Once again, a look back at some favorite dishes from our Casa SaltShaker meals over the couple of months. A combination of my personal favorites and those that guests have commented on as theirs.
It has been many moons since I last made Sopa Incaica, a dish we first encountered in Puno back in 2007, at a now long closed restaurant, Coca Kintu. Now, I’ve made this maybe half a dozen times in Casa S dinners before, but it’s been a few years since the last time. Over time, I took what I was able to find for the recipe (there was a magazine article that included a recipe from the chef at the restaurant, but it was clearly modified from what we actually ate, so he was being a bit coy there). And, we’ve made it our own thing. Basically, it’s a beef broth and quinua soup with potatoes, bell pepper, zucchini, onions, garlic, and finished with fresh cheese. I like something aromatic to cut through the richness, so I use shiso leaves.
Served with Zuccardi Serie A Chardonnay-Viognier 2022
Another dining out inspiration, this one more recent. Regular readers might remember my August writeup of Rocoto restaurant in the northern ‘burbs. I was particularly taken with their prawn tartare, and combining into a dish I’d been working on came to this culmination. Diced raw prawns, cured in a leche of lime juice, olive oil, garlic, celery, serrano chili, salt, white pepper, and xanthan gum to emulsify it. Diced avocado, fresh broad beans, red onion, cilantro, mint, black and white sesame seeds, passionfruit seeds, and pickled mustard seeds! Whew! This one will be back, likely unchanged, as I love it as is.
Served with Salentein Blanc de Blancs, N.V.
My take on a fairly classic Italian Minestrone, with a mix of vegetables – carrot, fennel, onion, garlic, tomato, white beans, and chard, flavored with oregano and bay leaf. Added to that a homemade sausage recipe I’ve been working on with ground pork shoulder, a trio of paprikas (hot, sweet, smoked), garlic, anise and fennel seeds, chili, salt, and pepper. And, the soup is finished with a parmesan tuile.
Served with Lagarde Viognier 2019
Have to get in a dessert that I’ve been playing around with too. Here, a simple sugar cookie crust topped with a Rosemary and vanilla cheesecake, then a layer of raspberry confit, and toasted almonds. Yum! The hint of rosemary plays off the berries beautifully!
Served with Salentein Late Harvest Sauvignon Blanc 2021
For those who followed along on my Peruvian dining adventures, one dish that caught my eye was in my post just previous to this one, a sweetbread dish that included a cauliflower and coconut puree that I thought worked really well, at restaurant Mérito. Now, that was the only idea within the dish that I kept, but I like that trio of flavors. Here, however, homemade Mafaldine (basically, papparedelle with ridged edges) tossed with a cauliflower and coconut cream. Atop, sweetbreads, but I took it from plain fried ones to “KFC”… “KFS”? Korean Fried Sweetbreads. Deep-fried sweetbreads tossed with that sticky, spicy, sweet sauce many of us love – a blend of gochujang chili paste, honey, soy sauce, garlic, ginger, and sesame oil. And then garnished the dish with green onions and toasted coconut.
Hard one to pair a wine with, but we served it with Nina Natural Special Blend Rosé 2021. Not as perfect a match as I’d have liked, the dish was just a bit spicier than the wine stood up to. Truthfully, this one really needs to be paired with a great beer!
A take on a dish we often do in spring, though a little earlier in the year this time. Fresh broad beans aren’t yet in the market, but snowpeas were. So here we have Casarecce pasta tossed with guanciale, snowpeas, leeks, mint, homemade ricotta, and some grated grana padano cheese. Still one of my favorite spring pasta dishes!
This one also served with the same rosé as the previous one, and a better match here.
And yet, another version of our slow braised beef Huatia, a dish that’s come up many a time before. Each iteration, I like to think it gets better. Six hour braised beef rump in red wine, beef stock, aji panko and rocoto chilies, onions, garlic, and a mix of herbs – parsley, cilantro, chives, rosemary, oregano, thyme, and mint. This time served over a manioc root (yuca root, from which we get tapioca) puree with butter, milk, salt, and tajín. Then a pan gravy made from the braising liquid, and some green onions.
Served with El Esteco Blend de Extremas Cabernet 2021
