Food: Delicious Salmon Dinner for Two

All three of the topics of this Blog: Wine, Travel, and Food, are highly subjective.  Something I rave about may be something where you had a bad experience or simply don’t like it.  This blog is about Salmon and I have some strong opinions about this fish which will rapidly become apparent.  Upfront I will state that the conclusions stated below are IMHO and you are very welcome to disagree and adding comments where you disagree might be of interest to others reading this blog.

Salmon Background

Salmon comes from many areas around the world, and I have found the taste varies widely.  Here on the East Coast we see a lot of Atlantic Salmon, almost all of it farm raised.  About the only good thing I can say about farm raised Atlantic Salmon is that the color is very similar to other fish that actually have some flavor.  I have two dishes that I make with Atlantic Salmon and if those recipes are of interest let me know in a comment.  At the cooking school Beth and I went to in France we did Salmon fish cakes where we used a food processor to break the cutlets down and added a lot of seasonings to them to make fish cakes that are pretty tasty.  I also cure the farm raised Atlantic Salmon overnight and then hot smoke it on my Kamado grill and serve it with some different aioli’s.  Cold smoked Salmon that you get in the store is raw Salmon that is hung in a smoke house at 80° where smoke is blown in to cure it.  Hot smoked Salmon is cooked slowly at a very low temperature, I do mine at 180° which is as low as I can get my Kamado without the fire going out.  The cure, the long slow smoke, and the aioli infuse taste in very inexpensive Salmon.

Scottish and Norwegian Salmon are generally pretty good if they are wild and not farm raised and much better if never frozen.  I put Pacific Coast Salmon in that same category.  My preference is strongly for Alaskan wild Salmon, either Sockeye or Coho which we can generally get on the East Coast and that is what I call out in the recipe below.  We don’t see much Chinook or King Salmon unfortunately. You will get a different flavor if you do the identical recipe with Salmon from one of the other regions.

One of the interesting aspects about cooking Salmon is skin on or skin off.  Cooking it with the skin on can add flavor but it can also generate a strong odor.  I did this recipe completely outside on my Weber gas grill to avoid stinking up the house.  I cooked it on a cedar plank to infuse flavor, so I did not need to us the Kamado grill for this and the ability to set up different cooking zones was much easier on the gas grill.  Below is a link on Amazon if you want to get some cedar planks for grilling fish.  I find I can use each plank at least two times, once on each side, and sometimes twice on each side if they are not scorched since they are in the indirect heat zone of the grill. 

I had the burner on the left on high and there is where I grilled my asparagus on a grill mat to accompany the Salmon.  I had the middle burner on medium and that is where I had my cast iron fry pan for the crispy rice.  I use Bobby Flay’s crispy rice recipe and you can download recipe from the Internet that if you want to include it in your meal.  I had the right burner completely off and that is where I had the Salmon on the plank.  That portion of the grill was about 350 degrees, so the Salmon coked for about 12 minutes which let it get some nice flavor from the cedar plank.  I also grilled a lemon.  Squeezing grilled lemon juice on any dish adds much more flavor than squeezing juice from a lemon just out of the refrigerator. 

One common theme you will see in my food posts is to cook by internal temperature, not by minutes per pound or minutes per inch of thickness.  Those are just approximations, and you can easily end up with food over or under cooked.  I used a temperature probe in the fish to tell me the internal temperature and another alongside on the grill to tell me the real cooking temp.  That lets me keep the cover down on the cooking surface of the Weber grill for a much better cooking environment and I am monitoring it on my phone the entire time.  I was able to pull the fish off right when it hit 125° internally.  In the notes below is a link to an Amazon listing for the temp probe set that I use.

We generally think about white wine with fish, but Salmon is very good with roses and having a wine that is very similar in color to the fish is interesting.  For this recipe I served a very nice Pinot Noir from the Willamette Valley Vineyards in Oregon, and it really complemented the flavor of the Salmon. 

Salmon Recipe

Ingredients:

  • Two 5 to 6 oz. sockeye or coho Salmon fillets.  Pat dry with paper towel
  • 1 TB Dijon mustard
  • 1 TB minced garlic
  • 1 TB fresh chopped parsley
  • 1 TB fresh chopped thyme leaves
  • Juice from ½ lemon, no seeds, divided
  • 1 Tsp kosher salt, divided
  • ½  Tsp fresh ground black pepper, divided
  • 1/3 Lb. asparagus with woody ends trimmed off
  • I TB olive oil
  • ½ lemon cut in half for grilling
  • Cedar plank for grilling fish

Instructions:

  1. Soak cedar plank in water for at least 30 minutes.  I use a half sheet pan and put a small pot on top to fully submerge the plank and flip it after 15 minutes, so the part covered by the pot is fully immersed in water.
  2. Light your grill and configure it for indirect heat for the Salmon and direct heat for the asparagus.  I use a grill mat for many of the vegetables that I do on the grill.  See note below for those grill mats.  If you are also doing the sticky rice on the grill, you want a medium level heat zone between the fish and the asparagus and I recommend a cast iron skillet for this.  Let the indirect heat zone stabilize at 350°.  The big thermometer that comes in the lid of most grills is well off the heating surface and not a good measure of what temperature the food is really cooking at and when setting up two or three cooking zones it will just have the average temp which does not help for this recipe.  Having a second temperature probe on the grill surface in the indirect zone will give you the reading you need for the Salmon.
  3. Place the salmon skin side down on the cedar plank.  Put the mustard in a small bowl and with a brush spread the mustard over the top and sides of both fillets.  You don’t want to put the brush that has been in contact with raw fish back in the mustard jar so putting the mustard in a small bowl and using that to brush the Salmon is much better.
  4. Sprinkle the garlic, parsley, and thyme over the Salmon trying to get it evenly distributed. 
  5. Squeeze juice of ¼ lemon over the two fillets.  If you have a small lemon, use a half lemon so you get juice over each fillet, but you don’t want to wash the mustard that herbs off. 
  6. Season the salmon with salt and pepper
  1. In a ¼ sheet pan spread the olive oil along the bottom and then add the juice for ¼ lemon (again or a half lemon if you don’t get much juice from the ¼ lemon) and the salt and pepper.  Add the asparagus and roll them around in the pan to pick up the oil, lemon, salt, and pepper.
  2. Put the planked salmon in the indirect heat zoned of the grill and put the asparagus on the mat in the direct heat zone.  Put the two ¼ lemon pieces on the mat to grill.  Close the grill cover. 
  3. The fish should cook in 10-12 minutes but this is just a guideline and the internal temp of the fillet is what you should use to know when to take them off the grill. You can open the grill twice to roll the asparagus so the it cooks on all sides but keeping the lid down preserves the right cooking temp for the fish.  The asparagus can also come off early if they look fully cooked.  Take the planked fish and the lemon wedges off when the internal term reads 125° and let it sit for 3 minutes and then serve.  If you like your fish a little more done, pull it at 130° internal. 

Notes:

  1. Cedar Grilling planks – https://www.amazon.com/Cedar-Grilling-Planks-12-Pack/dp/B009BFBNWO/ref=sr_1_3?crid=1LQE1E8IJ24FZ&keywords=cedar+planks+for+grilling+salmon&qid=1646152171&sprefix=cedar+%2Caps%2C118&sr=8-3
  2. Grill mat – https://www.amazon.com/RENOOK-Grill-6-100-Non-Stick-Reusable/dp/B074BT57HG/ref=sr_1_2_sspa?crid=23WZC6B1C8AWG&keywords=grill+mats+for+outdoor+grill&qid=1646152534&sprefix=grill+mat%2Caps%2C75&sr=8-2-spons&psc=1&smid=ACJQA1NIM9VX0&spLa=ZW5jcnlwdGVkUXVhbGlmaWVyPUEzMEdGWDdGOVhXQktPJmVuY3J5cHRlZElkPUEwMTM3OTEwSTQ0OUNVSEVYWTZCJmVuY3J5cHRlZEFkSWQ9QTA5NjA0ODEyU1k1NjhJWEo2OUlPJndpZGdldE5hbWU9c3BfYXRmJmFjdGlvbj1jbGlja1JlZGlyZWN0JmRvTm90TG9nQ2xpY2s9dHJ1ZQ==  .  Your vegetables and the lemon will get grill marks through the mat.
  3. Grill Thermometer – I like the one with 4 probes so I can track the internal temp of two steaks or two pork shoulders and also the temp on the cooking surface.  Two probes are a little less expensive and will cover 90% of grilling.  https://www.amazon.com/ThermoPro-Wireless-Bluetooth-Thermometer-Temperature/dp/B07Z7HDNC4/ref=sr_1_8?crid=K0S6540UKFVY&keywords=Thermopro+grill+thermometer+bluetooth&qid=1646153128&sprefix=thermopro+grill+thermometer+bluetooth%2Caps%2C45&sr=8-8

Comments and questions very much appreciated.

Wine – Bill’s Red House Wines Under $15

Wine is the answer!

Now what was the question?

There is a House Wine wine tradition in Western Europe that has just not translated into the US.  If you go into a café, bodega, or trattoria the menu will have a handful of red wines for under €12.  The vineyard that produced those wines is probably less than 25 miles away and there are no plans for export outside their local area.  And these wines are delicious.  The winemaker is not looking to make wines they can sell for €100 or win prizes at international competitions.  They are looking to make the best wines they can from their terroir and have the local restaurants and shops buy all that they can make.  They work hard on making good wine since their customers are their neighbors.  Wines under $15 that are made in the US are almost exclusively mass-produced wines like Cupcake, Barefoot, or Dark Horse and international offerings like Yellow Tail are similar.

My cellar falls into four tiers of wines:

  • Tier 4 – House wines under $15
  • Tier 3 – Nice wines for under $35, the largest segment of my cellar, maybe aging them for a couple of years
  • Tier 2 – Selected very good wines for under $75 that are aging for at least a few years
  • Tier 1 – Wines in the $75-130 range that are exceptional (IMHO). I have less than a dozen of them laying down.

Over the years we have found 20 wines that are under $15 that are our everyday house wines, also called Table Wines.  We cook with them, and we enjoy them with simple meals and leftovers.  Ten of them are red wines and those will be the topic of this blog.  Five of them are imported wines, four are from California, and one is from Oregon. 

These red table wines are meant to be drunk young but I often buy them by the case so if a few bottles are on the shelf for more than a year, there is no problem.  I decant all my red wines, especially the table wines.  Because they are young, they have lots of tannin and often an edge to them.  Decanting them and letting they sit in the decanter for 15-30 minutes softens those tannins and lets the wine really open up and makes the wines closer to what we pay $20-25 for.  I will be doing a blog on decanting soon. 

Marietta Old Vine Red (OVR) – This was our very first house wine and a bottle has always been in our cellar for over 40 years.  Not the same bottle 😊.  It is now just scraping under the $15 threshold when I find it on sale, but it will still be one of our house wines when inflation takes it over $15.  We hate the new label with the big OVR on it, but we still love the wine inside.  Marietta is in Sonoma Valley and the grapes for this wine come largely from Geyersville.  Marietta makes nine wines and the three are in the OVR series which are their entry level wines.  We have only had the OVR Red.  I am not sure if the Lot # changes from year to year but currently they are selling Lot 73.  It is predominantly Zinfandel (generally about 80%) with some Syrah, Petit Syrah, and Cabernet Sauvignon added to get the flavor they are looking for.  It is a very good food wine that goes with all red meats.  This wine made the recent Food and Wine Magazine list for Best Affordable Red Wine, $15 and Under, https://www.foodandwine.com/wine/red-wine/best-15-dollar-and-under-red-wines.  It is widely available, and we typically get it from Calvert Woodley in DC where they have the lowest price. 

Chateau Segries – This is the second longest tenured wine in our cellar, over 30 years, and it is also bumping up against the $15 threshold.  We are big fans of Rhone wines, and this is an everyday simple Cote du Rhone wine that we love.  It is 50% Grenache, 30% Syrah, 10% Cinsault, and 10% Carignan with just a little oak influence.  It is a dry wine that is rich and round with black fruit and spice aromas and flavors.  In addition to enjoying it with meals, we also cook with it.  If we are doing a recipe that calls for a cup or more of Cote du Rhone, we don’t want to open a lovely Gigondas or Chateauneuf-du-Pape for that.  And we want the entire bottle of very good Rhone to enjoy with the meal.  In the recipe for the Beef Daub that I posted in an earlier blog, I used 2 bottles of Rhone wine to marinate the beef, cook it in the marinating liquid, and then reduce it for the sauce.  I don’t want to use two bottles of a $50 wine for cooking, but I want to dish to be in sync with the lovely wine I am serving for dinner.   The Segries gives me that same Rhone blend but at a price I can cook with.  Chateau Segries also has a more expensive label called Lirac Cuvee Reserve, but I strongly prefer the taste of the Chateau Segries.  It is pretty widely available. 

Castle Rock Willamette Valley Pinot Noir – Our other favorite red wine is Pinot Noir and this wine from Castle Rock is our basic Pinot Noir table wine for burgers, meat loaf, pork chops and the like.  It also works very nicely as the cooking wine, or the wine that goes into the sauce, when serving a nice French Burgundy with the meal.   Castle Rock makes 7 California Pinot Noirs, one from the Columbia Valley in Washington, and this one from the Willamette Valley in Oregon.  I have not tried their other Pinots.  I suspect they are made in the New World style of Pinot Noir with lots of Jammy fruit and oak, but I could be wrong.  This one is made more in the Old World style of Pinot Noir where the goal is to let the grape show its complexity, not to try to enhance its flavor with things like new oak.  We are Old World Pinot drinkers, and this gives us an inexpensive table wine, around $13, that fits our tastes.  Pick the Castle Rock Pinot Noir that you like most but don’t expect that their wines from different areas will all taste the same.   Castle Rock wines are widely available but not always the Willamette Valley Pinot Noir.  Between Calvert Woodley, Total Wine, and Wine.com I can generally find it.

Coppola Claret – We do not have a Cabernet Sauvignon house wine.  We have flirted with several, most recently Dark Horse, but never found one that we really liked in the house wine price range.   They just had too much edge to them.  Instead, we have gone with two blends that have a significant Cab component.  The Coppola Claret is one of Frances Ford Coppola’s most popular wines and one of his most inexpensive.  It is a blend of 78% Cabernet Sauvignon, 9% Petit Syrah, 6% Syrah, 5% Petit Verdot, and 2% Segailin.  It has 14 months in French oak which gives it some aromas of roasted nuts and vanilla with tastes of clove and caramel.  On the Coppola site it is listed for $21 and Wine.com charges $18 for it but many retailers are more aggressive, and you can find it for $13-14 at Total Wine, Sam’s Club, Costco and others, so it meets the cost requirement for one of my House Wines. 

Ménage a Trois Red Blend –This other Cab alternative combines Zinfandel, Cab, and Merlot in a taste that we really enjoy along with the $12 price tag.  For a dollar or two more you can get their Decadance, Silk, Sultry Red, or Midnight blends and we have enjoyed all of them, probably the Decadence the most.  They also have two Cabs that are excellent value if you prefer the single varietal taste.  Menage a Trois wines are widely available and are in the same category of mass-produced low-cost wines as Cupcake, Barefoot, etc. that I criticized above.  This is one where I think the taste they deliver is a step above those other bulk producers but you should make your own decisions based on your tastes.  The good news is that Menage a Trois wines are readily available.    

Oxte The Silence Red Blend – This wine is a total steal from Trader Joe’s which privately labels this Spanish wine from Axial Vinos and is the sole source for it in the US.  It is just $5.99!  It has a great blend of 40% Tempranillo (the primary red wine grape in Spain), 25% Garnacha, 25% Syrah, and 10% Cab.   In a blind taste test you would put this in at least the $25 price range.  Trader Joe’s has some excellent wines, not “2 Buck Chuck”, at very good prices.  Some like this one they exclusively private label.  Below is a link to a good web site for wine bargains, Reverse Wine Snob, and their list of recommended wines from Trader Joe’s which is how we first found it.  They have a similar list for COSTCO wines.   For yesterday’s Super Bowl we had a large pan of nachos for dinner and this wine was a great accompaniment.  https://www.reversewinesnob.com/search/label/trader-joes/

Lazy Bones Cabernet Franc – This is another wine from Trader Joe’s and even more of a great buy in my opinion at $6.99.  The naked woman on the label has nothing to do with that judgment.  I am not sure if Trader Joe’s has the exclusive on this wine from the California Central Coast but they almost always have it in stock at a great price.  For those not familiar with Cab Franc, a little before the Revolutionary War a winemaker in France grafted the Cabernet Franc and the Sauvignon Blanc grapes together and created the Cabernet Sauvignon grape, now the grape grown in virtually every wine making region of the world and making some of the most popular wines.  In the Bordeaux region of France the three grapes primarily used to make their top wines are Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, and Cabernet Franc.   Cab Franc is gaining in popularity as a single varietal providing a variation on the Cabernet Sauvignon taste.  Some Virginia wineries are making it along with some California wineries.  Bottom line – We really enjoy sipping this wine and having it with many different food dishes.  When we think that about the price for it, we are smiling broadly while we drink it.     

Protocolo – This is another long-time resident of our cellar and one that has not had the same price increases that the OVR and Segries have.  Spanish wines are increasingly great bargains for very good quality at attractive prices, even up to Gran Reserva Riojas.  This wine is still $6.99 at Total Wine and Calvert Woodley and $9.99 at Wine.com.  It is made by the Eguren family in Spain with vineyards in Manchuela, Rioja, and Toro.    It is 100% Tempranillo.  It is our first choice as a cooking wine if we are not pairing the dish with a specific wine to serve with the meal and is definitely the cooking wine of choice if we are serving a nice Rioja or Ribera del Duero.   Not strong enough for a Sangria in my opinion, at least for the Sangria recipe that has been handed down in our family for one generation. 

Santa Christina – the last two of our Table Wines are for Italian meals.  Santa Christina is a $10-12 Rosso wine.  The Santa Christina winery is owned by Antinori, the finest winemaker in Tuscany in my opinion.  Interestingly, they do not list Santa Christina as one of their wines on the Antinori website.  The Santa Christina vineyard is on a hilltop near the town of Cortona, not far from Siena.  It has been making wine since 1946.  It is a blend of Sangiovese (the primary grape of Tuscany) with some Cabernet Sauvignon and Syrah.   The exact percentages differ from year to year based on the harvest.  This wine has pared beautifully with any Italian dish that we have had.  At a third of the price of a nice Chianti Classico Reserva, it is very enjoyable with spaghetti and meatballs, sausage and peppers, or lasagna.  At the price it is also an excellent choice for any wine called for in an Italian recipe.  It is widely available including Calvert Woodley in DC, Total Wine, and Wine.com. 

Monte Antico – A second Italian Rosso, generally a dollar or so more expensive than the Santa Christina.  The 2016 got 90 points from James Suckling.  The name translates into “ancient mountain” and is grown in Tuscany on slopes 1,300 feet above sea-level.  The wine is a blend of about 85% Sangiovese, 10% Merlot, and 5 % Cabernet Sauvignon.   We were introduced to it years ago at a wine tasting.  Late in that tasting there was a half bottle left that had been open for over an hour.  Several of us politely finished that bottle and it jumped out at us how much it had opened up and expanded its flavor profile compared to when we had tasted it from the just opened bottle.  This wine definitely benefits from being decanted for at least 30 minutes.  Rosso wines like this and the Santa Christina can also be called Super Tuscans since that name just means other wines have been added to the Sangiovese in a blend.  It is not any kind of quality designation. 

We have had some other House Table Wines that we just cannot find any more.  Two of them are white wines that I will cover in an upcoming blog.  On the red side we are still in mourning for the Trader Joe’s Nero d’Avola that was $6.  They just cannot get it any longer and I have searched for someone else bringing the wine from that specific Sicilian vineyard into the US, but to no avail.  We have found some good Nero d’Avola wines, including one for $8 at Trader Joe’s but we keep feeling like we are paying more for a wine we like less and that has taken the excitement away from that grape. 

Our 10 white House Table Wines (no, not that White House) will be coming soon. 

Travel – Booked Another Viking Cruise

We were foolish enough to click on a web broadcast on Viking’s In Search of the Northern Lights that they announced in an email. In addition to a great 40 minute presentation, they took questions through the web site. We were totally captivated and decided we wanted to do that cruise which runs between October and March.

We looked at availability and found that January of 2024 was almost sold out already. by going out 22 months we got nice rooms on a good date for us and we got the inside scoop that If you take the London to Bergen itinerary you don’t have the same time in the northern Scandinavian cities as the Bergen to London itinerary and they recommend starting in Bergen which is what we booked.

The key here is that there is a huge pent up demand for travel that has been put off because of COVID for several years and many people appear to have put that money aside and have it available to spend as the latest surge appears to be over and some hopes that we will have lesser impact from COVID going forward, but not expecting it to totally go away any time soon if at all. If you have deferred some of your vacation plans and are ready to consider some travel again, popular destinations may be rapidly reaching capacity. Make your plans now and get your bookings in as 2023 may be fully booked already for some things like popular Viking cruises. Viking is very popular because of the fantastic job they do making their cruises very safe from COVID.

Website back in operation

I had an error in how I set up the website for this blog that caused it to shut down on Sunday. I did not get any notice and only found out Monday afternoon when I tried to see the Italian White Wine posting. I was able to get it corrected and everything is back in operation this afternoon. Sorry for the this happening. If you have not had a chance to look at the Italian White Wine posting, I encourage you to do so.

Wine: Excellent Italian White Wine

Guado al Tasso Vermentino

For very good reasons Italy is known predominantly for its red wines.  In my cellar Italian reds outnumber the Italian white wines by around 20 to 1.  But there are some very good Italian white wines: Gavi, Vernaccia, and Falanghina are some good examples and maybe a blog on Italian White Wines should be on my To Do list.  If I do that blog however, Pino Grigio would make that list only if I include one from the Alto Adige because I consider the rest of Italian Pino Grigio to be just Plonk.  You are welcome to disagree with my lowly opinion of Pinot Grigio. I am only saying that almost all Pinot Grigio is not to my taste.

But there is one Italian white wine that is very much to my taste and it is from my favorite vineyard in Italy, Tenuta Guado al Tasso, the Antinori owned winery in The Bolgheri valley of Tuscany.  It is their Vermentino, and that is the only white wine that they make.  Vermentino is a widely grown grape with lots of it from Sardinia and up the Italian coast into Southern France.  I have tried it a few times before the tasting I had with Guado al Tasso and Vermentino was solidly on my list of “Not Very Exciting”. 

That changed instantly when I had the Guado al Tasso Vermentino a few months ago.  When I recently shared with some family members who are not big white wine drinkers, they said it was the first white that was worth paying attention to.  The wine is straw yellow in color with greenish highlights. Excellent aromatic intensity with pronounced green fruit aromas of pear and grape with just a gentle touch of grapefruit and secondary aromas of cheese and wild flowers.  On the palate it’s dry and savory with the body and complexity that are generally only found with white wines at two to three times the $25 price tag of this wine.  It has medium acidity and alcohol with good persistence of flavors and a long pleasant citrusy finish. 

Ina Garten’s Roast Chicken with Bread and Arugula Salad

It is very good with seafood, including very flavorful dishes like Paella or Cioppino, which makes sense for vineyards right on the coast, as well as with white meats like Chicken and Pork.  We had it recently with our favorite chicken recipe, Ina Garten’s Roast Chicken with Bread and Arugula Salad shown in the picture to the left, and it was a perfect match.  While it is probably not likely to be on the shelf at your local liquor store, both Wine.com and Total Wine carry all the Guado al Tasso wines. 

It is no accident that the Vermentino from Guado al Tasso is very different from the Vermentino made in the vineyards of Sardinia and most of the others up and down the coast.  Guado al Tasso does not make any wines that are typical or expected from a Tuscany winery.  Because of the terroir in the Bolgheri Valley, they do not grow any Sangiovese grapes.  Their black grapes are Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Syrah, Cabernet Franc, and Petit Verdot.  The “Bolgheri Blend” that they make compares very favorably with the blends of those same grapes from a highly regarded region of France. Their Bolgheri Superiore gets 98 points from Wine Spectator and is worth every penny of the $130 price tag it carries and it is one of the featured wines at Antinori’s lovely restaurant in Florence, Cantinetta Antinori.  Their Bruciato Red in the $ 23-30 price range stands up to any Cru Bourgeois from Bordeaux.  While Guado al Tasso is in Tuscany, their wines are totally unlike any other Tuscan winery and well worth getting to know.

DOC Bolgheri was only approved in 1995 and since then its wines have gained international recognition. The Bolgheri Amphitheater is surrounded by rolling hillsides that faces the Tyrrhenian Sea which sits between Tuscany and Corsica. This has created a unique microclimate with constant breezes that mitigate both the summer heat and the harsh winter weather and ensures a clear sky that gives excellent exposure to the sunlight. It is one of the most picturesque vineyards in Italy.

Dinner at Guado al Tasso

Beth and I joined a virtual wine tasting with Guado al Tasso put on by Wine.com in the summer of 2020 and then had the pleasure of following up with a visit to the winery in November of last year.  We enjoyed several of their wines in their lovely Tasting Room and then moved into the adjoining restaurant for a delicious dinner.

The challenge with visiting Guado al Tasso is that it is a 2 hour drive from Florence or 3 hours from Rome and there is really nothing other than Guado al Tasso worth visiting in the Bolgheri Valley. That is a long trip just to visit a winery.  Since you will be tasting some great wines, you don’t want to be driving.  My suggestion would be to hire a car and driver for the day to get you to Guado al Tasso by mid morning.  Their Tasting Room opens at 10:00 AM every day but Tuesday.  You could do a tasting, possibly a vineyard tour, and then have lunch at the restaurant there.  You can then have the driver take you to San Gimignano and get there about 2:00 when the crowds really start to thin out so you can walk that lovely town for a few hours, sample the lovely Vernaccia, have dinner there, and then get driven back to Florence to your hotel.  If this idea appeals to you, I suggest you make a reservation for lunch at the restaurant at Guado al Tasso.  I highly recommend either their daily special or their Steak Florentine which you can watch them grill on the fire at the back of the restaurant. 

Food: Bill’s Sweet Heat BBQ Sauce

Adapted from Aaron Franklin’s excellent YouTube Video on Brisket. Before he created his Master Class on Brisket that you have to pay for, he did a set of three videos on prepping, smoking, and carving brisket which were really good.

The goal of this sauce is to get the upfront sweet taste first and have the heat kick in later to get the sweet heat taste.  I do not cook with this sauce, it is on the table to be added to whatever BBQ you are having as people like. I think the Blackstrap Molasses is the ingredient that differentiates this from most tomato based BBQ sauces.

The ingredient list below has one column for 1/2 cup of sauce for 4-6 people and a second column for a full cup of sauce for a larger group. Obviously this sauce does not have any preservatives but it will keep for several days covered in the refrigerator if you want to make a larger quantity to cover left overs. I like to make the sauce a day ahead of time because sitting overnight lets the different chili powders settle in and lets you taste what the heat will really be. Easy to add Tabasco or some additional chili powders the next day if you want kick it up a notch.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup 1 cup Sauce

1/2 cup 1 cup Catsup

1 TBS 2 TBS Butter

1 TBS 2 TBS finely chopped onion

1 TBS 2 TBS Apple Cider Vinegar

1/2 TBS 1 TBS Light Brown Sugar

3 TBS 1/4 cup Orange Juice

3/4 TSP 1 1/2 TSP Chili Powder, total – I mix Guajillo, Ancho, and Chipotle

1/4 TSP 1/2 TSP Each Kosher Salt and coarsely ground black pepper

1/8 cup 1/4 cup Molasses – can substitute honey but I like molasses better

Dash 2 dashes Worcestershire Sauce

Heat – you can use any relatively mild chili powder or combinations.  Add different chili powders to get the level of kick that you want but you can’t really go backwards to make it less spicy so add in small increments. Guajillo is my base. Ancho adds some smoky flavor.  Chipotle adds some depth.  Habanero adds a lot of heat so be very careful with it if you want to add that to the mix.  You need to let the sauce simmer for at least 15 minutes after adding any chili powders to get any idea of the impact it will only be the next day where you will get the final taste. It generally has a little less kick and shows up a little later in the taste the next day.  I don’t have measurements if you want to use different chili peppers instead of powder so I can only say add to taste and again, that taste will evolve considerably over time. 

Making the Sauce:

In a stainless-steel pot melt the butter and cook the onions in the melted butter.  Aluminum pans may react a little with some of the ingredients so stainless steel is recommended.  When the onions are translucent add the other ingredients and, using a large wisk, combine them together.  Let simmer for at least 20 minutes and taste.  Correct to your taste buds, heat, sweetness, and acidity, and let simmer a little longer and then remove from the heat. 

Three choices to finish:

  1. Save as is with the onion making it a little lumpy. The finer the chopped onion, the less they will be noticeable. Some people do not like any lumps in their BBQ sauce.
  2. Put in the blender to liquify the onion.  If you use any chili peppers instead of powder blending is recommended.
  3. Run through a strainer to remove the onion chunks. This is what I usually do.

WINE – Willamette Valley Vineyards 2018 Elton Pinot Noir

In 2020 my focus was on Rhone Valley wines. In 2021 that focus shifted to Pinot Noir and especially (virtually) exploring the Willamette Valley in Oregon which I think is second only to Burgundy in the production of excellent Pinot Noir.

The Elton Pinot Noir from the Willamette Valley Vineyards is a great example. While only in the bottle for two years after 16 months in French oak, 29% new oak, it has a deep intensity and very full body. WVV suggests that the peak drinkability will be 2026 but I suspect this wine could continue to age very well for a few years beyond that and I will lay a couple of bottles down to see.

I did a quick taste when I opened the bottle and then I decanted it and let it sit for 45 minutes. What a difference!! It had fully opened up and the initial aromas of cranberry and a little raspberry were expanded to include blackberry as the lead aroma. The secondary aromas were some cedar and anise. The initial taste had only a medium intensity with a rich ruby color but giving it a chance to fully open brought the intensity level up to deep with a rich nose. The acidity is medium. The decanting definitely softened the tannins and let the complexity develop in my mouth. That is what makes me think this could easily age for 10 years or longer. The body was medium plus and nicely rounded with a lovely long aftertaste.

The price from the WWV web site is $60 with discounts available for club members. I have not found any local sources for WWV wines in the DC area yet so buying from the vineyard may be the best way to get this excellent wine.

WWV Estate Tasting Room

This is a single vineyard wine from 60 acres on the east/southeast slopes of the Eola Hills.

Note: This review is not totally unbiased. I own a few shares of preferred stock in WVV and get a 25% discount as a minority owner. Shares of the preferred stock are still available and if you would like a link to the web site to find out more about this, use my email from the Contact Me page to send you your email address and I will send that link to you.

FOOD – Fried Eggs

Significant portion of the whites have not started to cook yet

If you can’t fry an egg then you might be a candidate for the Worst Cooks show on Food Network. But there is a real challenge in properly frying an egg. How do you get the white all the way cooked and still have the yolk nice and runny? If you are putting that egg on top of a dish so the yolk runs out and provides a sauce for it, getting the egg cooked properly is not easy. It takes a long time for the white to fully cook, as shown in the picture, and by then the yolk is usually overcooked and turning solid.

For years I would order my eggs in a restaurant “over VERY easy” and most times them came out OK. Basting the egg in the fry pan with butter or oil works but is a pain and significantly adds to the calorie count of that meal. On Beat Bobby Flay he shared his trick for fried eggs and after using it successfully, I am passing it on here.

After 15 seconds under the broiler the egg is perfectly cooked

Before you start with the eggs, turn the broiler on in your oven and get it fully up to high heat. Then fry your eggs in a fry pan that can be put in the oven under the broiler. I like the MadeIn Carbon Steel pans for this but cast iron will also work well.

Leave the pan under the broiler for 15-20 seconds. Keep an eye on it because it can go from fully cooked whites to hard cooked yolks in just a few seconds. You can always pull it out to check and put it back for another couple of seconds but you can’t recover if the yolks have been hard cooked. In the picture you can see the whites are fully cooked now and the yolks are still soft and runny.

Egg on top of Corned Beef Hash

I then served the eggs on some Corned Beef Hash that Beth had made us for Brunch and the yolk provided a rich sauce for that delicious meal.

Poaching an egg is another approach and many recipes call for a poached egg to give that rich egg taste and the enjoyment of breaking it open with your fork and seeing the yolk streaming over the dish. But I don’t have any secret tricks on how to simply poach an egg and this approach that gives a perfect fried egg is my go to when I want to top off a dish with an egg that has a nice runny yolk.

WINE – Guigal Crozes-Hermitage 2016

Chateauneuf-du-Pape is the the standard bearer for the Cote du Rhone and Hermitage is its counterpart in the Cote Roti at the north end of the Rhone valley. But just like Michael Jordan took a lot of the limelight away from Scotty Pippen, Gigondas in the Cote du Rhone and Crozes-Hermitage in the Cote Roti don’t get the same press while they produce excellent wines, and at a much lower cost. I promise to do a blog on Gigondas but today the focus is on the 2016 Crozes-Hermitage from Guigal.

Let’s start with Robert Parker calling the Guigal brothers the best winemakers in France. James Suckling gave this wine 91 points and there at not many wines under $30 that get that kind of ranking.

This is a big, full bodied red wine with a deep ruby color and pronounced intensity. It is 100% Syrah and the primary aroma is red fruit, particularly red cherries and the secondary aromas are leather and smoky wood from the 24 months that it is kept in large oak barrels after being fermented in stainless steel tanks. The 2016 had complex tannins that relaxed some when I decanted it. Like many Syrah/Shiraz wines, it has a fairly long finish that I really enjoy.

It will age for at least 10 years and improve significantly from that aging. I bought mine from Wine.com two years ago so it had just been in the bottle 2 years then. I have not done a vertical tasting to prove how the additional two years in my cellar improved the flavor but I put this Guigal wine very high on my list of wines that are a great bargain at under $30.

It has excellent availability with Total Wine and Wine.com carrying the 2017 and 2018 vintages and some online stores still have some of the 2016.

The vineyards are low yield on the hillsides around Crozes-Hermitage and controlling the yield concentrates the flavor. If you like bid red wines, I think you will be very happy paying less than $30 for this wine.