Eggs and Flour (and Duck)

Hello, again, everyone. I know I've been absent for too long, so here's a few new ideas I've been batting around, along with some musings on the huge amount of fresh pasta I've been making over the last few months.

We picked up a classic Imperia hand-crank pasta roller over the summer for a song. It had caught my eye in the store because the box is still exactly the same as the one that slumbered in my parents' basement all year until Christmas day. For some reason (which has never been fully explained, mind you), we make fresh spinach ravioli every year for our Christmas dinner. Naturally, seeing that old red box in the kitchen store was enough to make me buy it.

Making the pasta was another story altogether. I've never been one for doughs, always feeling intimidated by the gloppy mess on the cutting board. The few times I have tried making pizza dough, for instance, didn't work out so well. With those stiff pies in my mind, I sat and stared at the pasta machine for weeks before I attempted a batch. Finally fed up with my wimpiness, I consulted my friend Giuseppe on his mother's recipe - he estimated that his mom has probably made several thousand pounds of pasta in her day.

So, with a little tinkering and a very little effort, my first batch of tagliatelle was born. I used our Kitchenaid mixer to get the eggs and flour together, and then turned everything out onto a well-floured cutting board a got to kneading. Ten minutes later I had a beautiful, smooth, dense , golden ball. I wrapped it in plastic and let it rest on the counter for about 45 minutes. That rest period firms everything up so that I won't tear while you're rolling it out.

A dusting of flour, a few passes through the rollers, and out came silky flat sheets of pasta, ready to be cut and dried. Below's a great recipe we tasted in Tuscany this summer. Beans were everywhere there, sometimes whole, sometimes ground for their texture and thickening. Here we've got some chickpeas pureed to thicken a sauce of ground duck breast, rosemary, and orange peel. We tried this at the restaurant at Fattoria dei Barbi, a fantastic Brunello producer. When we ate it recently we drank a bottle of 1997 Castiglion del Bosco Brunello that we picked up in Pienza and a 1998 Bahans Haut Brion. The juicy, rich, meaty succulence of the Brunello, and the ripe earthiness and softness of the Pessac were perfect matches to the meaty, orange-scented pasta.

Fresh Tagliatelle with Duck, Orange, and Rosemary Ragout

For the pasta:
3 eggs
2 cups flour, plus 1 tablespoon

For the sauce:
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/2" slice of pancetta, cubed
4 garlic cloves, sliced
1/2 duck breast, ground
1 cup chicken stock
zest and juice of 1/2 an orange
small rosemary sprig, chopped
salt and freshly ground pepper
1 can chick peas, pureed

Make the pasta:
In a stand mixer, or in a mixing bowl, combine the eggs and flour and mix until the eggs are incorporated and a roughly cohesive ball is formed, about a minute. The dough will be very loose and sticky. Pour the dough out onto a well-floured countertop or large cutting board. Knead well for at least ten minutes, flouring the board as necessary to prevent the dough from sticking. Discard any dried scraps that don't incorporate. Once you have a nice ball of dough, wrap it tightly in plastic wrap and let it rest on the counter for at least a half hour.

Roll the dough through each setting of the pasta machine a few times, folding over and flouring in between. I like to roll no thinner that the second-thinnest setting. Cut strips about a foot long and 1/2" wide, then set the pasta out on floured baking sheets to dry. When you're ready to cook it, bring a large pot of water to a boil, add a healthy pinch of salt, then drop the pasta and let it cook for only about a minutes. Drain well and toss into the sauce, and it will finish cooking in the pan.

Make the sauce:
In a large saute pan heat the olive oil over medium heat. add the pancetta and cook until crispy. Remove the pancetta and set aside. Add the garlic and cook for a a minute or so, then add the ground duck and cook, stirring, until browned. Add the chicken stock, rosemary, orange zest and peel, chick peas, and salt and pepper. Bring the sauce to a boil and add the pancetta back to the pan. Add the drained pasta to the pan and toss to coat. Cook for a few minutes until the pasta is pefectly tender but still chewy, and you've got some seriously tasty dinner.

Washington Food, Betz Wines, and the October Newsletter

Hello again. Sorry about that lapse, but I'm back once again with a new issue of the newsletter and good news to report about the state of Washington wines.

Janina and I just got back from Seattle earlier this week, having enjoyed it just as much as we expected. We have yet to visit that city during the apparent months long drizzling, because all we've seen are gorgeous blue skies and crisp, clean air.

We ate some great food, incuding a whole bunch of wonderful salmon, dungeness crab, and mushrooms, which were pretty much the three things I was looking forward to eating the most. None of them disappointed, but rather inspired several of the recipes in this month's newsletter. For the current issue, click here:

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We also had the great fortune of visiting one of the top wineries in that state, Betz Family Winery. Bob Betz and his daughter Carmen truly could not have been more gracious, kind hosts, and the wine's not bad, either. We were there during a tricky time, smack dab in the middle of harvest. That timing made for a missed visit to Cadence, as Ben Smith was doing his crush by himself, so we figured we'd give him some room to breathe. But at Betz we chatted for a while with Bob and Carmen about the harvest, the wines, and good restaurants in the area, all surrounded by a dozen or so vats full to the brim with the fermenting grapes that constituted most of what will be there 2007 wines. Cabernet, Merlot, Cab Franc, Malbec, Petit Verdot, and Syrah had all been picked and were smelling great. Grenache was coming in the day after were visited, and the press for the Cabernet was happening then, too.

While we talked for a bit with Carmen about life and food, Bob was busy taking gravity measurements and tasting through all the vats. Here you can see him checking out some Cab.

What struck me most about the small winery was the organization and cleanliness, which Carmen said were her father's obsessions. Things were spotless, and everything was in its place, even in the midst of the craziness of the week. The was no musty smell, just that beautifully fragrant fruit bubbling away underneath some clean white sheets that you can see Janina peaking under below.

And, of course, we were quite struck by the 2005 Pere de Famille that was popped open for us, a spring '08 release. Despite everything that's said about Washington Cabs being harshly tannic, this wine barely showed that tannin whatsoever. I mean, there was great structure, for sure, but the wine truly seemed to be in perfect balance. Bright, very fresh tasting fruit streamed out of the glass, and the elegant, palate staining mouthful that ensued certainly filled every corner of my mouth, but never felt heavy or clumsy. It was like drinking the textbook Cabernet, truly a study of what a bottle of wine should be all about. And all that was at 11:00 in the morning, so you know it had to be good! If you can find these wines, and if you don't mind shelling out for them, they are worth every penny.

Carmen sent us down the road into Woodinville to eat at Purple Cafe, a surprisingly busy, vibrant, tasty bistro with a hell of a wine list in what looked like your average, run of the mill strip mall. That was just one of several terrific meals in the area, including some shockingly good waterfront seafood shacks, an organic haute cuisine place called Tilth, and a homemade birthday dinner for our friend Deepa that I cooked with the help of great local produce and fish.

So, until our next trip out there, enjoy the recipes in this month's newsletter, and I'll be back soon. As you can see here, just smelling that petit verdot is enough to put a huge smile on your face.

Dreaming of Vanilla

A few weeks ago I had the great pleasure of meeting a young couple who are in a rather unusual line of work. In their ripe old late twenties, these two are importing family-farmed, fair trade vanilla beans from Madagascar. The quality of these Bourbon vanilla beans is beautiful, the aroma absolutely intoxicating, and the price is incredibly low. To this end, by importing directly from the farmers and the farming cooperatives they cut out the fees that, by their accounts, can be incurred by the vanilla passing through up to nine middlemen before leaving the country!

Sarah and Nat Delafield happened into our shop one night two weeks ago, and I have been totally taking ever since. I was very interested in the story of the development of their business and the work they're still doing in helping to increase the farmers' awareness of the value of their crops and understanding of how to benefit from it more directly.

That's not to mention the wave of intensely perfumed air that wafted my way when Sarah opened up a one pound bag of fresh, sticky, gorgeous dark brown beans. The aromas were of vanilla, for sure, but reached deeper to cocoa, spices, and a heady breath of brandy. After an excited rush of words and emotions about these beans, they let me sample a few for myself. I tried a few desserts, where the more pronounced and defined vanilla flavor in these fresh beans blew away any thought of going back to store-bought extracts. Even if, for some reason, I ever find myself without these magic beans, a potent extract can be stashed away at home by dropping two or three beans into a small bottle of high quality vodka.

I'll include a few recipes that I tested out in my upcoming September newsletter, which will appear here shortly. In the meantime, check out Sarah and Nat's informative website at http://www.ftftrading.com/. There you can find out more about the farmers, the vanilla plants themselves, and how to purchase some of these delicious beans.

See you soon...

©2007, Alex Meier-Tomkins/Pine Street Kitchen

Mom's Tilapia

As promised in my August newsletter, here's my mom's recipe for roasted tilapia with spinach and tomatoes. We had a few bottles of wine with this, one of which was the 2002 Albert Bichot Santenay, which is great pinot for the money. The white we had was the 2003 Tete Blanche Chenin Blanc from South Africa. I know I've expressed my deep love for this wine in the past, but indulge me once more, won't you? The texture and sweetness here play right on the edge of a crunchy sugary world without ever going over that line. The tropical fruit that seems like it's going to be sweet magically dries itself out in the same breath and all you're left with is a smile on your face.

Everyone say a hearty thanks to Sue for kindly sharing her recipe and contributing to our site! Thanks, mom.

2 bags spinach
1 ½ large cans diced tomatoes
3 tbsp. olive oil
6 good-sized tilapia filets
salt & pepper

thyme butter
3 tbs. softened butter
¼ c. chopped shallots
1 tbsp. fresh thyme, chopped
salt & pepper to taste

1. Wash and thoroughly dry the spinach, and place in a 9 x 13 baking dish. Drizzle with the olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and toss to coat the spinach.

2. Drain the tomatoes and arrange them on top of the spinach.

3. Thoroughly dry the tilapia filets and place them on top of the spinach and tomatoes. (If the tilapia is not thoroughly dried, the thyme butter won't stick.)

4. For the thyme butter, mix all the ingredients to combine, and spread it evenly on top of the fillets.

5. Cover with foil, and bake for 8 minutes in a 425-degree oven. Remove the foil, increase the oven to "broil", and broil the filets for 5
minutes.

6. Serve over white or brown rice.

A note from mom:

"The best thing about this recipe, I think, is that you can prepare it in the morning, refrigerate it, and you're done for the day! You can also make the rice while you're preparing the fish, cover it tightly, and reheat it in the microwave as the fish is cooking later.

You can also prepare this in individual gratin dishes (which I did once because one guest that night didn't like tomatoes)."

Can't argue with that.

©2007 Alex Meier-Tomkins/Pine Street Kitchen

Janina Makes Ravioli

I'm happy to report that it is clear that neither I nor my wife has lost the bug of Italian cooking. I came home last night to a wonderful dinner of spinach-stuffed ravioli in a simple, but dangerously tasty, cream and garlic sauce. Once again, a shorter list of ingredients produced an inexplicably more complex sauce, with a sublime texture in which the richness was perfectly balanced by a dash of olive oil, a squeeze of a quarter of a lemon, and a small pile of basil. As I mention in the recipe, the cream may break right when you add the lemon, but a little simmering and stirring will bring everything back together nicely.

Janina grew up in a household of cooks just as I did. Her experience was a bit different, though, as her family emigrated here from the Phillipines in the early 1970's. While I watched and joined my parents mincing garlic, stirring pasta, rolling pie crusts and tossing apple chunks with lemon juice and cinnamon, assembling vegetarian pizzas, roasting legs of lamb with Yorkshire pudding (for Dad's birthday only), and dressing chicken breasts with Dijon mustard and cream; she sat with her grandmothers as they shaved coconut on an ancient grater for dishes both sweet and savory, braised bits of pork in a broth packed with ginger and fish sauce and bok choy, and seared thin, pounded strips of skirt steak that had been marinated in soy sauce and garlic. She helped her mother roll lumpia (Filipino spring rolls) and she scooped out the sweet, perfumed flesh of Manila mangoes.

It is no surprise, then, that a love of food, an almost innate sense of how to cook it, and a developed sense of the development of ingredients' flavors would have followed her through her life. And while I do too often hog the kitchen, I relinquish control of that room to my delight every time. And so we come back to the ravioli. Like me, Janina tends to not measure her ingredients or, for that matter, even remember exactly what she used to make a dish after she becomes inspired. But for the sake of the cooking public, she was kind enough to commit this one to memory. This recipe fed the two of us, so increase quanities as you see fit.

Ten ravioli (any good-quality frozen variety will work just fine)
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
2 garlic cloves, roughly chopped
½ cup heavy cream
juice and zest from 1/2 lemon
Ten basil leaves, roughly chopped or torn
Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper

Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Drop the ravioli into the boiling water along with a hefty pinch of kosher salt. While the ravioli are cooking, heat the olive oil in a saute pan over low heat. Add the garlic and cook very gently for a few minutes, until the garlic becomes very fragrant but doesn't turn brown at all. Add the cream, raise the heat to medium, and bring to a simmer. Add the lemon zest and juice and stir well to combine. (The cream may break at the addition of the lemon juice, but will come back together with some stirring and simmering). Add half the basil along with a nice pinch of salt and a few grinds of pepper.

When the ravioli are done they'll float to the surface of the water. Drain the ravioli well and add them to the sauce to coat on both sides. Plate the ravioli, spooning over any remaining sauce, sprinkle over the remaining basil, along with a drizzle of olive oil. Freshly grated Parmigiano over top of everything is always nice.

©2007 Alex Meier-Tomkins/Pine Street Kitchen

Honeymooning in Italy

I am still reeling from the unbelievable experiences that my wife Janina and I had in Tuscany and Umbria during the first two weeks of June. What a perfect time to visit - 80's and blue skies every day we were there, and the throngs of tourists hadn't arrived in full force.

Even though the crowds hadn't yet applied their force, or perhaps because of it, the cities and hill towns we visited were alive with the energy of summertime. Smiling, happily sated visitors crowded every table at lunch in Florence. Enthusiastic growers at tiny wineries eagerly showed us their vineyards and winemaking facilities. Family-run restaurants in the small towns were riding high on the energy they need to make it through the busy season, and they piled our plates high with the freshest of foods straight from their friends' farms. Markets teemed with fresh produce and meats and cheese.

Above you can see the vibrant colors of Florence and the smiles this city elicits. The food is solidly Tuscan, meaning that it focuses on the produce and even more heavily on high quality meat. Florentine steak is a mainstay, though we saw more pork on every menu than we could have possibly imagined (see Montalcino later on), and the lamb was pretty darn good, too. Speaking of lamb, my first dinner in Italy had a main course of lamb roulade with artichokes. I barely noticed the artichokes when the plate arrived, the lamb having been roasted to full doneness as was often the case. A few bites, however, revealed tender artichoke hearts hiding out, flecked with bits of chopped fresh rosemary. This was the whole dish, just the lamb, artichokes, and rosemary, dressed with a generous swath of olive oil, and it typified the beautiful simplicity of so much of the food.

I was thinking about all these good things while walking around in our garden this afternoon. I peered at the summer squash vines, their huge green leaves weaving a blanket through which tiny bursts of bright yellow-orange could be spied. These squash blossoms (flowers) will last a few more weeks, and culling a few handfuls for the following pasta recipe will hardly put a dent in your squash or zucchini harvest. Rinse the flowers well to remove most of the pollen and any bugs, and remove the stamen before chopping them.

I ate this pasta at Ristorante da Mimmo on Via San Gallo in Florence, and it was so clean and almost refreshing that I had to rifle through the garden upon returning home! Eat this as a light first course, and whatever you do, resist the urge to shower this with cheese; the subtle, floral nature of the blossoms will get totally drowned out. A judicious drizzle of extra virgin olive oil, on the other hand, would be quite welcome right before serving.

1 package (8-10 oz) egg fettucine
3 tablespoons butter
1 medium white onion, minced
½ cup chicken or vegetable stock, preferably homemade
10-15 large squash or zucchini blossoms, roughly chopped
Large handful fresh parsley, minced
Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper

Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add the pasta to the water along with a hefty pinch of salt. While the pasta is cooking, melt the butter over medium heat and add the onions. Cook the onions with a little pinch of salt and a few grinds of pepper until the onions are quite soft and golden. Add the stock and bring to a simmer and reduce the stock by half.

Drain the pasta when it is just a little less than al dente. Add the pasta to the pan and toss in the stock until the stock is absorbed into the pasta. Add the parsely and the flowers, along with salt and pepper to taste, toss quickly, and serve. As I said before, a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil over top right before serving works wonders!

©2007 Alex Meier-Tomkins/Pine Street Kitchen

The Newsletter Turns 1: Time to start a blog...

So my food and wine newsletter has finally reached the ripe old age of one, but it's remarkably mature for its age, believe me. This issue has been a year in the making, and I couldn't be happier. It has been a blast cooking and eating and drinking this last year, so if you like that kind of stuff, too, read on and pass it along.

I'm going to eventually post all of the recipes and wine comments from the last year, probably in a different format, maybe even by category. Wouldn't that be fun?

©2007 Alex Meier-Tomkins/Pine Street Kitchen

Harvest Time - October 2006

These wine and food pairings were inspired by the grape harvest all throughout the northern hemisphere.

The recipes are simple, hearty, and incredibly wine friendly. The Dijon chicken hits particularly close to home for me, stirring welcome memories of warm dinners in the cold Buffalo winters.

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The Newsletter is Born - August 2006

I can distinctly remember the great, satisfying feeling of finishing my first food and wine newsletter. This was my baby, a goal that I had set for myself, and actually getting a full-length monthly newsletter off the ground made me immensly proud. Three weeks after it was published, my boss asked me when the September issue would be ready and I panicked. You mean I have to write this every month?!

In any case, it has continued with great support and hopefully great recipes. Here's where it all began...

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The Beef Issue - September 2006

I made it over the hump! Thinking about all that beef gave me the inspiration to sit down and write another issue of the newsletter.

I haven't had these burgers for several months, but I think some of the fat content maystill be with me.

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