Friday, February 11, 2011

Black Bean Tortilla Casserole

Hi, folks, and welcome back to Cèpage et Cuisine, Mary’s and Brian’s wine and food blog.  Several months ago we resolved to have at least one day per week in our dietary routine that is completely meatless.  You may remember a post back in September about our homemade veggie pizza.  Our meatless day per week experiment is actually going very well, but we had to find a reasonable variety of meatless main dishes that are satisfying and don’t leave us feeling deprived.  That is a bit of a challenge, but we have a repertoire of about 8 meatless dinners that are working out just fine.  Today, we’re describing another of those. 

This dish is a black bean tortilla casserole.  It is a single dish dinner with vegetables, tortilla chips, and cheese.  It’s great on a cold night, delicious and satisfying.  If you like, combine it with a fresh green salad.  It’s also a great way to use up a bag of tortilla chips with all those little bits of chips at the bottom of the bag or the chips left over in a bowl after watching the big game.  Here’s Mary talking about the prep of one of our easiest dinners.

Ingredients are onions (whatever kind you want, I used yellow onions), olive oil, chopped tomatoes, corn, black beans, lime juice, spinach, tortilla chips, cheddar cheese (not the orange stuff in a bag) and salsa. Pretty simple!  The photo below is of the same ingredients, just chopped, grated, and ready for cooking.  
Separately, I blanched the spinach in boiling water, then plunged it into cold water, then drained it. I also crushed any chips that weren’t already crushed in the bag.
I sautéed the onions in olive oil, then added the tomatoes, corn, black beans, lime juice and salt & pepper.
 Now comes the fun part -- layering the casserole for baking.
 Bottom layer is half the chips, then all the cooked veggies,
then half the cheese,
 
 then all the spinach,
 then a layer of salsa,
 the other half of the chips,
another layer of salsa,
 
and the last half of the cheese. 
That’s it!  
The photo above is a view of the side of the casserole dish before baking.  I baked it for 40 minutes in the oven until the cheese was brown and bubbling.  That looks so good I'm ready to make it again!
 YUM!  Here's an inside view after we plated the casserole.
 Let it cool a little bit, and dish out with a dollop of sour cream on top. Enjoy!    

Here’s Brian again to talk about the wine.  He always chooses just the right wine for the food.
For a hearty comfort dish like the black bean tortilla casserole, I selected a hearty, somewhat rustic red blend from the Languedoc region in the south of France.  Wines from this area are usually blends of several red varietals, but typically based on Grenache and Syrah.  They have great wild fruit characteristics and an herbal aroma and flavor of thyme, sage, and rosemary, often termed garrigue, and sometimes with savory meaty notes.  These wines pair well with a variety of hearty dishes and would go great with classic American comfort foods like meatloaf, pizza, and nachos.  Here are my notes on this wine.

Chateau de Lascaux Coteaux du Languedoc 2004.  This was an enjoyable wine on a cold winter night.  It was dark ruby in color with nice aromas of oak barrels, berries, and herbs.  The palate shows low to medium acidity, a smooth texture, velvety but not quite silky, full body, and delicious blackberry, raspberry, ripe plum, and savory earthy and herbal characteristics.  Nicely balanced, modern in style, moderately complex, medium in length, very nice.  60% Syrah, 35% Grenache, 5% Mourvedre, 14.0% alcohol.
That's our post for today.  We hope you enjoyed it.  Keep coming back for more wine and food adventures at Cèpage et Cuisine.  In the meantime,
Cheers!
MaryBrian

Sunday, February 6, 2011

Braised Short Ribs and Martha's Vineyard

After this food and wine experience all I can say is … life is good!  Hello, everybody, and welcome to Cèpage et Cuisine, Mary’s and Brian’s wine and food blog. 
Everything about this dinner is a special treat.  One of Mary’s specialties is braised beef short ribs.  She is a terrific chef, as you know from reading our blog (Brian talking here…Mary is a little embarrassed that I rave about her cooking so much), but what she does with this dish takes food and wine and a shared dinner with loved ones and good friends to special heights.  We’ve had some cold, wet, wintry weather here in central Mississippi in the last few days and a hearty, rich dish like this with an outstanding Cabernet is perfect for the season.
First of all, braising is about cooking with both dry and wet heat.  The meat is seared in an oven proof pan and then cooked with liquid in the oven for a long time.  Pot roast is often cooked the same way.  Roasting, on the other hand, refers to cooking with dry heat.  Meat cooked by this method is considered a roast, in contrast to pot roast, which may be a braise.  Confused?  Me, too!  Anyway, the short ribs are braised, cooked in combination with vegetables, and give the entire house that wonderful aroma of meat cooking slowly when it’s cold outside.  Put the whole thing over a bed of garlic mashed potatoes and you have that special treat.  And don’t forget some crusty bread for sopping!
Here’s Mary to talk us about how she prepared the dinner, then I’ll be back to talk about the wine.

Ingredients are boneless beef short ribs, olive oil, onions, leeks, carrots, tomatoes, garlic, bay leaves, thyme, parsley, red wine, beef stock, and our own idea of adding green olives. The ribs are dry roasted in the oven, fat side down.
I sautéed the onions in olive oil in a Dutch oven for a few minutes then added the leeks (mostly the white part) and carrots and cooked a little while longer. 
 I added the tomatoes, garlic and spices.  Cook a little while the ribs are roasting.


The photos above show the ribs in the oven, roasted about halfway. I turned them over for the second half. Here they are ready to go on top of the vegetables in the Dutch oven. 
The ribs are placed on top of the veggies. Red wine and hot beef stock are added to almost cover the ribs.  About the cooking wine, use wine that you would drink. Don’t buy grocery store “cooking wine.”  It doesn’t need to be expensive.  We love to use La Vielle Ferme, which is perfectly good as a dinner wine, but inexpensive enough to use in recipes.  For about $10, one bottle is enough for 2 or possibly 3 recipes.  As we have said before, homemade stock makes such a difference, compared to store-bought broth. 

The whole dish is cooked in the oven for about 3 hours. I added the green olives during the last hour of cooking so they wouldn’t fall apart.  Seeing this picture makes me hungry all over again! 
Here is our delicious, hot, savory, cold-weather braised short ribs and vegetables served over a bed of garlic mashed potatoes. I melted butter in a small skillet, added freshly-chopped garlic, cooked for a minute over medium heat, then took it off the heat and let the flavors infuse. The garlic butter was then added to the mashed potatoes along with some buttermilk. Here’s Brian again to talk about the wine.
Many well structured, hearty red wines would pair well with braised short ribs.  Cabernet Sauvignon is my go-to varietal for a dinner like this (or pot roast, or gilled ribeye, Lord have mercy), but Syrah, a Grenache-based blend, or a Nebbiolo from the Piedmont region of northern Italy would all be excellent choices.  If you enjoy bold, fruity New World-style wines, a Shiraz from Australia, Zinfandel or Petite Sirah from California, many of the red blends from southeastern Spain, and hearty reds from southern Italy would be fine.  It’s hard to go wrong, but I probably would not recommend a delicate Pinot Noir from Burgundy.
I chose a California classic for this dinner, Heitz Cellar Napa Valley Martha’s Vineyard 1991.  A bit of a play on the more famous Martha’s Vineyard of Massachusetts, this vineyard was purchased in the 1960s by Tom May and his wife, you guessed it, Martha.  Their friendship with Joe Heitz evolved into an agreement to supply fruit for a vineyard-designated wine, Heitz Martha’s Vineyard, that has become one of the most famous and prestigious of all Napa Valley wines.


The vineyard is on the west side of Napa Valley, near Oakville, in what might be called Cabernet heaven in California.  It is in the shadow of the Mayacamas range, so the vines get the morning and midday sun but are sheltered in the late afternoon by the mountains to the west.  The property is bordered by enormous Eucalyptus trees, which are suggested to convey the distinctive minty characteristic often associated with Martha’s Vineyard.  Whether the mint character is inherent to the vineyard site or Eucalyptus oil blows from the trees onto the vines to convey its influence is a matter of some debate, but the wine is certainly distinctive, which increases its appeal among an ocean of otherwise similar wines.
There are great wines, wines that we enjoy very much and we say, “That was a great wine.”  Then there are great wines, as in great wines of the world, not unlike the great works of art or literature of the world.  Heitz Martha’s Vineyard is one of those, one of the world’s great wines, worthy of comparison to the great Bordeaux and other prized California Cabernets.  Other California wines I personally (based on my limited experience) would place in this select group are the mature Cabernets of Mayacamas Vineyards, Stags Leap Wine Cellars, and although a bit under the radar sometimes, the wines made by the fine folks at Wing Canyon and Random Ridge.  Drinking a bottle of Martha’s is a special occasion because this wine makes it a special occasion, a wine that demands something of you as a consumer.  Sorry for sounding a little like a wine snob here, but when you drink a bottle of this wine, give it your attention.  Don’t make it just another background beverage with a red meat dinner while you talk about the events of the day.  Think about it.  Take your time.  Consider its aroma and flavor profile, its complexity, how it evolves in the glass over a long, lingering dinner with someone you love, how it enhances the food and how the food enhances the wine.  It is an expensive wine and it is worth it.  Here are my notes on this bottle.  In the photo to the left, notice how the vintage date and bottling date are indicated separately and the bottle is numbered, like a numbered print of a fine painting.
Heitz Cellar Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley Martha’s Vineyard 1991.  This is a great wine, great in the classic sense, a world class wine, more than just tastes great, it sets a standard to which other winemakers and grape growers can aspire.  It is rare in its quality, balance, and complexity, expensive but worth more than we paid for it.  At almost 20 years, it must be at the zenith of its drinking window.  It is dark garnet in color, still almost ruby despite its age.  It was intensely aromatic of minty eucalyptus, currant, black cherry, cedar and leather.  The palate was silky in texture with resolved tannins, medium acidity, and medium body.  The balance was just perfect, well structured, all elements in harmony.  The intense flavor profile was the minty, chocolaty, red cherry and currant character that is classic for Martha's Vineyard.  Complex, balanced, long in the finish, it was exquisite.  We loved it so much we were sad to see the bottle empty and just sat there talking about it.  If only I could find more of this wonderful wine at a price I could afford.  13.5% alcohol.  We picked up this wine a few years ago for $80 and feel like we stole it.
Here's the dinner on the plate with a glass of Martha's again.  That's our post for today.  The food and the wine provided a memorable experience.  We hope you enjoyed reading about it.  Keep coming back for more food and wine adventures at Cèpage et Cuisine.
Cheers!
MaryBrian

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Wine of the Week - Vouvray

Bonjour tout le monde!  Hello, everyone, and welcome again to Cèpage et Cuisine, Mary’s and Brian’s wine and food blog. Today, we’re posting a quick note on a delicious wine that is a bit off the beaten wine path, especially for Americans.  Vouvray is a small French town in the heart of France’s Loire Valley.  The wine of Vouvray is Chenin Blanc, but like almost all French wines, the grape variety is not indicated on the label.
Vouvray is produced in a variety of styles, but often has a bit of unfermented residual sugar, called demi-sec, which means medium-dry.  It gives the wine a bit more richness and a kind of honeyed flavor.  It usually retains good acidity for balance, however, and does not have a syrupy sweet texture or flavor.  It pairs nicely with a variety of light food such as flaky white fish, scallops, mussels, and chicken dishes with light sauces.  We paired this wine with the sea bass and herbed bread crumbs that we described in a previous post.
Here are my notes on today’s wine.
Champalou Vouvray La Cuvée des Fondraux 2004.  The wine was pale straw in color with subtle grapefruit citrus aroma and flinty minerality.  This particular version of Champalou’s wine is demi-sec, so it has a bit of residual sweetness and was fermented in oak barrels.  The oak provided creaminess but did not leave obvious oak aromas or flavors.  The palate was lovely, medium in body with wonderful balance.  It showed a bit of grapefruit, but also had a honeyed quality from the unfermented grape sugar and flavors of peach and apricot.  We both thought it also showed a subtle almond quality … very nice.  Beautifully balanced, moderately complex with a medium finish, delightful with food.  12.0% alcohol.  This wine is widely available for $20 or under.
  


Here's our dinner for tonight.  Sea bass with herbed bread crumb topping, wilted spinach, and a baked bean dish of giant limas, tomatoes, and parsley.  The pairing with the Vouvray was delicious.

That’s our post for today.  When you’re shopping for wine and would like to try something different and not too expensive, think about Vouvray with a nice seafood or poultry dinner.  We think you’ll enjoy it.  Keep coming back to Cèpage et Cuisine for more posts on wine and food.  In the meantime,

Cheers!

BrianMary