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.