Dgourmac's Blog

Every once in a while, I hit a home run for dinner.  Tonight was one of those.

I had an eggplant I wanted to use, which was the centerpiece of the meal.  The technique  of choice for the night was long, slow cooking — both roasting and baking.  We have a variety of cazuelas, of various diameters.  Strangely, after nearly a year of using none of them, they have been our cooking implements for the last three nights running.  The dish is not complicated,  and the results were amazing.

Ah, I almost forgot to tell you about the secret ingredient: a few drizzles of Vin Cotto, a balsamic vinegar-like must of grapes which enhances the flavors of eggplant and zucchini.  One of my trade secrets, known now by the cognoscenti who read my blog.   Add a few drizzles atop the dish before baking it for the last 20 minutes.  Buon appetito.

No class tonight; my turn to cook.  My go-to dishes are often about pasta, and tonight was no exception.  I had a fine organic Maitake mushroom and some leftover creminis in the refrigerator, so that’s where I started my cooking.  The dish took about 45 minutes to take a clear shape in my mind, mostly because of how the mushrooms were cooking.  If I had grilled them outside on the gas grill (a la plancha), they would have become crispy quickly, but since it was getting dark and the temperature had already dropped to 18° F., I took the path of sautéing them in olive oil on the stove.  Maitakes are wonderful, but they can take a long time to cook thoroughly, so it is always a challenge to steer between overdone/dried-out and overdone with liquid/mushy.

The keys tonight were to make leeks and tomatoes as a large part of the sauce, and to let the mushrooms braise with them, followed by baking at high heat to crisp everything up at the end.

For a small appetizer, I reheated some baby Brussels sprouts that were roasted to crispy the other night, and served them with a whole grain mustard and sour cream sauce.

The wine choice for tonight was the luscious 2010 Mas de Maha from Villa Creek in Paso Robles, CA.    A blend of Tempranillo, Garnacha and Carignan, it was a beautiful match for the richness of mushrooms, tomatoes and feta cheese.  The best of Italy, Spain and California melded together.  Life is good.

What do you think of when I say “roasted vegetables”?  I’ll bet it’s the usual suspects: eggplant, zucchini, red peppers, onions…all good choices, but a little prosaic at times.  Well, vegans and vegetarians have some marvelous other choices.  Tonight’s dinner —  a collaborative effort with Barbara — was an example.

After placing two sweet potatoes (or garnet yams) in a roasting pan, she put them in an oven preheated to 425° F.  She cut and roasted in the same oven 1-inch thick steaks cut from a fine head of cauliflower.  Separately, she sauteed onions, garlic and a can of Italian tomatoes in olives oil, then added some pitted, coarsely chopped Kalamata olives. Next step was to place the sauce on the reasonably tender steaks and roast that until the flavors concentrate.  Top with chopped chervil or Italian parsley.

In the meantime I did a very simple Roasted Napa Cabbage, after cranking the oven up to 450°.  Here’s what emerged from the oven:

Properly plated and served with a 2010 Li Veli Salento Negroamaro Rosato:

Excellent, but not quite done.  I had an appetite for salad as well, so I cut up a single Belgian endive, added some shredded lettuce and washed young organic arugula leaves, and then finished it with a vinaigrette (salt, pepper, Spanish sherry vinegar, Puglian olive oil and a few drops of cool water) and topped with shelled organic pistachios and my miracle ingredient of the night — sprouted rye berries.

Where the hell does one get sprouted rye berries?  Answer: one buys organic rye berries, soaks them overnight, drains them and then rinses them twice a day for 2 days, when they sprout.  Add water to the quart jar and let it all sit for two days, producing the fermented liquid, Rejuvelac, for your smoothie each morning.  After you drain the liquid for your drinks, the remaining sprouted, lightly-fermented rye berries are sweet, elusively-flavored and nutritious — and wicked good on your salad, especially with the crunch of pistachios.  If that’s too much trouble, go without the berries, no problem.  Buon apetito!

sprouted rye berries

A few nights ago I made dinner for the first time in a week.  It was one of my favorite ways to cook.  Select very good ingredients; prepare each in a way that highlights its best features; then put the pieces together into an effective whole.  I have no pictures of this event, but here’s a summary:

Primo — Crispy Browned Baby Brussels Sprouts and Roasted Beets with Whole-Grain Mustard lightened with Tofutti Sour Cream

Secondo — Ragout of Eggplant, Artichokes, Mushrooms, Tomatoes and Green Beans, served on Slices of Baked Potato Rounds

Vino — 2011 Laura Aschero Pigato, from Liguria

Pre-roasting or pan searing those ingredients individually paid off handsomely in flavor.  Adding a little thyme, oregano and pimenton to the ragout helped as well.

But that dinner is not the subject of this post.  I give you all that information only as a prelude, to say that’s how I happened to have some leftover ragout in the refrigerator today, which became a simple lunch of discovery.

First, I coarsely chopped the vegetables in the ragout, and then spruced them up with some salted capers which were marinated overnight in olive oil.  Then I grilled some thick slices of a multigrain bread I made recently (whole wheat, semolina flour, einkorn, rye and white bread flour).  Rubbed fresh garlic on the toasted bread.  Added a layer of Cream of Peppers and Eggplant (purchased at Di Palo in NY).  Layered the ragout on top. Served with a wine I found at one of my wine suppliers last week, a 2009 Vid Sur, made in the Canary Islands from Tinto Negramoll grapes, imported by Jose Pastor.  Benissimo.

Since New Year’s Eve is a very quiet affair for us, we had a relaxing day, andI had a chance to do my last small meal for the year.  This was a lunch with one new appetizer dish I wanted to try from Food & Wine, plus an avocado/tomato/olive/basil salad, and reheated vegetables from the night before.

The new dish I examined as a point of departure was Stuffed Baby Peppers with Yogurt and Floral Honey.  Instead of yogurt, I heated up leftover mashed potatoes in olive oil and spread them on the peppers.  We had an old bottle in the fridge of jalapeno-stuffed green olives, so I sliced those up and used them instead of separate ingredients, and I simply used our local honey to drizzle on.  Cute and tasty dish:

The spiciness of the jalapenos suggested a white wine, so I tried the Schloss Gobelsburg  Gruner Veltliner Tradition, which was already open, for the peppers alone.  Nice match!

With the whole meal, I opened a bottle of Li Veli Rosato, which we loved at the winery in Puglia last May.