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Newsletter for March 2005 Your source for what’s cooking at OBW
25 South Indian Alley Winchester VA, 22601 540-662-1455 |
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I can feel it. Can you? Spring is lurking out there. Saturday, even though it was in the low 30s on my way to work, I could sense that spring is around the corner. The sun is riding several degrees higher in the sky and the breezes have lost some of that frigid bite. Despite the snow still on the ground, I feel certain that there are crocuses somewhere out in my yard making their annual appearance to brighten my life. I’m going to look for them once I finish this edition of the newsletter.
We still have spaces available for our March 23rd wine dinner with Unicorn Winery. Call soon if you would like to attend this very fun event.
Happy spring to you! Come visit when you can.
Ed Matthews, Chef/Owner
Wednesday March 23rd, Wine Dinner with Unicorn Winery of Amissville, VA. Never hear of Unicorn? Me either until recently when their winemaker Bree Ann Moore stopped by to taste me on their wines. Quite credible and worth tasting. We’re doing a four-course dinner for $55, including wines. As always, reservations are by credit card.
Wednesday April 20th, Wine Dinner with North Mountain Vineyard of Broad Run, VA. We’ll be pouring four North Mountain wines at this dinner: Vidal Blanc, Claret, Chambourcin, and Caroline’s Blush. The Vidal and Chambourcin are standards on our dinner menu and the Claret is what I drink when I go to the winery. No pricing yet. Book opens for reservations on March 20th.
It’s that time of year that we shad roe lovers anticipate with great fervor each year: the running of the shad from saltwater into freshwater rivers to spawn. You know that spring is coming when the shad start running. And they’re about a week early this year, probably because of warmer water temperatures due to a mild winter.
For me and other devotees, cooking the first shad roe of the year, which I did Saturday night after dinner was done, is a rite of spring. My ritual always involves rendering a couple of slices of bacon and finishing the dish with white wine, lemon juice, and capers (see a similar recipe in the April 2004 newsletter).
Shad roe come in sets of two crescent-shaped sacks of eggs that many people describe as disgusting looking. Ranging in color from pale beige to crimson depending on the diet of the shad, they’re certainly not the most beautiful things on earth, but they are far from disgusting, especially to taste. Shad roe have a mild, almost nutty flavor with a hint of fish. Some customers have compared it to liver, but shad roe is unlike any liver that I have ever tasted.
Shad roe is one of those polarizing dishes: either you fall into the lover or the hater camp. There appears to be no middle ground, although many of those who claim to hate it simply don’t have the nerve to try it. Which phases us shad roe lovers not in the least: it simply leaves more for us!
We will be serving shad roe for the next few weeks. If you like it, come and get it!
Customers have been drinking a lot of port recently: a case in two weeks! Many of them love port, but have no idea what it is, where it comes from, or how it is made. Here’s a brief introduction…
Recipe: Braised Paleron
It’s snowing outside as I write this and snowy days mean comfort food to me and my ultimate comfort food is braised beef paleron, which I haven’t cooked since making Grillades and Grits for our Mardi Gras menu last year this time.
The best cut of beef for braising (besides the shin) is a big roast from the shoulder. It sits between the shoulder blade and the neck and is called variously paleron, upper blade roast, or top blade roast. My butcher calls it by the French name paleron. Martin’s, when they carry it, seem to call it an upper blade roast. The roast is about 3-5 pounds and consists of two long, flat steaks sandwiching a layer of cartilage. Generally in grocery stores, the roast will be skinned and split horizontally (removing the cartilage) into what are called flatiron steaks or upper blade steaks. Sometimes the roast will be sliced vertically into small steaks with cartilage in the center that are called various names including petite steaks. What makes this cut ideal is that with long, slow braising, this cartilage melts into unctuousness. It is these petite steaks that I use to make the following dish.
Braised Paleron
4-8 paleron steaks 1 c flour seasoned with salt and pepper 1 large onion, diced 2 carrots, diced 2 stalks celery, diced 6-8 cloves garlic, minced bouquet garni of bay leaf, sprig of rosemary, several parsley stems, fresh thyme 1 T tomato paste ½ bottle red wine water salt and pepper to taste
The thing to learn from this recipe is the technique, which we use to cook everything from duck legs to short ribs. You can change the wine to white or use stock, modify all the vegetables, or whatever you feel like, but the technique never varies. The pan is critical. It should be heavy and have a tight fitting cover and should fit in your oven. At home, I use a Le Creuset cast iron oval cocotte. At the store, we use a huge Italian braising pan that holds 20 pounds of meat at a go. In a pinch, I’ve used a hotel pan covered with aluminum foil, but those thin pans will scorch on the bottom without a lot of tending and braising is all about putting dinner in the oven on a Sunday afternoon and forgetting about it until dinner time!
Heat a heavy braising pan or Dutch oven on the stove. Dredge the meat in the seasoned flour. Working in batches if necessary, brown the floured meat and remove from the pan. When all the meat is browned, add the carrots, celery, and onion and cook for a few minutes, until the onions become translucent. Add the garlic, bouquet garni, the tomato paste, and a couple tablespoons of the seasoned flour and let the tomato paste caramelize for a couple of minutes. Deglaze with the wine. Place the meat on top of the vegetables. If the liquid does not come half way up the meat, add water to bring it to that level. Bring to a boil, cover, and place in a warm oven (300-350 degrees). Check the liquid level every half an hour and cook until the meat is very tender, a couple of hours or more. The sauce will reduce naturally and there is no need to add more liquid unless the dish is in danger of burning. Degrease the sauce and season to taste (notice there is no salt in the recipe—I never salt a dish that will be reduced before it is fully reduced).
Tip: Are you still using canned tomato paste, that nasty, tinny stuff whose remains end up as a science project in the back of your refrigerator? Do what we do. Buy tubes of the double concentrated tomato paste imported from Italy and squeeze out only what you need. Often called doppio concentrato (double concentrated), this paste is available in many supermarkets. Or we can sell you a tube or two.
Each week I get emails asking me about various cooking techniques and/or using ingredients. Every month in the newsletter, I will publish one or two interesting topics. Feel free to send email if there is some technique or ingredient that you need help with.
A customer admitted to me the other day that she had no idea what her cookbook meant when it said to deglaze the pan. This is a step so fundamental to good cooking that I am sure that many recipe writers take it for granted that we should all know what it means. That is the problem with chefs writing recipes: we forget that before you can walk, you must crawl.
One of the reasons that cooked food tastes better than raw food is that high heat caramelizes some of the sugars in the food and we all like caramel. In fact, we aim to produce that caramel intentionally by browning foods. When we cook in a pan, a lot of the flavor remains in the wonderful caramelized brown bits that stick to the bottom of the pan. This is one of the reasons that chefs rarely use non-stick pans: we want things to stick, to a point. The other reason is that there isn’t a non-stick surface we cannot destroy in nanoseconds.
When we deglaze a pan, we are aiming to dissolve the brown bits in liquid to form the basis of a sauce. It couldn’t be any simpler: add liquid to the hot pan and stir and scrape with a spoon to get all the brown bits off the bottom of the pan and into the sauce. At the restaurant, we most often deglaze with wine. At other times, we also use brandy or vermouth or water or stock. It really depends on the flavor we are seeking.
I spent what little free time I had last month indexing all the recipes on the web site, including all the recipes included in these newsletters. So many people are requesting recipes and I was starting to become unable to find them myself. (View the index)
We’ve been having great fun at our wine dinners and I encourage you to sign up for one if you have not done so before. They are great bargains: I take very slim margins simply because I love doing these dinners.
Our good friend Jennifer Lee, who takes such good care of our plants, has accepted a job as Director of the Clarke County Historical Society and can no longer help our deck look so nice this year. We wish Jennifer all the best, but that leaves us needing someone with a few hours a week to help us tend our plants. If you know someone who has the time, talent, and will work for food, please send him or her our way.
Ed
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Copyright © 2004-2005 Shenandoah Food and Beverage Holdings, LLC |
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