Meal Musings - Wilmington's Finest Pollo Asado

During a conversation with a couple of my coworkers yesterday, as conversations often go with me, our conversation found its way to the topic food.  In this specific instance, the topic was Mexican food.  I am not a person who identifies specifically with any one culture and I have something approaching zero knowledge  of my ancestry or heritage.  Yet growing up in the Southwestern United States, working with several first generation Mexican immigrants in my youth, and having traveled extensively through Mexico (no, not just the Mayan Riviera) in my lifetime, the Mexican culture and cuisine holds a special place in my heart.  Were I to be able to choose a final meal that I could enjoy  fresh, warm flour tortillas and mesquite grilled chicken would have to be part of the menu.

As my coworkers and I were discussing this most cherished of cuisines (in my mind at least) I could not help but share one of my fondest memories of Mexican food.  Immediately after college, I lived and worked in Long Beach, CA for a few years.  Returning home with a friend one weekend afternoon, we found ourselves driving by the industrial area in Wilmington when we spotted the tattered cardboard sign proclaiming in bold sharpie "Fresh Pollo Asado." I recall telling my friend, "that sounds delicious.  We should definitely stop and get some of that," as I continued driving by.  A baffled look washed over him as he watched me continue driving past the sign and the smell of mesquite smoke.  "So, why aren't we stopping?"  Though more introspective in nature, my look of puzzlement matched his as I whipped the car around in the middle of the street and proceeded to park next to a rusty old steel sided warehouse.

That smell we'd driven by earlier welcomed us as we approached the chef de cuisine.  His kitchen was an ice chest and an old steel metal drum he'd transformed into an open flame barbecue.  A rack of approximately a dozen flattened chickens were tilted over the split drum to catch the heat and smoke from the open flame.  He had but one seasoning, good ol' Lawry's seasoning salt and he used it to perfection, not allowing it to overwhelm but to subtly compliment his open fire cooking technique.  "Un pollo asado por favor!" was our order.  "Si," his reply as he hurriedly washed his hands with pink dish soap in a bucket of soot black water.  Lucky for us, not many health inspectors made it out to this humble restaurant.  With four swift thwacks of a cleaver, our pollo was quartered and bagged.  Served with 4 fresh made flour tortillas, a hot bag of BBQ'd beans, a cold bag of fresh made salsa we were sent on our way, only 7 dollars lighter in our pockets.

I've since dined at some of the finest establishments North America has to offer, complete with multiple Michelin Starred restaurants and the tasting menus of celebrity chefs.  Yet this meal is one that sticks out in my mind as one of my all time favorites.  At its core, food is about sustenance and survival.  At its most primal, it involves the simple manipulation and preparation of the most readily available ingredients.  This meal embodied all of that.  The chef of this restaurant, who's name I regretfully did not request, was passing the traditions and techniques of his ancestry and native land to us in a Styrofoam box.  The meal was raw and soulful.  It's ingredients simple yet vibrant on the plate and out of bag.  And as the smoked juices of chicken and salsa ran down out of the tortilla and onto our cheeks and hands, the warmth of that meal was evident in our smiles, smiles that closely resembled the warmth and exuberance of the chef at "Fresh Pollo Asado."

Dinner Party - A Cabernet Blind Tasting

Living in Calgary, we've been blessed with great friends who share some of our nerdier of leanings.  Our wine-nerdiest group of friends, we invited over for dinner last Friday night.  If you know my fiancee and me, we are sticklers about what is on the menu for the evening.  We put way too much time into planning out our menu to make sure the meal is composed and harmonious and that the flavours won't clash.  To prove my point, here was the night's menu:

Hors dourves: Dried Apricot, goat cheese, Marcona almond, basil, honey bite
Salad: Citrus Salad - Spring greens, supremes of blood orange, orange, grapefruit, goat cheese and walnuts, citrus honey vinaigrette
Mains: Grilled filet mignon with balsamic red wine reduction, butter poached Argentinian red shrimp
Sides: vegetable tian, wild rice mushroom "risotto"
Dessert: Salted Almond ice cream with a trio of brûléed pears - paired with Beringer Nightingale Dessert wine

Post planning that menu came the dreaded consideration for what to do about the inevitable question, "what can we bring?"  Rather than dodge the question, my fiancee had the brilliant idea of doing a blind wine tasting.  As our primary protein of the evening was steak with red wine sauce, we decided to go big and ask everyone to bring a Cabernet Sauvignon based wine with a set price limit (I won't say what it was because one of our friends predictably though 'accidentally' failed to read the email with the price limit).

When everyone arrived, we stripped the foil on their wines, opened them up to breathe, wrapped them in a brown paper bag, and mixed them all up before numbering the brown bags (ok, bottles) 1-4.  We poured them in the random numerical order, careful to decant each one prior to pouring for the table.  Here were the 4 wines that showed up and the order in which we drank them:

1) Las 3 Marias by Gandolini, 2011, Maipo Valley, Chile
2) Burrowing Owl, 2011, Okanagan, BC, Canada
3) Cakebread, 2012, Napa Valley, USA
4) Cougar Crest, 2009,  Walla Walla Valley, Washington USA

Having visited several wineries in both the Okanagan and Napa Valleys (and Yara Valley in Australia in the case of my fiancee) and tasted flights of their various offerings, at no point in my time as a wine nerd have I learned more about what I like about Cabernets than I did on this night.  Of the 4 wines listed above, I had tried 3 previously.  The one wine I had not had before, the Cakebread, I was not unfamiliar with as we were in Napa for the release of the 2012 Cabs (the first in a fine series of Napa vintages if you're to believe the critics).  Before summarizing each wine for its own merits, I will say that the theme of the night for me was how well the lesser known regions of the Walla Walla and Okanagan valleys stood up to the better known "cab regions" of the Napa and Maipo Valleys.  I will also say I'm a sucker for the density and structure of Napa Cabs so would still put them at the top of my list but they are now joined by some of their lesser known peers.

Gandolini Las 3 Marias 2011 Cabernet Sauvignon - We opened this and polished it off as our first glass before dinner.  At just over $40 CDN, this is a wine with great density and structure, loads of dark fruit and lots of oak.  There is however a subtle green pepper note that I'm not super fond of (and which often overwhelms some poorer examples of 2011 Napa cabs) and a grip to the tannins that could use some time in bottle to soften.  In a previous review of this same wine that I posted less than a week earlier on Vivino, I called the tannins near indecipherably smooth.  I mention this to illustrate how much I learned this night as the tannins of this particular wine stood out above the rest. Overall, as you'll see, despite it being a decent value option for a rich cabernet, it was my least favourite of the evening (and I don't feel bad saying it as it was the wine we donated to the blind tasting).   On second review, I'd give it a 15/20.

Burrowing Owl 2011 Cabernet Sauvignon - We'd tried this wine on a previous occasion and letting our eyes and misconceptions dictate our taste found this wine to be lighter than we expected for a Cab and a little fruity.  When chasing the denser Maipo Valley expression, we found this to be a well rounded, smooth, structured wine.  Definitely more fruit forward but a pleasant acidity and soft tannin structure.  This was the biggest surprise at the table when we cut away the paper bags.  One of the Okanagan's better producers really did their region a good service with this effort.  Outstanding wine.  17/20 (Stay tuned for a post about our trip to this winery coming up in June!)

Cakebread 2012 Cabernet Sauvignon - While not a value option (and the obvious contribution of he who chose not to read the rules) if you're looking for a classic expression of Napa 2012, here it is.  Deep, dark purple leaning black colour.  Very dense and rich.  Lots of tannin and oak expression in this wine.  "Tastes like dirt," was the comment of the bestower of this wine on our party.  While the intent of his expression was not as positive as my view of this wine, I'd like to call that note "an earthy expression of terroir." (Or at least that's what I think the French would call it.)  This is a wine that did Napa proud, though at more than twice the price of the other wines on this list, it's worth giving the others a good look.  17.5/20

Cougar Crest 2009 Cabernet Sauvignon - This is another wine we had at a previous dinner in which the label lead us to read more into the wine that what was truly in the glass.  It is certainly the lightest wine of the evening but the fruit character and balance that came through when the varietal was not bogged down by oak and grape skins was enlightening.  Lots of red fruit and smooth, bright acidity.  Seeing how this wine held up against the rest, I'll be seeking out more cabs from the Walla Walla Valley going forward. 17.5/20 - obviously for different reasons than the Cakebread example.  Also worthy of note, this wine was the popular pick for best wine of the evening.

Once we got through the wines, and the dinner, we moved on to the botrylised dessert wines from Beringer's Nightingale series (2008 and 2009 vintages).  This is one of the least cloying dessert wines we've ever had so paring it with fruit and a savoury leaning ice cream was key.  It was a hit and a great way to finish off a meal, though not necessarily a party as evidenced by the final picture in this post and the headaches we all texted each other about the following day....

Noodles - All You Noodles, Roll Out! (Part 2 in a Multi Part Series)

So this is the fun part, and the part where the aforementioned "Noodler" comes in handy.  An alternative to the noodler is the tried and true rolling pin that was the source of many a flour stained hairdo for my sister and I in our youth.  Growing up, my lil' Sis and I spent several afternoons rolling out noodle dough at Grandma's house and hanging noodles to dry on broom sticks all around her kitchen.  My mom still laughs at the recollection of picking us up from Grandma's house with more flour in our hair and clothes than made it into the final product.














To start rolling out your dough through the noodler, cut your dough in half (for single egg recipe) and pat the ball into a thick disk.  Start with your widest setting on the machine and roll it through.  After the first pass, fold it over (hamburger or hotdog style, doesn't matter) and pass through the machine running the dough in the same direction as the first time.  This is key because it stretches the gluten in the flour into the strings that will become your noodles.  Continue folding your dough and running through the widest setting (alternating hamburger and hotdog styles) until it's a long rectangle and the edges are smooth (about 5-7 times...but this is not a hard and fast rule).

Hotdog Style

Hamburger Style

Cracked Edges

SIDNENOTE: if the edges of your dough "crack," this is not necessarily a bad thing.  Early on when I was making noodles, I thought it meant my dough was too dry and it wouldn't get the texture I wanted.  As I've made noodles more and more, I find I prefer a bit stiffer dough as it makes the final texture a bit chewier or, my favourite texture term, more "toothsome."  It also reduces the risk of the noodles sticking together before cooking.

Once your dough is the shape you want to start stretching, flour your dough and squeeze down to the second widest setting.  NOTE: you cannot use too much flour in this process.  If your dough is a bit wetter than you'd hoped when you started rolling, flour between each step in the stretching process.  I always flour after the widest stage and immediately prior to the cutting stage, regardless of how much I floured in the middle stages.  This helps the noodles stay separated if you're making lots of them.

Time to get stretching...

Cutting the heavily floured dough

Keep stepping down one level at a time until your dough reaches the desired thickness.  Unfortunately, I can't share what is the "proper" thickness as I won't know what the intent or your noodle making is.  I go thicker for soup noodles, varying ranges of thicknesses for fettuccine/spaghetti type noodles, and a 6 on the Altas noodler if I'm doing stuffed pasta's like ravioli (now there's an idea for another post!).   This is the entire fun of making noodles at home.  You get to experiment and decide what works best for your needs.  I do recommend changing it up once in a while.  We went much thinner on a noodle one time than we typically would for a seafood pasta and we were pleasantly surprised with the result.

We're All done!

I'll take a break from the noodles posts for now but stay tuned for future discussions on naturally colored noodles, stuffed pastas, and explorations of what different types of flours, egg "parts," and water do to pasta.

Noodles - The Basic Dough (Part 1 in a Multi Part Series)

I've chosen to make my first official post on this food and drink blog a post about noodles. Many a fond memory in my life hearkens back to this slippery, saucy little food item, and it is one of my absolute favourite things to make. It is both a crowd pleaser and much simpler to make than you might imagine. I do highly recommend spending ~$100 and getting a "noodler" (I have the Atlas Mercato manual machine and I absolutely love it - a funny story about that later).

I'll start this post with the basic noodle recipe, and it is one I will link back to in future posts. All of my flour based noodle recipes essentially build off of this one simple recipe. Please be careful not to blink through the next couple of lines lines as they contain the entire recipe. Ready? Here it goes:

1 egg
1/2 cup of all purpose flour

Did you miss it? Here it is again in picture form:



I've heard lots of chefs on popular TV shows talk about making a mound out of your flour then making a well, slowly mixing in the egg, blah blah... It can be much simpler. Put the flour in a bowl, add the egg, mix together with a fork until all flour is incorporated.  That's all you need to do to get started.



There are however 2 important steps: kneading and resting. The kneading technique: roll pressing down, then fold over. Repeat. It's quite simple. If you notice your dough starting to break, add a "wetted finger tips'" amount of water. By that I mean, just the slightest amount. A little goes a long way here. Once the dough becomes a smooth ball and is no longer sticky, wrap in plastic wrap and rest for 20-30 minutes. Again, this is crucial.  It allows the gluten to relax (sorry, no GF option of this one just yet - a future post perhaps).



(Kneaded, Rested)

For all of the bread makers out there, this dough will be nothing like what you're used to.  It is much more dense and stiff.  As long as it comes together, is relatively smooth and isn't sticky, you're in good shape.  A dough that is too wet will never roll out, or make noodles that don't stick together.

Once the dough has rested, it is time to run it through "the Noodler."  This machine has a bit of history for me.  You have to know that growing up, my mother worked days and nights both at our family business and at home to keep a business running and keep the family functioning.  As many a mother knows, either one of those can be a full time job.  So when my dad brought home a pasta machine as a sweet gift, in the middle of our business's busy season, mom was none too pleased.  Our first crack at making noodles with that machine was a complete failure to put it nicely.  A total lack of kneading and resting our dough was the least of our concerns.  I think mom's appreciation for the new title of "artisan pasta maker," that my dad's gift implied, showed through in the final product.

When we tried to feed it through the thinnest setting in one big ball without smoothing out and shaping the dough, it came out as crumbs, lumps and ribbons and jammed the machine.  Immediately thereafter, that machine went back in the box and in the corner of the laundry room cupboard not to be seen again until I snuck it into the moving van when I moved away to college (12 years later when making pasta for my parents when they were visiting dad asked where I got the machine.  It was a fun rehash of a "fond" memory).

Now that you know how to make the basic dough, stay tuned for the next post "The Noodler and the Proper Noodling Technique" to see my tips for making noodles better than the first time my mom and I attempted it.

Welcome!

As life slowed down from a busy time at work, and my thoughts wandered back to the bottle of wine I'd had the night before (a bright fruity Okanagan Pinot Noir paired with some mushroom raviolis I'd made that day) I thought, "what the hell? My family liked the pictures so maybe someone else will too." A simple story but that's how this blog was born.

The author of this blog has no formal training in the culinary arts, has had no formal training in wines or any true experience working in the hospitality industry. I do however have a passion for all of these things and thoroughly enjoy great food, great drink, and the art of seeing it all come together. 

This blog will be dedicated to some of my favourite dining experiences, new recipes and tips I've learned in the kitchen, reviews of my favourite wines/beers/spirits, and some pictures of our (being my fiancee's) travels. It's intended to be a place of casual indulgence and I sincerely hope you enjoy it.

Stay tuned for my first recipes and reviews!