Writing With My Mouth Full

Yellow Curry Pot

The wind was howling in New York City this week. All I wanted was something warm, thick and filling for dinner. This stems from two yellow curry recipes, one with chicken and one with fish balls because who says you can’t have it all? I visited the newly-renovated Asia Market on Mulberry at the corner of Bayard and found everything I needed. Feel free to toss in any hard vegetable you have in the fridge. Just make sure you cook them first before the softer ones. Cauliflower and zucchini would be fun to add, too; perhaps even baby corn. At home, the curry paste cooking in peanut oil will release one of my favorite smells in the kitchen.

Ingredients:
boneless chicken thighs, cut in small pieces
a pack of fish balls, thawed
a pack of cuttlefish balls, thawed
1 cup of coconut cream
1 cup of vegetable stock
a handful of green beans
4 Thai eggplants, sliced in half moons
1 Japanese eggplant, chopped
1 red bell pepper, roughly chopped
cilantro, roughly chopped

For the yellow curry paste:
2 red chilies
1 tsp black peppercorns
coriander root, peeled and thinly sliced
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp fennel seeds
1 tbsp ground turmeric
1 small knob of ginger, peeled and thinly sliced
3 cloves of garlic, crushed
1 small red onion, chopped
1 lemongrass stalk, white part only, pounded with a pestle
1 tsp of sambal oelek
shrimp paste, to taste
2 tbsps peanut oil

1. In a large wok, heat the peanut oil. Make the curry paste by sautÃ©ing all the curry ingredients and cooking them until fragrant, about 3 minutes.
2. Add the chicken, green beans, pepper and the Thai eggplants with the coconut cream and stock. Cover in medium heat until chicken is cooked and the vegetables are tender, about 8 minutes.
3. Add the cilantro and the softer eggplants and cook for a few more minutes. The peanut oil should be separating from the curry paste. Make sure you keep stirring to distribute the heat and add more stock to keep the sauce from drying up. Add shrimp paste to adjust the taste.

Related post/s:
Buy all the ingredients in Chinatown

Xe Lua

86 Mulberry Street between Canal and Bayard
212/577.8887
$18 for two, without drinks, without tip
♥ ♥ ♥

Anthony Bourdain once said that most people know that Vietnamese food is good but they just don’t have a clue how good. In New York City, it’s hard to find a really good Vietnamese place. I used to have a few favorite spots in Chinatown, but lately, they’ve gotten lazy about making the pho. You rarely get that beefy taste in the broth anymore.

The pho at Xe Lua not only taste beefy, they are gigantic. For less than $6, it is a good lunch deal which will surely warm the senses. Their broth oozes with flavor; it’s full, rich and tasty. The rice dishes are promising, too. The chicken served with mixed vegetables in lemongrass sauce tasted as good as it sounded. The crispy squid shared as an appetizer is indeed crispy. Even though it comes with brown sauce, you can still taste the squid.

With its vellum business card and witty menu–sections are divided as Porky, Chicken Little, Where’s the Beef? and No Meat Allow–Xe Lua is obviously the youngest Vietnamese joint in Chinatown. The bamboo bridge connecting the front to the main dining room with cloud-painted walls and water fountain are hokey, but Xe Lua is still trying to impress the neighborhood and I’m happy to give them the chance.

Finger Lakes Wine Trail

After doing the Long Island wine trail, we immediately scheduled a trip up the Finger Lakes region in New York. We had to postpone it once because of the Dr.’s, schedule but after finally making the trip over the weekend, I was glad we waited until the leaves turned all sorts of fall colors.

He recently got another golden weekend and I was able to convince him, with promises only a girlfriend can make, that he should drive the six hours upstate. The Yates Chamber of Commerce gave me three places with availability after I tried calling several hotels and B&Bs in vain. If I didn’t call the Robertson House, I wouldn’t have known that they had another property for rent not listed on their Web site.

On Friday, we started our long drive early, but ended up getting stuck in traffic around Scranton, Pennsylvania, home of Dunder Mifflin, Inc. We didn’t make it to the lake house until 10:30pm. Jane and Paul Robertson left the heat on to prepare for our arrival, so when we entered the house, it was all warm and toasty. We settled in, opened and drank a bottle of red wine we brought with us and sat talking for two more hours before we fell asleep.

When I woke up the next morning, I took a peek outside and saw what the Robertsons were talking about–peaceful Keuka Lake and red, yellow, orange, brown maple trees. It was so dark and quiet the night before that I had no clue the view was going to be incredible.

We had breakfast back at the Robertson’s main house before we started our drive around Seneca Lake to visit some of the local wineries. Besides the local Reislings I’m familiar with, we didn’t really know much about the other wines and vineyards. We randomly chose from a big list but stuck around Seneca Lake and skipped the scattered ones around Keuka and Cayuga. Following are what we tasted with some of the notes I scribbled on my book.

We started at Fox Run Vineyards where it was already a zoo at 11:30am. They were offering four complimentary tastings:

1. 2005 Reserve Chardonnay — ten months in oak with vanilla notes at the end
2. 2002 Cabernet Franc — bone-dry and not as spicy as other Cabernet Francs we’re used to
3. 2004 Sable — fruity wine from Cabernet grapes we imagined would be good with some cheese
4. Ruby Vixen — very peachy; the sweetest wine from their vineyard

We also paid $2 for extra tastings of the following:

1. 2005 Dry Reisling — apricot
2. 2005 Reisling — semi-dry; more like candy than fruit
3. Arctic Fox — a Reisling and Chardonnay blend; we ended up getting a case of this because it would be an outstanding table wine with almost anything

Another separate $2 fee gave us a taste of the 2005 Reserve Reisling which smelled better than the dry Reisling and with a cleaner finish. For $30 a bottle though, we skipped it.

Our next stop was at Hermann J. Wiemer Vineyard. Their 2005 dry Reisling was recently voted New York’s best wine. (I had my first taste last year and I ended up buying half a case of that winner.) We tasted a lot of their wines, but nothing really overwhelmed us so we only bought several bottles for friends:

1. Dry Rose Pinot Noir/Chardonnay — strong at the end for a rose
2. Pinot Noir — very light yet complicated; we would have bought several of these if a bottle wasn’t $35 each
3. Late Harvest Reisling — like juice; yummy and sweet
4. Cabernet Franc — a lot of alcohol (which could be a good thing, I suppose)
5. Estate Red — a blend of Cabernet Franc, Pinot Noir and Lemberger; very tart
6. Select Late Harvest Reisling — like candy but yummier than the late harvest

We stopped by Lakewood Vineyards where it was even more of a party room than a tasting room. Everyone was part of a tour so there were plenty of screaming and shouting, both from the staff trying to do their spiel about the wines and the tasters who drink the wines as if they were shots of Tequila. Their 2004 Chardonnay was pretty anemic although the vanilla at the end was quite nice. The 2005 Long Stem Red was a hybrid of four grapes but it still lacked character. The 2002 Pinot Noir had a licorice taste to it. The Borealis Ice Wine was like drinking Welch’s grape juice. We did like the 2004 Cabernet Franc because it was dry upfront and it pleasantly went on for a while.

For lunch, we stopped by the dock to check out the menus from the different restaurants by the water but were not impressed. Before getting something to eat at Stonecat CafÃ©, we had a pretty nice experience at the Atwater Vineyard for $2 per person:

1. 2002 Estate Selection Chardonnay — 13 months in oak; pretty complicated
2. 2005 GewÃ¼rztraminer — didnâ€™t smell so good
3. 2005 Reisling — easy-drinking that would be perfect for a hot, summer afternoon but alas, it’s not hot out anymore
4. 2005 Reserve Reisling — fruitier and gummier; almost chewable
5. 2004 Cabernet Franc — tasted like buttered popcorn but more like currant afterward
6. 2004 Cabernet Merlot — new release; well-balanced and tasty
7. 2003 Meritage — almost no tannins and very easy to drink
8. Estate White — we bought several bottles of these; crisp, light, citrus-y

The Stonecat CafÃ© is on the same grounds as the Bloomer Creek Vineyard. We had the pizette topped with mixed greens, goat cheese and pancetta. The Dr. had the cornmeal-breaded catfish sandwich. We asked for the green pepper salsa out of curiosity because they were charging an extra dollar for it. I couldn’t stop slathering it on my pizza even though I was tearing up. It was fierce!

I don’t know if it was because of all those peppers but we felt like we found some great wines afterwards at Lamoreaux Landing. Everything we tasted was better than everything else we’ve had:

1. 2004 Chardonnay — very drinkable with pineapple notes
2. 2005 Dry Reisling — a tasty wine that led to a cover on Wine Spectator last May
3. Estate White — a blend of Reisling and Chardonnay with pear and other tropical fruits
4. 2005 GewÃ¼rztraminer — good aroma and grapefruit taste
5. 2000 Brut Sparkling Wine — dry but creamy
6. 2005 Vidal Ice Wine — syrupy when pouring; overwhelmingly sweet

We haven’t been liking the red wines, but we were also pretty pleased with the Lamoreaux selections:

1. Estate Red — a blend of Pinot, Merlot and Cabernet Franc; strawberry and jammy
2. 2003 Merlot — floral mouth
3. Non Vintage Cabernet Franc — pine resin; less tarty than the other Cabernet Francs we’ve tasted earlier
4. 2004 Pinot Noir — complicated with a clove taste

We pretty much gave up after putting several more bottles in the trunk and went back to the lake house to unwind. Dinner was uneventful at Sarasin’s, a restaurant by Keuka Lake with a giant ship wheel outside. After almost 790 miles over the weekend and 12 hours of driving to and from the city–without any contribution from me–we have about twenty bottles of Chardonnays and Reislings. White is usually not the type you’d reach for in autumn, but we learned a great deal upstate. Reislings don’t always have to taste like dessert in a glass and that you can even cook with them and Chardonnay could be excellent with some curry dishes. The Finger Lakes might not have exciting food selections just yet, but I’m sure our wines will keep us full this season.

Sautéed Pork Steaks with Apples

I misplaced a Mark Bittman recipe from The Times I saved two weeks ago. Now that I have a nice bottle of Reisling to cook with after visiting the Finger Lakes wine trail and plenty of firm apples to buy at the market, I was adamant to replicate it with some guess-timates. I still had some leftover thyme in the fridge kept fresh by the best thing in the world right now–Glad Press’n Seal–so I threw those in while the juices cooked the pork. We drank the rest of the Lamoreaux Landing Reisling with this and ate it with broiled white potatoes.

Ingredients:
6 pork steaks, about 1 inch thick, cut from the shoulder
3 Gala apples, cored and sliced
1/2 cup of Bordeaux or any other semi-heavy red
1/2 cup of dry Reisling
1 medium red onion, thinly sliced
half a stick of butter
2 sprigs of thyme
salt and pepper

1. Rub the steaks with salt and pepper. Heat a large skillet over medium-high heat for 3 minutes. Add the butter and brown the pork on both sides, about 4 minutes. Do this in batches to avoid overcrowding the pan.
2. Reduce the heat to medium. Add the red wine and the onion and cook, turning the pork once or twice, until the wine is all but evaporated, about 3 minutes.
3. Add some water if the sauce is a little too thick, turn the heat to low and cover. Cook for 10 minutes, turning them once or twice, until the pork is tender but not dry. Remove the pork to a plate.
4. Add the apples in the remaining liquid, stirring and scraping the bottom of the pan as the apples cook. Add the Reisling and simmer in low fire until the apples absorb most of the liquid. Return the meat to the pan during the last few minutes to reheat them.

Le Bernardin

155 West 51st Street between Sixth and Seventh Avenues
212/554.1515
about $300 for two, with matching drinks, without tip
♥ ♥ ♥

After dining at Le Bernardin for the Dr.’s birthday, I realized that it shouldn’t be categorized as French. The name may be French but the menu definitely screams New American. There were a lot of Asian ingredients like lemongrass, soy and wasabi. The South American influence was also present with ceviche waving the Peruvian–or Ecuadorian, if you prefer–flag. I was surprised to see spicy chorizo, too, but I got over it as soon as the Dr. picked his meals: Peking duck and green papaya salad with black bass, langoustine with chayote and pears, kampachi with ginger-coriander emulsion. (One of his wines was a “Naiades” Verdejo from Rueda, Spain, the same wine I had at Alinea. Funny that.)

A $100 prix fixe lets you pick one dish from the three sections of almost raw, barely touched and lightly cooked selections; the fourth course is dessert. I started with the four ways of fluke, from simple to complex combinations. Ceviche is easy to make but it’s even easier to mess up. With Le Bernardin’s take, I just wanted to slurp the sauce and soup from each bowl. A 2003 Slovakian Riesling from Chateau Bela was crisp and a good match. I couldn’t pass up the warm uni custard with julienned sisho leaves because I’ve just never had sea urchin prepared like it before. The two fresh unis on top reminded me of that ocean flavor I always crave. It was barely detectable from the custard–the right amount of uni-ness. For my main course, I went for the pan-roasted monkfish with confit peppers, patatas bravas and chorizo emulsion. I didn’t really understand why it was called a tribute to GaudÃ except for its Catalan ingredients. Perhaps it was the striped garnish, the simple lines. A glass of Pessac-lÃ©ognan from ChÃ¢teau Smith Haut Lafitte was, for lack of a less pretentious word, exquisite. My dessert consisted of warm peaches topped with strawberries and drizzled with honey.

We had a very early table and we dined with the demographic we’ve gotten used to seeing around us–we seem to travel to destinations and reserve restaurants “adults” frequent–so we were mostly treated by the staff as if we’ve been dining there for years. The service was neither short nor exceptional. What surprised me, however, was how old-fashioned Le Bernardin was. The entire room buzzed as it approached the more popular dinner time but it could use a little oomph in decor and lighting to match Chef Eric Ripert’s eclectic menu.