Nova Clutch

Blood Orange Liqueur

It's been the season of the blood orange and boy, have I been embracing it. To end the homemade concoctions (although I have frozen a lot of purée for cocktails in the summer) I started some blood orange liqueur a few weeks ago from a recipe that Martin sent. You start with a sugar syrup and then add two bottles of grappa (I used Alexander) and a blood orange in sections and leave to macerate in a sterilized container in a cool, dark place. Then it can be bottled and given away as gifts for a select few with birthdays in March...

I tasted it pre-maceration and it was quite sweet (as liqueurs are). I think this will be lovely poured over ice cream when it gets a little warmer. It will be unearthed in a week's time, so I will post photos of the bottled concoction.

A Morellino By Any Other Name

In the spirit of all things sanguine, we recently had a Morellino di Scansano evening. Perfect for times when the mercury barely creeps above freezing. This rich, juicy wine is actually made from Sangiovese grapes - yes, those of Chianti fame - but given the local name Morellino in the warmer climes of southern Tuscany, from which it hails. On the menu was bresaola and baby arugula salad with shaved mushrooms and Parmeggiano, a hearty, spicy zuppa di pasta e fagioli and Michele's amazing cardamom ice cream with spicy chocolate meringues.

What was most surprising was how utterly polar these two wines were. Both were 2004 vintages, fermented in stainless steel and finished in barrique...and red. Which was where the similarities ended. First up was a 2004 Le Pupille Morellino di Scanscano from Elisabetta Geppetti - a highly regarded female winemaker. This was much thinner in both colour and body than anticipated, with a fair amount of acidity. Bright cherries, black cherries, cherries of all sorts on the palette. A touch of raspberries, finished by undertones of wood and a sandy minerality that stems from the soil in which it grows. All-in-all, a well-balanced wine, but not necessarily the essence of that which inspires deep longings and cravings (we've all known a wine like that).

Geppetti's style was a perfect foil to the next vintage, a 2004 Fattoria di Magliano Heba Morellino di Scansano. Heba is an infinitely pleasant bottle, bordering on addictive. This viscous wine's bright, rich berries were immediate, along with plum and hints of violet. Something herbaceous lingering below the surface, rounded out with a gentle caress of wood on the finish. The tannins were much less pronounced, and this was declared the unanimous preference. Perhaps it was the addition of 15% Syrah to the blend that give it just the right amount of structure and spiciness.

Further research into the curious Morellino is both warranted and anticipated. So many varietals, so few days in the week.

Wine: 2004 Morellino di Scansano D.O.C., Tuscany, Italy
Varietal: 100% Sangiovese (Le Pupille); 85% Sangiovese and 15% Syrah (Fattoria di Magliano)
Recommended Pairings: Hearty fare, such as roasted meats, herb-scented beans and creamy cow's milk cheeses

Red Velvet Cake

The second blood red thing I made this Sunday was red velvet cake, prompted by the sudden interest in it by the New York Times and the fact that I am going to a Southern-themed Oscar Party and was asked to make an appropriate dessert.

The first time I saw red velvet cake, I was horrified by its lurid color and strange frilliness. I saw it in Chat 'n' Chew and thought it was some kind of trashy American thing I have never heard of. It is. And I love it.

However, I'm not sure about mine. After a ridiculous search for buttermilk and red food coloring (I don't live near any supermarkets) M found some all natural food coloring. As the recipe asks for almost two bottles of the stuff, I thought natural would be better. I was wrong. The coloring comes from blackcurrants and when I was taking the three layers of cake I noticed from tasting the crumbs that the cake had a distinct currant taste to it. I was mortified, but my dessert needs to feed 15 people and they have no alternative dessert. Fools to entrust an American dessert to a guileless English woman! So I can't do anything about it. Hopefully people won't be spitting out bits of red cake everywhere later this evening.

Sunday, bloody Sunday

I took an unintentional vow to only make blood red food today. It just happened that way, but I'm sure there was some reason for it. I had some great red food at Michele's last night, all of a Tunisian theme, and the blood red macbouba perhaps was inspiration.

The first bloody foray was into my beloved blood oranges, probably for the last time this season. I made a blood orange curd (no photos as it is cooling right now) from my trusty Donna Hay lime curd recipe, cutting the sugar down by a third. The blood red color was calmed by the eggs and butter (no, really, curd is good for you), turning it a muddy orange. The verdict will be in when it's cooled down and is spread on some hot toast.

Herz

Handbags for men aren't an easy thing to carry off (pardon the pun) without looking a little flash, or awkward, or even a little staged. So  when I discovered this company I got  a little excited.  Have been searching high &  low for the past week to buy  one, but to no avail. Check back next week & I guarantee you I'll have  one, till then its me, & my brown paper bag for company.

photographs courtesy of Herz

Toasted Pasta

I made pasta yesterday because I like getting my hands dirty and getting flour all over the floor. That and the fact that Brian and Melissa (owners of Sparky's All American Food) were coming over. Now here’s why the pasta is interesting; it is made with egg, flour and olive oil, rolled out by hand (no pasta machine) and then baked in the oven. It is constantly turned over and moved around the oven to get an even heat distribution. The next batch goes in as two pieces take up the whole oven. Then it air dries for 2-24 hours and is broken into rough shards by hand. When you want to eat it, you boil it for a minute and a half (the recipe says 2 minutes, which is too long). It seems strange because it looks like you are boiling flatbread. I really like this pasta and this is coming from someone who doesn’t like pasta (I know, I know, there’s something wrong with me. I don’t much like pizza either, except for in Italy. It’s an issue, I should go and talk to someone about it).

We ate this simply with sautéed wild mushrooms (morels, porcinis, shiitakes and oysters). I would say that the pasta needs a lot of salt as there is none in the dough and probably a sauce with little more body. We drank with it a Chateau Clarke (Baron Edmond de Rothschild) Listrac-Medoc which matched up nicely with the earthiness of the mushrooms. Michael found the tannins a little strong and Brian described it very aptly as "haystacky". This blended wine (Cabernet/Merlot/Noir) is aged in French oak barrels for 16 months. It a smoky, earthy taste that would go just as well with roasted or slow cooked meats.

Roasted Pears in Vin Santo with Candied Celery

This dessert followed the toasted pasta. I think it's great, not just because I love desserts, but because it was so surprising. First you blanch lemon peel in two batches of water. The lemon peel leaves the water such a lurid yellow it was shocking. Then you sprinkle the peel over halved bosc pears, vin santo, homemade muscat grape syrup and peeled celery. This was a first for me as I've never peeled celery before. The whole lot then went into the oven and after continual basting, what came out was unbelievable smells, roasted pears and the miraculous candied celery. The celery really changes the whole dish and was crunchy, sweet, juicy and completely unexpected. It made me think of a dessert I had in Sakagura the other day which seemed a little summery for the icy temperatures outside. It was a basil sorbet with candied cherry tomatoes. I am guessing that I can candy the tomatoes in the same way the celery was done, but removing the skins instead of peeling them. I'll see if I can wait until we have our own tomatoes growing, but I might have to experiment before then.

This dessert goes brilliantly with Earl Grey ice cream. I got the recipe from the Gramercy Tavern dessert cookbook which is really excellent. I put in half the amount of tea suggested as I knew my loose leaf tea from ITO EN is more pungent and fresh than most. It was just enough tea flavor; no bitterness but a good contrast with the creaminess. Lapsong souchong next! No, not really.

Tuna in a Jar

I haven't eaten anything but fresh tuna for years, even though M has a penchant for a tuna salad sandwich for breakfast. Until Stefan bought a jar of tuna for a pasta sauce that I made with the tuna and 12 blood oranges. It cooked down to almost nothing. I was shocked when I saw the price – that's a SoHo thing – as you can buy it on Amazon for half that, at $15 a jar, but I was also shocked at how good it was. It's flakey but also pink in the middle, and has nothing of the cat food consistency that most canned tuna has.

I got mine at Fairway and used it as a vehicle to advance M's repertoire of egg-eating. It's an arugula sald with toasted pecans, flaked Ortiz tuna, capers and a broken soft-boiled egg on the top. There's something so fascinatingly decadent about a runny yolk for me, and it's one my favorite things. And it adds such a richness to a salad that it seems almost bad for you. But it's not, and it was yummy, as was the tuna underneath it.

Brunello Di Montalcino

What were you doing in 1985? If I were an Il Colle Brunello Di Montalcino D.O.C.G., I might muse that I was on the verge of something great. Something so great, no one would really understand the depths of it for another twenty-odd years.

This particular bottle was one of only 600 to grace the U.S. shores, and a true pleasure. Our Brunello was expertly poured by Natasha using a slow, back-lit decanting process to separate every last, precious drop from the sediment. We used Riedel's Ultra decanter for the process and, while impressive in its heft, its general ergonomics leave a bit to be desired.

And then the greatly anticipated part: tasting. Words. Lack thereof. Stumbling for adjectives as a woodsy, earthy nose gave way to ripe cherries, blackberries and a concentrated plum on the palate that slipped into chocolatey velvetiness and a finish that lingered. And lingered.

In reverence, we put aside our Brunello to be savored after the meal, lest the spicy acidity of the pasta con pesce we'd cooked compete with it. During the 2 a.m. clean-up I couldn't help but try to extract one last sip out of the bottle, but was foiled by a run-in with the sediment and left with just a memory.

Wine: 1985 Il Colle Brunello Di Montalcino D.O.C.G.
Varietal: 100% Sangiovese, oak-aged and cellared in tufo
Recommended Pairings: hard, aged cheeses and red meat or game

Mr Scruff at Cielo

I have a real problem with straight clubs. I don't like them. I always try and get my friends to go gay dancing, and it happens far too infrequently for my liking. Sure, at a gay club you get the odd guy that is pissed off that you're in their territory, but that happens once in a blue moon. At a straight club, women dancing = woman that is desperate to dance with any man on dance floor and then go home with said man. I hate that. Because I'm taken, I'm not interested and I'm here to see Mr Scruff, not you.

Michele on the other hand didn't mind the attention and the odd straight guy that could dance and simultaneously avoid looking like someone's dad. We bumped into Walter who seems to be a regular at Cielo and Charlie from England. Which was nice. They were the only people in the crowd that weren't from a place that required a bridge or a tunnel to access Manhattan (the Williamsburg Bridge doesn't count).

There were guys wearing turtleneck sweaters and chinos, seeming like they were looking for the water cooler. Is that a Cielo thing, a Thursday in NYC thing or a Mr Scruff thing? I hope it's not a Mr Scruff thing. Come to think of it, it's probably a Meatpacking thing. Which is troublesome as I am off to the Meatpacking again right now and (wince) it's Friday night. Amateur night.

Mr Scruff was already playing when we got into Cielo and he was still playing at 2am when we left. We had to leave because if we hadn't we would have stayed all night and it was a school night. This was typical Mr Scruff stuff, and exactly what I was there to hear. Reggae to jazz to bossanova to funk to I-don't-know-what-they-call-it. I wish Mr Scruff played here more often, and I wish he played at Canal Room and not Cielo. Because Cielo sucks, and to sit down you have to pay for a three bottle minimum at $275 a bottle. Something Stef was willing to do but I was not. But I would be happy to see Mr Scruff, anytime. Even at Cielo.