Oyster and Riesling

It’s almost the end of March.
There is something we need to do before we turn over the calendar…go get oysters!

One sunny day we drove to Tomales Bay Oyster Company.

Tomales Bay Oyster Company is a seafood farm in Marin county which specializes in oysters.

I am not that big a fan of oysters - I like them but am worried that I may get sick - but oysters here are so fresh that I don’t need to worry about the quality and love the drive to this scenic area.
And JC loves oysters, especially the big ones which he can find here.

It was a beautiful day and it seemed like everybody had the same idea.
The store had a long line and some of oysters were sold out...

Luckily the big oysters which JC craved were not quite as popular as smaller ones so we safely took them and clams home.

We had these fresh, meaty oysters with Riesling.

Selbach-Oster Mosel Saar Ruwer Riesling Spätlese 2005
Wine with golden color and pronounced aromas of honeysuckle, citrus flowers, tangerine, candied lemon and petrol.
Sweetness gives a rich mouthfeel which is balanced with fresh acidity.

Old Riesling pairs good with oysters.
This is a tip from Ridi Wiest, a legendary German wine importer (who now is a German art promoter).

Burgundy and homey food

Domaine des Comtes Lagon Meursault-Porusots Premier Cru 2014

Chardonnay from Meursault, Burgundy.
This wine is rich but also approachable.
Aromas spread in front of me - it was so vibrant that it was almost visible - a bouquet of white flowers, fresh fruits and marzipan.
Rich fruit flavors of pear and peach ended with slight bitterness of citrus zest.
Oak was there but as a supporter not as a dominator.
Bright acidity gave an accent to the round body.


We had this wine with Nikujaga.

Nikujaga is a Japanese comfort food: sauteed onion and beef are cooked in stock (dashi, soy sauce, mirin and sake) with potatoes.
It is a casual dish and wouldn’t be found in most restaurants, but is a very popular home food.

It was a surprisingly good pairing - a nothing fancy homey food like Nikujaga and Premier Cru Burgundy.
Then I realized that this combination wasn’t so far-fetched.
Nikujaga was said to be invented about 100 years ago by the Japanese Navy in an effort to recreate beef stew with Japanese ingredients, and beef stew and red Burgundy are the classic pairing.
I also used pork instead of beef this day (no reason, I just had pork in the fridge).
The lighter flavor of pork was a better pairing partner to the white wine.


I wondered if I cooked with beef, it could have been good with red Burgundy.
I should try it next time.

San Francisco Bakery tour

I’m an indoor person and don’t really mind staying home.
However, this situation where I HAVE TO stay home makes me feel like that I want to go out.

Therefore, when the spread of covid virus seemed to slow down and we both were fully vaccinated, JC and I left home for San Francisco.

To make it more fun, we decided to conjure up a theme for the outing.
“San Francisco Bakery tour” was our unanimous theme.

The first stop was Breadbelly in the Richmond District, my favorite bakery in San Francisco.

You can order at the door and they have the outside dining area but it was cold that day so we ordered takeout.

Kaya Bun
Milk bread with kaya cream inside.
Delicious green color coconut spread from South-east Asia (Kaya) is under the crispy topping.

Croissant
Love the flakey texture!

Pear Danish
Poached pear in white chocolate cream flavored with sake kasu.
Dreamlike combination of crispy dough, sweet fruit and cream with a hint of heat from sake kasu which gives depth to the sweetness.
Sake kasu is a byproduct of sake. It’s very rich in flavor and usually used in savory dishes like soup or marinade.
I’m Japanese so no stranger to sake kasu but find sake kasu used this way just amazing!

Chef Kate is a petite, sweet lady but when it comes to flavor combinations she is a giant!




The next stop was Cinderella Bakery.
This Russian bakery is also in the Richmond district.

I’m always fascinated with pastries from Eastern Europe therefore was really looking forward to visiting this bakery.

It was becoming sunny and warmer so we decided to stay at the outside dining area.

Syrniki (cheese fritters) served with sour cream and jam.
Flavor is rich but the texture is so light and delicate.

Piroshki was big. We couldn’t finish all of them and took the rest home. It was still delicious the day after.

Kvas
This traditional Russian drink is made with bread, yeast, water and spices.
There is no fruit in it but it tasted like apple cider.



Both bakeries were great in different ways.

Breadbelly suggests the awesome and endless possibility of flavor combinations and Cinderella bakery offers the piece of tradition of the country which I’ve never been to.


We wanted to visit more bakeries but already had a bag full of bread to take home so I will have to come back to SF for the bakery tour part two.

Tartine Manufactory

Tartine Bakery is one of the most famous bakeries in San Francisco.
It’s a twenty year old bakery which makes breads and pastries with the traditional technique but also with new ideas.

There are three Tartine bakeries in San Francisco.
Tartine Manufactory is one of them and located on the Alabama street, in the area with the industrial / hip atmosphere.

Parking is not easy around there but this day we were lucky to find a parking spot near the bakery and bought three goodies.

Pain au Jambon
This is Ham and cheese croissant.
Its texture is rich for croissant than being flaky because of the very generous amount of cheese.
The size of the croissant itself is quite generous too.
It’s a pricey pastry but makes you feel full.

Crumb cake
Moist cake and crispy crumble melted together in my mouth.

And today’s main event: Country loaf!

Beautiful color. Just looking at it makes me smile.
Nice sourdough flavor. Crispy outside, chewy inside.
When you toast it lightly, it becomes so soft!

To honor this bread we made an anchovies platter and had it with Château Maillard Graves 2018.
I thought that red Bordeaux might have been too heavy for the food but actually it was a good choice.

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!

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.

Neumeister Klausen Sauvignon Blanc 2015

We buy most of vegetables at farmers market.
They are not only fresh but also seasonal. 

What we found this day was avocado. Avocado season in California is almost over but this one was still very nice, meaty and flavourful avocado.
JC made seafood Donburi with this.

We had this Donburi with Sauvignon Blanc from Austria.

Neumeister Klausen Sauvignon Blanc 2015
Notes of citrus, tropical fruits and almond skin.
High yet soft acid and rich texture.

This wine has fruitiness of Sauvignon Blanc but also savoriness, which makes the wine very good with food.

Goya and wine

Goya is a difficult vegetable to pair with wine.
Goya, also called bitter melon, has the distinct bitterness which can be addictive but doesn't necessarily go good with the characteristics of wine.

One of the most popular Goya dishes would be Goya Champuru: it's Goya stir fry with pork, tofu and egg. The bitterness, the sweetness of pork fat and the soft texture of tofu are great combination.

There is an easier dish, if you want to simply enjoy the bitterness of the vegetable.
Blanch sliced Goya, drain and eat with Ponzu (citrus and soy sauce) and Katsuobushi (dried bonito).

We had this with Rias Baixas, which happened to be a great pairing!

Condes de Albarei Albarino Rias Baixas 2017
The wine has notes of citrus, pear, thyme and almond.
Acidity is tamed by the ripe fruit.

The bitterness of Goya complements to the savoriness of wine and brings out the fruitiness.

National Carbonara Day

Little information I learned recently: April 6th is the National Carbonara day.

It seems to encourage people to cook Carbonara and share the recipe, but when I make carbonara at home, It tends to become too greasy.
Therefore we went to enjoy professionally made Carbonara at 54 Mint, an Italian restaurant in San Francisco.
This restaurant has a impeccable lineup of pasta dishes. Their homemade pasta is fresh and has good texture.

Crispy fried seafood is a MUST at good Italian restaurant! 

Carbonara is a simple dish, but very flavorful.
This Carbonara at 54 Mint was rich but not greasy, especially when I had it with wine.

Wine was Bellone, white wine from Lazio.
Refreshing and easy to drink, and cut the fat of cheese and emphasize the flavor of  the dish.

We ended our lunch with Tiramisu. Perfect.

Spanish Bistro Shakewell

JC brought home a nice wine: AA Badenhorst.
Chenin Blanc-base white blend wine from South Africa, with vibrant fruit and flower, and richness and freshness at the same time.

The wine was good by itself but would be even better with food, so we went out for dinner with this wine.

Shakewell is a Spanish Bistro in Oakland.
Both restaurant and neighbourhood have casual, cozy feel.
It is a Tapas restaurant so I expected each plate would be small, but the size was actually generous.

Patatas Bravas
Fried potatoes with spicy tomato sauce and Aioli.
Crispy outside, soft and steamy inside.
Sauce wasn't too spicy and gave good accent.

Tempura Morels
Mushroom was meaty and had good texture and flavor.
Both fried dishes were not greasy at all. They must be using good oil to fry.

Other appetizers looked delicious too, but we needed to save room for the main dish.

Wood Oven Paella
Classic paella with Manila clams and Chorizo, finished in the wood-fired oven.
Rice was perfectly cooked. Not too hard, not too mushy.
Combination of flavors which was rich but not heavy.
The wood oven finish made the top of rice crispy, and it kept the dish hot for long time.

All dishes had subtle spiciness which was not overwhelming and supported the flavor of dishes.
The white wine went really good with the spice.

Somebody told JC that if a Spanish restaurant made good Patatas Bravas, other dishes would be good too. The theory seems to be true.

Slow Roasted Chicken

Ever since he came back from a trip to northern Italy, JC's been into slow roasted meat.

He stayed at the Meroi Estate in Friuli-Venezia Giulia.
The restaurant adjacent to the winery offers great local food, even chefs from Michelin Star restaurant come dine at the restaurant to get inspired.
He can't forget the food he had there, especially the simple yet flavourful slow roasted meat.

This is JC's recreation.
No sauce, no brine. Simply roast chicken with low heat for one hour.
Tender, juicy and delicious!

Wine is Starlite Vineyards Cabernet Sauvignon 2009 (Meroi wine is sleeping in the cellar).
Ripe fruit, dried fruit, smokiness of oak and freshness of herb.
Kept its pleasant quality even several days after we opened it. Great wine.

Halloween Bento

It was Halloween.

I usually don't participate this event, but this year I did something: I made Halloween Bento!

I'm not good at making artfully decorated bento, but I saw a picture of chopped finger bento (sausage on rice) on the net and I was still clumsy but tried to copy it.

The original used ketchup for blood. I used umeboshi instead because JC loves umeboshi, but it didn't really look like blood (JC even asked if it was meant to be blood).
Next time, I should follow the original faithfully...

Yuzu Kosho making

This year I couldn't find plum and didn't make umeboshi, therefore I wanted to make something else instead.

Yuzu citrus gets ripe in winter.
Right now, they are still green and small, but already have the aroma.
This green yuzu can be used for cooking and I decided to make yuzu kosho.
Yuzu kosho is a spicy paste originated from Kyushu (southern Japan).

Ingredients needed are only three: yuzu skin, green chili pepper, and salt.
My ratio is 10: 10: 3.
I got about 10g of zest from one yuzu.

Grate yuzu skin. Squeeze yuzu juice and add them to the zest.

It's recommended to use a mask, glove and eye glasses to process chili peppers.
Remove hats from chili peppers. Cut them open and remove seeds.
Chop them into small pieces. I started to cough at this point so I used a food processor for the rest of  the process.

Mix chili peppers, yuzu zest and salt, and grind them together in the food processor.
Let it rest in a fridge for a month or so.

This is good condiment for Nabe (hot pot) or Udon.
It can be used with grilled meat, too.

I licked it. Of course, spicy! but has good flavor.
The saltiness is quite noticeable but it would be tamed with time.

Pickling Nasturtium

I probably have a condition called "super taster".
It sounds cool but it is not, actually.
I taste bitterness, sourness or spiciness more than other people therefore can't eat food with strong flavors.

Pickling vegetables is fun. It's amazing to see the vegetable changes its shape, flavor and longevity with the simple process of pickling: however, I can't really eat them because they are usually too salty for me.
Nanohana-zuke is a pickled edible flower (rapeseed) which was one of few pickles I liked when I was a kid. I don't know why I liked... maybe those were not too salty or the idea of eating flower?

I wanted to make them but couldn't find the flower here, but there is one edible flower in my garden: nasturtium.

I decided to make pickles with this flower.

Boil water, throw flowers into boiling water and cook for a short amount of time, less than 10 seconds.
Drain and squeeze water from the flowers.
Add salt and diced chili pepper, mix and let them rest overnight.

It didn't taste like Nanohana zuke, of course, but this tastes good in its own way!

JC was somehow inspired by this new pickles and made a pasta dish.

Pasta with mushroom and truffle oil with nasturtium garnish.
The saltiness of nasturtium cut the greasiness of the truffle oil.
The wine for this pasta was Francois Chidaine Touraine Rouge 2017

A red blend of  Cot, Cabernet Franc, Pineau d'Aunis.
Purple flower and fresh red fruit.
Powdery tannin and good amount of acid for the dish.

This Loire Valley producer is known for white wine, but this red blend was really good.
It might not last long once it's opened, but no problem: it's so tasty and easy to drink that you will finish the bottle before long.

Salt Koji

When I make Miso, I make small amount of salt-koji with left over rice koji.

Rice koji is the rice with inoculated koji mold which converts starch in rice into sugar. This sugar eventually encourages fermentation for production of Miso or Sake.

To make salt-koji, I simply mix rice koji with warm salt water (hot water would kill koji). I never measured and tend to have lower salt, but haven't encountered disaster, at least, not yet.
Leave it under room temperature and mix once a day for a week.
It's ready when it starts to show a little sliminess, and you can keep this in a fridge for a while.
Salt-koji can be used to marinate fish or meat, or for pickled vegetable.

I had carrot which was fresh from farmers market, so I cut them into bite-size sticks and marinated with salt koji over night.
The salt-koji I made was a little low in salt, and the pickled carrot had more sweetness of its own than saltiness.

I liked it but wanted to make more pickles-like pickles, so got cucumber, cut them and sprinkled salt on them, squeezed out water, then marinated them with salt koji over night.
This one tasted more like pickled vegetable (and easy to make)!
 

Miso is ready

Miso I made last year is ready!

Since no preservatives are used, there could be mold on top of  Miso, but just remove it and the rest is fine. 
Miso is transferred to plastic container and stored in a fridge.
Even in a fridge fermentation might occur slowly, so avoid air tight container.

The first dish I made with this miso was miso marinated fish.
Mix miso and yuzu marmalade to make marinade, marinate butterfish for a couple of days, and grill.

The fat of fish and saltiness and sourness of marinade tasted great together.
This works for pork, too.
Marinate pork for 1 hour or so then grill. Yummy.

Sake Bar in Emeryville

There is a food court called Public Market in Emeryville.
It's still under construction but many of the shops are already open, and someone told me that there was a Sake Bar, so we went to check it out.

The bar The Periodic Table offers sake, shochu and liquor from Japan. There are also beer taps of craft beers from local and Japan.

Besides glasses of sake, there are 3 or 4 tasting course which you can choose the combination from the menu, and we tried 4 sake tasting course.
This was our choice.

Shichihon yari Junmai
Maboroshi Junmai Ginjo
Seiden Omachi Junmai Daiginjo
Seiden Gohyakumangoku　Junmai

Otsumami was this beautiful cheese plate and pickles.

Maboroshi and Seiden Omachi (Omachi is the name of the rice which has umami and earthiness) were the best with food.

Seiden Gohyakumangoku was good with salty pickles.
Gihyakumangoku is also a name of sake rice, and known to have light aromas and textures, and a clean finish.

We were support to have just appetizers here and go to dinner, but the selection of sake was good, otsumami was delicious, people were knowledgeable and friendly... we became too comfortable and decided to stay here for dinner.

Shiba Ramen is a ramen shop next door. These two shops are owned by the same owner and we could order ramen from the bar, so I ordered clear ramen with pork chashu, and JC ordered White Bird (rich, creamy soup) with chicken chashu.

The ramen was gooood! And the chicken chashu was unexpectedly delicious (I stole from JC)!
Soup was rich, had good flavor but not heavy or greasy.

There are good ramen stores opening around the bay area recently and we tried some of them.
For me, Shiba ramen is one of the best.

Good drinks and good ramen. What else can I ask for?
Highly recommended place!