individually would be really good with nacho chips.

You can see what I came up with from bottom to top in the photo above:

• Chipotle-Garlic-Bacon Frijoles Refritos. I debated the longest time about what kind of beans to use for the refritos, finally settling on pintos rather than either black beans or mayocobas. Traditionally, beans are refried in lard which I don't have on hand. Rather, I fried up a few slices of bacon and put the cooked pintos, a couple finely chopped chipotles, and rather a large amount of minced garlic into the bacon grease. After I mashed the beans to smooth and cooked them until they separated from the edge of the pan, I chopped the bacon and added it to the beans before seasoning them.

• Salsa Fresca. My fresh salsa is easy to make and delicious, consisting of finely chopped grape tomatoes (in lieu of large tomatoes in the late summer), white onion, cilantro, a finely minced jalapeño, with lime juice and salt to taste.

• Tinga de Pollo. I haven't made this delightful taco filling in a few months and I don't know why as it couldn't be simpler. To prepare it, I place slabs of onion in the bottom of a roasting pan, then layer on a bunch of chicken thighs lightly dusted with a spice mix of New Mexican ground chile, cumin, granulated garlic, salt, and Mexican oregano. The thighs roast until they are done and ready to come off the bone. After they cool, I pick the meat off the bones and add it to half the onion slabs that I have roughly chopped. The other half of the onions goes into the blender with a couple of chipotles en adobo and a small can of tomatoes. After I blitz the sauce, I pour it over the chicken and onion mixture and cook it down until most of the liquid is evaporated to make a delicious taco filling.

• Queso Fundido. Who doesn't like a gooey queso with chips? There are all kinds of ways to make queso fundido (melted cheese) but honestly, the easiest is just to throw some Velveeta and a little milk into the microwave. I added pickled jalapenos and chopped pickled nopalitos to the queso to give it a bit of zing.

• Chorizo. Mexican chorizo may be my favorite taco filling, especially when mixed with eggs. No eggs in this batch of chorizo, however, that I made from pork shoulder, ground Chimayo chile, cumin, garlic, salt, Mexican oregano, and a touch of red wine vinegar for acidity.

• Guacamole. It wouldn't be a Super Bowl dip at all without guacamole. The avocados are tiny now and hard as bricks, so I bought a bunch of them and kept them on the counter for a week to ripen. I made the simplest guacamole ever from avocados, salt, and lime juice, just looking for a nice citrus flavor to lift the rest of the heavy ingredients.

• Cotija Cheese. Grated cotija serves the same role in Mexican cuisine as pecorino does in Italian. I wanted it not only for its white color to serve as a backdrop for the top garnishes, but also to add a bit of saltiness to the dip.

• Top Garnish. The point of gilding this particular lily was to bring to freshness to the rest of the ingredients. On the top, I spooned on the remainder of the salsa fresca and scattered over some sliced green onions. Before topping the whole with a little bouquet of whole cilantro leaves, I used a squeeze bottle to drizzle on a crisscross of thinned chipotle sour cream.

Black-Eyed Pea and Corn Filé Gumbo

I have always loved black-eyed peas. Not only are they part and parcel of my Southern heritage, but they are also delicious, easy to grow, and easy to shell. 

Black-Eyed Pea and Corn Filé Gumbo

Black-eyed peas are very different from beans even though the two are used in the same ways; they belong to two different botanical families. While beans are decidedly New World, field peas such as black-eyed peas come from the Old World, West Africa to be precise. All the types of field peas are lumped into the term cowpea (from their heritage as animal fodder).

I have eaten all manner of cowpeas under many names and in many colors and shapes, such as crowder peas, Sea Island red peas, black-eyed peas, cream peas, lady peas, and pink eye peas. Culinarily, they are interchangeable and for my taste, the fresh green versions are better than the dried versions. At least, they are very different in flavor profile. A green black-eyed pea will be very mild and quick cooking; dried black-eyes are deep and rich in flavor and need long cooking.

It being just after the first of the year, black-eyed peas have been on my mind. For us Southerners, a batch of black-eyed peas are required dining to bring good luck for the forthcoming year. For various reasons, I did not make my usual New Years' black-eyed peas, so I wanted to rectify that.

As I was walking the grocery store recently, the idea of a black-eyed pea and corn gumbo sprang into my mind unbidden and I stopped by the freezer aisle to score a couple bags of frozen green black-eyed peas and frozen sweet corn kernels. Both of these vegetables freeze well and are among the only frozen vegetables that I use (the odd bag of  pearl onions aside).

Last night was an opportune moment to make said gumbo and so I started as I do all my gumbos by making a roux. Not wanting to set off the smoke detectors in the house, I kept my roux to medium brown, about two-thirds of the way to being a black roux.

A gumbo roux is one part each of fat and flour, heated while stirring, until the flour browns to the shade that you require. The rule of thumb is that the lighter the protein (chicken, seafood) the darker the roux and the darker the meat (venison, pork) the lighter the roux. Back in 2008, I did a pictorial on making roux, if you want to see the process in action.

The next step in making a gumbo for me is to add the trinity (mirepoix, the Cajun holy trinity: onions, peppers, and celery) to the roux which stops the roux from browning further and starts to cook the vegetables. I used one and a half poblano peppers, two stalks of celery, one really large onion, one half a bunch of green onions, and about six cloves of garlic, minced.

After stirring the vegetables in, I added about a quarter cup of my home-grown Cajun spice mix and let it cook briefly before adding a quart of water. If I had a good vegetable stock, I would have used that instead of water. I turned the heat down and left the stew base to simmer for a half an hour at which point, I added two bags of frozen black-eyed peas and let them cook until they were tender, about twenty minutes. After the gumbo cooks for a while, the oil that you used in the roux will gather on top and you can ladle it away.

To finish the gumbo, I added the corn and then I seasoned and thickened it. In terms of thickening gumbo, there are two methods, one from African slaves and one from indigenous tribes. Now would be a good time to mention that gumbo derived from the Angolan word kingombo, meaning okra, The first means of thickening is to add sliced okra to the stew and let it cook in well. The okra will largely disintegrate and all its (frankly, nasty) mucilaginous interior will thicken the stew.

The second method, from the Choctaw tribes native to the Gulf South, is to stir in filé powder, ground sassafras leaves. Sassafras is a small shrub/tree native to the southeast, a shrub whose roots and bark make a nice tea and whose leaves lend a spicy herbal note to dishes, reminiscent to me in some ways of thyme.

I am not the world's biggest okra fan, having had to eat way too much of it as a child and worse, having had to pick it daily as a child. Cutting okra is an unpleasant experience. It grows in hot humid places such as Alabama where I spent my teenage years. And the head-high plants are horribly irritating to your exposed skin, especially when exacerbated by the inevitable sweat born of such a climate.

Although I could have bought sliced and frozen okra at the grocery store, where it is neatly stacked alongside the black-eyed peas, my aversion to it leads me to thicken my gumbos with filé powder whose flavor I prefer. My mother mostly used okra (duh, they had a freaking garden full of it) and sometimes she committed the culinary faux pas of using both okra and filé powder simultaneously, something that could result in your excommunication from the Southern fraternity in certain areas.

I will say that I do love fried okra, just not the boiled crap that my mother insisted I eat or go hungry. Going hungry was very tempting, I must say.

At the last moment, I stirred in a good bit of salt, filé powder, and the frozen corn. I turned off the heat and let the gumbo stand for five minutes to let the corn warm through. Sweet corn kernels need no cooking at all. And there you have it, a quick gumbo of black-eyed peas and corn.

Roasted Stuffed Artichokes

Ann and I, we love artichokes but we rarely eat fresh ones, mainly relying on canned hearts. This is due to two things really: in our mountainous cold region, it is hard to find good quality artichokes and preparing artichokes (other than simply boiling them) is a lot of tedious work. In other words, it is only worth the effort to prep artichokes if they are great quality, which we never find.

Stuffed Roasted Artichokes

I shouldn't say never, because last week when I hit the store, they had a huge pile of giant green globe artichokes that were amazingly fresh. The cut ends were still fresh and green. And they were so new in the store that there were not any price signs displayed yet. I grabbed four huge chokes, price be damned. Looking at the receipt, they were less than $2 each.

Artichokes come from California where spring is the prime season, from March through May, but there is, in some years such as this, a fairly decent winter season as well. These artichokes showed evidence of frost, their outer petals bronzed and slightly blistered from the cold, but I have never been one to shy away from a vegetable because of its looks.

In fact, at the restaurant, we would take bushels of blemished vegetables from our growers to keep them from becoming pig or chicken food. Customers at the farmers markets wouldn't buy the ugly vegetables and fruit, but the look in no way impacts the flavor and it would be a shame to waste all that food.

Anyway, some marketing type at the big artichoke grower decided to turn the frostbitten artichokes into a "thing" and built a somewhat brilliant campaign around them. They're calling them "Frost Kissed" and claim that they taste better because of the cold weather. I could care less. A beautiful fresh artichoke is a beautiful fresh artichoke, regardless of the color of the bits that you have to trim off anyway. But where I win is that their marketing campaign has made it such that our retail grocer is willing to bring them in so that I and other artichoke hounds can buy them.

Boiling artichokes and having each diner peel his own can be fun, but when I have really fresh and beautiful artichokes, I want to roast them to help bring out the nuttiness. I decided that I would trim the toughest parts of the leaves off the artichokes, peel down the stems, and cut them in half vertically.

After using a spoon to scrape out the chokes from on top of the hearts and using my fingers to pull out the prickly inner leaves topped with pink and purple thorns, I stuffed the artichokes with a mix of whole peeled garlic cloves, capers, and chopped Italian parsley, topped with a pat of butter. Then I drizzled the artichokes with extra virgin olive oil and a sprinkling of salt, then put a slice of lemon atop each.

Artichoke Halves Stuffed with Peeled Garlic Cloves, Capers, and
Italian Parsley, Topped with Butter, Lemon, and Olive Oil

After covering the pan with aluminum foil to help steam the artichokes, I put them into a moderate (350F) oven for an hour. Then I mixed up a bit of panko, grated pecorino romano, and a bit of fennel pollen with a glug of olive oil. I spooned this mixture onto the artichokes and ran them under the broiler for a minute or two to brown nicely. Et voilà!

After Broiling the Panko Mix

Artichokes are a lot of work, no doubt. But taking advantage of really fresh artichokes makes that work really rewarding.

Late January Dinner

In the past several months, we've pretty much stopped going out to eat at restaurants around Bend. The lousy food we have had in the past couple of years has made us really tired of spending a lot of money with almost no return. For myriad reasons, quality and consistency of restaurant food is lacking and so for our special meals lately, Ann and I have been cooking at home and inviting friends over to dinner.

This past weekend, I really had no overarching theme for the menu; I simply wanted to use (and use up) items that we had on hand already. In addition to a bunch of stuff to use up in the refrigerator, we have a pretty robust pantry that includes a great many items that we can use to cook whatever it is that we want.

Ann was in charge of cocktails and dessert. For cocktails, she made us one of her favorites, dirty martinis with blue cheese-stuffed olives. I am sorry to say that white liquor isn't my jam and although the cocktails were well made, I just couldn't drink mine and opened a bottle of Crémant d'Alsace to go with my appetizer. As much as I would like to be a martini guy, I am resigned to never being one.

Lovely Dirty Martini

Blue-Cheese Stuffed Olives

For appetizers, I had more Scottish cold-smoked salmon and sea trout caviar leftover from our aborted New Year's Eve celebration that I wanted to clear out of the refrigerator. So I envisioned an appetizer of smoked salmon, smoked salmon mouse, and sea trout caviar that is similar in many ways to the smoked salmon smørrebrød that I made a couple of weeks back when we got pounded by snow. Because this appetizer needed to be gluten-free, I cut cucumbers on the bias to mimic crostini. 

Smoked Salmon, Smoked Salmon Mousse, and Sea Trout Caviar

For the main part of our meal, it was pretty much a no-brainer that we were going to have pork tenderloin. A recent foray to Costco saw a package of four tenderloins come home, two of which were salted away in the freezer, leaving two more in the fridge that needed to be cooked. I decide to stuff a tenderloin with goat cheese and spinach and wrap it in prosciutto, a technique that I developed for the restaurant and which is documented in a separate post for anyone curious about how to do it.

The beauty of this dish is three-fold: it looks a lot more complicated to pull off than it is, it looks beautiful, and you can prep it well in advance, leaving only the final roasting to be done and freeing up your time to visit with your guests.

Searing the Prosciutto-Wrapped Stuffed Pork Tender
(cut in half so it would fit into the pan)

Seared Pork Tenderloin Rolls, Prepped in Advance, Ready to Roast

To accompany the pork, I turned to our pantry where I found the tail end of three separate bags of Arborio rice that I wanted to use or consolidate. Moreover, we just ran out of dried porcini and ordered a new bag which is more than will fit into the canister. I wanted to use the overflow that would not fit in the canister and so it seemed pretty natural to make an earthy risotto to go with the pork.

One of the neat things about risotto is that you can par-cook the base about ten minutes and let it cool. This then means that it will only take 8-10 minutes to have the risotto ready. In other words, all I had to do when guests were over was spend ten minutes at the range finishing the risotto while the pork roast cooled and rested. I spent the rest of my time socializing and enjoying the evening.

I get really tired of chefs making out like risotto needs some kind of crazy voodoo to pull off correctly and that it takes far too long to prepare to put it on the menu. In fact, I have good friends who run a restaurant whose menu claims that a simple plate of risotto will take the kitchen 45 minutes to make, and oh by the way, that will be $45 for the plate. Ridiculous. I love you guys, but that's ridiculous.

Spinach and Goat Cheese Stuffed Pork Tenderloin on Porcini Risotto

Ann asked also that I reprise the salad that I made last weekend and I obliged her. She just really loved the combination of ingredients: greens, spiced pecans, pomegranate seeds, and pickled shallots all combined with a pomegranate-pickled shallot vinaigrette. You can find all the salad magic covered in prior posts: spicing pecans, pickling shallots, and making the vinaigrette. 

Greens with Pickled Shallot and Pomegranate Vinaigrette

In keeping with the theme of using up, I remembered that for the holidays, Ann had prepped a batch of her delicious shortbread made with orange zest, rosemary, olive oil, sea salt, and very little sugar. Unfortunately, she became sick before she could do all the baking that she wanted to do. I suggested that we take the remaining log of dough from the freezer, cut it into discs, bake them, and then dip the shortbread cookies in melted chocolate for an easy finish to dinner. I sliced; Ann baked; I melted the chocolate and dipped the cookies; and Ann applied sea salt to the chocolate. Tag team and done!

Chocolate-Dipped Orange-Rosemary-Olive Oil Shortbreads

As a final thought, I love having leftovers in the refrigerator that can be repurposed into another meal. The following evening, I formed some of the leftover risotto into cakes that I crusted in a pan while gently rewarming the two remaining slices of stuffed pork tenderloin. While I poached four eggs, I whipped up a little of my pimentón sauce with which to finish our dinners of leftovers.

Leftovers: Stuffed Pork Tenderloin and Risotto Cake
Topped with Poached Eggs and Pimentón Sauce 

How To: Prosciutto-Wrapped, Stuffed Pork Tenderloin

For some cooking tasks, pictures are far more instructive than words. In fact, when I was a young pup teaching myself the rudiments of classical cuisine—I never went to culinary school; they did not exist back then—I learned a massive amount from Jacques Pépin to whom I owe a great debt. Chef Pépin published a photographic book of cooking techniques called La Technique that helped me learn so many things that were then new to me, all by way of pictures.

How to stuff a tenderloin and wrap it in prosciutto is such task that would benefit from a pictorial essay. For dinner the other night, I stuffed a pork tenderloin with spinach and goat cheese and then wrapped it in prosciutto, taking a few photos to illustrate the concept.

This stuffed pork tenderloin is a direct outgrowth of the prosciutto-wrapped rabbit loin that I used to make at the restaurant, pictured below with haricots verts, butternut squash cream, and black trumpet mushrooms. The rabbit loin is stuffed with a layer of leafy green (varied from season to season) and then a layer of fresh goat cheese, direct from the farm that supplied us with cheese and goat meat. This particular photo would have been a fall version of the dish as butternut squash and black trumpets are not in season until the fall.

Prosciutto-Wrapped Rabbit Loin

Because rabbits are so small, they have tiny loins. Two loins put together is barely enough to feed an adult, so stuffing a single piece as I did for the pork tenderloin is out of the question. The piece of rabbit would be too tiny to stuff and insufficient to feed an adult.

Loins run along the back of the animal from the shoulder to the tail. In rabbits, the shoulder end is fairly chunky while the tail end tapers to a fine point. When you open the loin up like a book with your knife and then gently pound it to flatten it, you get a very long and narrow triangular piece of meat.

To make a piece of meat that you can stuff and roll, you place the two triangles side by side with the large end of one loin next to the pointed end of the other, as you can see below.

Once you do this, you require a means to hold the two pieces of loin together once rolled. I hit upon the idea of wrapping the whole thing inside prosciutto. When protein cooks, it shrinks and tightens, so when the prosciutto cooks, it snugs the whole roll. It also tastes great and looks beautiful as you can see in the photo of the rabbit loin above.

A quick word about loin versus tenderloin. This post is about a pork tenderloin, but the discussion above is about rabbit loin. The loin runs from shoulder to tail on the outside of the back on top of the ribcage and is sometimes known as backstrap. The tenderloin runs the same way, but under the ribcage inside the body cavity. The tenderloins are much, much smaller than the loins.

By virtue of the large size of a pig, a tenderloin is sufficient to feed four people whereas two loins of rabbit are enough for one person. Regardless, this technique applies equally to loins and tenderloins.

Untrimmed Pork Tenderloin

First, remove the silverskin from the loin with a very sharp knife. I'm assuming that if you're reading this post other than for entertainment, you already own a good knife, have decent knife skills, and can find and remove the silverskin and excess fat from the tenderloin. 

Next, trim the really pointy last inch or so off the tail of the tenderloin and slice along one side of the loin about one centimeter (3/8") from the cutting board. Open up the tenderloin and continue to slice and unroll it until you have a rectangular sheet of meat one centimeter thick, as shown in the photo below.

Trimmed and Unrolled Tenderloin

Pound the tenderloin gently to ensure that it is even thickness and to enlarge it a bit.

Gently Pounded Tenderloin

Next, lay down a layer of film wrap on your cutting board and on top of the film, lay down a layer of overlapping slices of prosciutto as wide as the piece of tenderloin is long and tall enough to be about three inches more than the width of the tenderloin.

Lay Down Film First, Then Prosciutto

Place the tenderloin on top of the prosciutto with the tenderloin about at the edge of the prosciutto closest to you with all the excess prosciutto away from you.

Place Tenderloin on the Prosciutto; Season with Salt and Pepper

Season the tenderloin with salt and pepper, then put a thin layer of stuffing on top of the tenderloin, leaving some room at the edges. When you roll the tenderloin, the stuffing will naturally push out from the center.

In this case, I have used one 8-ounce stick of fresh goat cheese and a pound of baby spinach. I sautéed the spinach in olive oil with garlic, let it cool, squeezed out the excess liquid, and chopped it. Then I creamed together the cheese and spinach and seasoned it. You can use any filling you desire.

Spread on a Layer of Stuffing, Leaving Room at the Edges

Using the film wrap to help you, start to roll the edge of the tenderloin away from you. If you've ever rolled a burrito or maki sushi, you know the drill.

Start Rolling the Tenderloin Away From You

Continue rolling the tenderloin away from you. Use your fingers, protected by the film wrap, to snug the roll in on itself and keep it tight while you are rolling.

Continue Rolling the Tenderloin Evenly and Firmly

When you finish rolling the tenderloin, peel the film back towards you exposing the now prosciutto-covered roll.

Fully Rolled Tenderloin

Next, seal the roll. Use the film away from you to pull the tails of the prosciutto towards you to seal the roll. Alternatively, you can keep rolling the roll away from you to accomplish the same thing.

Seal the Roll

At this point, you are done. If you are using cheese in the stuffing, you might want to put the roll in the refrigerator to firm up again before cooking. Cooking is a two-step process for this pork tenderloin. First, sear the roll all the way around on the stove top and then roast in a moderate oven until done to your liking. If you don't have a pan wide enough to sear the entire roll, cut the roll in half as I did.

I don't bother with a thermometer when roasting a stuffed pork tenderloin because the center stuffing is already cooked and if you take your temperature in the stuffing, the thin layer of pork is likely to be overcooked. Rather, I give the loin a squeeze in the oven and take it out when it has firmed up all over. It should definitely rest for a good ten minutes or more before serving.

Final thought: if you stuff a rabbit loin, it really doesn't need much if any time in the oven after searing on the range top.

Finished Product: Stuffed Pork Tenderloin on Porcini Risotto

Pomegranate and Pickled Shallot Vinaigrette

I've made this pomegranate and pickled shallot vinaigrette a couple times recently and it is worth remembering for winter salads (when pomegranates are in season), hence this post. If I don't record this idea, it will disappear into the ether as my mind continues its unending quest for new foods and flavors.

Pomegranate and Pickled Shallot Vinaigrette

Pomegranate and Pickled Shallot Vinaigrette

This is a simple dressing that I typically make (as you see in the photo above) in a nearly empty mustard container using up the dregs of mustard in that container. I love whole grain mustard a lot and have a constant supply of jars that I have nearly emptied.

FWIW, I use Plochman's Stone Ground mustard; it's reliably stocked here in town and it comes in a reasonable size for someone who goes through a jar every two weeks. At the restaurant we used Maille whole grain mustard, but even though I prefer it, we can't get it here in Central Oregon.

Although you can make this dressing in your blender, I find that making it directly in the mustard container using an immersion blender is most efficient. If you're serious about cooking, investing in a good (say Waring Pro) immersion blender is a worthwhile expenditure (currently less than $150). There are applications such as making salad dressings and smoothing out soup on the stove top for which it is an invaluable tool.

The following recipe yields about a cup of dressing, enough for 2-4 salads. It will scale in pretty much direct proportion. This recipe uses a classic vinaigrette ratio of 1 part vinegar to 2 parts oil. You can certainly adjust that to your taste. I find that the Sherry vinegar and the pomegranates have enough acidity that I want to tame it with a bit of sugar. I use agave nectar because it blends in beautifully. You could use any source of sugar: honey, brown sugar, maple syrup, etc.

1/3 cup Sherry vinegar
2/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon whole grained mustard
1 pickled shallot (see recipe below)
1/4 cup pomegranate seeds
1 teaspoon agave nectar
1 pinch salt

Blend all ingredients well. The mustard will keep the dressing emulsified for a few hours. I find putting the lid on the mustard jar and shaking the dressing well will bring it back together, another reason I like the mustard jar method of making dressings at home. And of course, you can store any leftover dressing in the jar in the refrigerator.

Pickled Shallots

I never use a formal recipe for brines when I am making small batches of pickles. I make a brine that tastes good to me at the time and use that. For me, it's all about balancing acidity, sugar, and salt in a brine that tastes great.

Pickled Shallots

I start by peeling shallots, slicing them into rings, and placing them in heat-proof containers such as the half-pint canning jar that you see in the photo above. Then I make a brine that suits my taste, bring it to a boil, and pour it over the shallots to cover. The shallots can be eaten once they cool, but they do continue to get better as they sit in the brine. I make these pickles in small batches and I do not refrigerate them. I make no attempt to seal the containers either as this pickles are not designed for long storage. The jar that you see above, I made 4-5 weeks ago.

Basic Pickle Brine Ratio

Here is a basic pickle brine that you can use as the basis for your brine. Mix up a batch, taste it, and adjust it to your liking. You can flavor it with herbs and spices as you like. When I make pickles, I put fresh herbs directly in the jars with the ingredients to be pickled. When I use spices and dried herbs, I boil them in the brine for a while to extract their flavors.

1/2 cup apple cider vinegar

1/2 cup water

1 tablespoon kosher salt

1 teaspoon granulated sugar

This recipe makes a cup of brine. You can scale it in direct proportion for any amount of brine you desire. At the restaurant, we would make gallons at a time. We had a pickle shelf in our walk-in that was four-feet wide, six-feet tall, two-feet deep, and was loaded from top to bottom with pickles that we used for garnishes and on our charcuterie plates. There was almost nothing we wouldn't pickle in an effort not to waste a single thing that our producers brought to us.

Ersatz New Year's Eve, At Long Last

Ann and I had planned for much of the year with Rob and Dyce to go to their house on New Year's Eve to celebrate the change in years with them. They had stocked up on Champagne and caviar for the evening and we bought caviar to bring as well. And, I had planned quite an elaborate latke board to bring as well, because who doesn't like caviar on their latkes?

Caviar Feast

Rob and Dyce headed off to Italy for the holidays and on return, both were sick. And Ann was sick. And I threw out my back, again. And we kept putting off the caviar in hopes that we could all be well at the same time, at least well enough to enjoy the caviar.

Finally, after four or five delays, we managed to get together. Ann and I had long since consumed all the ingredients for the latke board, but we hung on to the caviar. And so it was that on Sunday night, now in late January, we got together for a very subdued celebration, it having been more than a month since we got together last.

Rob opened some really nice Champagne while we were there. Sadly because of the imminent threat of icy streets, I needed my wits about me and nursed a glass and a half over three hours.

Rob very kindly made some blini to go with the caviar while we brought along a big bag of potato chips and a ramekin each of dill-horseradish sour cream and saffron aїoli. Potato chips and caviar is a well-known pairing with Champagne and a bit of my saffron aїoli makes it just that much better. I made the aїoli knowing that Dyce is a fiend for it.

Rob Made Blini

Caviar Anyone?
(top left, clockwise) American Paddlefish, Sea Trout, White Sturgeon Royal, and White Sturgeon

A word about caviar. The caviar market has led to the terrible exploitation of several species of fish, most notably the assorted sturgeons from Eastern Europe and Russia. In fact, it is mainly illegal to harvest many species in these areas because of this rampant abuse. As a responsible restaurateur, I only sourced farmed caviar from reputable suppliers for the restaurant and I continue post-restaurant to do the same.

Rob is quite the caviar connoisseur and splurged for a couple of different tins of farm-raised White Sturgeon caviar from Sterling in California, our West Coast supplier of choice. Ann and I have had this caviar before for our own celebrations and it is a wonderful product. White Sturgeon, the primary sturgeon species in the US West, is not quite as good as either Beluga or Ossetra, but it tastes quite good, comes sustainably from fish also used for meat production, and is priced more affordably.

Knowing Rob was going to get sturgeon roe, I wanted to bring something different and so I turned to the Portland Maine-based supplier to my restaurant, Browne Trading Company. I got a tin each of American Paddlefish and Sea Trout caviar, both of which we used at the restaurant in addition to sturgeon.

Native to the Mississippi River basin, American Paddlefish is a threatened species that is now farmed, like White Sturgeon, for caviar. The Sea Trout caviar comes from Rainbow Trout farmed in the ocean off Denmark. The appeal of the Sea Trout caviar, besides its delightful salmon color, is its unique texture. Each egg pops when you eat it to release a delightful, but decidedly non-fishy, flavor. If you have ever balked at salmon caviar because of its fishiness, trout caviar will be a revelation.

In addition to our not having seen Rob and Dyce in more than a month, we have also missed seeing their kids Reilly and Lola, who wasted no time in greeting us at the door and keeping us company throughout the evening.

Princess Reilly

Lola Wants Snacks

I'm glad we finally got together to eat this caviar before it went bad. We're already talking about next New Year's Eve.