Saturday Food

Food:

1. Green Chile Chicken
   Based on "rajas poblanas", but substituting (frozen) roasted NM green chiles for the poblanos. This chicken is browned in a pressure cooker, cooked for ~20 minutes with cilantro, jalapeno, onion, & garlic , and a few dashes of tabasco, and then broken into chunks, rather than totally shredded. (It's best if you submerge the chunked chicken in some of the cooking liquid.) For the sauce, Tom tends to dice the chiles instead of cutting them into strips. Take some of the cooking liquid and add sliced onion, the green chiles, and cilantro. Finish with sour cream, and some diced onion & cilantro. We like to serve the sauce over the chicken, rather than folding the chicken into the sauce.

Wine:

1. 2000 Turley Pesenti

Wednesday Food

Food:

1. Sauteed chicken breast with creamy mushrooms.
   The kitchen-ninja almost foiled the chef on this one...I was thinking skinned & pounded, he was thinking crispy skin, no hammer. Fortunately, he caught me before the birds were totally naked. He browned them on the stove & finished them in a 425 degree oven for about 10 minutes. The mushrooms were sauteed, finished with butter and cream, and served as a sauce with the chicken. Yum.
   


2. Broccoli tossed w/Garlic.
   Our standby-vegetable. I was looking for brussel sprouts on the stalk, but Cosentino's didn't have any left today. If you think you hate brussel sprouts, you've probably never had them fresh. The trick is to avoid cutting them until you're ready to throw them in the pan--they aren't bitter unless they've been sitting too long. Sauteed in olive oil & tossed with butter and garlic, they're hard to beat. Really! I love broccoli, asparagus, and just about everything else green, but always passed on the brussel sprouts until we started getting them on the stalk. (Bought it for the novelty, and discovered they really were good eats!)

Wine:

1. 1997 Domain de Trevallon Vin de Pays des Bouches du Rhone
   Corked beyond belief. Very disappointing @ $50+ a bottle. Even had a high-quality cork--it was apparently just bad. Second wine this week that was a total goner. Remind me again why screwcaps are a bad idea?


2. 2002 Rabbit Ridge Napa Valley Merlot Stagecoach Vineyard
   Ah, that's better...at half the price! Some interesting things going on in the nose--junipery, minty overtones with the plum fruit. I must admit, merlot is growing on me--good merlot, at least. :-) This isn't perfectly balanced, but it's got something to say and doesn't vanish on the palate. And it doesn't have the weedy (dill-y) characteristics that seem to stand out in so many Napa cabs. No green pepper, either--it's plenty ripe.
   

Monday Food

Tapas night...really this time. :-)

Food:

1. White beans & chorizo


2. Bay shrimp salad

Wine:

1. NV Bodegas Alicia Rojas Solarce

Sunday Food

Scored some amazing fresh sardines from Phil's Fish Market in Moss Landing, so it's tapas night...

Er, well, I thought it was. Chef Tom had other ideas...

1. Fried sardines with green beans and parsnip.
   
   The sardines were butterflied, seasoned with salt, & dusted with cornstarch before frying.
   
   The beans were blanched, cold-shocked, & cut into 1-2" pieces and tossed with soy sauce, sesame oil & sesame seeds.
   
   The parsnips were cut into 2x.5x.5" strips & blanched in salted water and cold shocked.
   
   They were served centered on a plate, with a small stack of beans & parsnips on opposite sides of the fish. The fish was topped with a lemon-peanut oil-chile pepper marinade and topped with some thinly-sliced onion. Ideally, would be served with the fish room temperature, but we couldn't wait. ;-)

Wine:

1. Rabbit Ridge Blanc de Noir

Sardines?!?

"Sardines, those don't sound very interesting, " my dad said when I asked the guy behind the counter if he had any. (They didn't have any on display, but they were on the menu, so I figured it was worth a shot.) Although I have fond memories of eating canned sardines & saltines with my grandpa, I could see where my dad was coming from. If you've never had *fresh* sardines, you really haven't had sardines. (Don't get me wrong, you can get some pretty tasty canned sardines--we're partial to the Albo Sardinillas (baby sardines)--but they still pale in comparison to the real deal.)

Although Monterey and sardines were once synonymous, it can be difficult to get them fresh even in the bay area. They show up occasionally on Japanese & Spanish-influenced restaurant menus, but just aren't popular with home chefs. I've never seen ones as good as at Phil's. They are a little tedious to deal with, but they really don't require a lot of prep. Be sure to scale them well when you clean them, though--the skin is good, but not if you get a mouthful of scales. Tom debones them when he butterflies them, but they can be grilled whole and the bones come out easily when they're cooked. If you split them open, you can strip out most of the bones with your fingers, but don't worry about the ones left behind. When fried, they just add some extra crunch.