Spread out over the last couple of weeks, some of the dishes that made a new appearance and garnered plaudits from guests (and us) alike.
First, remember the mushroom place, Donnet? And that great main course of liqueur marinated mushrooms and a cashew cream? Well that’s the kind of thing that gets my mind working, and making something similar… to be evolved down the road, but first one right out of the gate….
Buckwheat Pappardelle with Roasted Mushrooms – Buckwheat and semolina pappardelle, tossed with a puree of sauteed red onion, garlic, and cashews in butter, plus white miso, goat cheese, smoked salt, and lemon juice. I got into the idea of liqueur marinated mushrooms – I didn’t have any of that green olive liqueur that Donnet used, but I wasn’t trying to copy her dish anyway, just be inspired. So I played around with a few of the liqueurs in my kitchen, and ended up marinating baby portobellos in Cynar (artichoke liqueur), olive oil, salt, and black pepper, and oyster mushrooms in Limoncello (lemon rind liqueur), olive oil, salt and white pepper. Then roasted them, placed them on top, and added a sort of twist to gremolata, with pickled lemon rind, kale dust, more black pepper, and fried garlic.
Lagarde “Goes Pink” Rosé 2018, Luján de Cuyo
Gnocchi Romana with Roasted Mushrooms – Less directly inspired, more of just I was getting into playing with mushrooms. Semolina, or Roman style, gnocchi…
Arguably the original gnocchi, since potatoes came from the “New World” and likely didn’t exist in Italy when gnocchi were invented, just as polenta wasn’t originally made from corn, also an Americas import, but from barley. There’s also some debate on the “Roman” nomenclature, as the use of butter and eggs would suggest a more northern Italian influence, and there’s even some evidence that they were originally not “gnocchi alla romana”, but “gnocchi alla rumena”, or Romanian style dumplings.
…a mix of semolina flour cooked in milk, beaten with butter, egg, parmesan cheese, and a hint of salt and pepper, then spread out, cooled, cut into shapes, brushed with butter, and broiled. Served over a mix of roasted mushrooms – portobellos, shiitakes, oysters, and buttons – simply in olive oil, salt, and pepper. Cream and chicken stock based suprême sauce with limo chilies and anchovies. Scattering of chopped parsley, cilantro, chives, and mint.
Familia Bianchi Rosé Blend 2019, San Ráfael
Prawn Crudo with Passionfruit – A “tiradito” style ceviche, or crudo – with halved prawns cured only briefly, about 10 minutes, in a “leche de tigre” of lime juice, passionfruit, rocoto chilies, cilantro, and mint. Topped with brined cucumber and radish slices, red Chinese chilies, cilantro and mint leaves, and fried garlic. This one started out from an inspiration of the prawn carpaccio at Mengano Bodegón, a few weeks back….
Initially I tried it out as an aguachile of prawns, with a curing liquid made from a puree of cucumber, onion, serrano chilies, garlic, and lime juice, and I’d pounded out the prawns into thin sheets. But though good, it wasn’t a winner dish, and I felt like it needed more substance (pounding out the prawns meant each guest only really got like three prawns total, rather than the six they get here, and they were also not as pretty pounded out as prawns are wont to be). And also maybe more my style of an Andean inspired dish rather than Mexican. Evolution.
Salentein Brut Rose Pinot Noir, Valle de Uco
“Chicken-a-Bed” Reinterpreted – There’s a fantasy book series out there called the Gentleman Bastard series, by Scott Lynch. It was one of my favorite reads a couple of years ago when I read it. He spends a bit of time describing some amazing sounding meals, and dishes, and I made some notes of some of them, thinking, those are some cool inspirations….
“Dining on birds-a-bed (large morsels of several kinds of fowl on flaked pastry mattresses stuffed with spiced rice and leeks, then given “covers” of onion and sour cream sauce).”
What we have here is our little bed – of a buttered rice and leek mixture with Gran Pampeano cheese and egg, formed into squares and broiled to serve, then topped with a cap of multiple layers of buttered filo dough. The chicken is dry rubbed with salt, white pepper, onion powder, and smoky merquén chili powder, then pan roasted. The sauce starts as a basic velouté, of roux thickened chicken stock, but to that I added sauteed red onion and garlic, and finished it whisking in some sour cream. Garnished with olive oil roasted broccoli, chives and borage flowers.
La Liga de Enologos “El Bautismo BT4” Blend de Tintas 2019, Mendoza
One of the things I regularly get feedback of disbelief on is that people simply don’t tell me about their allergies or dietary restrictions, despite the fact that I ask, until last minute. I’ve never figured out why they do it – perhaps for some it’s that they’ve heard “no” so many times that they think this corners a restaurant into having to do something or lose a reservation at last minute. In this case, it was at least partially my fault. A recent guest sent me a note a day or so before a dinner that she was changing a couple of the people who were coming with her, and just wanted to let me know. She told me that she’d been out to eat with them regularly and as best she knew, they had no dietary restrictions. I asked her to check, just in case.
By the way, this is the second most common source of my getting misinformation – the host of a group of people doesn’t know, and just because they’ve not seen/heard a person express a dietary restriction of allergy, they assume the person doesn’t have one. Some people just don’t make a big deal about it, they order around things they don’t eat. Thirty-five minutes before the dinner, I got emails from the two new guests, one letting me know that she was allergic to all types of seafood (we had a ceviche, and a fish soup on the menu), and the other that he was a pescetarian who didn’t eat any meat but seafood (we had that chicken-a-bed).
No time to go out and buy ingredients for something else, nor to plan on any real solid dishes for either of them (and, had I known in advance, I’d have probably simply said “no”). So she got a tomato and cucumber salad instead of the ceviche, and some roasted kale with garlic, toasted almonds, and a little smoky loganiza sausage in place of the soup, just using stuff I had in the refrigerator. And I quickly foil wrapped a couple of peeled carrots with olive oil and the same spice mixture I’d used on the chicken, and threw the foil packet in the oven. He got the “a-bed” recipe with roasted carrots and a drizzle of quickly made bechamel sauce.
I know, some of you still don’t believe people do stuff like that. But, believe it or not, we get this at least a couple of times each month.
