Dgourmac's Blog

Monday’s tapas dish with the caramelized carrots and North African spices was the inspiration for today’s lunch.  I didn’t have the same sweet yellow carrots as Rendezvous, but mine were yellow at least, and I had plenty of pimenton and harissa — plus a secret ingredient, a home-mixed, Tunisian-like spice concoction of equal parts of salt, cumin, coriander, and caraway seed, with black pepper and hot pepper flakes to taste.

I cut the carrots into 1/8″ slabs lengthwise, dusted them with olive oil and the spices, and cooked them in a hot skillet until well-browned and beginning to soften.  That was taking quite some time, so I added liquid in 1/4 cup increments, first water, then white wine (a Pigato), along with the harissa, so they braised a bit in the spicy blend.

In the meantime I cut off a piece of English cucumber, quartered it lengthwise, then into 3/4″ slice.  Next, I peeled a ripe avocado and tossed both vegetables in a salty vinaigrette. After adding a large handful of fresh homemade sprouts, I mixed the vegetables together and topped with the cooked carrots — turning them some more to add the spicy layers of flavor and oil to the mild avocado-cucumber base.

Finally, the refrigerator provided the last piece of the puzzle for two slices of my Pain de Campagne bread taken from the  freezer and toasted.  These were topped with good vegan leftovers: (1) homemade fava bean purée and cashew cheese, and (2) Kalamata olive paste.  Each was topped with a roasted red pepper slice [for both flavor and color].  Once again the wine was the remaining 2011 Sobremadre Malvar from Vinos Ambiz.  The contrasting textures and flavors were superb.

As a red-wine loving vegan, mushrooms have a special place in my heart because they go so well with so many of the wines I love.  Now that we are deeply into the Fall season and mushrooms are prolific, I am practically in heaven.  Supper tonight is an example.

For the first course, I made a simple Mushroom Consommé, from Viana Laplace’s cookbook, Unplugged Kitchen.  The recipe is astonishingly simple and good, although I embellished it by roasting the mushrooms first, which enriches their flavor.

Over the past few days I had collected cremini, Portobello, shitake, baby shitake and chanterelle mushrooms.  First I cooked the chanterelles in a sauté pan, while in a preheated 450º F. oven, I oven-roasted the others with just olive oil, salt and pepper.  These were supplemented by a handful of Italian dried porcini which were soaked in warm water for a half hour, then drained and chopped.  Combining the chanterelles and the porcini with the roasted mushrooms, I saved about half of all them for my pasta sauce.  The rest went into the soup pot with 6 cups of fresh spring water and the porcini water after they were drained, and were simmered at a lively pace for about an hour.  After straining out the mushrooms, the remaining broth was served in porcelain espresso cups — rich, warm and engaging.

The main course was made by simmering the remaining mushrooms with two whole tomatoes from a can of my best peeled Italian tomatoes, plus sliced garlic and a sprig of rosemary from the garden.  At various times I added a little white wine, some tomato juice and pasta water to get the roasted mushrooms tender enough in the sauce.  After boiling 2/3 of a box [250 g.] of tagliolini al tartufo for a few minutes, I drained the pasta and added it to the simmering mushroom sauce.

The pasta was served with fresh spinach in garlic and olive oil, and oven-roasted endive from a Mark Bittman article online this week, using a Marcella Hazan recipe.  The wine choice worked beautifully.  It was a 2011 Linne Calodo Rising Tides, from their new release that just arrived yesterday.  It is a blend of Grenache (38%), Mourvedre (32%), and Syrah (30%).  Rich Central Coast California fruit, but not overstated — nicely balanced.  When the technology permits a scratch-and-sniff blog, you’ll be able to appreciate the aroma of a wine like this.

I just had lunch.  Great lunch, even though it was a reprise of previous meals and wines.  It started when Barbara found a rotting potato in the drawer, so she threw out all the potatoes there.  Among them were a few perfectly good fingerling potatoes which were showing a few sprouts on each.  Since I eat sprouted rice, grains, and other foods, I figured a few potato sprouts would do no harm, so I rescued them from the compost heap, boiled them for 45 minutes, cooled, peeled and sliced them, and finally cooked them as in Potato with Pepperoncino (adding a few chopped Nicoise black olives).

Next, was Cicoria e Aglio.  I bought a head of chicory at the market the other day, and since my wife does not like bitter greens, this was my chance to eat it.  Both dishes will be found in the previous link.

These dishes stood up perfectly to three totally different wines:

• 2012 Villa Creek White — terrific blend, 50% Grenache Blanc, 50 % Rousanne — unfortunately sold out at the winery, wait until next year
• 2012 Ciliegiolo — the Ligurian Rosé I raved about here
• 2011 Gaspare Buscemi Esperienze — a red from Venezia Giulia (mentioned here)

No new photos here (refer to previous posts or below to get some images), but this seems to be as good an all-purpose recipe for delicious food as I can find.

Last night Barbara made one of her most satisfying dinners, a richly-flavored tofu and vegetables which I think you would enjoy.  I was thrilled to be able to pair with the dish a wine I had just received that afternoon, another bottle of 2011 Vinos Ambiz Malvar Sobremadré.  This is a wine I found so intriguing back in July.

One interesting aspect to this meal was the use of two packaged items that enhanced the dish a lot.  One was TruRoots Sprouted Rice Trio, a blend of three rices I have used several times before.  The other was new for us: Trader Joe’s Soyaki marinade, which added depth of flavor for the tofu.

Cooked rice blend:

Here is the full recipe: