Beans and chipotles

Remember these beans? We had a large batch in the freezer that we needed to use to free up some space, so we made some soup. The batch was really big, and we were left wondering what else we could do with these beauties.

The inspiration came from a glass of leftover chipotles in adobo sauce that was (and still is) in our fridge. Chipotles are jalapeno peppers that have been dried and smoked. These chillies are preserved in small tins with adobo sauce, which is a concoction of tomato, vinegar, garlic etc. Both the sauce and the chillies are quite used in mexican cooking. What is really unusual about this ingredient is the smokiness paired with the acidity of the vinegar and the spiciness of the peppers. Very inspiring!

Our creation: fry some finely chopped onion in olive oil until golden, and then add good quality tinned tomatoes. Cook on low heat until the sauce comes together. Then add a couple of the smoked jalapenos finely diced, and a few tablespoons of the adobo sauce. Check for salt and keep simmering on very low heat. Then you need to cook the beans. The best is to use a pressure cooker: the beans, a bit of olive oil, add enough water to barely cover, close the pot and cook for 8 minutes after the pot starts whistling. Now add the strained cooked beans to the sauce along with a few tablespoons of the cooking liquid and simmer on low heat until the flavours meld, adding more liquid as needed. Serve with sauteed turnip greens and crusty bread.

Codcheeks

A word of warning: codcheeks packed in brine should be soaked for as long as regular cod should, never less! We cooked (not fried) ours in olive oil, and used the oil to mount the sauce, so none of the excessive salt had a chance to escape. It wasn't inedible, but it was a bit far from perfection.

Codcheeks are amazing! This was the first time I ate - or cooked - these things, but many more will certainly follow. My guess is you should soak them in the fridge for 1.5 days, changing the water three times. Maybe two days, I have to experiment. We soaked ours for 24 hours and that was not enough.

Codcheeks are used a lot in Basque cuisine, where they are called kokotxas. I had been curious for a while about experimenting with the pil pil technique: essentially emulsifying the cod's gelatin in olive oil until it forms a thick sauce. Hence, saturday dinner was set.



The wine was also one which I had my eye set on for a while: 2005 Vinha Formal, a 100% Bical wine that is fermented in barrel and aged for 12 months in new oak barrels with a 650 l capacity. It's supposed to be an unusal white wine, very particular. Our bottle showed a very complex nose, but I was expecting a more exhuberant mouth. In particular, I was expecting a more unctuous wine. A very nice wine, but I am not sure I would buy another bottle, especially given the pricetag.

To serve with the kokotxas al pil pil: double-fried french fries and turnip greens that were parboiled and then sauteed in garlic-scented olive oil.

For the kokotxas al pil pil: fry 3 sliced cloves of garlic and a small dried chile until golden in a lot of hot olive oil - 1/2 a cup of oil should do it: you need enough to barely cover the codcheeks. Remove the solids to a plate, let the oil cool a bit, and then add the codcheeks that were patted dry (we used 500 g and that was enough for 3 people and there were no leftovers). The idea is to cook them in oil, not to fry them, so the temperature should not be too high. You will see white bubbles forming: this is the beginning of the pil pil. The cod cooks fairly quickly: 5 minutes or even less. Do NOT overcook! Remove the cod and let the oil cool down to about 60 C. Then start wisking the oil with a small colander. I saw this technique in this youtube video, and it really works! The oil will thicken to form a very interesting sauce. Check the video for more detailed instructions - if you understand Spanish.

Put the cod back into the saute pan, heat and serve sprinkled with parsley and guarnished with some of the fried slices of garlic.

A night in India

An impromtu dinner with friends resulted in an incursion into Indian gastronomy. This was the line-up: roghan josh, recipe courtesy of the Wine Spectator, and spinash bhaji, recipe courtesy of Saveur number 103, June 2007. Basmati rice, which was subpar, store-bought chapati. To start, mango chutney, an improvised minty yoghurt and a lime pickle with a few papadums. The wines were too delicated for the boldness of the food: Vina Sol 2006, Penedes, and Quinta de Saes 2006, Dao Doc. All in all, a very agreable dinner in very good company.

Who wants to do the washing-up?

A dinner party

We've had a couple of friends over for a saturday night dinner. The menu was put together taking into account the fact that one of the guests was quite fussy about food:

- starter: puff pastry stuffed with brie and tapenade; rucola and apple salad.



- main: short ribs slowly braised in red wine; mash made out of sweet potatoe, carrots, turnip, regular potatoes and finished with leeks thinly sliced and sauteed in olive oil. There was a very interesting contrast between the sweetness of the mash and the saltiness of the sauce of the meat.

- dessert: pear poached in red wine and spices. The sauce was reduced and served warm; the pears were served at room temperature. Vanilla ice cream rounded off a very interesting dessert.



All in all, a very nice dinner. The dessert was very good, the starter was not that interesting.

Wines: Morgado de Santa Catherina Reserva 2006 with the starter - full bodied white wine made out of the Arinto grape. The nose was reminescent of peaches, a touch of white flowers; the mouth was very round but very well-balanced by a crisp acidity. Very nice oak, never imposing.
Ma Partilha 2001 with the main - smooth Merlot, already with some signs of aging. Perhaps too elegant for the boldness of the dish, but a stellar wine that drinks beautifully.
No dessert wine, just because.

Playing with Food III - A funny shape

A tribute to Agnès Varda - Les Glaneurs et la Glaneuse

A different type of beans

These are neither dried nor green beans - they are something in between! You should remove the beans from the shells and boil them for a considerably shorter period of time than you would dried beans. In particular, these should not be soaked. The result is a butter-smooth bean that makes an unbelievable soup. We would bet that Italians use these beans in their gastronomy as well - it is not hard to imagine a pasta al sugo di fagioli made with these little beauties. They are quite easy to spot during this time of the year in the markets, and are quite beautiful as well:

Returning with panacotta

After another (even longer) period of absence, here we are again to share a bit of what we eat. This absence has at least a very good excuse: we have recently relocated a few thousand miles away!

The dessert that we are going to share was part of the first dinner we held to thank people who helped us with the move. Although it was the first time we made it, it was surely a success - at least for us: who knows if our guests did not hate it?

So here it goes: panacotta with a plum sauce!



Ingredients:
-2 gelatine leaves
-400 ml of heavy cream
-50g of sugar plus a bit more
-vanilla essence
-4 plums
-white wine, preferably an aromatic one

Put the gelatine inside a bowl with a bit of cold water. It should soak for something like 10 minutes. Pour the cream into a small saucepan, whisk in the sugar and a few drops of vanilla essence and bring it slowly almost to the boil. Place the saucepan over a few ice cubes mixed with some cold water to cool the mixture a bit. Squeeze the gelatine leaves of any excess water and, in a clean bowl, gradually mix in a few teaspoons of the cream preparation. The idea is to completely dissolve the gelatine before mixing it in the saucepan. Pour the mixture into 4 ramekins, let them cool, cover with cling film and leave in the fridge for a few hours.

To prepare the sauce, bring the wine and a bit of sugar to the boil in a saucepan. Let most of the alcohol evaporate, but not all. Wash the plums, cut them into two halves, get rid of the stone, pat them dry, and place them in the saucepan. Bring the sauce to the boil again, turn off the heat, cover the pot and let the plums infuse the flavours. The skins of the plums will easily come off, discard them. Cool the sauce and put it in the fridge as well.

When ready to serve, run a sharp knife around the edge of the ramekins to facilitate the unmoulding. Place each ramekin in turn in a pan with hot water for a few seconds, turn it over the serving dish and sake vigorously. The panacotta should hopefully come out in one single piece... Decorate each dish with two plum halves, and pour over a bit of the sauce.