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Newsletter for July 2007 Your source for what’s cooking at OBW
25 South Indian Alley Winchester VA, 22601 540-662-1455 |
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This is the first newsletter that I have been able to publish since March. Sorry to all of you who have come to expect it on a monthly basis. We remain extremely short-staffed and as much as I enjoy writing this newsletter, running the business takes priority.
A quick reminder that we are open July 3, closed July 4, and open the rest of the week, but are fully booked Friday night.
Summer’s bounty is upon us. Each day brings something new to the market. Right now we have beautiful squash, cabbages, Swiss chard, bok choy, blueberries, and raspberries. Early peaches are in. Can corn be far behind?
I’d like to invite you to our July wine dinner on the 19th, celebrating the versatile Riesling grape. In preparation for this, I have written a little piece on the German wine classification scheme of 1971. Also, start thinking about reserving for the harvest dinner in August. It was a quick sell out last year and now that I have announced this year’s date, I expect the dinner to fill up quickly.
And over the past few weeks, I’ve been doing a North African lamb tagine sporadically. Several of you have asked for the recipe and here it is. My version calls for preserved lemons, which you can buy, but which are trivial to make if you enjoy being in the kitchen.
All my best,
Ed Matthews, Chef/Owner
Every Wednesday is Tapas Night Each Wednesday night, we serve tapas from 5:00pm to 9:00pm. Tapas are small, fun dishes, designed so that you and your friends can try and share a range of foods. View recent tapas menus on the web site.
Thursday, July 19, Rieslings—A World Tour For our July wine dinner, we celebrate the refreshing and versatile wines made from the Riesling grape. We’re taking a world tour with wines from South Africa , Chile, Germany, and Oregon. The five-course menu is not yet set because much of it will be driven by what’s at the farmer’s market just before the dinner. Cost is $65 per person not including taxes or gratuity. We start receiving guests after 6:30pm and the first course will be served promptly at 7pm. Call 540-662-1455 for reservations.
Thursday, August 30, Harvest Dinner—Celebrating the Bounty of Mayfair Farm Once again we’re celebrating the bounty of our principal produce suppliers, Gene and Beth Nowak, of Mayfair Farm. Last year, I didn’t tell anybody that the entire meal would be vegetarian and I surprised a lot of people. “If I could eat like this all the time, I would never eat meat again!” said one customer. This year I’m telling you up front: it’s five courses of my most inspired vegetarian cooking with complementary wines. Cost is $65 per person not including taxes or gratuity. We start receiving guests after 6:30pm and the first course will be served promptly at 7pm. Call 540-662-1455 for reservations.
Since we’re tasting Rieslings at our upcoming July 19th dinner, I am sure that we will have a host of inevitable questions about German wine classification. For the purposes of this short article (rather than the book that could be written), let’s restrict ourselves to the top wine class, Qualitätswein mit Prädikat (QmP), which is just in the process of being renamed to Prädikatswein. QmP wines are classified by the level of ripeness of the grapes.
The lowest level is Kabinett, made from fully ripe grapes. These are the standard wines that we sell at the restaurant.
The next level is Spätlese (late harvest), which hangs generally a week or two longer than Kabinett.
The next level is Auslese (selected harvest), which hangs very late into the fall. The wines are made from specially selected clusters of very ripe berries.
Beerenauslese (selected berry harvest) is the penultimate step up the ripeness ladder. Beerenauslesen are made from individually selected berries that have been infected with noble rot, Botrytis cinerea, which reduces the water content of the berries, concentrating the natural sugars in the grapes. Botrytis also imparts an unmistakably wonderful nose and flavors of honeysuckle, candied pineapple, and dried peaches.
Trockenbeerenauslese (dried selected berry harvest) is the ultimate German wine. The individual grapes are so shriveled by Botrytis that they are almost raisins. The resulting wines are unctuous, incomparable, wildly expensive, and unforgettable.
Most people assume that the higher on this scale, the sweeter the wine. But, the amount of sweetness in the final wine is a stylistic choice of the wine maker. If allowed to, the yeast will convert the majority of the sugar to alcohol. Because the climate in Germany is cold, in traditional winemaking the cold would retard fermentation when there was still plenty of residual sugar. More recently, winemakers have been fermenting certain wines more fully. Currently, Auslese trocken (dry) wines are somewhat in vogue. The result is a very dry, high alcohol wine with a lot of body and character. However, highly alcoholic wines are not necessarily a lot of fun to drink and a bit of residual sugar helps balance them out.
Mother Nature was not kind to our deck this winter and early spring. First one windstorm knocked down all the fencing and lighting around the deck and then once we’d got the deck open, a second windstorm smashed all the tables and umbrellas. But, that’s all behind us now and the deck is rebuilt, open, shady, and a wonderful place to dine.
For those of you who keep asking about our Friday grill outs on the deck during happy hour, I am sad to report that we are too understaffed to do it this year.
Some reminders about the deck and deck etiquette:
Preserved lemons are a common cooking ingredient and condiment in the Mediterranean and especially in North Africa. If you’ve ever had Indian lemon pickle, then you have an idea about preserved lemons. But, preserved is a bit of a misnomer—what we’re talking about is essentially a lemon pickled in salt. You can buy them on the internet and at specialty groceries, but they’re trivial enough to make at home from common ingredients.
When I make them, I use a quart canning jar with a glass lid. Any jar with a tight lid works just fine. Whatever you use, it is best to sterilize it first to inhibit any bacteriological or fungal growth.
You’ll need enough lemons to fill your jar and a few more for extra juice. I start with about a dozen large lemons for a quart. You’ll also need a fair bit of salt—I use kosher salt.
Start by putting a layer of salt in the bottom of the jar—a couple of tablespoons should do the trick. Then, prep each lemon, one by one. For each lemon, I lop off both tips and then standing it on one of the cut off ends, I cut the lemon nearly in half lengthwise, leaving it the two sides attached at the bottom. Then I rotate the lemon and quarter it, still not cutting all the way through, so that I have a quartered lemon still attached at the base.
The purpose for quartering the lemon is to let you pack it full of salt. I have seen many styles of cutting lemons over the years and I have seen people just simply cut the lemons into wedges. It really doesn’t matter.
As you prep each lemon, pack it full of salt and jam it into the jar, your aim being to get as many lemons in the jar as possible. As you start to pack lemons into the jar, they will give off a fair amount of juice. When the jar is packed full of lemons, add more juice to cover as needed. I always throw a little more salt on top for good measure before sealing the jar.
Next, leave the jar on the counter for a couple of days. Every now and again, turn the jar upside down to help get the salt into solution. After a couple of days, move it to the refrigerator until the rinds are soft enough to eat. My experience is that this takes two to four weeks, shorter if I have left the lemons on the counter longer, and vice versa.
When you’re ready to use a lemon, rinse it well to get rid of any salt and excess brine. Most applications call for just the rind, so I strip out the pulp and discard it. This has the added benefit of getting rid of all the seeds. If you are going to use the pulp, deseed the lemon.
Many people add herbs and spices to their lemons. I prefer to leave mine plain as they are more versatile that way. I can spice the final dish anyway I want.
Recipe: Lamb with North African Spices
Need a simple, tasty, crowd-pleasing dish that you can put in the oven and forget? I made this dish Saturday night and it sold it very quickly. Here it is scaled down to more family-sized portions.
2 lb lamb stew meat (shoulder or leg) ¼ c extra virgin olive oil 1 T ground cumin 2 T sweet paprika 1 T garlic, minced 1 pinch ground cinnamon ½ t black pepper 1 c whole mixed olives extra virgin olive oil water salt, pepper, and cayenne to taste
There are two keys to successful braising: a heavy pan with a good cover and long slow cooking. Don’t fret terribly about the pan, I have braised successfully in a disposable aluminum pan covered with aluminum foil. But in general, use a heavy bottom pan with a heavy lid.
Before starting, preheat your oven to slow, 275 or so.
Mix the oil, spices, and garlic into a slurry in a large bowl. Add the lamb and mix well. Dice the preserved lemon. You can pit your olives if you want—I don’t.
Heat your braising pan over a moderate flame, then working in batches if you need to, lightly brown the lamb in extra virgin olive oil. Once all the lamb is browned, put it all into the braising pan along with the olives and lemon. Add water to come about a third to a half the way up the meat. Scrape the bottom of the pan to deglaze. Cover and bring to a boil. Once boiling, place in the oven. Check the water level from time to time and don’t let the dish go dry. Cooking times depend on way too many factors to go over here. Cook until very tender, ninety minutes to three hours. In the last half an hour, taste for and adjust seasoning.
Serve over couscous with a juicy Cabernet Franc or a spicy Grenache.
Virginia Lamb supplies all my lamb. You can find them every other Saturday at the Freight Station Farmer’s Market on Boscawen St.
Pepper Trivia: I am just hearing of a chile pepper from northeastern India and Bangladesh called the Naga Jolokia that is about twice as spicy as a habañero. Google it. It must be brutal.
Speaking of brutal, that would be my work schedule. We are down by six employees now. I need talented help in the dining room as well as in the kitchen. If you know of servers or cooks who are looking for work, we are hiring.
Also, remember that we close the last full week of August, the 21st through 25th for our annual holiday.
All my best and come see us when you can,
Ed
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