JP Eats Food Blog. Welcome to my food (and wine) blog. I am very lucky to enjoy good food and wine pretty frequently. I also spend a good deal of time learning and experimenting with both. The point of this blog is to share some of that with you as well as help me remember foods, wines, and little bits and pieces of information I pick up along the way. I rarely take pictures in nice restaurants, so most of what you see here comes from my kitchen, my friends' kitchens, or various casual and local hot spots. You can hit the archive, or never miss a post with rss.
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The centerpiece of my birthday dinner this year, a 47-ounce porterhouse from Bryan Flannery. Not all for me—I’m not quite that gluttonous. The wine was Sine Qua Non’s 2009 Syrah “The Thrill of Stamp Collecting”, and it was considerably more thrilling than the name implies.
This past Saturday marked a sad day for me—the last day of Blue Moon Fish in the NYC Greenmarket scene until March. To mourn the occasion, we enjoyed oysters with grower champagne (a Gimonnet blanc de blancs) and then sea bass filets cooked similarly to traditional Sole Meunière along with the really nice Sine Qua Non Kolibri white wine. This shot was prior to finishing with browned butter, lemon, and parsley.
A perfect NY strip steak from Bryan Flannery. I love my local suppliers but Bryan’s beef is unparalleled. His cuts of California beef run a little smaller, so to compensate he’ll cut them nice and thick for you. This 24-ouncer was at least 4 inches thick, which is great, but does pose problems for cooking in a Manhattan apartment without scaring neighbors or alerting the fire department. So, I cooked this sous vide at 120 degrees for 1.5 hours then flash seared in a blazing hot cast iron skillet. This worked well—the steak was just above true rare, which normally would ruin my day, but in the case of sous vide I’ve found I actually like a few extra degrees.
In the background are truffled mashed potatoes and Sine Qua Non “Raven” Syrah from 2006. Of the recent SQN Syrahs, this one seems to be drinking best right now and was perfect with steak.
This year’s Thanksgiving menu and prep weren’t much different from Thanksgiving 2009. Here was the menu:
Classic gougères with gruyere, medley of olives
Egly-Ouriet NV Champagne Brut Tradition Grand Cru
Roasted Turkey, traditional stuffing, garlic confit mashed potatoes, porcini mushroom gravy, pan-roasted Brussels sprouts, and cranberry chutney
Château de Beuacastel Chateauneuf-du-Pape 1997
Pumkin Pie with bourbon maple whipped cream
Sine Qua Non Mr. K The Noble Man 2006
Cheesy gougères are becoming a go-to Thanksgiving appetizer. They pair perfectly with Champagne, accompany other appetizers well, and are nice finger food. Plus, you can make the dough a day in advance, freeze it on the baking sheet, then just slide in the oven straight from the freezer 30 minutes before you want them. I inadvertently opened the same Champagne as last year, but Egly-Ouriet is a favorite so that’s not surprising.
The main course of turkey and all the “fixins” is of course where all of the fun and tradition of Thanksgiving are. Again, this was mostly the same recipes and methods of last year. I experimented a little with my Cranberry Chutney recipe, but am still happiest with the original recipe. The wine, ‘97 Beaucastel was beautiful and paired wonderfully with the meal, although it was not a blockbuster.
The only real difference in menu was the addition of pan-roasted Brussels sprouts with Mosefund Farms Mangalitsa bacon. I’m a big Brussels sprouts fan, particularly when quickly roasted in a pan with a tasty fat. Even better is if that fat is rendered from bacon and then chunks of bacon are added back in with the sprouts at the end. My favorite is actually with guanciale, but I thought that might be a bit overpowering for this meal. The Mangalitsa bacon is incredibly good and worked well.
For dessert, same pumpkin pie as last year. I did add some BLiS Bourbon Barrel Maple Syrup to the whipped cream this year, which made it a great fit for this incredible pie recipe. The wine is the 2006 Mr. K The Noble Man from Sine Qua Non. While the ‘06 isn’t quite as good as the ‘05 we had last year, I have no doubt that these are the best dessert wines in North America.
Sine Qua Non The Pontiff Rosé (2008). Sine Qua Non is one of my favorite wineries, and I enjoy their rosés as a departure from the norm. This is really somewhere between a typical rosé and medium bodied red wine, but whatever it is, it’s delicious when slightly chilled.
Sine Qua Non Body & Soul white Rhone blend from California. This has to have been the best US white Rhone-style wine I’ve ever had. Citrus, honey, and floral notes. Rich, yet crisp, well-balanced, and food friendly. Delicious!
40 Ounce prime dry aged porterhouse from Florence Meat Market with truffle/ parmesan fries. The Sine Qua Non 2006 Grenache Raven Series is a delicious wine (after sitting in a decanter for 4 hours).
Pumpkin Pie! This year I also took a detour on the pie, and tried out this recipe from Cooks Illustrated (you may need some sort of subscription, I don’t know, sorry). If you can’t see it, basically the recipe calls for cooking the pumpkin with all of the usual suspects plus sweet potatoes and maple syrup. It also suggests taking the pie out of the oven very early.
I changed ratio of spices and pumpkin to cream a bit, and dove in. Indeed, when the center of the pie was at 175 degrees, about 45 minutes after it went into the oven, the pie was still gooey and quivering. But, after setting for a few hours… this is the best pumpkin pie I have ever tasted. So soft and creamy, I actually didn’t want the dollop of honeyed whipped cream that was on the side. A first.
The wine was Sine Qua Non Mr. K The Noble Man, a collaboration between Manfred Krankl of Sine Qua Non and Alois Kracher who sadly passed away about two years ago. There will only be one more vintage of this wine, which is also sad, because it’s stunning. While very sweet, it is so vibrant and pure it seems impossible not to like.
Nice new Riedel decanter for my birthday from the parents. Economical space-wise for city apartment living. Had to make sure it works OK by filling with Sine Qua Non Atlantis Grenache. It seems to work just fine. ;)
