ABC

On some occasions we have come across the saying, “Anything but Chardonnay”. Abbreviated that is ABC. A close examination (well, maybe not really very close) of our sidebar index reveals that this is not an idea that we subscribe to. We love chardonnay. But more than that, we believe that different dishes calls for different wines. If you are tired of chardonnay, it is probably because you either had it too much (and therefore to some wrong dishes) or it is because you have had some bad chardonnay. Any grape can be be treated poorly, we guess, and produce poor wines. By the way, ABC could also be used for Anything but Cabernet, but we remain firm against such a point of view.
In T's home, ABC has taken on another meaning. After MK's birthday we have a surplus of parsnips and carrots and so we think that a Lemon chicken could be a good idea. M disagrees. Actually, M has become quite adverse to chicken and so when we ask him, what we should prepare for dinner, he answers, “Anything but chicken” – ABC!
Equipped with this requirement we go to Irma to find something to go with our vegetables. Luckily we are in luck as we find some cheeks of veal, which satisfy us.
Back in the kitchen we set out to prepare braised veal cheeks.

4-500 gr veal cheeks
3 whole fennels
0,5 kg small turnips
2 shallots
5 cloves of garlic
1 deseeded chili
150 gr pancetta
1 glass of white wine
1 big glass of stock
fresh thyme, oregano etc
salt and pepper

Trim fat and tough tendons from cheeks and cut in big bite-size chunks.
Heat a pan and brown the pancetta, remove and use the pancetta-fat to brown the meat and vegetables. Don’t do this in one go, as the meat may start to boil instead of caramelizing. When finished add salt and pepper and herbs and pour the wine over and steam off, then the stock, cover and let simmer for 1,5 to 2 hours.

On the side we had a green-bitter salad with garlic-anchovies dressing and mashed potatoes:

Boil peeled potatoes to a very tender state (20 minutes). No salt added.
Sieve and mash with a bit of butter and salt and pepper.

With the dish we had an old acquaintance, the 2005 Cote de Nuits Village, which was just right to accompany the dish and so we make it 9/10 for both the dish and the combination.

57 kilometres

Saturday is a day for challenges and rewards. T will play golf with his friend, H. This leads H's girlfriend, A to challenge K to ride from Copenhagen to Elsinore on mountainbike (even if there are no mountains in Denmark). K will normally accept any challenge and this is no exception. And so it is. While the boys play golf, the girls ride from Copenhagen. For such an occasion we will look for wine that is a little out of the ordinary. As a reward, of course. However, the day begins somewhat chaotically for T who doesn't get all the sleep that he would have wanted. In fact it is not until hole 15 on the golf course that he starts to relax. Before that he has driven to Copenhagen and picked up K for shopping at Torvehallerne without being able to find a parking spot. K in the meantime has found some entrecôte steaks, a handsome filet of monkfish and various root crop. And so T drives back to Elsinore while K prepares for her bicycle ride.
When H & T finish another useless round of golf the girls are still 5 km away. That gives H&T 20 minutes to prepare some toasts of Il Fornaio's whole grain bread, open a bottle of 2008 Puligny-Montrachet from Joseph Drouhin and then arrange some pata negra on top of the toasted bread.
The girls arrive in high spirits and the starter and the first bottle of wine is soon consumed. After this, bathing starts. First K, then T and finally A. H doesn't want to, so that's too bad for A.

The first dish is baked monkfish and trumpet mushrooms on fried spinach and pine nuts.
The monkfisk is cut in portion sizes and baked in the oven at 200° C for about 10 min.
The carefully rinsed spinach is fried shortly in olive oil with a bit of shaved garlic and a squeeze of lemon
The trumpet mushrooms are given a similar treatment en another frying pan
Arranged on plates and finished with a few roasted pine nuts.

With a bottle of 2007 Corton-Charlemagne we’re off to a good start.....

Next are the beautifully marbled Entrecôtes. Just salted and fried 3 minutes on each side. They were selected as a companion to the next wines. Many rich wines with lots of body would do, but in this company we lean towards neuf du neuf. We find a bottle of Chateau Beaucastel 2009 and a bottle of Vieux Donjon 2009 both from Chateauneuf-du-Pape of course.
With the steaks we prepare a dish of roots crop that will be baked in the oven. In the dish we put beetroots (regular and candy), turnips and onions. We also have to add uncounted cloves of garlic with the skin on and herbs (the latter are massaged down into the bottom of the dish so they are not burned in the oven.) All baked for about 30-40 minutes.

It all come out very well and the wine is thus accompanied excellently. About the wine: The Vieux Donjon is delicious and already very drinkable. The Beaucastel (as some of you may recall) is not the first time we do away with a 2009. Once again, it is also excellent, a little more tight, and will keep well, if only we'll let it.

As you can imagine the 57 kilometers instills some appetite in the girls (and the boys know how to follow suit), so we need to have some cheese. We have some Danish dry cheeses (Høost and some others that we have forgotten about). It may just be an excuse to open another bottle of wine, which we do. This time a lovely/lowly Cote de Nuits Village, but from the excellent year 2005 and it tastes wonderful. K, who you you may recall has Beaucastel as one of her top-10 wines, seem to recall this latter one better the next day, whereas T does not recall much of anything.

In the end we have to eat some dessert. At this point it is kind of like a sprint. We have already put a bottle of Rayne-Vigneau Sauternes 2005 Premier Cru in the fridge and it cannot stay. But it is a race against time. H has dropped to the bed and is napping and anyone who knows T will be wondering how he is still up.

The dessert is baked plums with caramelized almonds and vanilla ice cream.
A couple of plums per person (Reine Claude) are cut in halves, stone removed and put in a baking pan with a bit of muscovado sugar and baked for about 10 minutes.
Sugar and butter are melted in a pan and when brown and bubbly almond splinters are put in.
Finally the (bought) vanilla ice cream is arranged on the side.
(Reminder: we need an ice cream machine) (and a bigger kitchen)

And it is another success, but it is also the end of the line for this evening and we are happy to send our guests to bed and hitting our own the moment their door closes.
In case you were wondering about the challenge and award thing... K was of course rewarded with some extraordinary wine (as were the entire company) this evening. T, who played some terrible golf was rewarded with an extraordinary hang-over. Both were equally just.

K's red cabbage salad

Tonight we have been invited by Betty to a wine tasting of South African wine by the Danish importer, Protea wine. The event has many visitors and has a very informal atmosphere where everybody gets to taste what they like and in their own preferred order.
K is naturally sceptic towards everything that is not European, but concedes that she has been swayed on a number of occasions lately.
We are very pleasantly surprised and despite T's ban on buying more wine in 2011 we find ourselves ordering several cases. Here's what we liked:+
2009 Thelema Chardonnay (even though K found it a bit too sweet and almondy – T did not)
2008 Thelema Merlot – very drinkable right now
2009 Springfonteine Pinotage (T doesn't really know how that happened, but we just found it quite nice)
2004 Barcarato Barbera d'Asti Nizza (which of course is sort of Italian). Nicely mature right now.
There were also other nice wines (and some not quite so interesting ones) so all in all we were very happy to have attended.

After this we again need to have a quick and light dinner. As opposed to our latest wine tasting, where we were unprepared, this time we have bought two berberi duck breasts and some bread in advance. The rest K will prepare from what is in the fridge which she announces will be red cabbage salad. This fills T with apprehension as the traditional Danish Christmas dinner is duck and red cabbage. The latter prepared in a way that is very sweet and overwhelming and normally precludes any wine recommendations.
Not unexpectedly K easily overcomes T's worries and makes a salad that earn much praise from both Betty and T. Here's what went into K's red cabbage salad:

Thinly sliced red cabbage (the mandolin, of course)
Thinly sliced leeks
Thinly sliced apple
Zest of orange
Chopped walnuts
Pomegranate
The dressing is a little secret, but T spots at least one of its ingredients. They are
Juice from one orange
a bit of raspberry vinegar
a bit of sesame oil
Soy sauce
Just a tiny sprinkle of fish sauce
a little chili
S/P
We drink a bottle of Santenay 2000 which again is excellent.
For dessert we have 'brunsvigerkage' from Meyers' bakery and coffee. We are very impressed with the bread from the bakery – but the 'brunsviger' was a disappointment! There are some things that the New Nordic kitchen should not mess with. – We will try to make it ourselves soon.

Eat your carrots

One of the most used sentences in the average Danish home at dinner: "Eat your carrots". Neither K, nor T are particularly fond of them, but the vegetable box from Aarstiderne very often contains bags of carrots and there was really no way out. But we are actually jumping into the evening when we need to start at the beginning. And the beginning is in the supermarket where we select some pork chops and then also decide for some beans. Before this it had been an eventful day during which T attempted to stall traffic in central Copenhagen when his car broke down almost in the middle of a traffic light.

Anyway, back to the food. The pork chops were fried on a grill pan with rosemary, garlic and lemon and the beans were cooked and one finely chopped red onion was mixed into the beans.

The very pretty carrots in different colors were cut into smaller pieces and cooked and K had the inspiration to serve them with salted capers, which led to T actually having a second helping of carrots – now there's a rare sight. A little green salad is almost always on the agenda and no deviation tonight.

All in all this was a simple but very successful dinner. 8/10. The wine selection was difficult though. We tended towards Sangiovese (again), but after some discussion we looked into the "wine storage" and there was a single bottle of 2000 Santenay looking at us. We decided to try it out and it turned out very, very well. Since Fine had joined us the evening had turned out extraordinarily nice (well, our dinners are normally nice, but we do enjoy the company of Fine and others). In the end one bottle was not enough and we had to find another. The next bottle was corked, so by the end of the evening the stash of the 2000 Santenay was reduced by three. Oh well, at least it frees up space for something else. Wine 8/10. Match 8.5/10

Not just for fond – Coq au vin

In our latest Beaune post K claimed that we could make a better coq au vin and today we put our claim to the test (or the rooster where the mouth is)... However it has been a while so after shopping we consulted the internet (in this case, as quite often, the brothers Price) for the basics and found that while getting all the extras – mushrooms, pearl onions, bacon – we had run out of the base; carrots, celery etc. So back to the store T went.

This is how it went down (for 4 people):
1 big rooster from Bornholm
2 carrots
2 onions
2 stalks of celery
4 cloves of garlic
1 bottle + a big glass wine (preferably red burgundy but we were cheap and used left over chianti)
Some chicken stock from the freezer
Parsley, thyme, bay leaf, 4 cloves

Cut the rooster in 10 pieces (use the leftovers for stock ("fond")). Brown in olive oil and butter – s/p. Take up.
Fry the vegetables until soft but not brown.
Put the poultry back with the herbs, add wine and stock until covered. Put a lid on and let simmer for about an hour.

Meanwhile 15 pearl onions are cooked in butter, a bit of sugar, a little salt and water until the water had vaporized and the onions are light brown. Remove onions and add a generous glass of wine and reduce to half.

In a frying pan brown 200 gr bacon cut in thick pieces, until almost crisp. Remove and fry 250 gr mushrooms in the bacon grease.

By now the coq looks like this. Remove the meat, blend the sauce until smooth, put the poultry, onions, the reduced wine, bacon and mushrooms in, heat and serve...

... with bread! (and if necessary, rice or mashed potatoes but NOT tagliatelle), and a green salad.
The tagliatelle, in K's opinion, adds nothing to the dish. A big misunderstanding that apparently even the natives (read French) have adopted.

With this we had a bottle of Gevrey-Chambertin 2008 from Manuel Olivier. Properly decanted and served at around 16 degrees this was extremely nice 8,3/10 and together with the dish it was even 8,8/10. The dish itself was superb. Even though we scarcely dare contradict the brothers we agreed to keep the vegetables and blend them in the sauce rather than thicken it with flour.. We ended up liking it very much indeed and with a rating of 9/10 we declare ourselves stand-out winners.

Beaune - Encore fois

For the third time in a year we arrive at Beaune in Burgundy and as again we are treated with a sunny day. As usual we arrive a little late in the afternoon and have to try different places in order to get lunch.

We end up at the Grand Café Lyon and predictably we order Meursault et Escargot. This may not be the recommended combination, but we like the sound of it and since will surely be the last summer day for us for some time we have enjoy the feeling of sitting outside at a cafe table, drinking white wine. The snails (escargots) are disappointing and have a earthy taste. Maybe they were not tortured long enough on a salt tray or maybe they have gone bad. The latter may not be the case as we suffer no long term effects. The Meursault is ok.

We also have Le Plat du Jour, which today is Coq au Vin with Tagliatelle. This is ok, but K believes we can do better ourselves one day in the not too far future (so look out for that). Another problem is the Tagliatelle, which she don't think is the proper compagnon for this dish, just like it isn't for Beouf Bourgignon, despite the fact that the rest of Beaune thinks so. Well, almost. But more on that later.

Overall we have become spoilt and for lunch this is quite nice. Overall we rate the lunch as a 6,5/10 and the wine as 7,5/10.

The afternoon is spent researching which wines we should purchase and also to find some more clothes for T who has not packed sufficiently. The research has two steps. First we read up on the latest vintage and the producers who have done well. In Burgundy this means getting a list of wines of €100+ which actually doesn't help a lot, but is enough to make us envious. Secondly we visit the various wine shops and in Beaune there are many. We try to find a wine that can serve as a benchmark (in Chateauneuf it was the Beaucastel). In Beaune it is more difficult because the variuos producers are sold by various shops. Often we end up at Denis Perret who also has the best location on the town square. Another wine shopping/research activity is to go to one of the supermarkets. In France we have often made good purchases in a supermarket and it also gives us some more prices for our benchmark. On this occasion we find a bottle of 1997 Chateau Lynch Bages and the price given underneath is €11. Clearly this must be a mistake and we discuss what to do. In the end we opt for taking one and if it indeed only costs €11 we will re-enter and get the rest. As it is we conme to the counter and when scanned it costs €57. We point out that it should cost 11 and a clerk follows T down to the shelf and takes out the price tag and so we get the bottle for €11, but as she has removed the tag we cannot get the remaining 5 bottles. Incidentally a local man behind us in queue nodded approvingly despite the fact that we were purchasing bordeaux in burgundy.

In the evening we go to Caves Madeleine. This is a return visit as we were here in March and enjoyed it hugely. It is a small place with a good basic kitchen. 

Wine-wise the concept is a little special as you can select your wine from the shelves to bring home or have it with your dinner at an additional cost of €6. On the face of it this seems like a good deal, but our general research suggests that there already has been added €5-10. Nevertheless as we are Danish we are used to huge markups on wine bought at restaurants (300-400%). Still, we like the concept and we spend some time selecting a 2007 Meursault from Albert Bichot and a 2006 Pommard also from Albert Bichot. Both are very good, but of course you can get better. In Burgundy the cap on your credit card quickly becomes the limiting factor and by now we fear that the magnetic strip has worn off.

The menu is small, but this is in our view by no means a bad thing. There are 3 entrees and 3 main courses to select and then we can choose between cheese or dessert.

K is the most adventurous by far and she choses the Terrine Campagne de la Maison for entree, while T selects a Cassoulet Escargot. K's terrine is good and rustic. The combination of a piece of toast, sonme terrine and on top a conichon is a deligthful mouthful. But alas, there is much too much. It is a big piece of terrine and we have to leave some. 

T's cassoulet is good and much more the size of an entree. The garlic sauce is just perfect with sufficient garlic and not too fat. And then there is a potato in there, which has not been overcooked! We rate the terrine as 8/10 and the same for the same for the cassoulet. The Meursault is good and this time we actually manage to save some for our cheese, but it was a close call.

For the main course K waver, but in the end she gives in to her adventurousness and orders the tongue in a broth with vegetables and served with Sauce Bearnaise. K is positively surprised and enjoys her meal. The bearnaise is very well made, but somewhat surprising to get a sauce served to a soup, but the acidity and richness of it suits the dish well. 

T who is not as adventurous choses the Beouf Bourgignon and this time it is even served with poatatoes and a small piece of toast. It is a nice solid dish and the sauce is very nicely powerfully concentrated.

Finally le fromage. Not much to say - just eat.



Overall we rate our meals to 8,5/10 each. K later analyses the meal and concludes that she might have been carried away by the positive surprise of liking tongue and perhaps this is a dish that would be nice as a smaller part of a menu with more courses.

It is good that this is our last day on this vacation. But our reckoning we should be so inebriated that we might have problems finding our way to the Hotel la Cloche 200m away, but we are not. The hotel, by the way, is quite nice and affordable. Good size rooms, clean, right on Place Madeleine and both the coffee and the croissants served for breakfast were good.

Golf dinner

T and his friend PPO had been playing golf and returned home to what was supposed to be a quick meal – PPO had to get up 4.15 next morning to drive his son to Copenhagen.

First off a primo of Risotto with scallops and baked parma ham and a splash of balsamicco 8,5/10. To this we had a bottle of Meursault from 2008 8/10. Together 9/10

The secondo was chicken (even if it was not K's famous chili chicken) cooked with fennel and lemon and served with bread and a salad of lettuce and tomatoes.











The chicken:
organic chicken cut in 8 pieces.
one or two fennels (whatever space you have leftover in the  dish).
garlic
parsley and/or other herbs
organic lemon cut in pieces (one has to use the unsprayed kind since the peel is used)
s/p
in the oven for app 50 min. K is still trying to figure out T's oven, but thinks it is 10 minutes at 200 C degrees and then turn down to 160 C for the remainder. In K's experience organic chicken need to cook a little bit longer at lower temperature: They are a bit bigger than the non-organic type as they are allowed to live a little longer. But that also benefits the taste. And ones conscience! Organic chickens have better space and get to go outdoors.

Put the left over bones and cutouts in a pan with onion, carrot, herbs etc for a great stock for later use.













Discussions were long as to what to drink with the chicken. T felt for Pinot Noir even though literature suggested otherwise (Valpolicella). Nebbiolo (Barbaresco) was suggested by PPO but he was also happy with some burgundy and so it was. We selected a bottle of Nuits St George 2004 from Louis Latour. T had asked if it was to be traditional Pinot, i.e. Burgundy or some new-world but was met with demand for the French variety. Just to test PPO and K, T also opened a bottle of Te Muna from New Zealand. This of course was something quite different and despite not doing poorly (7,4/10) it could not change the mind of PPO and K (and T). The Nuits St George (8,5/10) was also the better companion to the chicken (8/10).

The match was from the beginning unfair. Just because the grapes are the same, they were two very different wines. The burgundy had matured well and was better balanced. The New Zealandic version was much younger (2008) and was rich in fruit and oak.

The discussion about old world/new world wine goes on and on on these pages. The good part about it is that we get to taste a lot of good wine from both worlds.

For dessert we had the baked plums with macaroon and whipped cream to go with our left over Sauternes.

T commented that PPO was a joy to invite to dinner. Having to leave early and drive home, he drank next to nothing leaving a lot to the hosts. Hopefully he will know better next time.

Copenhagen Wine Forum

Saturday we went to Copenhagen Wine Forum. T was in a foul mood due to poor golfing and adverse football results. (This might happen quite a few times the next 8 months (K adds; and to be repeated every season....). We got there 2 hours before closing and took stock of the show. It was divided into two sections: Danish Wine producers and more or less Danish wine importers. K has on occasion tasted Danish wine, whereas T has not done so yet. (Yes, T knows it is embarrassing). So, we headed into the Danish wine producers section.
The Danish climate is not suited for wine production. It might become so in a couple of years when Global Warming has affected our climate, but for now, it is not. Even so, it is all the more fascinating to meet the Danish wine producers who, like their more southern colleagues, are just as enthusiastic about their wine albeit most are very modest. Having said that, we tasted some wines that were rather good, even if the price tag is to be compared with wines of another league. The wines we tasted cost between 100 DKK and 500 DKK.

First off we came to Ørnberg whose dessert wine won a gold medal and who K had had an opportunity to taste before. The white wines are made on Ortega, Phoenix, Siegerrebe, Zalas Perle and Solaris. The dessert wine, Mynster, was quite nice. Not too sweet and with fresh fruits 7,5/10

We also tasted the dry Jørgen and the sparkeling Perle. Both very nice and drinkable :)













On we went down the Danish aisle to the next stop; Degnemosegaard.
Especially their light red Vinbondens lette røde cuvée was very pleasant. 6,5/10


















Last of the Danish wine producers we visited was Kelleris that is situated in North Zealand. It appeared to us to be quite ambitious and we had a long talk with the producer who gave quite a few insights on the various barriques. His wine, Utopia, comes in various versions with the barrique fermentation being the main diversifying factor. The 2008 on show was promising (6-6,5/10). The Utopia Rex 2006 was also the most expensive wine we tasted at almost 500DKK (6/10). All wines were made on the Rondo grape.











It had been very interesting and fascinating to talk to Danish wine producers and taste their wines. In conclusion we decided that we have to compose some dishes in the future to which we serve Danish wine.

On we went to the importers' section. This was actually not very interesting. Maybe it was because of the late hour, but we found many of the exhibition staff to be more interested in (single) female audience. Quite a few of them were probably friends of the importer and presented the wines with rehearsed comments such as "this goes along well with Sushi". Time was running out when we came to the stand of L'Esprit du Vin. Here we tasted a nice Slovakian Riesling from Egon Müller (7,5/10) and a corked Schartdorf (T thinks it was called), but which was nevertheless the last few drops from the bottle, so we think others might have found it OK! While tasting a glass of Riesling Spätlese it came to our attention that a Burgundy tasting was underway next to the stand. T asked if we could participate despite not having requested this before. (This we could have done, if T had not been in such a foul mood)

We got the last 30 minutes ... but what 30 minutes. It was almost spiritual! We got to taste 4 wines:
Domaine des Varoilles: Gevrey-Chambertin "La Romanée 1er cru" 2005. 8,5/10
Domaine des Varoilles: Clos de Beze  2005 8/10
Gevrey-Chambertin 1982 Leroy 9,3/10.
(Tasted of tobacco, rope, light red fruit, cowshed....)
Mersault Perriere 1988 Leroy 9,5/10













Jørgen Krüff who presented the wine was extremely knowledgeable and reminded us of how far we have to go in order to say something truly expert-like about wine.

... and we licked up every drop. You may be able to still get an idea about the age of the Gevrey Chambertin on the right.









Jørgen Krüff continued on talking about the wine despite the closing of the show being announced over the loudspeaker, but in the end we had to leave.

It was a very tough task to follow after the burgundy tasting, but the evening ended up with a couple of steaks with green beans and red onions. The meat was a little tough but the taste was fine. We started out with olive oil, fresh goat cheese, pickled sweet chilies and cured ham. (7,5/10) and bottle of Monpra from Conterno Fantino (8/10) and it held up on its own very nicely despite the competition from the big boys

Rabbit and Santenay

Main course 8/10

Rabbit in a stew with white beans and vegetables. Cooked in homemade chicken stock

Wine 7/10

2000 Santenay

Wine/Food matching 8/10