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Newsletter for December 2005 Your source for what’s cooking at OBW
25 South Indian Alley Winchester VA, 22601 540-662-1455 |
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I’m sorry for the delay in sending out this month’s newsletter. Things have been very busy this month as you might imagine. Here’s wishing all of you a very Merry Christmas.
This month, I give you some pointers on gifts that I might like to receive, if you need last minute pointers for that special foodie in your life. And we look at Certified Angus Beef® and the reason we serve it at the restaurant. The holidays always make me yearn for smoked salmon. This month, I try to clear up the confusion in terminology to do with salmon products. And we look back at our wildly fun Argentinean wine dinner and a fantastic recipe that it spawned. Finally, I couldn’t get the recipe together in time for the latest WVPT cookbook, so here it is for all of you who saw the holiday special on TV: Napoleon of Latkes, Smoked Salmon, and Horseradish-Dill Cream Cheese.
Remember to book your New Year’s table as soon as you can.
I hope that you enjoy this edition of our newsletter. If you have any topics you’d like to see addressed in the future, drop me a note.
Ed Matthews, Chef/Owner
Wednesday December 14, 3rd Anniversary Celebration As we have done each of the past two years, we’re celebrating the anniversary of the business by offering a menu of the dishes that customers have found the most popular during the year. We are offering a 20% discount to all One Block West Rewards members as a token of our appreciation.
Saturday December 24, Christmas Eve As we have done in the past, we are opening late and closing early Christmas Eve, serving a really nice prix fixe Christmas dinner all day. Take a break from shopping and bring your family to celebrate with us from 1-7pm. Please reserve early. I want to give as many employees as possible the day off.
Saturday, December 31, New Year’s Eve Celebration Come celebrate New Year’s Eve with us! We are doing the most ambitious and luxurious menu that we have ever presented. The four-course menu is price fixed at $75 per person. We have two seatings with tables going every fifteen minutes, one starting at 6pm and one starting at 8:15pm.
For all you foodies out there, here are a few gifts for you or a friend that I have scouted out on the web. These are all highly reputable merchants with whom I have done a lot of business. You can trust them. Even if you don’t want to buy anything, these are great sites for surfing.
Kaffir lime leaves, for all your Thai curries, $12.95 at importfood.com La Chinata Pimentón Dulce de la Vera, a wonderfully smoky paprika, $4.95 at tienda.com 20-year old balsamic vinegar from La Vecchia Dispensa, sheer magic, $60 at zingermans.com Cabrales, the famous sycamore leaf-wrapped Spanish blue cheese, $12.98/lb at idealcheese.com 10” Wüsthof wide diamond sharpening steel, same as we use, $54.95 at metrokitchen.com
And for chocolate lovers, we still have our wonderful Noël chocolate truffles at the restaurant, $7.50 for a gift box of 25-30. Last time to order for Christmas delivery is noon on Wednesday the 21st.
You may have noticed that the beef on our menu is labeled Certified Angus Beef. The CAB brand is the oldest and most successful beef brand in the industry. When I buy CAB branded beef, I know that I have a very high probability of getting product that I can risk my reputation on. When you see it on our menu, you know that you are getting some of the best beef in the country.
Why, you ask, is the USDA grade not good enough? Historically, the grades have been relaxed every few years, until we are at the point where there is little difference between USDA Prime and the top end of Choice. I grilled a Prime porterhouse back in August for my family and it looked and tasted no different than the Choice porterhouses that we served at the restaurant. And certainly, it was a far cry from the Prime steaks that I used to eat at the Angus Barn in the early 80’s.
Basically, the USDA grades have been relaxed to the point where they are largely meaningless as an indicator of flavor and quality. So as a beef buyer, I have turned to a program that does mean something. The CAB program identifies the most highly marbled beef and leaves the rest for others. The cuts that we get are generally very highly marbled and once we cut them into steaks, very tasty and tender. It is very rare that we get a tough steak. Of course, this comes at a premium. CAB steaks cost more than other steaks, but the results speak for themselves. Flavor matters.
Below, you’ll find a recipe using smoked salmon, one of my favorite winter foods. I admit to being confused over the years about the differences in cured and cold-smoked salmon products. I set out this month to clear up the confusion and I pass what I found along to you. The products that I’m talking about are variously referred to as lox, nova, nova lox, gravad lax, gravlax, and smoked salmon. Much of the confusion stems from the fact that there are no legal definitions of these terms, so people use them rather freely. What your mother called lox is what you are likely to call lox. Lox is clearly a Yiddish corruption of the German and Swedish words for salmon, lachs and lax, respectively. Lox originated before refrigeration as a way to ship Pacific salmon from the West Coast to the lucrative markets on the East Coast. Salmon was packed in barrels of brine and by the time it arrived on the East Coast, it would have been cured and also fairly salty. So, lox is brined, unsmoked (Pacific) salmon. Back on the East Coast, we have salmon too and historically a lot was processed in Nova Scotia, where Atlantic salmon was cold-smoked without brining (but sometimes with a little sugar cure). The resulting product is known as Nova or Nova lox. This is the product that I think most people are thinking of today when they ask for lox. This is also what most people refer to as smoked salmon. Sadly, I am afraid that most smoked salmon today never sees the inside of a smokehouse. Smoke flavoring is added to the vast majority of salmon on the market today. To recap, Nova is smoked, unsalted (Atlantic) salmon. Generic smoked salmon can come from anywhere and does. Another option is to buy European smoked salmon as we do at the restaurant. Our salmon generally comes from Scotland (sometimes Norway). In Europe, the salmon gets a dry rub of salt and sometimes other flavorings before it is smoked. The salt dries out the salmon a bit, giving it a firmer texture and consequently a more intense salmon flavor, one that I prefer. Next up is a salmon that frequents our menus, called gravlax, short for gravad lax. Gravning is the technique of preserving fish with salt and without cooking or smoking. This ancient technique has evolved in modern times to rubbing a side of salmon with salt, sugar, white pepper, and fresh dill, and then curing the fish under refrigeration. We put the curing mix on the flesh side of the salmon in a large pan, weight the fish, and cure it two to three days. As the salt draws water out of the fish, it makes a brine. We flip the salmon once or twice a day in the brine. At the end of the cure, we wash off any excess salt and dill and slice the salmon thinly. This leads me to a final salmon product that I developed (I don’t want to say invented because although I have never heard of this before, it is just not possible that someone else has not already done this). I call it prosciutto of salmon because I cure salmon like a prosciutto and use it very thinly sliced like prosciutto. It is salmon treated just like ham. I start as for gravlax with a bit more white pepper than usual, but leave it in the cure for 7 to 10 days, until the fish is really firm. Then, I wipe the fish down and air dry it in our cooler for another 3-5 days. The result is a very firm, fairly salty, very prosciutto-like product. And of course, none of these has anything to do with hot-smoked salmon, salmon that is cooked by the heat accompanying the smoke. Good, certainly, but not what we are talking about today.
If you were at the Argentinean Wine Dinner on November 30th, you already know how fun the food was and what a great time we had. This was our final wine dinner for 2005. If you have never been to one of our dinners, you should. They’re just plain, well, fun! We will kick off a whole new season of dinners in January 2006. Here’s a recap of the November menu.
Empanadas with Chimichurri Crios Torontes, Cafayate 2005
Bucatini with Roasted Shrimp and Roasted Corvina La Posta Bonarda, Mendoza 2003
Asado Mixto con Humitas: Mixed Grill of Malbec-Marinated Certified Angus Beef® Flatiron Steak with Argentinean-Style Pork and Bacon Sausages, served with Savory Corn Pudding Andeluna Malbec Reserve, Mendoza 2003
Pastelitos: Puff Pastry Stars Filled with Guava Paste, Dulce de Leche, and Candied Walnuts Romariz Reserva Latina Tawny Port
In preparing for our Argentinean wine dinner, I came across a mention of humitas in one of my Spanish language cookbooks. Upon further research, I found that two forms of humitas are found throughout South America. In some places, humitas refers to a type of fresh corn pudding. In others, the term is used to refer to what we would call tamales, a corn filling wrapped in a corn husk and steamed. In those places where humitas refers to corn pudding, tamales seem to be called humitas en challa (humitas in husks).
Based on the idea that I saw in my book, I threw together a version for the dinner and it was so good that we were fighting over the leftovers in the kitchen. So good, that I want to record the recipe here before I forget it and to remind myself to make it again. The quantities here are fairly industrial strength; you should be able to reduce this to a more family-oriented scale. This makes a half hotel pan (about the size of a very large casserole dish) and serves 20-25 without a problem.
5 lb frozen white corn, mostly thawed 8 fresh Anaheim chiles, seeded and finely diced 1 bunch green onions, sliced 1 T garlic, minced 1 c heavy cream 1 c grated pecorino cheese salt and pepper to taste 4 eggs, beaten
In a food processor, blitz half the corn until it is a smooth, creamy paste. Remove to a large mixing bowl. Put the other half of the corn in the processor and pulse it a couple of times to start breaking some of the kernels down. Add to the bowl. Add the green onions, garlic, cream, and cheese to the corn. Mix well and then season to taste with salt and pepper. Add the eggs and mix well. Place in a well-greased casserole and bake in a slow oven (300F or so) until set and browned on top, 90 minutes to 2 hours.
Recipe: Napoleon of Latkes, Smoked Salmon, and Horseradish-Dill Cream Cheese
Here’s the recipe for the latkes that I made for the WVPT Cooks: Happy Holidays special that aired December 11th. Enjoy! Historically, a Napoleon is three alternating layers of puff pastry and two layers of a cream filling. In modern times, the term Napoleon has been expanded to incorporate almost anything. Here we sandwich layers of latkes (potato pancakes) and a flavored cream cheese. Latkes are a Hanukah tradition.
Latkes
4 large Idaho russet potatoes, about 2-1/2 pounds 1/2 medium onion 1 egg 2 T parsley, chopped 2 T flour 3/4 t Kosher salt 1/4 t pepper vegetable oil
Grate the potatoes and onions into a bowl. Squeeze the water out of the potato-onion mixture by handfuls. Add the egg and sprinkle over the flour, salt, and pepper. Mix well. Heat a sauté pan over medium heat and film with oil. Take the latke mixture by golf ball-sized lumps and place in the pan, pressing down gently (use the back of a spoon, not your knuckles like you saw me do on TV) to form 3" diameter latkes. Cook until brown on the bottom and nearly cooked through on the top (the potato turns from reddish to white as it cooks). Flip and finish cooking. Drain on paper towels. Reserve warm while cooking the remainder. Yields about 16 latkes.
Dill-Horseradish Cream Cheese
1 1/2 pounds cream cheese softened 1/4 cup prepared horseradish 4 T chopped dill 2 T chopped chives 2 T chopped capers pinch of salt pinch of white pepper
Mix all ingredients until smooth. Season to taste.
Napoleon of Latkes, Smoked Salmon, and Dill-Horseradish Cream Cheese
latkes smoked salmon dill-horseradish cream cheese, in a pastry bag with a star tip
Place a small bit of the cream cheese on an appetizer plate to anchor the stack of latkes. Put a latke on the plate and push it down into the cream cheese. Pipe a layer of cream cheese onto the latke and top with a slice or two of smoked salmon. Put another latke on top and repeat to build the second layer. Place the third latke on top and top this with smoked salmon. Then pipe a rosette of cream cheese on top to finish the napoleon. Garnish with fresh dill.
My staff and I wish you all the best in this holiday season and for the new year. This month marked the completion of our 3rd year in business and we are looking forward to making great strides in our 4th year. None of this would have been or will be possible without your support. Thank you for letting us continue to bring sensational seasonal cuisine™ to the northern Shenandoah Valley.
All my best and come see us when you can,
Ed
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