For this week’s winesday, I decided to make another recipe from Tom Douglas’ Seattle Kitchen: Kasu Zuke Black Cod. This is a very traditional Japanese dish in which black cod is steeped for several days in a kasu marinade and then broiled or grilled. Kasu, also called sake lees, is the sediment left behind after making sake. It is a rather unattractive looking pale paste but it has a nice, fermented sake aroma to it. It is available in Asian markets (hint: after walking around Uwajimaya twice, I finally found it over by the fish; this makes sense as kasu is used most commonly as a marinade for seafood.)

Unfortunately, I couldn’t find the black cod that I needed for this dish so I bought salmon instead. Although it has a stronger flavor, salmon is recommended as a good substitute in this recipe because both types of fish are similarly high in oil. The important thing about making this dish is to plan ahead since it has to marinate for two days. Once the fish is in the marinade, however, most of the work is done. When you are ready to eat, simply give the fish a quick turn on the grill or under the broiler. The sugar in the marinade causes the fish to get nice and caramelized and that, or some other alchemic process, makes the skin turn extra crispy and delicious. This is a very rich and flavorful dish so I would suggest serving smallish portions. I served my salmon with wasabi mashed potatoes and asparagus.

Tom Douglas recommends serving this dish with sake (obviously) or a Washington Semillon. I selected L’Ecole No. 41 2005 Semillon, not just because of the cute child’s drawing of a schoolhouse on the label (L’Ecole means “the school” in French,) but also because L’Ecole has always gotten really good reviews for their wines, including the Semillon. The 2005 Semillon wine is very rich and complex in flavor. Descriptions of this wine include “honeyed fruit,” “figs, “caramel,” and “pear.” With minimal oak, it reminded me of the Chardonnays and Sauvignon Blancs from Australia and New Zealand. The caramely, fruity flavor and richness of the wine matched very well with the salmon.

Click here for Tom’s recipe for Kasu Zuke Black Cod (it’s way down at the bottom of the page and there is some crucial information missing. It should say 1/2 cup brown sugar and 1/4 cup mirin or sake.) Or, if you’re feeling lazy, you can sometimes find pre-marinated black cod in Asian markets, including Seattle’s own Mutual Fish.

I decided to challenge myself this winesday by doing Indian food. Because of its bold, oftentimes spicy flavors, Indian food is notorious for being difficult to pair with wine. There are, however, a few general guidelines that you can follow when pairing wines with spicy foods. Most experts agree that wines with a bit of sweetness work well; sweeter wines are less likely to be overwhelmed by spicy food than wines with more subtle qualities. You should also avoid high-alcohol wines as the extra alcohol will only intensify the burn of spicy foods. Finally, it is best to go with a fruity wine (rather than an earthy or oaky wine.) Wines with tropical fruit flavors are usually a good bet with Indian food. Gewürztraminer, with its typically sweet, floral and spicy qualities, is the most common wine paired with Indian food, but,
using the guidelines above, you can find many other wines that work well too.

During the course of these winesdays, I feel that I have shamefully been neglecting wines from my home state. To remedy this, I decided to seek out a Washington State wine for this week’s winesday, specifically, a slightly sweet riesling. I chose Columbia Winery’s 2005 Cellarmaster’s Riesling mostly because the label said “serve with spicy food” (hey, why make it harder than it has to be, right?) Columbia winery is Washington’s first premium winery. Originally known as Associated Vintners, the winery was created in 1962 by ten friends, many of them professors at University of Washington. As with many great success stories, they first set up shop in their basements. Today, Columbia winery produces 170,000 cases of wine each year and many of their wines have won top awards.

For dinner, I chose to make Rechad Fish from Flavors of India by Madhur Jaffrey. This dish comes from Goa, a coastal state and former Portuguese colony in India. According to Jaffrey, nearly every household in Goa has a jar of Rechad Masala sitting on the shelf. Rechad Masala is a bright red paste made from chilies, spices, garlic, ginger and vinegar. It is most commonly used as a stuffing for fish (Rechad comes from the Portuguese “Recheado” which means “to stuff”.) In Jaffrey’s recipe, whole pomfret are stuffed with a small amount of the paste, seared in a skillet and then finished in the oven. A couple of squeezes of lemon or lime finishes the dish. I couldn’t find pomfret so I picked up a couple of small snappers at the fish market. I served boiled baby potatoes and a Goan cabbage salad on the side. The fish was spicy. Really spicy. But, it also had a very interesting flavor due to the inclusion of cardomom, cinnamon and clove in the paste. The wine was pretty heavy on the apricot; it was sweet but not cloyingly so. I thought it went very well with the food.

This is only my second time cooking whole fish. Last time, I got a little freaked out, especially when, during cooking, a row of teeth began to slowly emerge from the fish’s mouth. This time, when the fishmonger asked if I would like the heads removed, I quickly said yes. Then, I felt bad. I really don’t want to be one of those people that always buys their food pre-sliced and pre-packaged and has no idea where it actually comes from. I like buying beets covered in dirt with the tops still attached. I don’t mind having to wash my own spinach. But, when it comes to whole fish, I’m not as open minded as I would like to be. I guess that is kind of at odds with my desire to learn to fish one day! I’m going to keep trying, though. Baby steps. Next time, I’m leaving the head on and embracing the teeth for what they are. I’ll be alright…as long as I don’t look too hard at the clouded over eyeballs – gross!

I usually have my winesdays planned out a few days in advance, but, earlier this week, I was finding myself at a loss as to what to make. There wasn’t any specific food that I was craving nor was there a particular wine that I had been dying to try. This happens to me occasionally as I suspect it does to everyone. Usually when I experience this type of mental block, Robert is quick to suggest Tuna Noodle Casserole (his favorite) followed by Pasta with Tuna and Olives. This time he also threw Pasta Puttanesca into the mix. As soon as he said it, I knew that was what I had to make. I immediately began craving spicy pasta and thinking about what wines I could pair it with. I love it when it suddenly clicks like that! In acknowledgment of Robert’s preoccupation with pasta-tuna combinations, I decided to try a recipe from Tom Douglas’ Seattle Kitchen cookbook, Pasta Puttanesca with Charred Ahi Tuna.

I headed down to DeLaurenti for wine and ingredients. Since I was shopping at an upscale Italian deli rather than the plain old grocery store, I decided to go with a fancy pasta. I picked up a package of Rustichella d’Abruzzo Chitarra. Chitarra is like spaghetti but with a neat square diameter. I normally use Barilla pasta. It’s cheap, easy to find and holds up really well (it never gets gummy.) At three times the cost, I was curious to see if the Rustichella pasta was really that much better than the Barilla.

In the recipe notes, Tom Douglas recommends pairing his Pasta Puttanesca with an Italian white wine or, “for a real dare,” he says to try a Chianti. I took his dare one step further and bought a heavier red: Vallevo 2004 Montepulciano d’Abruzzo. Montepulciano d’Abruzzo is typically a rich, robust and fruity yet soft-textured wine. It is made entirely from the montepulciano grape.

I make my own version of Pasta Puttanesca all the time, so I was excited to try a different recipe. Tom’s recipe calls for lemon zest and lemon juice whereas mine calls for red wine vinegar. Other than that, and the fact that he serves his with tuna, the two recipes are pretty much identical. Tomatoes, olives, capers, anchovies, chilies and lots of garlic. The tuna in his recipe is served quite rare. You basically just sear it for a minute per side. Then you slice it thinly and serve the slices over the pasta.

As expected, the Rustichella pasta cooked up nicely. It was much chewier and heartier than I am used to, and it definitely held the puttanesca sauce well, one of the oft-touted benefits of artisan pastas (but, at $2 per pound, I think I’ll probably stick with Barilla.) I really enjoyed the combination of the tuna and the spicy sauce. The lemon really brightened up the entire dish.

The wine was also delicious. Although it was a heavier wine, the spicy & salty flavors of the sauce were not overwhelmed by it. I think the extra chewy texture of the pasta also helped make the dish able to stand up to a hearty wine. By the way, did anyone catch that the wine and the pasta I bought are both from Abruzzo? I didn’t plan that. I didn’t even make the connection myself until after dinner. No wonder they went well together!

Chardonnay. Lots of people love it. Grocery store shelves are jam packed with it. It’s on virtually every restaurant wine list, even the most lacking. And yet, I have never managed to find a Chardonnay that I am crazy about. But, then again, I’m not a big fan of oak, a flavor predominant in most Chardonnays. A little bit of oak fine, even good in some cases, but I typically prefer less woody whites such as Riesling or Sauvignon Blanc. If you’re like me, and don’t enjoy the flavor of oak, then you too probably find yourself staying away from Chardonnay. This doesn’t have to be the case, however. If you are interested in experimenting with Chardonnay, but fear the oak, you have several options. You can always opt for the classic low-oak Chardonnay: White Burgundy. Or, you can test your patience by sorting through all of the California Chardonnays looking for the few that advertise low-oak on their labels. My best recommendation, though, is to seek out Chardonnays from New Zealand and Australia where wine makers favor stainless steel fermentation over oak fermentation resulting in no-oak wines.

This brings us to my wine selection for the week: Kim Crawford 2005 Unoaked Chardonnay. Kim Crawford is one of New Zealand’s most well-known wine makers and this specific wine is a prime example of the unoaked Chardonnays that New Zealand wineries are famous for producing. It’s a very tasty wine. It is noticeably full-bodied, as a good Chardonnay should be. Most of the reviews online describe the wine as tasting of apples with some citrus and tropical fruit flavors. It has some other flavor in there that I, as usual, can’t pin down. It could be the “butterscotch of malolactic fermentation” as it says on the label. Or, it could just be the chardonnay grape itself which I’ve never tasted without oak.

For my winesday meal, I made crab cakes and served them with a butternut squash, potato and parsnip hash and a spinach salad with pear and roasted beets. The wine paired really well with the richness of the crab and the sweetness of the squash. As a side note, I used Trader Joe’s panko (Japanese style breadcrumbs) to coat the outside of my crab cakes. I’ve used other brands of panko before, and they work just fine, but the Trader Joe’s panko is amazing. It is super crisp; each crumb is like a little shard of glass. It makes an excellent crust. I pan-fried my crab cakes in only a couple of tablespoons of oil and they came out so crispy, you would have sworn they were deep-fried.

This week’s winesday focused on a wine from the Rioja region of Spain: Marques de Caceres 2003 Rioja Red. I was inspired by Tim Elliot of Winecast‘s prediction that the tempranillo grape will be the next big thing in 2007. Winecast is a really great blog+podcast if you, like me, are interested in wine but prefer not to dwell on the details of soil types, non-recent vintages, business practices, etc. Tim Elliot keeps his podcasts and blog entries brief but highly informative. Plus, he’s a little bit geeky so maybe that’s why I like him. My two favorite predictions of his for 2007 are that the alcohol content in wines would start to go back down to reasonable levels, thereby making the wines more food friendly, and, as I already mentioned, that wines made from the tempranillo grape (along with riesling) would emerge as the new hot sellers.

The wine I chose for this week isn’t actually 100% tempranillo; it contains a bit of garnacha and graciano in it as well. It was delicious! It had all of the good qualities of red wine (spicy, rich berry flavor) with none of the bad (sour, overly tannic.) It was very well balanced and smooth.

For my meal, I made a pizza topped with roasted red and yellow peppers, kalamata olives and fennel soysage. After watching Tony Bourdain visit Apizza Scholls last Monday on No Reservations, I just had to have pizza this week. Man, that looked good! Yet another reason to visit Portland, I guess.

Well, between this week’s great wine and the delicious wine we had on New Year’s Eve, Tim Elliot may be correct after all. Tempranillo wines may really be the next big thing. They certainly are in my household!

It has just been one storm after another here in the Pacific Northwest. I’ve never experienced anything like it. Cold. Wind. Torrential rain. My upcoming trip to sunny Costa Rica can’t come soon enough. As the wind rattles the windows and the rain pours down, my thoughts keep drifting to my last sunny vacation: Greece. In that vein, I decided to choose a Greek wine for this week’s winesday. I chose 2005 Kouros White. This wine comes from the Patras region of the Pelopponnese peninsula and is made from the indigenous rhoditis grape. There are actually over 300 native varietals in Greece. Bottom line: never buy a merlot or chardonnay from Greece. This wine was pretty good. It had flavors of pear and was very crisp. A good food wine, for sure.

For my dinner, I made Lingcod in Grape Leaves with Pine Nut-Fig Butter from Tom Douglas’ Seattle Kitchen cookbook. The fish market hadn’t had lingcod in for about month so they gave me some actual cod instead (even though I think lingcod is more similar to halibut but, since they didn’t have halibut either, it doesn’t really matter much.) Also, there weren’t any good dried figs at my store so I used dates instead. For this recipe, you mix pine nuts, figs (or dates), thyme, and lemon zest with butter and then spread this over the pieces of fish. Then, the fish are wrapped in grape leaves and cooked in the oven in a white wine and shallot broth. I served it over couscous with lemon, mint and parsley. It was a delicious meal and went very well with the wine. It was almost good enough to transport me, briefly, past the snow on the ground to a warmer place.

Last week, when I was exploring my new favorite wine store, European Vine Selections, I picked up a bottle of 2004 Pelerin Roero Arneis. Roero Arneis is a white wine that hails from the Piedmont region of Italy. It also has the distinction of being the first white wine that Robert ever enjoyed. A few years ago, Robert was in New York for the Macworld conference and, while he was there, he happened upon a tiny, speakeasy-style bar called Single Room Occupancy. The ladies behind the bar were really excited about this new wine they had gotten in, Cascina Chicco Roero Arneis, and they convinced him to try it even though he didn’t like white wine. Well, he ended up liking it a lot so we started looking for Roero Arneis whenever we were shopping for wine. Robert has since gone on to try and like many other whites but, whenever we see a bottle of Roero Arneis, we usually pick it up for sentimental reasons.

I’ve heard Roero Arneis described as “light, delicate and perfumy” and, conversely, as “robust; a red wine disguised as a white wine.” I think the Pelerin Roero Arneis probably falls more toward the robust side but, sadly, it was a bit oxidized. It tasted a bit more like sherry than wine which usually indicates oxidation. Oh well. It’s bound to happen every once in a while.

Although Roero Arneis is not a very well-known wine, the Piedmont region is home to some of Italy’s most famous wines including Barolo and Barbaresco. The Piedmont is also known for having some of the best cuisine in Italy. This is, after all, where the slow food movement started. Influenced more by neighboring France than Southern Italy, the Piedmontese prefer butter and cream over olive oil. Rice and polenta are favored instead pasta dishes here. Piedmont is also home to the famous white truffle.

For my winesday meal, I decided to focus on the foods of Piedmont. In keeping with the Piedmontese preference for rice dishes, I made Risotto con Finocchio (Fennel Risotto.) I also made a vegetable dish inspired by a very famous recipe from this region, Bagna Cauda. Bagna Cauda is a mixture of olive oil, butter, anchovy, and garlic that, as with fondue, is kept warm over a low flame. Italians dip bread cubes and raw vegetables into it. I, instead, drizzed it over lightly steamed vegetables. I also made Grissini which are very long, thin breadsticks. Grissini originated in Torino, Italy but are found virtually everywhere in Northern Italy. They were very fun to make. My baking stone wasn’t quite large enough, though, so I had to twist some of my Grissini into wild, curvy shapes in order to get them to fit!

Now that the chaos of the holidays is pretty much over, I’m getting back to my normal routine and that means the return of weekly winesdays! For this week’s winesday, I decided to go with a very traditional Burgundian meal: Oeufs en Meurette. Oeufs en Meurette is poached eggs in red wine sauce served over toast. The recipe that I used is pretty long and time-consuming but not at all difficult. As a plus, a lot of the work can be done ahead of time. I was able to get it all done after a short day of work, however, including peeling the baby onions by hand. The eggs are poached in the red wine causing them to turn a creepy gray-purple color. Fortunately, they get covered up by the sauce (which was only a slightly creepy purple color.) As expected, it was quite a rich dish but, what the heck, it’s still the holidays! This is the best time to treat yourself to really yummy, fattening foods.

My matching wine was, of course, a red Burgundy. I went with a bottle of 2004 Domaine du Prieure Pinot Noir. The wine was much lighter than most pinot noirs I’ve tried. In the glass, it looked just like cranberry juice. I’m not sure if it was this particular wine or if all the wines of Burgundy are this light. I guess I’ll have to try another to find out. By the way, all red Burgundy wines are made from pinot noir grapes except for Beaujolais which is made from gamay grapes.

In a really smart move, I decided to skip the rush of Pike Place Market and visit a small wine shop in my neighborhood instead: European Vine Selections. I am in love with this shop! I should have been going there this whole time. It has a really great selection of wines from all over the world packed into a pretty small area. It’s a very low key store. No pretentiousness and no pressure. Wines are stacked irregularly (in some cases, hazardously) in cardboard boxes, many with a decent layer of dust. Descriptions of some of the wines are available, written in barely legible handwriting. I went a little crazy while I was there and bought several other wines including a bottle of Prosecco for New Year’s Eve. If you’re ever up on the north end of Capitol Hill, you should definitely check this store out.

For tonight’s winesday, I served Louis Jadot 2005 Beaujolais-Villages. Beaujolais is a French wine that is meant to be drunk young and typically has a very fruity, juicy flavor. It is also distinctive in that it is the only red wine that is traditionally served lightly chilled. It goes well with many foods and, because of its juicy quality, it has a very broad appeal. If you don’t like beaujolais, you probably won’t like any other red wines. Louis Jadot beaujolais wines are widely available. I think I’ve even bought this wine at Trader Joe’s. It tastes of berries and spice and even a little bit of…grapes! Imagine that. It tasted to me like what you think wine tastes like when you are a little kid. This wine would be equally good as a holiday wine as it would be served at a summertime picnic.

For dinner, I decided to do a pomegranate-glazed salmon. I thought that would be a nice, festive match for the wine and I’m currently on a pomegranate molasses kick. I was hoping to develop this recipe for the website as part of a group of holiday-inspired dishes but I think it still needs some work (see my cooking notes below if you are interested in what I did.) The salmon itself was really good (local king salmon from Pure Foods Fish) but the glaze was just a tiny bit too sweet for me. However, the meal overall was really good and very pretty: pomegranate-glazed salmon, celery root and potato mashers, and sauteed swiss chard.

Here is my loose recipe for pomegranate-glazed salmon. Whisk together 1/4 cup fresh orange juice, 2 T pomegranate molasses, 2 t brown sugar, 1.5 t lemon juice, 1.5 t soy sauce and 1 t dijon mustard. Sear 2 salmon fillets on both sides until just done. Transfer to warmed plates and cover with foil. Add 1 tablespoon minced shallots to the pan, stir for 20 seconds, add the pomegranate mixture and cook until thickened. Add 1/2 tablespoon butter and salt and pepper to taste and spoon the sauce over the salmon. I think this recipe could easily be expanded upon. Rosemary, mint, star anise or five spice powder, and balsamic vinegar would all make interesting additions.

Even after last week’s Thanksgiving wine extravaganza, I hadn’t had enough so I decided to do, not one, but two winesdays this week! You know how whenever you visit Mom’s house, you always come back with stuff? On Thanksgiving, I came home with a bunch of yarn and my mom’s old pizza stone and paddle. I make pizza fairly often so I was really excited to what kind of difference cooking them on a baking stone would make. I wanted to keep things nice and simple for my first time using the stone so I went with Pizza Margherita. A classic! Nothing more than tomatoes (or an extremely basic tomato sauce), fresh mozzarella and chopped basil. For the crust, I followed this recipe which is originally from Cooks Illustrated magazine. You can always trust those folks at Cooks Illustrated. Interestingly, this recipe calls for some cake flour which is lower in protein than all-purpose or bread flour and is usually considered to be a poor choice for breads. I think that the cake flour helps to make thin crusted pizzas softer or something. Or maybe it makes them crisper. Whatever the reason, the crust was excellent! Beautifully browned and crisp. It was really fun sliding the pizzas from the paddle onto the hot stone like a real Italian baker. I think some of the Italian I learned in college even starting coming back to me. My wine choice for that evening was Bolla 2005 Valpolicella. Valpolicella hails from the Veneto region of Italy, also home to Soave, Barolo and Amarone wines. The wine was decent and easy to drink, although I thought it was much better with the pizza than on its own. It was a little on the tart side to be considered a good sipping wine, I thought.

Last night, for my second winesday of the week, I made Spicy Mussels with Ginger and Lemongrass and paired them with a New Zealand wine: Matua 2005 Sauvignon Blanc. New Zealand is very well known for its Sauvignon Blancs and Matua was the very first winery in New Zealand to make one. The wine was delicious! Zingy and limey with just enough tropical fruit flavor to round it out. The mussels were also really good. Although the broth was rather spicy thanks to an abnormally hot jalapeno, the fresh, oceany flavor of the mussels really came through. I’ve had bad luck with mussels in the past so I was relieved that these ones were so good (especially since I had to walk down to Pike Place Market in freezing temperatures in order to get them. At least I pretty much had the market to myself. The poor vendors all looked so sad and cold, though!) The mussels recipe comes from the Food & Wine website. This website has a lot of suggestions for food-wine pairings so you should definitely check it out if you are interested in wine (or food.) I’ve been getting a lot of good ideas from them.