Dgourmac's Blog

Barbara made a very good and healthy soup using primarily red lentils, other vegetables, and lots of fresh ginger.  I learned it was in process when I saw the prep work all done on the counter (except for the lentils, which were still in a jar):

I have no pics of the finished product, which looked as bright as it tasted, but here is the recipe, if you are interested.

But the real story that day was a revelation I had while sitting at the kitchen counter, nibbling before supper while the soup was simmering.  One of the wines I was drinking that week was a 2012 Benaza Godello from Spain, suggested by my friends at Social Wines.  I had tried a couple of glasses on two different days earlier in the week, but I was unimpressed each time.  That afternoon, Barbara had cut the edges off a loaf of Tuscan pane which she then converted into cubes, and with sprinkles of salt and garlic powder, she toasted them in the oven — and voilà!  Croutons.

There was a little too much good bread along the edges of her crusts to throw them out, so I put the crusts on the counter, opened a container of Spanish-style assorted olives, and poured some top-notch olive oil in a bowl for bread-dipping, while I sipped on the Godello.  Mirabile dicta.  The wine was transformed into a delightful libation, apparently just by combining it with these unassuming food elements.  So once again, the lesson is that wine and foods together are often the best way to consume either one.

I found a nice, fresh, clean-looking head of escarole in the market a few days ago, so while Barbara was off at a quilting workshop on Saturday, I decided to create a new, healthful soup with some of my favorite ingredients:

• one head of escarole, washed and cut into 1/2 inch strips
• half an onion, finely diced
• half a package of dried Controne beans from Campania
• 1/4 cup of raw Vialone Nano short grain rice
• one quart of homemade vegetable stock

The forecast for the day was for snow “showers”.  The reality was quite different.  It was snowing heavily as I puttered around the kitchen and gazed at the thick flakes outside the kitchen window.  It was even more dramatic out in the meadow.  Time for a hearty soup.

Returning to the cutting board and the stove top, I pre-cooked the beans in my new crockery casserole for about 2 hours, then salted and cooled them, finally removing them to another bowl.  Starting on the soup, I sautéed the onion in the casserole pot in 3 Tbs. of olive oil.  When the pieces were light brown, I added the escarole and cooked until it was just tender.  Next, added the rice and the beans, got them coated in oil, and finally added all the vegetable stock and salted to taste.

I let it all simmer for about 30 minutes partly-covered.  While that was happening, I was getting hungry, so I noshed on leftovers from the past few days, checking the soup along the way.  It certainly looked good in the pot.

Now, as the soup was getting close to done, I found another diversion.  Did you ever put mushrooms loose in a paper bag in the refrigerator,  then forget about them for a week or two?  Well, while pulling out of that refrigerator ingredients for the soup, I came across that paper bag with four lovely small Shitakes in it.  Lovely, but now quite dried .  So before I did any of the previous steps, I covered the Shitakes in warm water, weighed them down to keep submerged, and was able to retrieve them two hours later, reconstituted and ready to cook.  Saving the warm water broth they were soaked in, I dried the mushrooms with paper towel, and sautéed them in olive oil for later use.  I actually added the soaking water to the soup pot along with the stock, to make up the full recipe of a quart and a half, or 6 cups of liquid.

Interestingly, I saved these for the next day and added them to the soup in my bowl, with excellent results.  But for this meal, I ladled the soup into a pasta bowl and added some homemade croutons, toasted in the oven earlier in the week from a Tuscan pane we like.  My choice of wine surprised me.  I had two whites open, one from the Loire (le Fief du Breil) and one from Campania (Coda di Volpe).  I enjoyed the Muscadet more with it.

My passion du moment is roasting vegetables, and this time of year there are so many good choices.  Last night’s dinner was a medley of some of my favorites:

• baked russet potato
• baked sweet potato
• roasted small onions in their skins (from Chocolate and Zucchini)
• roasted Provençal carrots (from Patricia Wells)
• roasted organic Maitake mushrooms
• roasted sweet red and orange peppers

OK, so I wilted the spinach in a sauté pan; sue me!

Here is my dinner plate; I took the sweet potato, Barbara, the russet, with sour cream and scallions.

The potatoes, the peppers, onions, and mushrooms were oven-roasted at 400º F.  The carrots were pan roasted with olive oil, garlic and Niçoise olives.  The most ingenious technique is the one for the onions, which I picked up from Clotide Dusoulier, who, in turn, learned it from Katie Quinn Davies.  I purposely bought a bag of small onions (but not cippolini for this), and they were perfect.

As you know by now, I am more of an adapter than an inventor.  The votes for easiest dish go the the roasted peppers:

• take one red and one orange pepper
• cut in half lengthwise
• remove stem and seeds
• place cut side down on a roasting pan
• roast at 400º until soft and the skin starts to pull away
• place peppers in a plastic bag to steam themselves
• peel off the skin, slice in strips
• rehydrate a small handful of salt-preserved capers from Puglia, add to peppers
• drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with sea salt
• enjoy!

I opened a bag of organic baby spinach, and added a small amount of olive oil to the pan from the carrots.  Cover and sauté/steam until just wilted.  Serve.

I feel these vegetables were indicative of the south of France or a good bit of Italy.  So for a wine, I decided to go with a bottle 0f 2012 Grêle, from Château de Roquefort in France. Please read the back label for the remarkable story of this wine.  Oh, yes, it was delicious.  And will never be replicated, because — due to its origins — no one knows the actual blend of grapes that made it.