|
|
Newsletter for April 2006 Your source for what’s cooking at OBW
25 South Indian Alley Winchester VA, 22601 540-662-1455 |
|||
|
Please feel free to forward this newsletter to your friends.
To subscribe to this newsletter, send us a note. To unsubscribe to this newsletter, send us a note.
Privacy Policy. We never disclose your email address to any outside party and we send the newsletter in such a way that others cannot see your email address (nor can you see theirs). |
||||
|
April is always a difficult month for us at the restaurant, for while the clement weather pleases us, there’s not much local produce to be found. For me, April is a month of wanting May to be here with its strawberries and asparagus. And, while our herbs are starting to show life in the boxes outside the front door, we have to exercise true restraint with the scissors lest we have nothing left in a couple weeks. But, our pansies overwintered beautifully and are in peak form now. Come see them before they’re gone!
I hope that you enjoyed the fantastic run of wild black trumpet and hedgehog mushrooms that started back before Christmas. Alas, that season has come to an end and we’re looking forward to morel season. Pray for rain or we won’t have any local morel crop this year. If you know pickers looking for a market, we’re always buying at the restaurant.
This edition, we announce the next four months of wine dinners, we learn about the kinds of duck that are ever popular at the restaurant, we dispel the remaining myths about wine service in the final part of the series on wine service, and I share a marvelous recipe for cauliflower that will get almost anyone eating that remarkable vegetable.
And a reminder, as usual, we will be closed Apple Blossom week (May 1-6).
All my best,
Ed Matthews, Chef/Owner
Every Wednesday is Tapas Night Each Wednesday night, we serve tapas from 5:00pm to 9:00pm.
Thursday April 20, Garlic Dinner Calling all garlic lovers! It’s time to have a little fun. I’m going to do four courses with four fun wines. You know we’ll have roasted garlic on the table. I’m thinking of a Bouillabaisse the likes of which you have never seen before and I definitely have lamb on the brain. Wines are going to be offbeat and eclectic, not to mention fun. $55 per person. Reception from 6:30pm to 7:00pm. First course promptly at 7:00pm.
Thursday, May 18, Wine and Food of the Piedmont Dinner Five courses of super Northern Italian wines including Gavi, Dolcetto, Barbera, and Brunello. Plus, we have a surprise wine for dessert. Italian wine expert, ardent oenophile, and all around charming guy Bill McKenney of Michael Downey Selections will be our host for this wonderful dinner. $65 per person. Reception from 6:30pm to 7:00pm. First course promptly at 7:00pm.
Thursday, June 22, Linden Wine Dinner I’ve tasted most of the wine made in Virginia and I’ve decided that Jim Law of Linden Vineyard is the best winegrower and winemaker in the state. Jim will be with us to showcase some of his new releases and I will develop a menu to complement those wines. Any time spent with Jim is highly educational, so you are not going to want to miss this dinner. $65 per person. Reception from 6:30pm to 7:00pm. First course promptly at 7:00pm.
Thursday, July 20, Summer Harvest Dinner Hot weather to me is not a bad thing because it means a glorious bounty of summer vegetables. I am already dreaming about heirloom tomatoes and peppers, corn, Sicilian eggplants, squash galore, and peaches! Join guest hosts Gene and Beth Nowak of Mayfair Farm in Bunker Hill, WV, key One Block West suppliers, in a four-course dinner highlighting the fruits of their labors. $55 per person. Reception from 6:30pm to 7:00pm. First course promptly at 7:00pm.
Duck seems to be one of your favorite foods, judging from its consistent sales, and my kids love it too. We always offer it in one or another guise on both the lunch and dinner menus. There’s always some confusion in the dining room about duck. I cannot tell you how many times customers have told me that I have misspelled Mallard (when we feature Moulard duck) and how many times duck breast has been sent back because the diner thought that it was beef steak! We feature three kinds of domesticated duck on our menu—Pekin, Muscovy, and Moulard—and this article will tell you a little about them.
Domestic duck has dark, red, succulent meat with no gamy flavor. Some cuts, such as breast of Moulard, have a texture and flavor with some resemblance to beef steak. Other cuts, such as the legs of Pekin, have the texture of and better flavor than chicken legs. What’s important to note is that duck never resembles white chicken breast.
Pekin. I raised these common ducks when I was a kid and they’re so common that you already know them. They’re the very familiar creamy white duck with the yellow bill and yellow legs that we have raised here in the US for over a century, since they were imported from China (Pekin is a corruption of Peking, now known as Beijing) where these ducks have been raised for centuries. The Chinese bred these white birds from the common wild Mallard. Also known as Long Island ducks, Pekins are what you will commonly find in the grocery store, a large duck with very mild flavor and high fat content. They’re excellent for roasting as the fat keeps them moist. At the restaurant, we use Pekin legs for our Duck and Andouille Gumbo.
Muscovy. Now bred in captivity, the Muscovy (also known by its French name canard de Barbarie or Barbary duck) originated in Central and South America. Because it comes from a warm climate, it has little body fat and its meat is 40-50% leaner than Pekin. There are a couple of issues that make Muscovies expensive to raise: the drakes reach market size long before the ducks do, because of the vast size differences between them. Moreover, Muscovies do not reproduce very quickly when compared with other ducks. Besides having low fat (less than turkey), Muscovies taste great and at market weight have the highest yield of any duck and more breast meat than other ducks. We like Muscovy for all around eating, for confit, and for smoking.
Moulard. The Moulard is a cross between a Muscovy drake and a Pekin female, a sterile cross by artificial insemination that inherits the best qualities of both parents. The Pekin mother lays abundant eggs and reproduces quickly. The Muscovy father contributes excellent size and flavor. The fat content is less than the Pekin and closer to that of the Muscovy. Because the female Moulard cannot reproduce, she grows as large as quickly as the male. The Moulard breast (commonly called by the French name magret de canard) is the best tasting duck breast that I know of, and while being relatively low fat, it still contains enough fat so that we can grill it without it drying out. Moreover, the foie gras from a Moulard is the best duck liver I have ever worked with.
Part Two: Tasting and Accepting the Bottle
Uncomfortable about how to order a bottle of wine? Unclear on what you’re supposed to do? Relax, you’re not alone. It’s a really simple process once you understand what you are trying to accomplish. The steps are simple. Order the bottle from the server. Inspect the bottle that the server brings you. Taste the wine to see if it is spoiled. Enjoy. Last month in Part One, we talked about ordering the bottle and inspecting it. This month, we talk about tasting it and accepting it.
To recap, the bottle you have ordered has arrived at the table and you have checked to make sure that it is correct and that you can see no visible problems with the bottle.
Opening the Bottle. The server will not open the bottle until you assent to it. When you are ready, tell the server to open the bottle. Once you have assented to have the bottle opened, unless the bottle is faulty, you should be prepared to pay for that bottle.
If the bottle has a capsule, the server will cut it at the base of the rim, far enough down so that the wine will not come in contact with the capsule when poured. At this point, the server will examine the bottle and if the rim is dirty, will wipe it clean with a napkin.
If the bottle has a wax seal, our protocol at One Block West is to remove the bottle to the server station to remove the wax, which is a messy affair indeed and one that need not be carried out tableside.
Once the cork is exposed, the server will insert the point of the wine key into the center of the cork and twist home the worm, endeavoring not to pierce through the bottom of the cork, which might drop bits of cork into the wine. And then using the wine key, the server will lever the cork out, gently, but firmly, and quietly. Snatching the cork out with a monstrous “pop!” is good fun at home, but we don’t want the attendant risk of spilled wine on the table.
Dealing with the cork. Oh, the silly cork routine! People are really confused about corks and what to do with them. Basically, ignore the cork. We put it on the table in the event that you do not finish the bottle, you can stopper it for the trip home. If you see that the cork is really crumbly and deteriorated, that is a warning sign that the wine might be bad. Forget smelling the cork: that tells you absolutely nothing. If it is real cork, it is going to smell like cork. If it is plastic, it’s going to smell like plastic. You can tell even less about a wine by smelling the cork than you can by smelling the wine.
Tasting the wine. After wiping the lip of the bottle, the server will pour a small amount of wine for you as the wine host. This serves two purposes. First, you are tasting to see if the wine is flawed. Second, any bits of cork (“floaties”) end up in your glass and hopefully not in your guests’. Have a glimpse at the color. If it looks really bricky or brown, it may be oxidized. Swirl the wine a couple times in your glass to get some of it into the air. Smell the wine.
Two flaws should be readily apparent. First, if it smells like vinegar, chances are it tastes like vinegar. Taste to confirm. Second, if it smells very musty like old newspaper, it is probably corked. I don’t like to taste a wine that is corked; I think it screws up my palate. If you have any question, let the server smell or get the wine steward. Third, if the wine doesn’t smell at all, it may simply be closed in or it may be flawed. You’ll have to taste to determine this.
Assuming that the wine smells more or less like wine, taste it. If it tastes moldy, papery, vinegary, sour, sulfuric, or otherwise unlike wine, it’s probably a bad bottle. Ask the server to confirm.
Decanting. There are two times when we decant wine. If the wine is an older one that is likely to have thrown sediment, we will decant the clear wine to the decanter, leaving the majority of the sediment in the bottom of the bottle. Second, if you have ordered a very big, young red wine that has no nose or is highly tannic, we will decant it. Twenty minutes in the decanter will work wonders on softening harsh tannins.
Pouring the wine. Old school, wine is supposed to be poured to all the ladies clockwise around the table from the host, then around again to all the gentlemen, and then to the host last. Given the realities of our dining room, with all the booths, columns, and inaccessible spaces, we pour in the manner that will cause the least gymnastics for all parties involved. As for refilling glasses, we leave that to our servers’ discretion. We generally choose to let you pour your own refills rather than interrupt your evening, for that is our collective preference at the restaurant. When we go out to eat, we’d rather pour our own refills than have our server do it for us.
Chiller sleeves. We have chiller sleeves for our white wines and will bring one to your table. But frankly, our cooler keeps our whites far too cool (the health department insists) and you’d be better off leaving your white wine on the table to warm up.
Here’s the menu from March’s Veritas wine dinner for those of you who could not attend. You can expect something similar, but totally different, for this month’s garlic dinner.
Menu
Prosciutto-Wrapped Scallop on Blood Orange and Roasted Garlic Polenta, Micro Pea Tendrils, Rock Shrimp and Garlic Fondue, Fleur de Sel Veritas Sauvignon Blanc 2005 ab Pheasant Pie with White Truffle, Sugar Snaps, and Baby Carrots Veritas Chardonnay 2005 ab Duck Braised with Red Spring Onions and Porcini, Roasted Cipollini and Parsnips, and Sugar Snaps Veritas Cabernet Franc 2004 ab Cheese Biscuits and Oak Spring Dairy 20-Month old Cheddar Veritas Kenmar Traminette 2004
Recipe: Cauliflower Gratin
“Wow! I hate cauliflower, but this was great! Can I have seconds?” This is a typical reaction to my cauliflower gratin. Aside from the few people who won’t try it, everyone else loves it. From a chef’s perspective, cauliflower is a wonderful vegetable because it’s a blank canvas: it will take whatever seasoning you want to give it.
1 head cauliflower 1 stick sweet butter 6 cloves garlic, minced 1 cup panko or other breadcrumbs 2 T chives, minced 2 T parsley, minced 4-5 basil leaves, en chiffonade (Google it, if you don’t know it!) ½ cup grated pecorino romano or other grating cheese salt and pepper to taste
While bringing a pot of salted water to the boil, cut the head of cauliflower into florets with a paring knife. Preheat your oven to 450F. Simmer the cauliflower until just tender, about 10-15 minutes. Remove to a large bowl. While the cauliflower is cooking, place the butter and garlic in a saucepan and cook for 5-6 minutes, enough to cook the garlic without browning it. Add the panko and herbs to the cauliflower and pour garlic butter over the cauliflower. Mix well. Add the cheese and some salt and pepper and mix well again. Adjust the seasonings. Spray a small casserole with pan spray and then put the cauliflower mixture into the casserole. Spread it out in an even layer and bake at 450F until the top starts to brown. Cover with aluminum foil. Reduce the oven to 300F and bake an additional 20-30 minutes. Serve hot.
Panko are coarse breadcrumbs (actually light dough flakes) that originated in Japan and are beloved by chefs everywhere because of the outstanding crust that they make. They truly are a better product and are worth searching out. I cannot imagine my kitchen without them.
Spring is here. Come enjoy it on our deck, which has been open for about three weeks. We will be serving outside every day that weather permits.
I am doing my best to source a constant supply of shad roe, but the market is hit or miss. If you have your heart set on any for a given day, call me and let me know.
And finally, a sad note. I received an email from Vicki Dunaway of Ladybug Creamery, our supplier of exquisite goat cheeses, letting me know that she has decided to call it quits. Although there are other suppliers out there, Vicki always made the best cheeses, some of the best in the world. We have lost an artist. We still have a very little bit left from her last batches. Come savor them while you can.
All my best and come see us when you can,
Ed
|
||||
|
|
Copyright © 2006 Shenandoah Food and Beverage Holdings, LLC sensational seasonal cuisine and the W logo are trademarks of Shenandoah Food and Beverage Holdings, LLC. |
|
||
