In good company

Happily, it is once again time to see good friends, I and A. A is a champagne connoisseur, so we will have to be sharp. I is in waiting and so there is so much more wine for the rest of us! And what wine it is, tonight.

Krug Grande Cuvée
Puligny-Montrachet Joseph Drouhin 2008
Sammarco 2007 Castello dei Rampolla
Sassicaia 2004
Sauterne random


We start with a bottle of Krug champagne and for snacks have some of T’s trademark almonds – soy-roasted and salted. Also, we try some broad beans with a bit of salt, since K is still preparing some for the starter and does not want to stay in the kitchen while the rest of us quickly soak up the champagne. The champagne is very nice and ”toasted.”
T's roasted almonds
The almonds are dry-roasted on a hot pan. Toss frequently in order to avoid scorching. After 5-6 minutes (for 200 grams) pour some soy sauce on and after 10 seconds add some salt, all the while tossing the almonds in the pan. As the soy is salty don’t exaggerate the salt. Let the almonds cool for 10+ minutes.

First course is Monkfish and broadbeans,
green and purple asparagus, Danish produce.
Beurre Blanc 
The monkfish has a great taste and texture – almost like lobster. When salted slightly before cooking the meat becomes even firmer.
It is cut in slices – one for each serving – and fried shortly in butter. The broad beans, with the white skin peeled off is added to the pan for a second.
The asparagus stalks are broken off. They snap exactly at the tender point so there is no reason to cut them. If you cut them, you may cut away too little resulting in tough bites or even worse, cut away too much of the wonderful, tender young asparagus.
The Beurre Blanc sauce is prepared by finely chopping 1½ shallots (the large banana shaped ones), put in a small pan with 1 dl of white wine and a spoonful of white vinegar. Cook until reduced to half and, strain, then add 125 g of butter cut into smaller cubes so that they can be whipped into the extract gradually. Turn off the heating quickly so it is done on the afterburn. No boiling!
We are quite satisfied and even the not-so-fond-of-fish guest scrapes the plate with rustic bread from il Fornaio in Torvehallerne. The Puligny-Montrachet goes well with the dish. It has good acidity and is not too ”fat”.

Since we supply the champagne, A is denied of opportunity to be the champagne-man for tonight, but has instead brought another special treat – the Sammarco 2007 from Castello di Rampolla. This is exceptional. We have decanted it immediately and after 2 hours we can approach it, but it is still child-murder to a little extent. We find no flaw, save for the fact that there is too little of it.

Back to the main course. For our main course we try something new. We presume that wild board will go well with the wine and by the end of the evening we also a rather satisfied with ourselves.

Cinghiale arrosto 
(Shoulder of wild boar roast)
1 small boneless shoulder (1.5 kg) is filled with a paste (the mortar again) of 1 spoonful fennel seeds, 3 fillets of anchovies, 3 cloves of garlic, a handful of oregano, a handful of rosemary, black pepper, a small spoonful honey, zest and juice of one lemon, a generous pour of olive oil, salt and lots of black pepper. Tie the roast tightly.
Put in the oven at 180° for about two hours with a bit of white wine in the bottom of the pan (add more wine along the way). Turn the roast frequently.

Fennel

The fennel cut in eights are added to the pan after one hour.
Whatever juices are left ind the pan – from the roast, white wine and fennel is used as sauce. Not much, but good.

New potatoes

Tossed endives with garlic and anchovies dressing
This dressing works great with any kind of bitter lettuce.
Dressing. Paste 2-3 anchovies with 1-2 cloves of garlic, olive oil (the best kind, always), a splash of white wine vinegar in the mortar. Mix thoroughly with the lettuce.
No salt – the anchovies are plenty salty




Now, as we mentioned, there was a small problem with the Sammarco and we need to take care of it. We can’t really see any other solution to the problem than to continue in the Super Tuscan track and so we open a bottle of Sassicaia 2004. It is exceptional with fine rounded fruit and at this stage more mature for drinking than the Sammarco.

Time for a little cheese and luckily we have saved a glass of the Puligny-Montrachet.

Finally there is only the dessert left:

Baked rhubarb with sour cream and almond cookies.

The rhubarbs are cut in pieces of app 2 cm and put in an oven proof pan in one layer. Orange zest, one stalk of vanilla and a generous pour of cane sugar is added. Cover with foil. Cooked at 180° for 20-25 min. Arrange on plates with the crumbled almond cookies and the sour cream.

We drink a little Sauternes of uncertain origin, but that is just for the sake of appearances as we have had about enough. T is on the verge of falling asleep and I and A are gracious enough to head home. We look forward to seeing a family of four next time!

TGIF

It's Friday evening and T picks up MK and is planning for Lasagne. MK and T enter Irma and take stock of the situation when T changes his mind. It is, after all, only Friday once a week and so he shops for something a little more special.
K who is severely tested by the train schedule and the winter arrives somewhat late at the station but she is rewarded with a specialty that both she and T love – foie gras. It is served with some toasted dark bread (Irma's Lantz) and some green tomato relish and pickled plumes. With this we have a bottle of Gewürtztraminer 2010 from Hugel & Fils. Always nice.
After this we prepare the main course: Sirloin roast of veal with morel sauce and potatoes that T has tried somewhere, but the name eludes us.
The potatoes are cut into very thin slices and arranged in layers in a small baking cup with shallots and chopped garlic. A little butter and a few spoonful of chicken stock is added and on top some gruyere cheese. Then baked in a an oven at 170 degrees for approx. 30 minutes.
We also prepare a salad made of thinly sliced fennel. This you may have seen before around here, but it is a favourite of ours, so it will not be the last time. The fennel salad is tossed with oil, lemon juice and salt and pepper and thin shavings of parmesan cheese right before serving.
In the meantime the sirloin roast is fried in a deep pan. When brown on all sides some leftover red wine is added (well quite a bit, actually as it is drastically reduced for the sauce). In the end the roast is taken out and set aside to rest a little while and we then add the morels and in the end also a handsome portion of butter.

The result if very satisfying. MK states that it is just like eating at a fancy restaurant. That makes us very proud at least until she explains that it is because of the way that the potatoes are served and not necessarily because how it tastes. But it tastes very well and in particlar with the wine that we select for this evening – a 1997 St Esthephe – Moulin de Pez. We rate the wine as 9/10, the wine the same and together 9,1/10 :-)

Paris

A business trip to Paris provides T with an excellent opportunity for culinary exploits. T, a long time fan of the Italian cuisine, is gradually warming to France – both the wine and food. It does not mean that he did not like it before, just that he had not paid enough attention. Not surprisingly there are many positive experiences waiting for T (and some not so positives ones, too).
The trip provided four occasions for French dining.
Day 1: Auberge Nicolas Flamel
This is a small place at Rue de Montmorency. T has the Menu Degustation which means
Foie Gras on fruited bread - one piece fried and one piece au naturel. Quite nice.
St Jacques (Fried Scallops)
Monkfish
7-hour Lamb
Creme Brulée
The Menu Degustation was good, but time has erased the memory somewhat.
The plan was to have a bottle of white wine and a bottle of red with the meal, so we ordered a bottle of Mont-Redon 2008 Chateauneuf-du-Pape. It was very nice and crisp, but somehow it dried up before the monkfish arrived and so we had to have a bottle of Meursault (T does not recall which one, but it was a favorite in the company). For the Lamb we had a bottle of Chateau Marquis d'Alesme 2005.
Day 2: Le Grand B
With a prominent location on Boulevard des Italiens this place might be what we have otherwise categorized as a tourist trap. The nature of the dinner did nothing to change that prejudice, but it has to be said that serving dinner for 42 people of course is challenging.

Day 3: Chez l'Ami Jean
This little gem is situated in a part of Paris that seemed a bit deserted on the evening. Most of buildings near Rue Malar seemed to be office buildings and it was therefore a bit of a surprise to enter a very crowded small room that buzzed with activity and atmosphere. The staff was extremely busy but still provided good service and in particular humour. They were quick to point out that they were basque, which of course was no surprise as it was announced at the front: "Basque Specialtees"
It was decided that we went for the big 8 course dinner (Le Carte Blanche) in which the chef selected what to serve. T was not really opposed to this. We asked the waiter for recommendations to go with the courses as we did not have a clue as to what we were going to have. They suggested white wine to start and later red wine! Good recommendation, thought T and looked into the wine list.
We started with a bottle of Champagne from Drappier made on Pinot Noir (blanc) and with this we had some slices of iberian ham.

The first course was a parmesan soup served with croutons and chives (and T also thinks there was a little ventreche in there). With  this we had started a bottle of 2004 Vire Clesse which was recommended and well so.

Next up was a terrine of beef (jellied beef, we were told). There were raisins in the terrine, which was surprising, but worked well. It was served with a basil coulis. We had somewhere along the way run out of Vire Clesse and turned to a 2009 Meursault La Barre.

The next course was fresh St Jacques clams served in their their shells and then baked lightly. It was sprinkled with chives and small croutons.
Then it was time for the meat courses and we shifted to a bottle of Coteaux de Languedoc. It was good, but T did not get to see the details properly.
We started with a braised hare on an emulsion of mushrooms and small pieces of turnip.
After this we had a piece of wood pigeon on a base of cresson. It was cooked perfectly in T's opinion and he had so far only had had bad experiences with pigeon. This one was red, but not raw inside.
Finally we had three desserts served together:

Ris au lait with roasted and candied almonds, sablér with pear and a lemon shot. With this we had glass of dessert wine from Jurancon.
Altogether this was an excellent evening.
Day 4: Hippopotamus
The Charles de Gaulle airport does not offer many options when it comes to dinner (maybe it does in some of the other terminals): Either McDonalds or Hippopotamus. Naturally we chose the latter. T did not want to end his foie gras streak early and so had a bloc de foie gras and an Entrecote.
For an airport restaurant this was actually OK and of course drinking a bottle of 2004 Cote Rotîe from Guigal helped a lot.
It is actually quite dangerous for T to go dining in France, because the bottles normally cost the same as he has to pay for them in Denmark... in the retail store.

Sassicaia on a thursday

It is sometimes nice to have an excuse for excesses. If one reads through these pages one may suspect that every day is excessive for us, which is not entirely untrue, but on this specific thursday we do have something to celebrate.
We start out with truffle-ravioli (bought) with a bit of melted butter and parmigiano. Simple and good and a dish we often return to. To drink a Puligny-Montrachet 2008 from Joseph Drouhin – a very nice glass with grapefruit notes, almond and rich butteriness.

Pheasant is in season right now and we get a rooster (in fact we bought two – one go in the freezer) for a very reasonable prize. In fact so reasonable that it cannot even fully be categorized under excesses. Not until it meets with olive oil, butter, garlic (lots), rosemary (quite a bit), marsala and chicken stock in a pan. First the breast has been wrapped in prosciutto crudo. Brown in butter and oil, add garlic and herbs. Add marsala (ambra dry) (about 1/3 of a bottle) and stock (3-4 dl) a little by little and braise for app. 40 min.

Remove the bird, add about one dl cream and reduce to a suitable texture. A recipe that originally was inspired by the River Café cookbook but has developed over several years.
In another pan a quartered endive is braised in a bit of butter and water. And over time a bit of sirup and balsamico is added.
And on the grill pan slices of zucchini gets the hot, short treatment.

On the plate the we each get a piece of breast and leg, a generous pour of the sauce, the endive and several slices of zucchini. And in the glass Sassicaia 2004. Darn, that's good!
If you've read about our visit to Chateuneuf-du-Pape, you may recall that we mentioned a favorite wine of K. And so here it is. A fact that also has manifested itself by the fact that K is a member of the legendary Sassi-klubben (The Sassi Club). A club that T will soon join. That naturally means that an occasion such as this immediately triggers a storm of MMS'es to other members who immediately returns envious sms'es.

food/wine matching 9/10

Garlic galore

Tonight is an occasion for one of the quick dishes. After driving all the way from Copenhagen to Helsingør (Elsinore) and going to the gym we arrive home a little late and this calls for something quick, which oftentimes mean pasta. As it is Friday we do not have any customer meetings or similar the after and we can go all in on the garlic. Thus it is Penne con aglio e prezzemolo. That is with garlic and parsley. This is quick and simple.

2 handfuls of parsley – coarsely chopped

5 cloves of garlic (adjust according to your preference – 5 will be quite strong)

2 spoonfuls of grated parmesan

1 spoonful of butter

salt

olive oil

Mix it all in a bowl. 

For three persons we take 500 grams of penne. When cooked pour in to the bowl, mix and serve.

We also make small saltimbocca just to have a little meat (post-training proteine). At the supermarket we have found a package of 6 small pieces of veal. They look nice and pink before T pounds them with the root of his hand. He may not be quite as angry as last time we made it, but he still manages to flatten them. This time we make it without the parma ham.

T has mistimed the pasta, so the meat is ready long before the pasta and that means that it is a bit too cold when we sit down and eat. The pasta, however, is just what we need and we generously award it 8,5/10

Since T's fridge is chronically too cold the green salad that we had planned to have with our meal has to be substituted by a small tomato salad with red onion and basil. The green salad is frozen and ends up in the bin. For the dish we drink a bottle of Volpolo 2007. This is the second wine of the Super Tuscan producer, Podere Sapaio. It is by now more well balanced than it was half a year ago when we first tasted it. At that time, the tannins were too harsh, but now, decanted and served at 15-16 degrees it is very nice. 8/10 and together with the food also 8/10.

Eat your foie gras, now

After a day of driving up and down Le Routes des Chateaux we return to Le Brasserie du Lac. We had reviewed the menu the night before and T would like to try the braised veal shank ("Osso buco style"). The day had been a fine day and we have started filling the trunk with St Julien wines that will be stored away for the next 10-15 years. The drive had led us from Margaux and up north along the west bank. We had had a nice lunch in a seaside restaurant in Pauillac.

K had a salad with smoked ducks breast and T had a basil-infused gazpacho for first course. Then a slice of halibut with thyme and cracked wheat. To this a large Gruyére cracker. The best part of the meal was the cheese, 3 slices of fourmes (french blue cheese). We had a bottle of Moton-Cadet Réserve 2007 to go with the meal.

Back at the brasserie du Lac problems arose when we tried to order a half-bottle of white wine. Yesterday we had settled for the Rochemorin as the only Pessac-Leognan available, but this night even that was out of stock. The waiter came back with a Graves Floridenne 2004 but that had died. At this point our waiter was very embarrassed, as he said. We got the feeling that at this place one of the main criteria for hiring staff was their ability to talk English. That is not to say they were not very polite and overall we clearly recommend the place, but they did seem a bit distressed at times. T had been looking longingly at the golf course which of course is the main attraction of the place and it seems to us that for a golf and wine lover this is clearly a place to stay for a longer period.

Anyway, a new bottle of the 2004 Graves was opened and it was better, but they will not last longer than this season. With the wine we opted to split one of the dishes from the Fish and Risotto section of the menu. This we had also looked at yesterday and decided that it fell into the category of you can have too much of a good thing: Risotto with bacon and foie gras and a gruyére cracker again. The French risotto is often strange to us and so it was also today. It was made of brown rice and the slice of foie gras on top. Predictably the combination did not appeal much to us. In fact K soon finished and left the rest to T with the words, "Eat your foie gras, now".

 For our main course we had the braised veal shank. Even if it was very tender the serving did not agree much with us. It was placed on pile of over-cooked penne pasta and heavily laced with orange and orange zest. With it we had a bottle of 2000 Croizet-Bages, which on the other hand was very nice.
Not dessert for us today, but instead a coffee and a 1982 Cognac XO for T and a an 83 Armagnac for K and so we were glad to have stayed at the hotel as it only left us 200 metres home.

Margaux

After visiting old friends in their lovely home in Luxembourg we drive to Bordeaux in France. We arrive at the Relais de Margaux a little late after driving through heavy rain we had hoped to have left far behind – in Denmark. Luckily we emerge on the other side and even if the weather cannot measure up to the lovely day in Luxembourg and its 28 degrees centigrade and a long evening sitting with good friends and looking down on the small town of Echternach it is still fair weather.

We order (predictably, since we are now in France) foie gras with fruit bread and a rib-eye steak, bearnaise and chips. To this we have half a bottle of Rochemorin and a bottle of Marquis de Terme 2004.

The fois gras was served in two generous slices with some pickled figs and the fruit bread. Coarse salt was sprinkled on top. Very simple and very nice

The bearnaise was served cold – almost as a herbed butter – the chips were good but a bit soft and finally the meat was cooked perfectly – if we had ordered perfectly.

A little lesson in french... saignant is VERY RARE (but not bleu, which is even more raw)
The waiter misunderstood the medium rare ... and we took her word for it....

For future reference –
Rare: saignant

Medium rare: à point

Medium: cuit
Well done: bien cuit

For dessert we had creme brulée and a three-kind-of-chocolate cake and to drink a sauterne.
The sauterne – much to our surprise – went better with the cake than the pudding...

The dinner at the 'Brasserie du Lac' (the restaurant of the hotel) did the trick for the two tired travelers. We are quite satisfied and going back to both the hotel and the restaurant,  not only one more night, but probably in the future as well.

Champions League

Having been apart for more than a day we obviously need to celebrate our reunion. Not only that, but also the fact that the soccer season was starting to take off and T will start becoming jittery if dinner is not finished at 20:45.

To celebrate we had:
Primo
Ravioli al Tartufo bianco (bought in the local store) served with at little melted butter and parmesan.
To drink a Friulano 2007 from Livio Felluga
Very floral, citrus but also with a hint of exotic wood. 8/10







Having Primo and Secondo is not a Danish thing (but then again we haven't presented something truly Danish here yet), and particularly not on a regular weekday. That will not deter us and we often start off with a small serving of pasta. Fresh pasta is a to be preferred, but not all fresh pasta is good. If we have the time we will make it ourselves, but on this evening we opt for one of our favorites from Irma.

Secondo
Veal cutlet with sage and marsala
Zucchini, tomatoes, and a tossed salad.
Le Difese 2007, Tenuta San Guido.

The Difese is the 3rd wine from the legendary Sassicaia-winery San Guido. It is made from
Sangiovese and Cabernet 30/70%.
We have tasted the Difese through several vintages. The 2007 has been a bit disappointing the last couple of times we opened a bottle (also surprisingly many bottles were corked), but tonight it was excellent (7,5/10). It had opened up with nice fruit from both the Sangiovese and Cabernet, one not overwhelming the other but supplementing and it went very well with the food. 8,5/10.
Next time we will decant the Difese.

The dinner was not quite finished before the game started, but never-the-less T showed enormous restraint and stayed at the table. And the game ended well.

Lasagne

A quiet evening with the kids so it is time for Lasagne. No recipe today as we are using the sauce bolognese leftover from the other day when friends came and visited (and did their own shopping and cooking!)
T bought some Brunello the other day and suggested we try it, but K was more in the mood for meatball wine. So we picked a favourite, the Chateau le Chêne 2009 (Haut Medoc). For 50DKK this is very good value for money.

The 6-year birthday

Today we go to celebrate the 6th birthday of the daughter of our good friends. Lots of snacks and wine which we get around to taste and then some Pizza. Here are the wines as we recall them.







Chivite Chadonnay 7/10
[A Riesling special cuvée, but unclear] 6/10

The Mentor 2005, Peter Lehmann 8/10
Catena Alta, Cabernet Sauvignon 2002 7,5/10
Kalleskie Grenache 8,5/10

Kalimna Shiraz (Penfolds BIN 128) 7/10
J J Hahn Nineteen Fourteen Shiraz 8,5/10
Bishop by Ben Glaetzer (Shiraz) 7,5/10

Finally a magnum bottle of Il Caberlot 2003 from Podere Il Carnasciale was opened, but unfortunately it was corked. Bugger!