Grilled Beef Brochettes

I have the bad (though some would call it good!) habit of purchasing random food items from my local grocery store or farmers' market on nothing more than a whim - because they look interesting, or because I've always wanted to try them... Who can blame me? The selection of "ingredients" available these days can be absolutely intoxicating. A bunch of fresh and mild green garlic, a creamy wheel of soft Queso Blanco, a mountain of sweet smelling and sunset-colored mangoes... It can all be so irresistable! Recently, aji panca peppers were one of those purchases. I bought them a couple of weeks ago while I was shopping for dried New Mexico chiles to use in an enchilada sauce (Did I mention that early May means Mexican food in my house? More on that later...). Ever since Kevin and I had that amazing meal at Andina in Portland, I have been curious about Peruvian food. So when I saw the dark, wrinkled, mahogany-colored Peruvian aji panca next to the New Mexico chiles, I had to buy them. Never mind that I had no idea what I would do with them!

Fast forward a couple of weeks - Destined for a Friday night on my couch with my box of tissues, thanks to a nasty cold, I picked up the latest copy of Gourmet magazine on my way home. Imagine my excitement when I realized that not only did the May issue include a whole meals-worth of Peruvian recipes, but one that used aji panca to boot! I made the Grilled Beef Brochettes tonight, and they were absolutely delicious. Since I did not have the aji panca paste, but rather, dried aji panca, I reconstituted them in a little water and blended the mixture to form a thin paste, which worked quite well. The resulting robust marinade was absolutely mouth-watering. I served these with Caribbean Black Beans with Sauteed Plantains from Jack Bishop's A Year in a Vegetarian Kitchen, and it made for a delicious meal.

The recipe for Grilled Beef Brochettes can be found at epicurious.com

Wine of the Week: Hogue Fume Blanc Columbia Valley 2007

I bought this wine a while ago at Trader Joe's because I had been reading about Fume Blanc and thought that Hogue's version would be a good bet in the under-$20 range (I think it was about $11). It turns out that I was right - it was a good bet! This pale yellow, almost green in color, slightly effervescent wine was not a bad pick for the price point. The aroma was of stone fruit, peaches in particular, and I also picked up some tropical notes - perhaps papaya or guava. As you might expect, it is a very light-bodied wine, but I was surprised to find that it has a longer finish. Not so surprising, but rather pleasing, was the fact that it features a bit of an acidic tang as well. The predominant flavors that came across to me were of citrus (lemon zest) and tart green pear, with some herbal notes. I will definitely keep this wine in mind for pairing with early summer meals.

Poached-Egg Topper

Originally, I didn't make this salad for garlic.pepper.parsley, but because I was hungry! It was so pretty when it was done, though, that I couldn't help but take a picture. Then, while looking at the picture, it came to me that maybe this little quick-meal trick of mine might be useful to others, so I decided to post it.


If it seems odd to put a poached egg on top of a salad, I have to ask you to suspend your disbelief for just a moment and stay with me. When I was still cooking for one, not to mention trying to maintain my pre-wedding weight, this dish made a frequent appearance on my table. Why? Because it's light, reasonably balanced, easy to make, and a good way to use up vegetables (and eggs) before they go bad in the refrigerator! And, the added protein from the egg really turns the salad into a meal. You can add dressing to the salad before adding the egg if you'd like (a light vinaigrette works well), but you don't need to, because the runny egg yolk makes a nice dressing by itself. As always, I'd recommend adding a few turns from the pepper grinder as well.

Poaching an egg is not the easiest thing to do, but it also isn't hard if you use my method. The end result may not be the most beautiful thing ever, but it works! I just fill a very small frying pan about 2/3 full with water and add a splash or two (about 1 tsp.) of vinegar. Then, I heat the water on medium until bubbles start to form on the bottom and sides of the pan. I crack the egg into a separate bowl and drop it into the center of the pan. While the sides of the egg white cook, I spoon water over the top of the egg until the white turns opaque over the yolk. Then, I use a slotted spoon to remove the egg and place it on a paper towel for a couple of minutes to drain. That's it!

If you still just can't bring yourself to put that egg on top of a salad, try it on pasta! The yolk works as a great simple sauce. And, "an egg on top" is a popular food trend this year, so you'll be on the cutting edge!

Wine of the Week: Chateau Montus 2003 Madiran

This wine departs from my usual picks because it is not as widely available, and because it is only under twenty dollars if you buy a half bottle! Still, when I sampled it at a wine tasting about a month and a half ago, I knew that I would have to write a post about it. First, the specifics: I purchased this wine through the hosts of the tasting for about seventeen dollars for the half bottle (375 ml). It is a relatively high alcohol blend of 80% Tannat and 20% Cabernet Sauvignon, and is from the Madiran appellation in Southwest France.

The wine is extremely dark purple in color, even inky. The aromas are of currant, blackberry, tobacco, and leather, but the taste is really what makes this wine interesting to me. At first, almost no fruit comes through, and the wine is really all about the tannins, and woody, smoky, non-fruit flavors. It is only after it has been given some time to breathe that any fruit comes through, cassis and blackberry most notably, on the mid-palate. In the meantime, the wine is full-bodied with a long, coarse finish. Tannins are prominent, but not astringent, lending it a smooth, "chewy" texture. The balance is only threatened slightly by the high alcohol. Once this wine has had some time to open up, the fruit, the tannins, the acid, and the alcohol all play nicely. Before that? It is an interesting change to have a wine that is not so juicy. Definitely worth a try if you come across a bottle.

Food Read: Educating Peter

If Educating Peter seems to be an unlikely name for a book in the food realm, it may prove even more shocking to learn that this book is actually about wine. Yes, Lettie Teague, wine editor at Food & Wine magazine, wrote the 2007 book to chronicle her adventures in teaching her good, but wine-ignorant, friend Peter Travers (film critic at Rolling Stone magazine) a thing or two about wine. Actually, her goal was to teach Travers, who proclaimed his love for "fatty" Chardonnay, more than a thing or two about wine. Rather, she wanted to, "teach someone enough about wine that he or she would be able to read a restaurant wine list without fear, approach a wine merchant with confidence, and perhaps even score a few points off a wine-snob friend".

I have to admit that I had high expectations for this book. After hearing a light-hearted interview of Teague and Travers on The Splendid Table, I purchased the book in the hopes that it would be more engaging than the other wine books I was muddling through at the time. It was more engaging at first, but then...it lost me for a while. Meaning, about halfway through the book, I set it down and didn't pick it back up for at least a month.

I did eventually finish Educating Peter, and I have to say that in the end, it's not a bad book. To Teague's credit, she does cover a lot of ground in 250 pages - everything from wine vocabulary and bottle shapes, to wine regions old world and new, to pairing wine with food. But I wonder if she tried to do too much with this book by trying to cover so much ground, while still including Peter's reactions to each topic. The factual information about wine seems to be less than complete in the beginning, where engaging anecdotes of teaching Peter rule the text. Then in the middle, where wine-producing regions are detailed in sequence, the shear quantity of information seems to crowd out the "Peter-isms" for the most part, and left me wishing for more. The interesting thing is, this book is marketed as being targeted toward true wine novices. I would not consider myself to be a wine expert now, but when I bought this book, I was a true novice - at least close enough to be able to weigh in on this claim! I have to say that this book went a bit beyond the novice realm in so thoroughly detailing regions, producers, and even vintages. Despite being a relatively detail-oriented person, I found myself wondering how I would ever remember all of these details, short of carrying the book around with me!

Surprisingly, I did retain many more of those specifics than I ever expected, and, despite barely making it through the first time, I am actually considering reading the book again. Having come so far in my wine knowledge since I first bought it, I think I will be better able to appreciate what this book has to offer now. And, despite Teague's sometimes obvious wine-snob tone, I am interested in what she has to say. The bonus? The book's format should make it a breeze to re-read.