Another great Christmas time dessert is the Biscotti Christmas Tree. It's a little time consuming to make, but well worth the effort.

The tricky part is making the biscotti in various lengths, so that when stacked {longest at the bottom} a tree shape is formed. There are 3 biscotti in a layer arranged in the form of a triangle. Each layer is rotated 90 degrees... fun!

Chocolate, sugar glaze and nuts are drizzled over the biscotti, and a powdered sugar "snow" dusting finishes the tree.

Port Dinner "Three Decades of Taylor" - July 2010

Continuing with wine "demolition" dinners theme; Rob and Wendy hosted a port demolition dinner in July 2010.

A "Three Decades of Taylor" 1975, 1985 and 1994 Taylor Fladgate ports.

The evening started with a white port and a savory cake made by Karen. The white port was a Ramos Pinto. Nutty, good flavors, good acid level, high alcohol level, good raisin-like flavors.

The savory cake was very good. The texture led us to believe that cormeal was an ingredient, but it wasn't...very nice combination with the white port.

Meanwhile, Rob decanted the ports. Of course the cork in the 1975 was very brittle and more or less completely fell apart. Pulling old corks is very tricky to do....Old corks get dry and crumble very easily.

Next we tasted the ports:

• 1975: Light red in color, still concentrated woody nose going toward nutty, some sandalwood character with spice. A nice old port.
• 1985: Brick Red. Not as concentrated as the 75 nose. A little brunt sugar in the nose. Still very good.
• 1994: Very purple in color, very concentrated grape-y nose, slight veggie character. Nice port, needs time to age.

The first course up was the Cauliflower soup. The recipe and my notes for this recipe are in another post, here the link...

http://myrecipesref.blogspot.com/2010/07/cauliflower-soup-with-stilton-port.html

The soup seemed to go well with all the ports. The 94 port seemed to get a little hotter in the finish with the soup. The 75 was just great with the soup, the 85 opened up with some nice nutty character in the nose and tasted very nice.

The sauté calamari with sweet pepper sauce was the next course. The calamari was very tender and the sauce was a nice sweet and spicy addition. I think that the white port went the best with this dish.

The main course was grilled pork with a mole sauce with a side of potatoes, apples, cabbage, and bacon with corm muffins. All the ports went with this dish and made me think that ports go with everything!

After drinking the ports with the above courses, we needed another wine to go with the cheese course and dessert. Rob opened a 77 Fonseca.

The Fonseca tasted different than the other ports with a greenish, minty flavor. Very nice, but just different.

and we finished the dinner with a selection of cheeses and a nice baked apricot that had great concrentrated flavors. Of course, the ports were great with the cheeses.

Fava Bean Recipes

This winter I planted Fava beans in the garden for spring harvest. I had saved seed from last year, and had a lot of seeds left over..... So I just threw them into the garden...and of course they all came up and I was overwhelmed with Fava beans during harvest.

I decided to throw the seeds into the garden because the plants are good for the soil as nitrogen fixers, and vineyards grow them as a green cover crop. e.g. they are better than weeds!

After having fresh Favas in salads for a few weeks, I needed to find some interesting Fava bean recipes.

Here is my favorite:

http://en.petitchef.com/recipes/fava-bean-pesto-with-shrimp-fid-848273

The recipe comes from the fabulous Manressa restaurant in Los Gatos. The recipe article calls for this dish to go with Verdelho wine, but I think that it is so good that it will go with almost any dry white wine, and would stand up to ones with some tropical fruit such as Verdelho or Malvasia, etc.

I made a few changes to fit what I wanted to do.....

I did not use a mortar to mash the beans, I just used my Cuisinart to puree the ingredients and that works well if you take care to not overdo it.... you want some texture.

The flavor of the mint is important. I have two kinds of mint in my garden; Pineapple and Chocolate. The pineapple mint is more delicate than the Chocolate which is very strong hot and peppery. I used the pineapple in the pesto, and chopped Chocolate mint as a garnish. I'm not sure I would use peppermint in this recipe....

I used about 1/2 of the olive oil called for in the recipe so the texture was more of a paste rather than a standard pesto.... I think this was a good choice for spreading on the bread, but if you use the pesto on pasta, add more oil{the called for amount}

I used a Italian country loaf sliced in half long-wise, brushed with olive oil and roasted. The pesto was spread on top, the shrimp added, topped with chopped mint, and salt and pepper. A drizzle of olive oil and lemon juice finished the dish. The bread was then cut into serving size.

I prepared this dish twice for our wine tasting group and

it was a BIG hit! very very good.

Two other recipes I prepared using the Fava Pesto....

1. Used it as a standard pesto with pasta.... very good, not as strongly flavored as basil pesto.

2. An appetizer dish inspired by a first course that we had at the "Taste" restaurant in Plymouth, CA.

We had the assignment to prepare a course to go with sparkling wine for our "Gourmet Dinner Group". Below is a picture of our course.

This recipe was inspired by the course at "Taste" so there was no real recipe.... it is the Fava Pesto, with a small amount of Baratta cheese, some crispy Prosciutto topped with chopped chocolate mint. We served the appetizer as a bite size portion in the Chinese soup spoons.

The Prosciutto was crisped in the microwave for 1 minute on high and chopped into bite sized pieces.

I served this dish cold, but I think it would be better served warm so that the creaminess of the Baratta cheese comes out, and the pesto is not so solid....

Notice the "Tomato sliders" dish in the background of the above photo that my wife Doris made....outstanding dish! and was the best of the night. The "Tomato Slider" dish will get it's own entry in this blog.

Cauliflower Soup with Stilton - port dinner

After the success of the Sauternes dinner, the group decided to have a port dinner. So after some brainstorming a few recipe ideas that would be different and "might" go with port came to light.

Doris and I are making Cauliflower Soup with Stilton with Chili Toasts.

The group thinks that hot spicy foods may go well with port... It's an adventure! The explorations is what's important... one way or another, we'll learn something.

Here's the link to the recipe.

Cauliflower Soup

The Ports that we are having with the dinner are:

• A white port {Wendy will provide.. the idea that this may go with the first course soup..}
• George and Doris: '75 Taylor
• Glenn and Sylvie: 85 Taylor
• Rob and Wendy: 94 Taylor

The dinner is tomorrow night, so an update will follo

w in a few days.

OK an update on the soup.... following the recipe will result in a very bland tasting soup which was very surprising given how much Stilton cheese it contained.....But I kind of anticipated that going in, so planned to garish with crispy bacon, and serve it with spicy, hot chili toasts.

However, the soup by itself was so bland that I had to add a teaspoon or so of salt, lots of ground pepper, and some garlic and onion powder.

Final additions at serving time were chives as a garnish, and a drizzle of truffle oil.

So after the above changes, the dish was very good, definitely a make again recipe. The chili toasts are a necessary side with the soup.

Sauternes Dinner

We were having dinner with old friends Rob and Wendy, Glen and Sylvie, demolishing** some old wines, when the topic of needing to drink up some old Sauternes from the cellar came up. One thing led to another and soon I was volunteering to host a "Demolish old Sauternes" dinner.

So a few months go by, and being a good Virgo, with a strong sense of follow through, I scheduled the dinner. Then it was on to planning and the tricky question; Could you have a dinner with just Sauternes wines? and old Sauternes at that. What foods would go with Sauternes?

Of course there are the obvious dishes, Foie Gras, and desserts, but there must be more than that... Of course, I turned to the web and did a search for food pairings for Sauternes.

I found quite a few links to sites with good information on the topic, and one with several recipes that became the main source for recipes for the dinner. See articles links below:



Food and Wine, Surprise of Sauternes


Matching Food and Wine


Basically the articles make this suggestion:

"For instance, dishes with components that are creamy (cream sauces, high-fat cheeses), salty (cured hams), briny (seafood), mineral (oysters), acidic (lemons) and even spicy (chiles) make fine matches."





Rob and Wendy contributed a 1984 Rieussec, Glen and Sylvie a 1986 Chateau Lafaurie Peyraguey, and Doris and I contributed a 1976 Rieussec and a 1979 Chateau De Rayne Vigneau to the dinner.

From the articles we read about Sauternes pairings, Doris and I put together the following menu with the idea to have many different flavor components:






Foie Gras Toasts with Sauternes Geleé











Bacon wrapped Misson Figs stuffed with Goat Cheese



Roquefort-Walnut Terrine with Apple Salad

Sweet and Hot Habanero Pork

Honey Mousse







It was a very fun evening, and it was very interesting to see how different dishes paired with the wines. Each wine had at least one dish where the wine was enhanced because of the flavor components of the recipe. Conversely, each dish had a wine that really raised the dish from good to excellent.

See more photos and video from the dinner Here!

My wine and food comments follow:

1976 Rieussec: Darkest in color, golden with a little browning.Great nose of honey and apricots, good acid, flavors same as nose, very concentrated, heaviest wine in the mouth. This wine went great with the Roquefort Terrine and Apple salad. The strong cheese needed the power of the Rieussecs to stand up to it.

1979 Chateau De Rayne Vigneau: light golden color, lighter in the mouth, very good acid, finish lighter, more Alc? interesting flavors more on the lemony side. {later found out this one is 14.5% Alc.} This wine was great with the Duck mousse. Seemed that the higher acid cut the taste of the duck fat and made for a great combination. Probably the best sipping Sauternes due to the higher acid level.

1984 Rieussec: very similar to the 1976 not as dark in color, fresher than the 76. Has the great honey, apricot nose...also some interesting bramble character to it that enhances the flavors rather than detracts. Like the 76 this wine went great with the Roquefort Terrine. Also the Bacon wrapped figs stuffed with goat cheese went great.

1986 Chateau Lafaurie Peyraguey: Golden in color, but being the youngest wine, a little darker than would be expected. e.g. the 1979 was lighter in color. Has a toasty component to the nose, good acid, perhaps a little sharp. Later in the evening the nose developed a cedar, wood character... {We spent a lot of words trying to describe the nose and flavor....} This wine did the best of all the Sauternes with the Sweet and Hot Habanero Pork. I think it cut the hotness of the pork the best with a heavy thick viscosity to the wine.


Doris Wine notes

’76 Rieussec: Honey caramel nose; luscious thick texture, Great with the foie gras, the terrine, and the pork.

1979 Chateau De Rayne Vigneau: Not much in the nose; very nice in mouth with good acid. Much lighter in body and taste than others. I thought it would be better with food because of the lively acidity, but this was true only with the lightest dishes. It did not stand up to the Roquefort, the pork or the mousse.

1984 Rieussec: Heavy honey nose, very rich; still has acid balance

1986 Chateau Lafaurie- Peyraguey: Honey and tea nose with some butterscotch. Toasty, complex flavors with some earthy, barn yard elements. The habenero pork and sweet potato mash dish transformed this wine! It lost all the earthy heavy notes and became a full rich wonderful Sauternes.

Comments on the Menu:


Foie Gras Toasts with Sauternes Geleé: We used Duck Mousse instead of Foie Gras as Foie Gras is Tres' Cher and also has it's dark side..... But the Duck Mousse was wonderful. The Sauternes Gelee' added some sweetness and lightness to the flavors that was a great combination!!! My favorite dish of the evening. The wine we used for the Gelee' was a Pozzen late harvest semillon called Maitresse @ $19/tenth at Bevmo:
Doris' comments:
We used Challah bread for the toasts, which has a Brioche texture and a buttery flavor.

The quality of the Pate made a big difference. This one from Draegers was all duck liver mousse terrine—with no pork or chicken and had a rich but mild flavor. (We later tried a Three Pigs brand from Andronicos—which had some pork, but it was not nearly as good and very far away from ‘foie gras’. The pork flavor dominated and changed the effect completely.)

The flavor of the Gelee is just the essence of the wine used; use as good a wine as conscience allows. And we did save $80 by not using actual Foie Gras so we could splurge here.

This went really well with all of the wines. Yum!

Stuffed fig recipe from “Aperitif, recipes for Simple Pleasures in the French Style” by Georgeanne Brennan.
Dried figs such as Mission

Goat Cheese

Thin bacon cut into pieces



Choose figs that are supple and still retain some natural shape. Make a lengthwise slit in each fig and press in about a teaspoon of goat cheese. Wrap a 2-3” piece of bacon around the fig and secure with a toothpick. The length of the bacon piece depends on the size of the fig, but you need a bit of an overlap to hold everything together when it cooks. Broil, turning once, just until the bacon is browned and barely crisped. Serve hot or warm.

I thought that the tangy goat cheese and salty bacon would do more for the wines. It was just O.K.


Roquefort Walnut Terrine with Apple Salad: We modified the recipe as follows. Doris made the cream fraiche used in the recipe, We used granny smith apples and Doris modified the vinaigrette slightly using less mustard than called for. Very good dish. There was lots left over and that was a good thing! We enjoyed it for days after.

Doris' comments:

1. I was worried that the terrine would not stay together, so made a thick crème fraiche (4 tablespoons of plain yogurt per cup of whipping cream; cultured overnight in a yogurt maker). We also used a smaller loaf pan: 4 X 8 and chilled overnight.

2. The recipe proportion of 2 tablespoons of Dijon mustard to 1 tablespoon of balsamic vinegar and ¼ cup of olive oil seemed like too much mustard. I also wanted more quantity for 4 apples and additional elements to compliment the wines. So the mustard was cut to 1.5 Tablespoons, the oil was increased with a blend of olive and walnut oils, and the vinegar amount was increased with strawberry balsamic and an appley champagne vinegar.

3.Other than that, yes we followed the recipe.


The combination of the terrine and the apple salad was great and wonderful with the wines, especially with the Riessacs.



Sweet and Hot Habanero Pork: Followed the recipe for the Pork and sauce...I would add some thickener to the sauce next time. The sweet potato mash was a side we picked for a sweet component to the recipe and I think it went well.

Doris' Comments: Amazingly this dish worked with the wines, even improving one of the earthier ones by somehow smoothing out all of its edgier notes. The contrast was really interesting. The sweet potato mash was a necessary addition to the original dish.





Honey Mousse: While good, this is the dish that I was most disappointed with.... The great honey flavors I tasted when cooking it were lost in all the whipped cream. Next time I would use half the cream and double the honey. I might have to add more gelatin to get it to set? We also wanted some additional flavor components for this dish, so Doris made lemon Madelaines, carmel branches, and apricots stuffed with almonds, and we served candied ginger as well.

Doris's comments:

Lemon Madeleines

I used the recipe for Coupelles, Langues de Chats, from Julia Child’s “Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume II”. George originally voted for cookie cups, but they would not crisp up or alternatively crisped but grew sadly limp within an hour. I think they were a victim of winter humidity. Happily, the remaining dough made fairly good mini madeleines.


Caramel Sugar Sticks

Winter humidity complicates caramel making too. It solidifies too quickly in the pan, yet the finished sticks remain just a bit too soft and sticky. Used a recipe in Charlie Palmer’s “Great American Food”.


Candied Lemon Zest
Used a recipe in Charlie Palmer’s “Great American Food”.


Apricots

Used whole dried apricots. Enlarged the seed slit and soaked apricots in late harvest Riesling for 6 hours. Drained and stuffed with 3 or 4 slivers of blanched toasted almonds. While the recipe suggested that if the apricots were soaked for more than 6 hours, they would get soggy, I don’t think that was nearly enough time to absorb any wine flavor.

I expected the honey mousse to be an incredible match, but it was a little too subtle for the heavier Sauternes and didn’t live up to the memory of a 1970’s Chez Panisse Honey Comb mousse with ’59 Suideraut dessert. Too late I thought that I should have brought out more honey to drizzle. The smaller accompaniments were meant to match with individual notes in the wines and they did more less.

-----~~~ ------


demolishing** Here's the story behind our use of "demolishing some wine..."
On some vacation in the 80s, feeling good from tasting wine all day, we were joking about people putting a bottle of Champagne in the freezer for a rapid chill and forgetting about it...."It would be like a UCB {Unexploded Champagne Bottle} ... and hence the need for a "Champagne Disposal Squad". So we began to use "demolition" to describe the need to drink or deal with a wine situation , e g.. like having some old wine that may be in danger of going bad...



Rob, Wendy, Glen, and Sylvie, : please add some comments about the dinner!

Standing Rib Roast

We have prepared Standing Rib Roast for Christmas dinner the past two years. It is a special holiday treat and always a big hit...

Standing Rib Roast, Prime Rib, and Rib Roast as all the same cut, so it's easy to be confused at the Market... Our local Safeway was well stocked with Standing Rib Roasts as it's a standard for Christmas dinners. They had a special price of @$5.00/lb.

For our dinner party of 9 people, I purchased a 9 3/4 lb -5 bone Standing Rib Roast...Rib Roasts are typically cut by the number of Ribs, e.g. a 3-rib roast, 4, or 5-rib roast. I ended up with lots of Roast left over, so I could have ordered a smaller roast, perhaps 7 lbs.

The Butcher asked if I wanted it "bone cut and tied?" What they do, is cut along the ribs, almost 3/4 though the roast and then tie the ribs back secure to the roast...This makes it easier for carving the roast later on... e.g. you just finish cutting though the roast to remove the ribs, and then slice off pieces of roast without the rib bones getting in the way. Caution: I think cutting the roast this way reduces the cooking time slightly, say from 20-25 min/lb, to 15-20 min/lb.

I used a recipe that had a herb rub to marriate the roast for a day prior to cooking.

• garlic


• rosemary


• olive oil


• pepper


• Kosher salt

Cooking:

Let the Roast stand at room temp for at least 2 hrs

Preheat oven to 450

Place meat in a shallow roasting pan fat side up.

Roast 15 mins.

Reduce the temp to 350 and roast for @ 20-23 min per lb until the thermometer inserted in the middle of the roast registers 125 for medium rare.

Let the roast rest for 15-20 minutes before carving.

My roast was in the over at 1:00 and it was done at 4:00... so 180min for 9-3/4 lbs or about 18 minutes per lb. As I said I think the reduced time was due to cutting the rib bones away from the roast.

The roast was very tender and had great flavor. A big hit!

Menu for Christmas Dinner 2009

Other members of the family host Thanksgiving dinner, so we get to do Christmas!

It's fun, but turned out to be a lot of work.

We decided to do the same menu as last year, since it was so good, and also to allow us to work out some of the parts that did not go quite as planned.

Menu:

Appetizers of cold Shrimp with cocktail sauce
Standing Rib Roast with Tomato Confeit, mushroom pudding and Broccoli.
Cheese Course
Chocolate Yule Log cake with Meringue Mushrooms

Wines:

Christmas is a time to open up and try those wines that we have been saving for some special occasion..

1975 Tulocay Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon
1978 Chateau Haut Brion
1980 Chateau Pichon Longueville Comtesse De LaLande

I was very surprised at how well the wines aged. They all were still very much alive, not showing much browning at all... I wish I could have tasted them more critically, but cooking, serving and taking care of our guests kept me too distracted to do much more than just enjoy them.

Recipes and comments for the menu courses will get their own blog entry.