Christmas Baking

There is one Christmas Day ritual which JC has to follow: eating panettone for breakfast.
To fulfill this duty I made Mataloc this year.

Mataloc is a panettone-like bread from the lake Como area in northern Italy.
I used a recipe from "The Italian Baker" by Carol Field. Comparing with the panettone recipe in the same book, they are very similar with maybe little less butter for Mataloc.

I didn’t have a panettone pan so used a cake pan. 

The outcome was ... colossal!

The texture could be similar to brioche than airy panettone but it tasted just like panettone.

I have never had Mataloc. I’ve never even seen it therefore I don’t know if the Mataloc I made had even the slightest resemblance to the original bread, but JC loved it and that’s all that matters, at least for this mission.

For the dessert I made the Black Forest cake.
It is the traditional German cake with Kirschwasser flavor.
Since the Black Forest cake uses whipped cream, not butter cream, it is of course sweet but there is some lightness in its sweetness rather than being heavy or rich.

The sponge cake was soaked with the Kirschwasser syrup and cream was whipped with Kirschwasser, so we had this cake with Kirschwasser.

Cleanliness of the spirit together with the light sweetness of the cake created smooth pairing.

Next day we had this cake with the sparkling wine.

Domaine Collin Crémant de Limoux
This is a rosé sparkling wine from southern France made with a traditional method.
Fresh aromas and flavors of apple, plum and cherry with bitterness of apple skin.

I thought that the bitterness of the wine would collide with the cake but, in fact, with the cake the bitterness disappeared and the wine went good with the cake, especially with the cherry and surprisingly very good with the cream！

Prima Materia Tasting Room

Even with the shelter in place order we can still enjoy wine tasting.
Last month, we went to Prima Materia’s tasting room In Oakland.

Prima Materia is a winery in the Lake county, California. 

It is a small wine producer with a focus on the traditional style wine making and its tasting room in Oakland is also small but open for tasting with the outside tasting space.

Their tasting menu comes like this!

Chardonnay
Clean citrus/flower aromas with a little bit of bitterness of citrus zest. A hint of bruised apple. 

The texture is oily like ripe pear.

Rosé
This wine is a blend of Barbera and Aglianico.
Complex aromas of fresh coffee beans, candied rose, liquorice, red cherry and strawberry are supported by good acidity, bitterness of grapefruit and a tiny tannin of dried fruits.

Sangiovese
Freshness of mint and tomato stems, and richness of plum and bitter chocolate.
Well integrated tannin. It is a clean, easy to drink wine.

Negroamaro
Marshmallow, fresh black cherry and black olives.

The richness is blended with well integrated tannin.

Barbera
Sweet aromas of cherry blossom, herbs, cranberry and cherry.

Fruits, acid and tannin are well balanced.

Refosco
Refosco is a red grape from northern Italy.
Rich aromas of sweet tobacco, black cherry, pomegranate, cooked tomatoes and dark chocolate are balanced with a good amount of acidity.

Aglianico
Complex aromas and flavors of spice, herb, coffee, violet, cherry and raspberry.
Tannin is high but well integrated and it's easy to drink especially for Aglianico.


All of them are well-made, easy to drink wines with pleasant finish.
I don’t see any reason not to want to drink them!

Thanksgiving Lamb Dinner

The turkey is a staple of the Thanksgiving dinner table.

However, since we are not a big fan of the turkey meat our Thanksgiving dinner menu rarely includes a turkey.

This year was not an exception: we had Lamb Wellington for the Thanksgiving dinner.

I made the puff pastry the day before and JC made the lamb Wellington with it.

We opened red Bordeaux wine for this dinner.

Les Pagodes de Cos Saint-Estephe 2014

The full-bodied red wine from the left bank.

The first impression was the abundance of fruits like ripe red and black fruits or fruit syrup, then herbs and cigar gradually appeared.

Soft tannin and the fruitiness made this wine very approachable.

And the pairing of lamb and red Bordeaux was of course success.

Cake salé

Baking a lot means eating sweets a lot.
Even I, who’s got quite a sweet tooth, started to feel like that I was taking too much sugar.

I wanted to keep baking but reduce sugar intake, so I chose Cake salé as my next baking project.

Cake salé means savory cake in French.
Ingredients are just like a cake: flour, egg, fat, but without sugar.
Fillings I used were olives, dried tomatoes, caramelized onion, corned beef and cheese.
I also needed to add white wine so asked JC to get some.

He brought Giacomelli Azienda Agricola Giardino dei Vescovi Colli di Luni Vermentino 2017
White wine from Liguria, Italy, with the beautiful golden color and the aromas of orange blossoms and a hint of hazelnut.

He chose this because the savory quality and the rich texture of the wine would be good with the cake.

Without sugar the cake didn’t rise like sweet cakes but the taste was good.
The texture of the cake gives faint perception of sweetness which makes saltiness of fillings round.
As a rule of thumb, wine used in cooking was good to pair with the food.

19th Century Beef Pudding

Since I mostly stay home due to the pandemic I bake more often. 

To bake often it would be more fun to do it with some project in mind.

British baking is always intriguing to me. I’ve been fascinated by English pies and puddings in story books and pictures from when I was a kid.

One thing always puzzles me in the British baking is suet.
Suet is the fat of cows and mutton, and I couldn’t really imagine how it would be integrated in pastries - it seems to be a good time to challenge baking with suet!

Shredded suet

I used a recipe of 19th century beef pudding from Regula Ysewijn’s Pride and Pudding.

Suet for baking can’t be any fat. It has to be the specific hard fat found around kidneys and its higher melting point of between 113 and 122F makes it ideal for cooking, creating a light texture without burning quickly.
Fortunately the butcher we contacted knew exactly what we were looking for.

To make the suet dough mix suet and dry ingredients well then add liquid. 

Roll out the dough then place it in the mold. 

Add the beef filling, pour the beer and cover with the leftover dough.

JC was excited with this project too and made the filling with beef, vegetables and herbs.
Steam for one hour. 

I thought the dough would be very greasy since it was made with beef fat, and didn’t grease the mold thinking the fatty dough would be easy to be removed from the mold. Mistake. 

The dough wasn’t greasy and it stuck inside the mold.
It took a big crack on the pudding to take it out from the mold but the flavor was surprisingly good.

The combination of the beef filling and the dough tasted ... like Chinese buns (and I love Chinese buns)!

JC opened Producteurs Plaimont Saint Mont 2016
He bought this Tannat-based red blend wine from southwest France at Costco. It’s not easy to find affordable Tannat here.

It was full-bodied wine with fruits somehow overshadowed by the strong structure. 

It wouldn’t be a kind of wine to enjoy by itself but was good with the strong flavor of the pudding.

I'm overall satisfied with the suet in savory pudding project.
Next time I’d like to try making sweet pudding with suet.

Tomato Tarte Tatin

This time of the year we are gifted with the abundance of tomatoes in the garden.

I usually make tomato sauce but this year I wanted to try something different and found an interesting recipe: Cherry Tomato Tarte Tatin !

The recipe is from the book The Art of The Tart by Tamasin Day-Lewis.
It’s a real tarte tatin, not just the name. 

The filling is simply cherry tomatoes with caramelized balsamic vinegar and baked under the puff pastry.

It’s very simple recipe - after making the pastry dough there was nothing really left to do - therefore I didn’t have too much expectation but it was really tasty!

The picture in the book shows bright red color of tomatoes but my tomatoes were baked much longer (I used a bigger pan) and lost the beautiful color.
It’s less appealing but for the taste, well-baked tomatoes were sweeter and suited for this dish, I guess.

The wine we had with was Kirkland Rioja Reserva 2015

Very good wine with lots of fruits and soft tannin, especially for its price ($7.99!).
Its concentrated red fruits went very good with sweet and sour baked cherry tomatoes.

Oven Efficient Dinner

The Shelter in place order is still in effect but stores have been gradually opening with restrictions.

The other day I was walking neighborhood and saw an antique shop with the display outside the store. There I found a cute orange Pyrex with a lid which I fell in love with instantly and brought back home.

This is a perfect size for the Basque cheesecake I wanted to make.

Basque cheesecake is baked at very high temperature to create its distinct burned surface. It is the same temperature as baking bread so I planned to bake baguette at the same time. Then JC decided to cook the lamb for dinner in the oven too.

He seared the lamb then finished cooking in the oven.

We had two wines for this dinner:

Clos Cibonne Côtes de Provence Tibouren 2018

Castelli Green Valley of Russian River Valley Nebbiolo 2014

Refreshing rose wine with a hint of citrus peel-like bitterness cut grease of the dish, and the Nebbiolo with high, soft tannin was a good companion to the flavorful lamb.

Dessert was the cheesecake ... well, it had to be rested overnight so we had the dessert next day.

For this Basque cheesecake, we had Primator Double Bock. 

This is a dark colored beer from Czech Republic; It’s rich with fruit, even tastes sweet, but light in body.

Pairing was great. It tasted like bitter sweet coffee.

Two pastries from one dough

While we stay home I’m doing a lot of baking. 

I’m mostly making breads and cookies because we need to eat bread everyday and I only need to use the oven for 15 to 20 minutes to bake cookies, short enough time to tolerate in summer.
However, making same things over and over again for a couple of months was becoming monotonous and I wanted to try something different, so I made two pastries: savory and sweet.

For the savory pastry I rolled out half of the dough on the table sprinkled with Parmesan cheese. Folded it, rolled out again, cut the dough into strips, gave them twist and bake. 

Ta da! Cheese sticks!

The sweet version is Cinnamon palmier.
I rolled out the other half of the dough into rectangle shape, sprinkle cinnamon sugar, rolled the dough like a roll cake, slice and bake.

Pastry dough is something I don’t really make because every time I tried it ended up too hard instead of flaky. I was always careful to keep butter icy cold so that it wouldn’t melt but it didn’t work and my pastry was hard without flaky layers.
This time I heard that the butter shouldn’t have been too hard so I used butter from the fridge, not from the freezer. I think it makes sense - with softer butter I don’t need to work on the dough too much - and it worked! Both sweet and savory pastries are light and flaky!

Cooking with lemon

With the shelter in place order, I try not to go to shopping often.
I try to cook with ingredients at home which include fruits in the garden.
Unfortunately most of fruits we grow in the garden are citrus like lemon, lime and yuzu.
They are nice to have but you can't really "eat".

To conjure something to eat out of citrus trees I made lemon peel.

Remove white lining and slice the lemon skin. 

Cook them with water and sugar then add lemon juice, and cook until they become translucent. 

Cool them down and sprinkle sugar.

It tastes good just by itself, and I also baked lemon bread and lemon cookies with them.
The leftover syrup from lemon peel making is delicious with yogurt.

Shelter in place cookies

Like many other people I clean the house during this shelter in place time.
While I have to stay home I want to do something productive and stay at a clean place, and cleaning house is perfect thing to do. It also helps me to feel uplifted in this depressing time.

The other day I was cleaning the pantry and found almond powder which should have been used soon so I made Amaretti with it.

Amaretti is macaron-like cookie made with almond powder, egg white and amaretto.

It turned out that the crust was too hard and inside was too chewy.
JC kept them in an air-tight container with a tiny cup of rum. A week later, it became crumbly with a slight resistance on the crust, just like real Amaretti!

I looked for other cookie recipes that have something about shelter in place, and found this: Chocolate chip cookies from the DoubleTree hotel by Hilton.

This cookie is offered to the guests at the hotel. It seems to have passionate followers and many people tried to recreate this cookie at home.
Now people can't travel and even the hard-core fans can't have this cookie, therefore the hotel revealed the recipe of the cookie so that people can enjoy at home. How sweet!

I made a slight adjustment to the recipe and this is my version:

1 stick butter
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup brown sugar
1 egg
vanilla extract
lemon juice
1 cup all purpose flour
1/4 cup rolled oats
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
Pinch cinnamon
3/4 cup chocolate chip
1 cup chopped walnut

Bake at 350°F for 15 to 20 minutes.

I made them smaller and crispier than original.
It was really good! I even want to stay at the hotel just to try the original!

Barolo Brunello Barbaresco tasting

Before the shelter in place order took place, I attended a tasting event of beautiful Italian wines.

Ca'Rome Barolo Cerretta DOCG 2016
Barolo made with low yielding Nebbiolo grapes from a single vineyard.
Beautiful aromas of rose, red plum, raspberry, candied cherry, herbs and tobacco.
Elegant wine with high, powdery tannin.

Boscarelli Vino Nobile di Montepulciano Il Nocio DOCG 2016
100% Sangiovese.
Fresh red fruit, cherry blossoms, preserved plum and medicinal herbs.
Powdery tannin with refreshing acidity.

Fuligni Brunello di Montalcino DOCG 2015
Complex aromas of red fruits and savoriness of caramelized onion and smoked meat, which are backed by the firm structure.
It feels pure joy to drink this wine.

Bongiovanni
Langhe Arneis DOC 2019
Very aromatic white wine made with 100% Arneis grape, with aromas of fresh grapes, ripe grapefruit, pear and peach.
Refreshing, full-bodied wine.

Barolo Pernanno DOCG 2016
Exotic aromas of herbs and incense.
Gripping tannin was softened and became approachable when it was paired with cheese.
Good food wine.

Conterno Fantino
Barbera d'Alba Vignota DOC 2017/2018
Multi-vintage wine.
Deep sweet aromas of Amaretto and ripe red fruits.
Aroma and flavor of oak add depth to the wine.

Podei Luigi Einaudi
Barolo Cannubi DOCG 2016
Beautiful aromas of rose, chestnut and ripe red fruits
High, well-integrated tannin gives the strong backbone.
A wine with power and decency.

Barolo Bussia DOCG 2016
Complicated aromas of fresh and desiccated red fruits such as plum and cherry, quince and almond, which are balanced with lively acid and anchored by firm tannin.

Gaudio Bricco Mondalino Malvasia di Casorzo Dolce Stil Novo DOC 2018
Cute rosé wine with floral aromas, made with Malvasia Rossa.
It is sweet but not too sweet. Good to drink as an apéritif. 

They were all amazing wines.
Now I'm staying at home, remembering the wines, and thanking for the opportunity that I got to taste these wines before the corona pandemic forced all events to be cancelled.
Hope everything goes back to normal soon and we can go out and find those great wines.

 

Spending time at home

To fight against coronavirus pandemic, here in California Bay Area we are ordered to stay at home.
It is a drastic measure to close many businesses and hugely affected our life too, but if this works and we can contain this pandemic, it's worth it.

In a meanwhile, we decided to utilize this time at home and make preserved food.

First thing we made was Miso.
The timing worked for me because it is around this time I make Miso every year.

To crush soy beans, we used a food mill. It was fast and texture seemed smoother than soy beans crushed by hand or even by a food processor.
I'd like to find if it will taste different, but have to wait until autumn.

We also made jam with blackberries which I harvested (they were more like weed in the garden) and froze last year, and preserved lemon.

When the weather becomes better, we will do deep house cleaning.

It is fun to get creative and find something to do while we all have to stay home, but I really hope things will go back to normal soon.

L'Arack de Musar

Chateau Musar in Lebanon is known for producing great wines, but they also make Arak.
Arak is a grape-base distilled spirit with anise flavor from Eastern Mediterranean.

L'Arack de Musar

... Please excuse my cat.
Chateau Musar's L'Arack de Musar is distilled four times and it is distilled with anise seeds at the 4th time.

Distinct but not overwhelming aromas and flavor of anise seeds and underlaid dark chocolate.

Very smooth and clean mouthfeel.
It is not necessarily sweet, but its creamy texture gives the perception of subtle sweetness. 

It is a strong spirit and traditionally mixed with water to drink.
When water is added it becomes hazy with white color. 
This means that the Arak is made by distilling with real anise seeds, not by simply adding extracts to alcohol. 

We tried several ratio, and liked 1 : 3 ratio (Arac : water) with ice the best. 

Schioppettino di Cialla 2009

Ronchi di Chialla Schioppettino di Cialla 2009

Schioppettino is a deep-colored red grape from Friuli-Venezia Giulia, northern Italy.

The variety was once on the verge of extinction.
It was a popular local grape until vineyards were hit by phylloxera louse then abandoned during the world wars. 
The grape was revived by the effort of Ronchi di Cialla winery in 1970s.


This wine has complex aromas of red rose, cedar, dried and fresh plum, cherry and cranberry.
Well integrated powdery tannin is balanced with dried fruit.
Finish is long and pleasant. 

The wine is good with food with strong saltiness or sourness.
We had this with grilled fish Japanese style. Good pairing.

Wrong about Bordeaux ?

When I started to drink wine more seriously, I didn't know where to start so followed the trend in the wine magazines.
The trend back then was big, rich, spicy red wine and Bordeaux wine was the most highly regarded wine at that time.

With these images paired with my lack of opportunity to taste Bordeaux wine, I had had the perception that red Bordeaux wine was big and masculine for long time.

Thankfully I have had opportunities to taste Bordeaux wine little by little, and found them not being something I had imagined. They were more elegant and feminine than big and masculine.

Maybe I had been wrong.

Union des Grands Crus de Bordeaux Tasting is the tasting event of Bordeaux 2017 vintage.
It was another opportunity for me to find what really Bordeaux wine would be like.

Chateau Citran Haut-Medoc 2017
Ripe red fruits balanced with freshness of tart fruit skin.
Coffee and incense give depth and exotic feel.
Tannin is high but easy to drink.
Haut-Medoc is the region which is lesser regarded comparing with other bigger names such as Pomerol or Margaux, but this wine was really good!

Château Gazin Pomerol 2017
Concentrated fresh rose, cherry and apricot are embraced by fine-grained tannin.
Beautiful aromas and texture.

Château Rouget Pomerol 2017
Lively aromas of fresh and ripe strawberry and red plum are supported by firm tannin. 

Bittersweet spice adds twist and dried flower gives elegant feel.

Château Gruaud Larose Saint-Julien 2017
Aromas of red fruits, dried orange peel, mint and spice. 

Tannin is beautifully integrated. Decent wine.

Château Léoville Barton Saint-Julien 2017
Concentrated red fruits, spice, coffee and meatiness which are balanced with fine-grained tannin. 

It is rich but so well balanced that it’s easy to drink.

Château Bastor-Lamontagne Sauternes 2017
Fresh citrus, citrus peel and apricot. 

It is a sweet wine but not too sweet. 

This wine can be good as an aperitif.



Most of wines we tasted this day were more elegant than powerful.
JC said that they were classic examples of Bordeaux. 

I guess I had been wrong indeed. 

First tasting of the year

I wonder why things seem different at the beginning of the year. 

I know it's just number ... 2019 became 2020 ... but, somehow, it always feels special to attend the first tasting of the new year: everything, wine, glasses, even the faces I usually see at these events, is ... luminous.

This year, it was Burgundy and Rhone wine tasting. 

These are the wines which are especially luminous to me at this event.

Domaine Marc Roy Gevrey-Chambertin Vieilles Vignes 2018

Liveliness of cranberry, raspberry, rose and black pepper is balanced with firm structure.
The liveliness is like a pleasant explosion in my mouth!
Great wine and great with Camembert cheese.

Domaine Marc Roy Gevrey-Chambertin La Justice 2018
Flavors of high quality cranberry, red plums and raspberry which are embraced by subtle oak and fine grained tannin.
Its creamy texture is like velvet.

Laurent Fayolle Hermitage Les Diognieres 2017

Abundance of aromas and flavors of flower, red fruits, potpourri and black pepper are supported by fine-grained tannin.
Elegant wine.

Joseph Colin Chevalier Montrachet Grand Cru 2018

Old vine Chardonnay grown on very steep slopes.
Complex aromas of almond, almond flower, marzipan, apple and orange zest.

Just enough amount of acidity, not overwhelming. 

Good food wine.

Joseph Colin Puligny Montrachet Le Trezin 2018
The vineyard is at the highest altitude in Puligny.
White flower, orange zest and lemon with high acidity.
There is tenderness which reminds me of natural wine. 

Charlene et Laurent Pinson Chablis 1er Cru Montee de Tonnerre 2018
Freshness and bitterness of grapefruit is balanced with acidity.
Minerality of flint and stone adds depth.
Interesting wine with long finish.


When I think back all the wines after these tastings and choose the memorable ones, Chablis is usually not one of them.
I of course love Chablis but trying crisp Chablis with other wines, richer, more complex white wine is easier to pick. However, this day, this Chablis wine stood out.