Another private dinner, a group of friends from Scottsdale traveling to celebrate a couple of birthdays! And, no dietary restrictions. We like that.

Grilled Eggplant – A deceptively simple looking dish. Slices of eggplant, brushed with olive oil and seasoned with salt and pepper, then grilled. To serve, brushed with nira oil (garlic chives chopped up in olive oil), and dabbed with a chili-anchovy mayo and an avocado-cilantro yogurt, and then the whole thing drizzled around with an orange ponzu sauce.

Salentein Brut Rosé

 

Cuban Shrimp Soup – A tomato, onion, bell pepper, and chili based shrimp broth with shrimp, potatoes, carrot. This was a soup I made as part of our Bread & Soup Project, for the Cuban entry, and you can find the details on making this soup there.

Cafayate Torrontés  Reserva 2021

 

You might remember my post last year making taro root gnocchi…. I just love the way the inside of the taro root looks!

Taro Root Gnocchi – Taro root gnocchi over a cilantro bechamel sauce. The gnocchi, after poaching, are sautéed in butter with brazil nuts, kale, spinach, and shishito peppers.

La Liga de Enologos Criolla Rosado 2021

 

Mar del Plata “Tuna”, Bean Broth – I read, somewhere along the line about a dish some chef was offering, and made a note about some of the details – offhand what I have is “smoked ham, walnut, and black garlic broth with beans and sea bass”. So, an inspiration from that note. The broth is a smoked ham, walnuts, garlic and black garlic, onion, panca chili, thyme, and oregano one, that’s reduced down and then emulsified with a little butter. Four types of beans, cooked separately and then added to the hot broth at the last minute to heat through – small white beans, regina beans, large butter beans, and then fresh broad beans. The fish, euphemistically called a tuna here, from the shores off Mar del Plata, is not a tuna, but does have the meaty texture of something like albacore. The actual fish is something in the mackerel family, the “butterfly kingfish”. Seasoned with salt, pepper, and cumin, brushed with walnut oil, and broiled. Topped with small bacon lardons and leaves of oregano and thyme.

La Liga de Enologos Blend de Tintas 2021

 

Chocolate and Fig Cheesecake – Cocoa cookie crust. Chocolate malt cheesecake filling. Topped with a gelled puree of figs, and finished with honey-sweetened whipped cream.

Saurus Pinot Noir Tardío 2021