Sierra Foothills Wine Country

Hi, there! The cat did not fly away, she's just not been cooking too much recently, so there are no new recipes for now. However, the days are getting shorter, the weather is going to cool down next week, so I won't be able to survive on salads and wine, cheese and figs much longer. Cooking posts are on the way!

And today the sky is blue, the sun is bright, and the grapes are ready for picking, and we are going to visit one of the lesser-known California wine regions (I actually went over the weekend, but just got some time to post today).

If you love to explore the wine country, to see it develop, to discover new interesting styles and meet people who produce them, but are tired of the showy atmosphere, crowds, and heavy, hard to drink wine styles that are becoming features of Napa and the more popular part of Sonoma counties, then Sierra Foothills is one of the good options for you. Out of several wine producing counties in the Foothills, the most easily accessible, and, as a result, more developed are El Dorado and Amador counties, and this is where we are going.

The foothills have volcanic soil, and climate is similar to Northern Italy, so it's especially good for groving Italian varietals - Barbera, Sangiovese, Primitivo - and Zinfandel, but the local winemakers experiment, often very successfully, with other grapes, from Rhone varietals to Tempranillo.

Wines are produced in small batches and few of them can be seen outside of the region, tasting rooms are cozy, the visitors are few and mostly local, and it's not unusual to talk to the winemaker on his way from his tractor to the office.

The biggest, closest, and my favorite is Boeger Winery, with it's cute fairy tale buildings, garden, and vineyard, located in a beatiful valley a few minutes out of Placerville. We first discovered the place with my ski buddies six or seven years ago, when we were opening the season in Sierra at Tahoe and had to leave the slopes early because of a heavy storm. So we made it to the tasting room that is open till 5 pm, collected the snow from the top of the car, and brought it into the tasting room. One of the friendly tasting room ladies took the snow from my hands, made it into a ball and tossed in the middle of the tasters. Winter fun began.

At that time I was impressed with their Tempranillo, but this time I thought that the Milagro, the reserve Tempranillo blend, is the best. Sauvignon Blanc and Barbera are also worth trying.

Other places from this trip, worth visiting for various reasons:

David Girard - for their luxurous grounds and estate, and for beatiful Coeur de Terroir blends

Gold Hill - for the peace and quiet, and the picnic area with the view (the wine on the photo on top is Boeger Sauv Blanc, but the view is Gold Hill)

Young's - for the artsy landscape, complete with a lake and a boat, music and wines with artistic labels

Bella Piazza - magnificent castle and grounds, great Barbera

Dobra Zemlja (no site yet) - the old man Croatian owner and winemaker is a character and makes the best Zin and fortified wines, and, the staff say, drinks most of it himself. The stuff are a family, the cellar is in a cave with frogs, the place is hard to find but worth it

Sobon - the ambiance of an old farm, figs, walnuts, cats, farming museum, several types of Zinfandel from vines over 100 years old.

My main impression of Amador Shenandoah AVA was that there are more winaries per mile than in Napa (and no traffic!), more appearing every year, and many of them are interesting in some way, so I'm coming back soon for sure.

Cheers.

Play with your food - deconstruction of the Olivier salad

I have missed the nouvelle cuisine and am not excited by molecular gastronomy, but I love to play with food all the same. This dish is a joke that only those who grew up in Russia would appreciate fully. Here I take the most common and mundane party dish, and re-work it in the style of nouvelle cuisine.

Olivier salad is a Russian potato salad that during the hungry Soviet past absolutely had to be served at any party. If it wasn't, the guests would ask where salad Olivier is, as if the dinner was impossible without it. The salad consists of a huge bowl filled with finely diced boiled potatoes, pickles, hard boiled eggs, canned peas, and either chicken meat left over from making a soup, or bologna or any cold meat. The salad is dressed flooded with en enormous amount of mayonnaise from a jar. It is the FOOD - heavy, filling, cheap.

So, here is my take on the classic:

Salad of potato with pickle and fresh small peas, balsamic truffle mayonnaise dressing
For 4 servings
1 chicken breast, marinated with herbes de provence and olive oil, then grilled and sliced
1 egg, boiled 9 minutes, cooled in ice water, peeled and sliced into rounds
1 gold potato, cooked, cooled, peeled and cut into round slices
2 small kosher pickles, julienned
1/2 cup fresh or frozen small green peas, cooked about 5 minutes and drained
small bunch of garlic chives

For the mayonnaise
1 egg yolk
1 tsp balsamic vinegar
1 tsp red wine vinegar
1/2 cup grapeseed oil
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/2 tsp black truffle oil
sugar, salt, pepper to taste

With a hand mixer in a bowl or in a food processor, break down the egg yolk, mix with the vinegars, then, mixing all the time, add the grapeseed oil a drop at a time. Mix in the EVOO and the truffle oil, adjust the seasoning. Put the mayonnaise into a squeeze bottle.
Squeeze a circle of the mayonnaise onto a plate, arrange the ingredients into a pyramid on top, decorate with ribbons of mayonnaise, scattered peas and chives.

The next time I'll be fooling around with this recipe, I'll replace the boiled potato with a little round potato flan made with an egg and sour cream, for better texture.

Seared Duck Foie Gras

The European vacation I was planning this year didn't happen, and I'm not too sad about it. One thing that I really miss (besides seeng my family) is fine French food.

Fortunately, I am not the only food-curious one out there, and a foodie friend who was looking for fat duck liver for a long time, ever since they banned the imported goose foie gras in California, and he was worried that duck liver may follow, finally found it, and very close to home, too - in Sonoma, at http://www.artisanfoiegras.com/ . They only do mail-order, but the packaging is so good that it isn't a problem. The liver comes vacuum-packed, an a foam insulated box, with a couple of ice packs added.

The liver that my friend brought me was the size of a small duck, so we cooked a half of it for two good size entrees, and saved the other half for later. The liver stays fresh refrigerated for a few days.

Of course I couldn't resist and tasted a small slice row, and it is heaven. It's even better pan-seared, with green salad, caramelized onions and Fuji apples and sel gris. Cooked according to the instruction on the Artisan's website, complete with the stovetop fan. Oil is not needed - the liver releases so much fat that after 30 seconds it's floating in fat. Care should be taken not to overcook it, or it will just melt completely. It behaves not unlike ice cream, and when cooked, has similar texture. So I cooked the 1 inch slices exactly 30 seconds per side in a very hot pan. The fat that's left over in the pan smells as sweet as the dish itself, and can be saved either for sauces of for frying.

The other half we cooked the same way and served with sauteed figs and champagne grapes, a great combination too.

It's This Time of the Year

This is the time of the year that gourmets live for. On the market, the supply of figs is steady, several types of grapes appeared, heirloom tomatoes are everywhere, and 'regular' tomatoes are real cheap, both sweet and hot peppers are abundant.

Pictured here are champagne grapes (they don't make champagne from these, they are called so because of their delicately sweet taste) and very ripe Mission figs - add a glass of Sauvignon Blanc, and you got the taste of California.


And here are Shady Lady tomatoes ($1/lb!) getting ready to be slow-roasted. I lined a roasting pan with aluminum foil, sprayed it with olive oil and evenly spaced tomato halves in the pan. Then I am going to season them with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, drizzle some more olive oil on top, and roast at 250F for 2-3 hours. Results later.

My Version of Salade Niçoise

When it gets so hot that one doesn't feel like grilling, a good dinner salad is a good solution. Light, colorful, with bright tastes of fresh garden vegetables, and big anough to serve as an entree. It does require some cooking - you still have to boil the eggs and the potatoes, and sometimes I like to fire-roast and peel the bell peppers - but you don't have to watch the cooking, just time it, so go sit in the garden while the hot stuff is boiling on the stove.

Recently, in fancy restaurants in the States it became fashionable to make a vegetable salad with fresh blackened tuna on top and call it niçoise. This is a way it's never made in Nice and around. The tuna has to be canned, it has exactly the right texture that carries the dressing well and provides contrast to the vegetables. And it's bistro food, after all! Canned tuna in olive oil is generally better quality than tuna in water, and you also get the oil for the dressing.

The yellow bell peppers and heirloom tomatoes that I planted in containers grew very flavorful, but rather small. This is why the recipe calls for a whole pepper and 3 tomatoes per serving.
I had my homemade anchovies cured in salt, so I had to do additional work of soaking and filleting them, but I like their taste and texture much better than of the canned anchovies in oil.


For the lack of Niçoise olives I used Gaeta. Please, please, if you are reading this, don't buy pitted olives! They are mushy, tastless, and they are taking over the market! It is becoming increasingly difficult to find olives with pits. Well, I still have my Greek and Persian grocery stores.

The nasturtium flowers are from my garden and are used just for the show. Actually, their taste compliments the salad well too.

The other ingredients that are sometimes added are green beans, cucumber, onions and garlic.

Salade Niçoise
for each serving:
2 small potatoes, boiled, peeled and quartered
1 egg, boiled for 9 minutes, peeled and quartered
4 anchovy fillets
4-5 leaves of lettuce, torn or cut into squares with a very sharp knife
1 small or 1/2 large red or yellow bell pepper, cut into long thin slices
3 small or 1 large ripe tomato, sliced
1 can tuna in olive oil (or in water), drained, oil reserved
8-10 small black olives, with pits

for the dressing:
1 tsp Dijon mustard
1 tsp red wine vinegar
2 Tbsp EVOO + oil from the tuna
salt, pepper, (optional) sugar to taste

On a large plate, arrange the lattuce, scatter the tomato and pepper slices. Mound tuna in the center. Arrange egg quarters on the sides, place an anchovy fillet on each. Scatter olives on top.
In a small bowl mix the mustard with the vinegar. Slowly wisk in the oil. Adjust the seasoning.
Pour the dressing over the salad.

Honest Simple Persian Food on the Peninsula

Most people, when they think of Castro Street dining in downtown Mountain View, picture the blocks between the railroad and El Camino, where you can see a Thai family listening to nuevo flamenco playing in an Indian restaurant or locals dancing salsa to juzz music and chasing tapas down with a mojito in Cascal. It's all about show, entertaining, and 'fusion' cuisine, not about taste. As long as the interior decor is interesting, plates are fancy, the waiters are attentive and napkins folded nicely, noone cares if the tomatoes are underripe (even in the middle of the summer, right next to the farmers market full of perfect ripe tomatoes, cheap) or the soup comes somewhat cold.

Dont't take me wrong. I love fusion cuisine, in fact, what I cook at home is mostly fusion. And I believe that dining should be entertaining. But the flavor comes first. And what makes a flavor are the quality of ingredients and balance in putting them together (that comes naturally in classic cuisine, but has to be carefully thought of in fusion), and I saw these two essentials sacrificed more than once here.

For no-frills authentic flavor, cross El Camino. You will see a thick column of smoke coming from a corner of an old building. It's called Rose International Market, and it's a persian grocery store.


The smoke is produced by a hole on the wall, facing the parking lot. The hole contains a large smoking grill and three guys (Mexicans, of course) busy filling orders for kabobs and grilled vegetables. You go inside to order and to get a bottle of water or a yogurt drink from the fridge, and a number. Your order will be ready in about 10 minutes, and you pick it up from the hole and sit at one of the plastic tables on the sidewalk to eat (or get a takeout). Don't forget to order vegetables or other side dishes and the yogurt dip - they are not included automatically. A bunch of fresh herbs (mint, cilantro, parsley) comes with the order. For-here orders come on a plastic tray lined and covered with lavash bread to keep warm. The part of lavash that is under the meat absorbs the juices and becomes a treat. Tear a piece of bread and wrap meat, herbs and vegetables in it. Plastic forks and knives are available but not required.

Pictured here are grilled vegetables, two orders of kubideh, chicken kabob, and lamb liver. Everything fragrant with mediterranian spices and done to perfection (the liver was a bit overcooked to my taste though). A good-size lunch for two, relatively hungry.
Price: $

Cross El Camino back to the "official" part of Castro for an excellent espresso at Spica.

Cooking Party... at Work!

I love my job. For several reasons, here is one: what do you think my department did when we got budget for a one-day teambuilding event? Paintball, white-water rafting, going to see a game, some other silly thing that grown-ups do on a company expence? A cooking class and a winery tour! Yesterday, almost entire IT department (cannot leave the company without IT support for a whole day, so a few people had to stay behind. We'll make it up for them) got on a bus to go to Ramekins cooking school in Sonoma, where we would put on aprons and cook ourselves a fancy lunch. One reason why I like to work in the IT department: when all of your dear colleagues rush to the bathroom at the same time to wash their hands before the cooking class, the line is in the mens room, not in ladies.

Now picture this: 18 computer geeks, each of them able to tell a straight from a cross-over network cable without looking twice, but most having very foggy idea of how to hold a chef's knife, in a large and well equipped professional kitchen, trying to cook a four-course meal. Well, we didn't do that bad. There are a few hard-core foodies among us, and the rest were full of enthusiasm at an opportunity to actually touch real food, so with the help of four instructor chefs we managed just fine.

What we did:

Crab Cakes with Lemon Aioli

Caramelized Onion and Potato Tart

Chopped Salad with Green Goddess Dressing

Herbed Salt-Crusted New York Strip with Brandy-Peppercorn Sauce

Balsamic Roasted Potatoes with Cipollini Onions

Green Beans with Rosemary Gremolata

Vanilla Bean Creme Brulee

The best entertainment was provided by two Helpdesk guys cooking the steaks. Very large strip steaks are coated by a white mass made of lots of beaten egg whites (the yolks go into the Creme Brulee), salt, chopped parsley, rosemary and thyme, baked at 475F for about 15 minutes, then, after 10 minute rest, the salty crust is broken and discarded, the steaks removed, sliced, and served with the flavored butter. I wouldn't repeat this riecipe at home, it's more for show than for flavor, and I beleive that similar but better results can be achieved by brining the steak with the herbs for one or two days, then wiping it dry, brushing on some oil and grilling it. But when the guys started smashing the egg/salt mixture over the steaks with both spatulas and bare hands, competing who does more and better, it looked somewhat like wrestling in the snow. And we were not there to get the most efficient recipes, we were there to have fun, right?

My job was separating the eggs (haven't seen eggs that small and fresh in years!) and making the flavored butter for the steak, so here is the butter recipe as I remember it:

Brandy-peppercorn butter

1/2 lb salted butter, at room temperature
2 shallots, finely minced
1 tsp thyme leaves, finely minced
1 Tbsp parsley, finely minced
juice of 1 lemon
1-1/2 tsp black peppercorns, crushed or coarsly ground
1/2 cup brandy

1 sheet of parchment paper, approximately 15x15 in

In the mixing bowl of a food processor, combine butter, shallots,thyme, parsley, lemon juice and pepper.

Process at slow speed until well mixed together.

In a heavy sautee pan, reduce the brandy to 3 Tbsp.

Add brandy to the butter mixture and process again.

With a flexible spatula, scrape the butter mixture onto the parchment paper and form into a thick log. Twist the ends. Refrigerate for 30 minutes or more to firm. Remove from paper and slice into thin disks. Serve over hot steaks.

This butter (and other flavored butters) can be easily frozen for several month. When ready to serve, bring to almost room temperature to slice, then add on top of grilled fish, steak, or vegetables. As the butter melts, it naturally makes a flavorful sauce.

Notes from this class (more for myself than for others):

- The instructor suggested that to separate a large number of eggs (I had 3 dozen) it's easiest to break them all carefully into a large bowl, then pick up the yolks with a slotted spoon. However, with eggs that fresh the white literally hugs the yolk and you cannot pick it up with the spoon, so I still had to do them one by one using half-shells and fingers.

- It's easier to crush peppercorns in a mortar than to gring in an electric grinder - more control.

- Watch this brandy! I almost evaporated it all, the pan was much heavier than the ones I'm used to, so after I took the reduced brandy off the fire it continued cooking. Had to rush it to the processor before it was gone.

- A hand towel is a must, in a professional kitchen even more than at home, and should be kept in the apron at all times.

- I want a stand mixer and a flexible spatula!

- You can trust men with cooking a steak, even if they are computer geeks.

Wine:
Iron Horse 2006 Unoaked Chardonnay
Jordan Alexander Valley 2004 Cabernet Sauvignon