Being British I am genetically disposed to Indian food. I am also ridiculously snooty about Indian food. Outside of India, I reckon that England could quite possibly be the best place to pick up some fantastic authentic Indian nosh.

Being this snooty about it doesn’t make eating out in Seattle for Indian food fun. Not that much. Not for my incredibly patient wife, who has to listen to my food rants, and not for my taste buds either. The first time I went to an Indian restaurant here in Seattle, I got the worst food poisoning I have ever had, and spent three days in the smallest room in the house, kneeling, cursing the seafood mixed grill.

I will be honest I never really cooked Indian food that much when I lived in the UK, I mean, why bother? But after the experience above, I started to cook my own in Seattle. My darling brother (twin you know..) who loves all things curry recommended a cookbook, and I got going. I started with a lot of meat curries, and then moved on to vegetable dishes.

I reckon it is pretty safe to say that India has some of the best vegetable dishes in the world. Seriously. It wouldn’t be crazy hard to be vegetarian if you stuck to Indian food (and some Mediterranean.. you know, to round things out). Heck, even the biggest meat lover of them all, Anthony Bourdain pretty much agrees.

When I want vegetables to be incredibly simple, clean and pure I normally turn to dishes from Spain, Italy and France (Greece too). When I want complex tones, exotic flavors, layered spice notes then it is Indian I always seem to end up cooking.

My lovely wife has decided to go vegetarian for a bit. I was originally hoping that “for a bit” meant “less than two days”, but it seems to have stuck, for the time being. Everything I can do to fix this obvious brain malfunction has failed completely - I have yet to unleash my secret weapons of steamed mussels and roast chicken however (her two favorite dishes..). A slight slip up a week ago, when she chowed down on some grilled mackerel, gave me a glimmer of hope, but she just mumbled something about Omega-3’s with her mouth full of oily fish. That was it, the last slip up.

So instead of chastising any further, I decided to embrace. Being totally honest here it is hardly much of a change to how we eat anyhow. I have always cooked a lot with vegetables, and consider myself pretty creative with the little buggers. A lot of our meals through the week seem to end up vegetarian (thank Christ for eggs) anyhow, so the change hasn’t been that great. I still eat meat. Fish too.

This change led me to try out some new Indian recipes, and with great success I must add. This dish is a mild adaption of a recipe from the book “Food of India”

Dried chickpeas are simmered till soft. This can be done a day or two ahead of time. Then a simple sauce is made using onion, ginger, fresh tomatoes, tamarind paste, garam masala (an Indian spice blend), some sugar and a little love from a hot stove. The chickpeas get heated through with this.

The recipe calls for this to be served with Spinach Roti’s. These are unleavened Indian flat breads that are dead easy to make, even for the baking-retarded like myself. Because this family of mine doesn’t like gluten that much, I modified the recipe to make these bad boys gluten free. Me, being obsessed with anything “taco” right now decided to use these as the aforementioned shell to hold a great lovely helping on the chickpeas.

All it took to finish things off was a good dollop of yogurt (if you are in Seattle, you cannot do better than the yogurt of Grace Harbor Farms, IMHO), some fresh herbs and a final squeeze of lime juice. Make sure not to skip on these extra’s, the yogurt smooths things out, adds a little richness. The herbs and lime give much needed pop and acidity.

Sweet and sour Chickpeas recipe

NOTE: Garam Masala is a blend of a few dried spices that is dead easy to make at home. The success of this dish depends on the use of fresh dried spices, preferably ones that you grind yourself. I make a batch of garam masala big enough for a few curries. Stored in an airtight container it is best used within a month.

(adapted from “Food of India: A Journey for Food Lovers”)

Chickpeas:

(the chickpeas can be soaked and cooked a day or two ahead of time)

2 1/4 cups of chickpeas

2 tablespoons of oil

1 large red onion, sliced

1″ piece of ginger, peeled and grated

2 teaspoons of honey

2 teaspoons of ground coriander

2 teaspoons of ground cumin

2 teaspoons of garam masala (recipe follows)

3 tablespoons of tamarind puree

4 ripe tomatoes, chopped

4 tablespoons of fresh cilantro, chopped

Soak the chickpeas overnight in enough water to cover them by 4″. Either that or “quick soak” them by bringing them up to the boil in a lot of water, turning off the heat, and letting them sit for 1 hour.

Drain the chickpeas, put them in to a large saucepan, and cover by 2″ with water. Bring to the boil, and simmer for 1.5 hours, until tender. Drain.

Heat the oil in a heavy pan (dutch oven works fine here). Fry the onion until soft. Add all the other ingredients, except the cilantro, and two cups of water. Bring to the boil and simmer until the sauce thickens and coats the chickpeas nicely.

Garam Masala

8 cardamon pods

2 Indian bay leaves

1 teaspoon of black peppercorns

2 teaspoons of cumin seeds

2 teaspoons of coriander seeds

2″ cinnamon stick

1 teaspoon of cloves

Toast the spices briefly, then grind to a fine powder in a spice grinder or pestle and mortar.

Gluten Free Spinach Roti:

NOTE: you can make the dough for this the day before, and keep it well wrapped in the fridge.

handful of spinach leaves

1/4 cup oat flour

1/4 cup millet flour

1/2 cup brown rice flour

1/4 cup white rice flour

1/4 cup tapioca flour

1 teaspoon xanthan gum

pinch of salt

1 teaspoon of olive oil or ghee

1/2 cup of tepid water

Cook the spinach briefly in a little water until it wilts. Squeeze the water out, chop finely.

Mix the flour, xanthan gum and salt in a bowl. Make a small well in the center and add in the spinach and oil. Add in half of the water and mix with your hands. Add in as much water as needed to make a smooth dough. Wrap in plastic wrap and bung in the fridge for 30 minutes or so.

Divide the dough in to about 10 equal balls. Roll each ball out on a floured surface until pretty thin.

Heat a small cast iron skillet over a high heat (big enough for one roti). Add a little oil to the pan and let that get hot. Drop in one roti, and cover the pan. Let this cook for a minute or two, flip it, then cook again covered for another minute.

Cover the cooked roti with a warm towel, and cook the others in the same fashion.

Finishing:

Serve the chickpeas alongside the roti. Have some great yogurt on hand, along with some fresh herbs (cilantro, mint, basil) and a few slices lime. The smart kids spoon some of the chickpea mix into the middle of a roti, top with the condiments, and eat like a taco. An Indian taco.

Mustard. I love the stuff. Especially because it goes so brilliantly with charcuterie. I had never given one second of a thought however to making the stuff, until last week.

I was sitting around, eating some rillette and salad, and thought “some bloody lovely mustard would go so nicely with this”, and opened the fridge. You can imagine the utmost horror when I realized I was out of Dijon (mustard of choice in my household). I had used the last of it to make the salad vinaigrette I had happily poured over the leafy greens on my plate not moments before.

So I got thinking about making mustard. This of course was no help for my current and rather exasperating problem of having no mustard in the house, however it did take my mind of this disaster of international proportions long enough for me to finish enjoying my lunch.

I started to research about making mustard. I love that research now means opening up Google, rather than dragging myself down to the local library, risking the chance of getting some exercise. After a few short minutes of Googling I start giggling. Manly giggles of course, not silly high-school girl giggles. It turns out that making mustard looks fantastically easy. Obscenely so.

Now, when I think of artisan mustard, I always have this picture of old monk’s sitting around, most likely chanting some baroque tune, grinding mustard seed between two stones that have been there for centuries (the stones, and the monks..). Brother Leodak IV leans over and pours in some vinegar which they make alongside their wine. More chanting happens, more grinding, more vinegar. Another monk, most likely a young whipper-snapper decides to try and get everyone tipsy and throws in some brandy too, which they just happen to have sitting around, because you know, all Monks are total drunks.

And.. taaadaaa artisan brandy mustard is born.  Somehow (and I don’t like to think about this commercial part) this huge amount of Monk effort gets bottled up, and sold at my local store of choice.

Funnily enough, that is exactly how I made this mustard that you see before you. Without the monks, baroque tunes, and grinding stones of course..

I started to make the mustard, and thought some additional flavor in there would be lovely. As always my first glance is over to the liquor cabinet, and sitting there before my eyes is a bottle of apple brandy. This immediately seemed right, since I often pair mustard with pork and we all know how well apples go with pork. The rest, as they say is history, and a little bit of fire. I decided to burn off the alcohol from the brandy first, or quite a lot of it anyhow. I didn’t want that sharp boozy taste, but something more mellow. I also got to set something on fire, which I thought would be manly enough to counteract the giggling that went on earlier..

This mustard recipe has a kick. Both the mustard and brandy make it pretty heady stuff. I could certainly add more water and vinegar to it, since it is a pretty thick emulsion, and most likely will do so on a need-for-need basis.

Apple brandy mustard recipe:

NOTES: Dark mustard seed is much hotter than regular yellow seed. Use with caution! Most recipes call for soaking the seeds in the vinegar and water for 24 hours before making. This softens the seeds, makes them easier to grind. I was impatient and didn’t do this step - feel free to try doing it first if you wish! just let me know how it turns out will ya?

1/2 cup of mustard seed - mostly yellow, with about 1 tablespoon of dark in there

1/2 cup of vinegar of choice - I used apple cider

1/4 to 1/2 cup of water

1/8 cup of apple brandy

2 tablespoons of honey

1/2 teaspoon of turmeric (for color)

Put the brandy in a small flameproof container. Heat over a flame until it catches on fire. Let it burn for a while, to get rid of some of the alcohol. 3 minutes say.

Put the mustard seed, vinegar, water, honey and turmeric in a blender, and blitz it. You will most likely need to scrape down the sides reasonably often. If the mustard is too thick for your taste, add a little more vinegar and water. Blend until smooth but still with some texture.

Pour in a tablespoon of brandy, blitz, and taste. See how you like it. If you can taste the brandy, leave it there. Add more if you wish however.

This mustard improves a lot (read: mellow’s out) if left in the fridge to age for a few days. When it comes to serving, depending on application I thin it with a little more water and vinegar.

Ever since I made the salt cod a few weeks ago, I had this dish brooding in the back of my head. It was honestly the real reason I made the salt cod in the first place. Each spring I always look forward to fresh English (shelling) peas and fava beans. Here in Seattle the English peas seem like they are coming to the end of their stint, which has lasted much longer thanks to this crappy Seattle summer we have been having. I guess the cold(ish) weather has some good in the end.

This was a dish I dreamed up to share with friends. Very good friends at that. It just so happened that Todd and Diane, from WhiteOnRiceCouple fame were in town and they warmly accepted my dinner invitation - along with the lovely Shauna from GlutenFreeGirl. Todd and Diane showed up with two bags full of camera gear. The kind of bags full of gear that most people can only dream of. As we all know, good camera equipment is worth nout if there isn’t skill and talent to back it up. Thankfully that couple has it in droves - which these photographs here clearly show. That’s right, Todd and Diane were gracious enough to snap more than a few pictures of the food from that night, whilst I was busy mixing and chopping. All of the fantastic photography you see in this post is from them!

So, zee dish. This is a really simple affair, once you have dealt with those pesky fava beans. Anyone who has cooked with favas’s knows that they are both utterly delicious and a complete and utter time-waste to prep. Fava’s, you see, have two pods. Yes two. And you really need to remove both. The first is that huge, slightly fury, ridiculously soft (come on, I know you have all felt the inside of a fava bean pod and wanted a blanket or underpants made out of it) pod that holds all the beans. Getting this pod off requires the same technique as removing an English pea pod - only on a larger scale.Once this pod is off, you want to blanch the buggers for a couple of minutes, cool in an ice bath, you can take the second pod off.

How important is it to remove the second pod? Well.. it depends how ghetto you are… Sometimes, when I feel like a total slacker, I leave the pods on the small ones. When the fava beans get larger this second pod gets tougher. The biggest problem I have with the second/inner pod however is the color of it. It somewhat of a muted gray/green, and really doesn’t look that appetizing at all. When I was a wee lad growing up in Blighty my parents would often cook fava beans (they are called broad beans in the UK) and I would never want to eat them. It was simply because they looked nasty, thanks to my parents not removing the second pod. Thankfully they weren’t as slack with their parenting as they were their fava bean prep however..

So the moral of the story is to remove the inner pod from each bean. It is a pain, but once in a rhythm can happen pretty fast. My suggestion is to turn on an episode of Graham Norton, have a good laugh, and peel the inner pods in front of the telly.

To remove that inner pod, you want to pinch the fat end with your thumb fingernail, until you make a cut in it - then just squeeze the lovely bright green vivacious bean out.

The dish is nothing more but a mix of really great ingredients - which is honestly how I love my summer food to be. Keep it simple, use top shelf ingredients, and left bright flavors come through with bells on. The fava beans are tossed here with some cooked English peas, cooked salt cod that has been flaked, summer savory and piment d’ espelette. A little sherry vinegar and olive oil, and a good pinch of salt and pepper, and this dish is ready for the table.

Now, as mentioned this is all about the ingredients. Salt cod can come in many forms, and a lot of it is pretty disgusting. You want to either make your own (which is dead easy), or get it from a really good source - most likely a specialty store of European descent. Here are my top tips for dealing with salt cod:

Salt cod buying and prep tips:

1. Avoid the salt cod sold in boxes. If that is all you have access to, don’t use it. It is nasty
2. Salt cod should be white in color, not yellow
3. If it smells nasty, it is nasty (such a good rule of life I think..)
4. If it smells nasty, it is going to taste even more nasty when cooked
5. When buying salt cod, try to find whole sides that a store will cut for you. You want to get a piece from the thickest section of the fish
6. Salt cod needs to be soaked in cold water before you can use it for 24 hours. Change the water a few times during this soaking (keep in the fridge during soaking)
7. Salt cod can be sliced thinly and eaten raw, but personally I prefer it cooked
8. To cook - heat up a pan, add olive oil. Gently cook the fish skin side down for a minute, then add a little water to the pan (1/4cup or so). Cover, and gently simmer until cooked through, and the fish flakes
9. Remember to remove the bones before serving
10. I like to flake the fish, and serve it mixed with something - like fava beans!

Piment d’ Espelette is a smoked paprika from the Basque region of France. It’s closest comparison is Spanish sweet smoked paprika, however the two are different. I find the Espelette has more complex flavor, and has little heat to it. It can be ordered online through specialty retailers. My personal favorite is from here - http://www.aldersmoked.com/products-page/ a local Seattle company, making a really great range of smoked paprika’s.

The herb summer savory in the dish gives a light, almost citrus note to the dish, but backs it up more robust flavors, somewhat akin to a very bright sharp thyme.

Salt cod, fava bean and English pea salad recipe

1/2lb salt cod

a couple of large handfuls of fava bean pods

a good handful of english pea’s, in their pods

1 small bunch of summer savory, or a mix of parsley/basil/mint

zest of 1 lemon

really good olive oil

really good sherry vinegar

salt salt

pinch of piment d’ espelette (to taste)

Soak the salt cod in cold water for 24hours. Change the water a couple of times during soaking. If the piece of salt cod you have is really thin, reduce time to 12hours.

Remove the fava beans from their large pod. Get a large pot of water boiling. Fill the sink with water and ice. Put the fava beans in a strainer, and put this strainer in to the pot of boiling water. Boil the beans for two minutes. Take the strainer out of the boiling water, and plunge it in to the ice cold water.

Do the same for the English peas.

Once the fava beans are cold, drain them in to a clean strainer. Sit in front of the telly, watch some trash TV (optional, but I consider important) and peel that second pod off all the fava beans. Do this by pinching the fat end with your thumb nail, then squeezing out the bean. Discard the pods, or eat them yourself.. your choice.

The fava’s and peas can be prepped up to 24hours ahead, and stored covered in the fridge.

Chop the summer savory leaves relatively coarsely.

Get a small pan warm over a medium heat. Add some olive oil, and when the oil is hot put the drained salt cod in there. Let it cook for a minute or two, then add about 1/4 cup of water to the pan. Cover, and gently simmer until the cod is just cooked through.

Let the fish cool, and flake apart with your fingers, discarding any bones.

In a large bowl, toss the fava beans and English peas together. Add in the chopped summer savory, and a little lemon zest. Add a splash of sherry vinegar, and a good glug of olive oil. Add the salt cod to the dish. Gently fold the cod in, so as not to break up the fish any more. Season with salt, pepper, and piment d’ espelette to taste.

Add more olive oil as needed - I like this dish reasonably oily.

Happy summer everyone!

There has to be something said for a recipe that combines the two big culinary focuses in my life - seafood and charcuterie (curing, preserving). Salt cod takes care of that.

Salt cod is one of those ingredients that I hardly ever use. In fact, come to think of it I have never done anything with it in my home kitchen. It is always on the menu in some form at a favorite local restaurant of mine, where it is impossible for me to have dinner there and not order something salty and fishy.

I got thinking the other day, and wondered how hard it would be to make. Turns out it is bloody easy. Easier than breathing. Well, almost. You know a dish is going to be easy when the name of it is also the full ingredient list.

Yes folks - to make salt cod you need… drum roll, no guessing now…:

salt.

cod.

BINGO! Well now, that can’t be too hard. Heck, I reckon even Sandra Lee makes stuff with more ingredients than that.

Now all I had to do was find a recipe.. however, really with a little charcuterie knowledge and that full, rather complicated list of ingredients it wouldn’t be too hard to guess how to make salt cod. Thankfully however no guess work is involved. Michael Ruhlman’s Charcuterie book has a recipe for this classic Mediterranean fish preparation.

How to make salt cod

Traditionally salt cod was made by simply salting fillets of cod (other white fish can also be used) and leaving them to dry in the sun and wind. As with anything so seemingly simple quality of ingredients and production technique play the biggest part in the relative success here. If you can, start with the freshest cod you can find. Being totally honest here, the salt cod you see on these pages is being made with grocery store cod - albeit a rather nice local co-op who really cares about their seafood. The salt here is a simple kosher salt. I wanted to do a baseline salt cod, using really accessible ingredients, and later compare it to some fancy stuff from a sunny European country of choice. Next time I will almost certainly try this with some really great sea salt and some cod fresh off the boat, so to speak.

Back in the day there were different grades of salt cod, depending on how the cod was caught, how it was processed (bled out alive and so on), and also how long it had been cured and “matured” for. According to the fountain of knowledge (wikipedia) some is even double cured - where it is cured once, left to mature a bit, then cured some more. This is apparently the bees knees of salt cod.

The salt cod you see here will be ready in a week. From there, it is just working out what to do with it. The most typical use is in “Brandade” - an emulsion of salt cod and olive oil. Extra flavorings are often mixed in, as too is some potato for body. Versions of Brandade can be seen all over Southern European countries, and the south of France. For me, I think I am going to do something a little more modern with it when it dries. Perhaps that will be my post next week.

Anyhow, here is the rather simple technique for making salt cod. Here the cod is dried the fridge, however I don’t see why you couldn’t leave it outside in the sun and wind like those crazy European’s do. I also don’t see why you couldn’t dry the stuff in a curing chamber either, if you happen to have one sitting around. This would quite possibly yield better flavor, given the extra humidity in there would mean the fish would take longer to dry. This helps develop complexity of taste, and some uniqueness too.

Salt Cod Recipe (roughly adapted from Michael Ruhlman’s Charcuterie book).

1 fresh fillet of cod, skin removed

salt. quite a bit of it - at least a cup I would say

cheesecloth

Wash and dry the cod.

1. Pour enough salt in to the bottom of a flat dish (large enough to contain the fish fillet) to totally cover the bottom of the pan. You could use a chopping board or something here too.
2. Push the fish in to the salt. Pour more salt over the fish fillet, until it is completely covered. Gently toss the fish in the salt, until it is well covered on all sides.
3. Wrap the fish in a double layer of cheesecloth.
4. Lay on a rack, over a dish (the fish will release moisture, the dish is there to catch it). Put this in the fridge to cure. Leave it in the fridge for 24hours for every inch of thickness. (chances are these days you won’t find cod much more than 1″ thick).
5. Unwrap the fish fillet and rinse the salt off. Dry well.
6. Rewrap in a single layer of cheesecloth, return to the rack over a dish in the fridge. Leave for a week or so, until the fish is totally firm throughout.
7. When you come to use it you will need to soak the fish in fresh clean water for 24 hours before use. Change the water a few times during these 24hours to help remove the salt.

I am assuming you could also do this with skin on cod.. Here I would rub salt all over it, cover and let it cure for 24 hours in the fridge. Rub all the salt off, poke a hole in the tail end, and hang it in my curing chamber until dry. You could certainly try this with halibut, or other fish too. Be aware however that some fish can carry worms in their flesh (halibut is one of those). Freezing the fish before hand for a week will kill these nasty blighters however.

Blame this post on some Twitter friends that assured me it would be interesting.

When you cure meat you have to learn a thing or two about ingredients that don’t come up much in regular cooking. I don’t know about you, but I never cooked much with dry milk powder, dextrose, or peculiar sections of beef intestines. I can say without a doubt that I never dealt with nitrites/nitrates before making moldy meat in my garage.

So I thought it might be kinda fun, in a food history geeky kind of way, to look at why nitrites/nitrates are used in meat curing, the effects and benefits they have, their health implications, and natural sources of nitrites. We will talk a bit about botulism poisoning too, just for giggles.

Nitrates have been used for a heck of a long time in meat curing. Early on people might not have known what helped meat keep its color, and last longer, but it was down to naturally occurring nitrates, an impurity in some salts. Slowly over the years knowledge developed along with food science, and today we know what we are dealing with.

What do Nitrites do in meat curing?

1. Give cured meats an appealing even pink/red color
2. Give that sharp “cured meat’s taste”
3. Prevent botulism poisoning

Nitrates and Nitrites - what’s the difference?

When we talk about nitrites/nitrates, we are normally talking about Sodium Nitrite and Sodium Nitrate. There are other sources however (Potassium Nitrate, or Saltpetre) and we will talk about those later.

In short, quite a lot but also not that much. It is technically nitrITES that do the work. By “do the work” I mean give cured meat that lovely pink color, and sharp cured taste. Nitrite is also the delightful compound that helps prevent Cl. botulinum developing spores that gives us botulism poisoning - the most deadliest poisoning known to man.

So what do nitrATES do, and why do we use them? Well, consider nitrates to be a “slow release” form of nitrites. Bacteria in meat after a while will react with nitrate and create nitrITE. Since nitrite gets used up during the curing process, it is important to use some nitrates for meat curing that takes a while - like salami.

However, since it can take a while for the bacteria to start reacting with sodium nitrate, we should make sure that for meat curing, which can take many months, we use BOTH nitrite and nitrate to properly color the meat, give the tenderizing and taste effect, and also most importantly provide the required protection against botulism poisoning.

Wait.. did you say Botulism poisoning, that is serious right?

Yep. Sure is. I wouldn’t want to get it and I wouldn’t want anyone I know to get it either. Thankfully the chances of getting food borne botulism is extremely slim. From 1990 to 2000 only 263 people got effected by botulism, caused by 160 food borne events (source: http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/489058_3).

If left untreated, botulism is most likely going to be fatal. Symptoms include difficulty swallowing, talking, breathing and double vision.

C. Botulinum spores are found in soil and water sediments all over the world. These spores are not dangerous until they germinate - which is when they produce the fatal toxin, Botulism.

For the spores to germinate they require the following conditions:

1. mildly acidic environment
2. an environment absent of oxygen
3. moisture
4. warmth (40-15oF)

Now if we think about it, those are the EXACT conditions exhibited inside a sausage. Mildly acidic, thanks to the latic acid forming bacteria - no oxygen is available inside the salami. The meat mix is very moist, and we have added liquid to it too. We also ferment and air dry meat within the ideal temperature range for spores to germinate.

Given the information above, in my mind you would have to be somewhat crazy to cure salami at home without using some protection against botulism. YES, the chance of you catching botulism is extremely rare, however with something as serious as this, why take the risk?

Nitrites, in the correct quantities, prevent the formation of toxins from the germentation of the bacteria spores. USE THEM for all home cured salami products.

Incidentally, nitrates aren’t strictly required for curing whole muscle cuts. The bacteria can only exist on the exterior of the meat. This happens to be an oxygen rich environment, so there can be no development of the fatal toxin. If you take that meat with botulism on the exterior of it, grind it up, and stuff it tightly in to a casing, then those bacteria are now on the inside, in an airless environment. Best get out them nitrates.

Most food borne cases of botulism have either been caused by badly canned goods, or foods that have been incorrectly stored. There have been incidents where foods have been stored in air-tight containers and then not kept at a low enough temperature (remember, botulism likes 40-150F - so regular fridge temps of 36F are OK). There has been cases of botulism poisoning from the restaurant practice of storing chopped garlic (garlic can be a source of botulism) in olive oil. The olive oil creates that air free environment. I personally have stored chopped garlic this way, but always in the fridge.

OK, OK, you have sold me on nitrates.. where can I get the gear?

So, here is the thing. Nitrites and nitrates can be fatal when used in too high of a dose. Just 1/3 teaspoon of nitrITE could be fatal. You would need 1 teaspoon, perhaps more of nitrATE to have a similarly fatal effect.

Because of this it is incredibly hard for the general public to buy pure nitrite and nitrate. Large commercial curing plants mix up their own curing salts from salt and pure nitrites, but at home most people do not have scales accurate enough (or perhaps the math and food science knowledge) to do this safely.

Instead, us home curer’s can buy premade “curing salts”. These are certain pre-defined mixes that include regular salt, nitrite and nitrate. There are two different mixes available - CURE 1 and CURE 2.

CURE 1: A mix of 1oz of sodium nitrite (6.25%) to 1lb of salt. This is primarily used for curing products that are to be smoked - like bacon. Nitrate cannot be legally used in the craft of bacon making since when cooked at high temperature it can form cancer causing compounds. Since nitrite gets used up relatively quickly in the curing process, it is inadvisable to use nitrite only cures, like cure1, in long-term curing projects like salami.

CURE2: A mix of 1oz sodium nitrite (6.25%), 0.64oz sodium nitrate (4%) to 1lb of salt. This provides fast acting protection (nitrite) against botulism, and the slower release sodium nitrate to give longer lasting protection. This should be used in all dry cured salami that are to be cured over a long time, and can be used in whole muscle cuts for curing as well (mainly for color and flavor enhancement)

If we look at those percentages you would have to consume a lot of cure 1 or cure 2 to have a fatal effect - since the proportion of nitrite/nitrate is so low. You would literally have to be tied down, and have the stuff poured down your throat for a long time. Even still, it is incredibly important to store these ingredients high up on shelves, in tightly locked containers - way out of the reach of children.

Cure 1 and Cure 2, along with other meat curing supplies can be ordered from the following online retailers:

Butcher and Packer (http://www.butcher-packer.com/)

Sausage Maker (http://www.sausagemaker.com/)

Wait.. I heard that Nitrates aren’t safe - what’s the deal?

There has been some research done that show that when nitrates are subjected to high temperatures (600F or so) they can lead to the formation of nitrosamines which were cancer causing in lab animals. Because of that nitrates have been banned in the production of bacon - since most people fry those suckers at high temperatures till they are crisp.

A lot of studies have been done, and a lot of money has been spent on trying to see if nitrates and nitrites cause any health effects. The National Academy of Sciences have found nitrite does not directly harm us.

In fact, the amount nitrates/nitrites in meat is considerably tiny compared to those found in vegetables - especially those farmed using nitrate based fertilizers. Chances are also that if you grow vegetables at home in the soil, and your neighbor isn’t as organic as you - you are going to be eating a lot more nitrates. Especially also if you get your drinking water from a shallow well - like a lot of rural communities do in the USA.

You would likely consume more nitrate in a meal with a nice “healthy” helping of spinach than you would if you ate 1/4lb of smoked sausage.

Further to this, in 2008 a British study (British.. so it must be correct!) showed that consuming nitrate rich vegetables might be a good way to maintain a healthy cardiovascular system.

How much nitrite is dangerous? Stanley Marianski calculated that one would have to consume 14.3lbs of salami, in one sitting to consume a dangerous amount of nitrite. This doesn’t even take in to account that nitrite is used up (converted to inert nitric oxide) during the curing process, so most likely you would have to consume even more nitrite than that. Now, I love salami, but not so much to eat that much cured meat in one go.

I am a hippy and I want to cure meat naturally. Are there natural sources of nitrate I can use?

I can get with that too. Food grown without chemicals and pesticides are important to me, and I spend a good deal of my paycheck every month getting said produce from local farmers I know and trust.

The most widely used natural source of nitrates for meat curing is celery powder.

DON’T USE IT.

There, I said it. Here is the problem with it. There are absolutely no regulations or standards as to the amount of nitrate it contains. Even if you use the same amount in every salami you make, you could quite easily be adding too much or too little nitrate to your cured meats. Too little, and you might as well not bother. Too much can be dangerous.

Sodium Nitrate is a very simple compound (NaNO3 for you chemistry buffs) and the natural version, or lab made version is the same. No additional elements. Nitrate is nitrate.

Buy the proper cures for curing meat. Measure out your curing salts accurately, using a high precision scale. Don’t mess around celery powder.

The same incidentally goes for “saltpetre” or Potassium Nitrate as it is also known. This is one element in gun powder, but has also been used to cure meat for a long time (it was that impurity in some salt mines). The problem with saltpetre again is that it can contain a slightly varying amount of nitrate in it, and because it is used in gun powder, can be hard to get. Most people have now stopped using saltpetre in favor of sodium nitrate/nitrite based cures (Cure 1 and Cure 2).

If you are interested in learning more about the science behind meat curing, and the products involved - I highly recommend this book: (A fair portion of the information you see here was thanks to the great knowledge provided in its pages)

The Art of Making Fermented Sausages by Stanley Marianski

I have a somewhat recent love affair on buckwheat.  It seems like savory crepes (galettes) are all the rage here in Seattle, and almost all of them have a proportion of buckwheat in them. This is traditional to the area of France where they were apparently first developed - Brittany. Buckwheat has this lovely rich brown color, and a very distinctive nutty flavor all to its own. Even though the name might be misleading, it isn’t a wheat and is gluten free (watch out however for cross contamination in fields and processing if you are highly sensitive to gluten).

Savory crepes are quite possibly my favorite lunch of all time, given their endless variation and sheer rich indulgent mouth feel. If you ask me, it is all about the “complete” crepe - that is a crepe filled with ham and cheese, and topped with a fried egg. I mean seriously, it doesn’t get much better than that. Crepes have been a long term hit back home in England too. Heck, we have even taken over  a religious holiday, Shrove Tuesday, and practically renamed it to “pancake day”. A day where you eat a lot of pancakes. More pancakes than anyone should eat in a year.

But wait, you Yank’s say… “You call it pancake day, but you eat crepes? Thats messed up”. Why yes, yes it is to those whom pancakes and crepes mean different things. You see, in England we LOVE crepes. Just love them. However, they are of French invention and our love doesn’t quite stretch to the French. So, we renamed them in England to “pancake”. (that last statement I am sure is a bloody inaccurate history lesson). So what do we call those big thick pancakes that you see above, those which American’s call Pancakes? Well, we don’t really cook those back in the UK. Jamie Oliver has made them a bit popular, but most Brit’s still go for the Crepe.. crap, I mean Pancake…. If you see them on a menu, you might see them as “Pancakes - USA style”.. or something like that.

As most readers of this blog know, I have a son. A fantastic little boy. A fantastic little boy who completely loves pancakes. Every morning he either wants pancakes or Oaty Bites (a cereal). As a somewhat health conscious family we weren’t too keen on him scoffing down a lot of white flours, normally used in making pancakes. So we started to look elsewhere. A favorite little breakfast spot of ours has buckwheat pancakes, and they were really great. So we decided to go home and make our own.

We started by taking our regular pancake recipe that we liked, and simply replacing the flour with buckwheat flour. This was OK, but yielded a pancake heavier than I would have liked. We tweaked some ratios and got things better, but still not perfect.

It wasn’t until our go-to construction bloke, all round bloody nice guy and fantastic cook stopped by one day, after he finished our kitchen remodel (yes, we found a fantastic contractor who also loves to cook!!) and we got talking about pancakes. The guy also likes to hunt, and he told us a story of when he went hunting with a friend of his recently. This friend knocked together some pancakes when they were out in the mountains, and according to Dan (our contractor) were the best pancakes he had ever tasted. Course, I thought, everything tastes better outside, especially when you have spent the night uncomfortable in a sleeping bag..). However, apparently the guy had a certain technique to making the pancakes.

“Separate the egg white from yolk. Whisk up the white until it is thick and stable, then gently fold this in to the batter at the end”

Now, I have this vision of two burly guys sitting around a campfire discussing the finer points of pancake cookery. Rifles across laps, both wearing plad. Talking pancake technique. Maybe I should send that in as a possible storyline for Brokeback Mountain 2….

So anyhow, I tried it. A revelation in pancake makin’ I would have to say. It increases the lightness (is that a word?) ten fold. Twenty fold even. Heck, lets push that to one hundred fold. It makes whole grain pancakes (such as these) lighter than white flour pancakes, but with a far superior texture and mouth feel.

These pancakes are a weekly breakfast item here in the Wrightfood household. Twice weekly to be honest. These might just convert people over to the joys of buckwheat. If nothing else, take the whip-egg-white-n-fold technique and give it a go. As far as pancakes go, they are pretty healthy - being whole grain and all. To make things even more hippie healthy, white sugar is out and maple syrup is in. You could quite easily use a lovely honey in the recipe too. If you wanted to get all trendy and high-end you can serve these with a fruit compote or sauce. Me? I like good old fashioned butter and maple syrup.

Matt’s Buckwheat Pancake tips:

1. Use the milk volume as a rough guide. Depending on your milk type, you might need more or less to get the desired consistency.We use goats milk in the recipe.
2. As soon as you fold in the egg whites, get cooking.
3. Pan choice is important - go for a heavy pan, cast iron or carbon steel.
4. Use butter as your pan-lube of choice.
5. Keep pancakes warm under either a heat-lamp or a low oven  as you cook them all.
6. Make some larger ones to cut out shapes from. What.. you don’t have kids? Come on, everyone loves dinosaur pancakes..

(great thanks to my lovely and talented wife Danika for taking hundreds of photos of the mixing n making of these pancakes)

Gluten Free Buckwheat Pancake Recipe

(makes 9 five inch pancakes - enough for two adults and a pancake munchin kid)

1 cup of buckwheat flour

1/4 tsp. baking soda

2/3tsp. baking powder

pinch of sea salt

1 tablespoon maple syrup

1 1/4 cup of milk

1 tablespoon of butter, plus more butter for cooking

1 egg

In a bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, powder and salt. Melt the butter in a small pan, allow to cool.

Crack the egg open, holding over a bowl. Toss the egg yolk between the two shell halves, and let the white fall in to the bowl. Add the egg yolk, maple syrup and butter to the milk, whisk to combine the liquids.

Pour the liquid mix in to the dry ingredients. Use a large spoon to thoroughly combine all ingredients. Add more milk if the mixture seems to thick. You want it to flow relatively slowly, but easily from a spoon.

Use an electric hand whisk to whisk up the egg white until it is just set and relatively solid. Gently fold this egg white in to the pancake mix until just combined. If you mix too much here then you will loose the fluffiness of the pancakes.

Heat up your pan, and rub the end of a butter stick over the cooking surface. When the butter is hot, pour in a scant 1/4 cup of batter. Cook this over medium heat until holes form in the top of the pancake, and the top looks almost set. Flip the pancake, and cook on this side for 15-30 seconds longer. Remove to a warm platter, and keep warm either in the oven or under a heat lamp.

Repeat with remaining mix.

When you say “Chorizo” to someone, you hear back a lot of different meanings. Here, in my second home of the USofA most people think of Mexican chorizo, when you throw out the C word. Mexican chorizo is a fresh sausage, heavily spiced that needs to be cooked. Mexican chorizo is usually made with chile peppers. and some simple herbs.

If you mention chorizo to anyone from Europe, they will most likely nod you towards Spain, and often the northern Basque region (and surrounds). Spanish chorizo is almost always dry cured, and more often fermented too (fermentation is the addition of good bacteria, to raise the acidity of the sausage, help prevent spoilage and also develop flavor). Spanish chorizo relies heavily on smoked paprika, not fresh hot chilies. This is really what gives a Spanish chorizo so much character. They can be either smoked, or just simply dry cured.

Chorizo is serious business in Spain. Towns have their own butchers, and most do a fantastic job of charcuterie as well. Recipes get handed down from generation, and most are well guarded secrets; how very European.. One friend of mine who comes from Spain offered to pony up the chorizo recipe of her Spanish town. She was given it by the town butcher, whereby she had to promise to never had the recipe to anyone else in Spain, but apparently anyone in the US can take it…

From my experience with chorizo, the major key to developing a good one is the quality of the smoked paprika that you get. The stuff that has been sitting in the back of your cupboard for 2 years isn’t going to cut it. If you want a really unique and complex dry cured sausage you are going to want to stay away from the mass produced smoked paprika that you find at the grocery store too. Look at some online sources for smoked paprika, from small producers that do a very distinct product.

My goal for this chorizo was to source the key ingredients locally. For pork that isn’t exactly hard. We have some great farms up here in the Pacific Northwest that do a fantastic job of raising tasty, healthy and happy pigs. That is one ingredient down. Now lets talk smoked paprika.

Out on the Olympic Peninsula, in a small town called Ports Townsend lives Charlie. Charlie just happens to have mastered both growing chili peppers and drying and smoking them. He has a small company called “Some Like it Hot“, and sells both online and at a local farmers market. I have honestly never tasted a smoke paprika product with such depth and complexity before. Course, Charlie knows this and charges a reasonable sum for what is a very slow and labor intensive process and product. Thankfully the offer of me giving him of the dry cured chorizo when he was done sweetened the deal for me.

I should also note that Charlie takes Paypal as a source of payment. Why am I mentioning this? Well, because of the advertising on this blog, I was able to purchase enough of this product to make a very interesting chorizo, and then be able to write about it too.. So thank you visitors to my blog, seeing the ads I have running here!

Most Spanish Chorizo recipes also call for garlic, and no small quantity of it either. Traditionally I haven’t used garlic in any of my recipes, mainly because a meat curing friend of mine is allergic to the stuff. I really wanted her to try this chorizo recipe, so I left the garlic out. Being honest, garlic is also a bone of contention for me as well when it comes to salami. Often I find that the garlic flavor overpowers the taste of the pork, and some of the other flavorings going on. When you have a chorizo like this one that uses such a high grade of smoked paprika, it almost seems silly to muddle the flavor with some garlic.

If you want to have a go at making this chorizo at home, here is the recipe. You might also want to look over some of my other charcuterie posts listed below - these will give in-depth information in to the products needed, and the technique of making dry cured sausage at home:

Post on How to Make Salami at Home (same process as making chorizo)

Post on How to Convert a Fridge in to a Meat Curing Chamber

Dry Cured Chorizo Recipe:

(NOTE: work in grams, and by percentages of the meat+fat weight, since you aren’t going to have the same meat weight as me. If you wanted to try this recipe with garlic - mince up 16g of it, and add it in at stage 3)

1700g pork shoulder - final weight trimmed weight - cut in to 1/2″ dice
207g pork back fat, roughly diced (12% of pork shoulder weight)
Salt - 3% (52g)
Cure2 - 0.24% (4.5g)
Dextrose - 0.2% (3.8g)
Sugar - 0.2% (3.8g)
Black Pepper - 0.6% (11.4g)
Piment d Espelette - 1.8% (34g)
Bactoferm TSPX - 1tbsp
1/4 cup distilled water
hogs casings- 12ft of or so.

(for a more in-depth method of the finer points of making cured sausage, see the links above. Hygiene is important. Wash hands often, or wear gloves)

1) dissolve the bactoferm TSPX in the distilled water. leave for 30 minutes.

2) soak the hogs casings in tepid water for at least 30 minutes.

3) Mix the pork, fat, salt, cure2, dextrose, sugar, black pepper and piment together very thoroughly.

4) Grind the meat/fat dice through the coarse plate on your meat grinder.

5) Add in the TSPX solution.

6) Mix this very thoroughly, either by hand or preferably using the paddle attachment of your kitchen mixer.

7) Stuff in to hogs casings. Tie off in to 12″ links.

8 ) Tie these links in to loops.

9) Ferment at 75F for 35hours, 90% humidity.

10) Check the pH of the meat - you want 5.3 or lower.

11) Once desired pH has been reached, air dry at 55F, 80% humidity for 2 weeks, or until the suasages are stiff throughout and have lost at least 35% of their initial weight.

All of the specialist ingredients can be ordered online at the following retailers:

Butcher & Packer

Sausage Maker

RECOMMENDED READING:

Charcuterie - Michael Ruhlman

Art of making Fermented Sausages - Marianski

Cooking by Hand - Paul Bertolli

Sometimes we don’t get to work with our lovely little setup in our home or studio for food photography. Sometimes we walk in to a job not knowing what to expect, and hoping that the gear you have crammed in to your car is going to be what is needed to do it right.

I figured it might be rather interesting to do a post on food photography from a slightly different perspective - that is on location shooting.

The interest here is working with the unknown. Adapting your regularly successful food photography setup to work in a new location with different lighting and space requirements. This is a useful exercise even if you never plan to shoot anywhere else but your home/studio.

Here is a list of  food photography equipment I generally like to take with me:

1. Camera, with power charger
2. Tripod - I tend to like to do 50% shot from a tripod, and another 50% more dynamic and hand held.
3. Lenses - generally a 100mm macro I use for most food shots, a 50mm F1.4 and a 20mm F1.4. I like fixed lenses (no zoom) because honestly for the bucks the quality is fantastic. You also tend get a much lower F Stop, which is good for shooting in low-light hand-held.
4. Laptop and USB cable. Mainly for tethered shooting and a review of photos before leaving the joint. More on tethered shooting for food photography in a bit. Before leaving I like to download all photos on to a laptop, just to double back things up.
5. A roll of artists vellum. We can use the technical trendy photographer term “scrim” here if you want. The vellum works really well at diffusing strong light - making the light softer, and making the shadows much less harsh. Soft light makes objects look more voluminous, and food less greasy. More on that later too.
6. A sheet of white foam board to act as a light bounce. See it in the shot above, resting against my laptop?
7. A roll of painters tape.
8. Misc dishes, flatware, napkins and so on.

The pictures in this post were from a recent shoot I did at a fantastic new restaurant in Seattle called Nettletown. Now, I could wax lyrical about their lovely food all day, but I won’t. Just go there and try it yourself. OK?

The restaurant has one major source of natural light - and that is the doorway. Along the same wall as the door are some high up thin windows that help illuminate the other side of the restaurant a bit. But all in all, the main light is by the door. As you get further back in to the restaurant, and in to the kitchen area you are so far away from the natural light, you start having to shoot in the artificial light provided by light fixtures.

LIGHTING:

Photography is really all about lighting. The best photographers in the world could honestly photograph a white cube on a white piece of paper and make it look interesting - all because of lighting.

Seek out the spot with the most natural light. For this one it was by the door. Shooting outside is an option too, however here the lighting was really flat and dull. There was more directionality to it inside, and it was possible to get enough light to shoot with by using the bounce card.

What is a bounce card, and why do I need it?: Simply it is a piece of white (generally) card/foamboard/styrofoam that you position to help “bounce” light back in to the scene. Consider this to be a soft “fill light”. The bounce won’t really cast any kind of shadow, rather it will fill in dark areas in your shot that have been shadowed heavily from the stronger main or “key” light.

In the situation above, the “key light” is the daylight coming through the front door. I have positioned the bounce card on the other side of the food, and forward just a touch. The light coming in through the doorway bounces off this white card and back on to the “dark side” of the object or food you are shooting.

To get all artistic and techie for a sec - it really helps add a lot of detail to shadows, and also helps make a photograph look less harsh - a little softer and more inviting.

What is a scrim (vellum in this case), and why do I need it?: A scrim is a translucent material used to soften strong light. Strong light can cast strong shadows, and leave really strong hot-spots on food. You position the scrim between your light source and your food you are shooting. This softens the light down, making the shadows far less harsh - and helps make shots much more evenly lit.

Often when using a scrim at home I will tape up vellum over a window I am shooting by, in the light coming in from it is really strong. I also made a frame that I stapled vellum on to, that I can move around my studio space as needed.

In the case above, I would have taped some vellum over the door that you see the light coming through on the left (that is why a roll of painters tape is dead handy to take with you). In this particular case the vellum wasn’t needed for two reasons: 1) the light coming in was actually pretty soft 2) the scrim would have made this space really dark, and hard to get a well lit shot from.

CAMERAS, LENSES & SHOOTING TETHERED:

In my mind the camera isn’t as important as the lens, and good lighting. If you have a cropped frame dSLR (most digital SLRs), a 50mm prime (fixed, no zoom) is a good place to start. Canon have some amazing 50mm lenses at very cheap prices - I am sure Nikon do too. If you have a full frame digital SLR (there are more around now then a couple of years ago) then my top pick is a 100mm macro lens. I love the foreshortening this lens gives, and the depth of field.

Pick your lens based on your situation and the amount of space you have. In the photos above I am using a 100mm macro lens. You can see how far away from the subject the camera has to be, in order to get it all in shot. It isn’t often that you can afford this amount of space for such a large tabletop shot. If you don’t have room, look at using a wider angle lens, like a 50mm.

What is shooting tethered, and how useful is it?: Shooting tethered is where you have a USB cable connecting your camera to your laptop. As soon as you take your photo on your camera, you get to see it on the nice big screen on your laptop. Further more, some cameras have “Live View” which allows you to see on your computer screen, in realtime, what is going on through the lens.

I am not going to bullshit you. It is dead handy. Really helpful for some tricky shots. It is good for fine tuning lighting, and really great for tweeking shot composition. There are problems with it however. I honestly believe it makes you a lazy photographer. You start relying on it too much to get a great shot. I also think it completely robs you of any spontaneity because it takes a while to setup, and take a picture.

I tend to shoot about 50% tethered, and 50% freestyle. What pictures come out better? Well, it varies. On this particular shot, My favorite pictures of the day were taken hand-held. No tripod, and certainly no tethered shooting. Other times, it is the opposite.

The main rule of thumb - take lots of photos, experiment, try different techniques. If you have a dSLR and a laptop, give tethered shooting a go - you might like it, just don’t rely on it.

SURFACES AND PROPS:

There are more options than just the table to take a picture on. I know a lot of food photographers that eagerly hunt out new surfaces to take shots on. I am one of them. Recently I saved a bunch of wood from a deck remodel, nailed them to a board, and use those for some shots (OK, being honest I totally overuse them). It is all about getting creative.

Lets look at this scenario again (see the top photo in this post). On first look you can see we have a large table, and some smaller tables. Out of shot there is a really dark chalkboard like serving counter too. This counter is far away from the door, but might just get enough light on it to get some interesting shots.

Looking beyond tables however we have a few options. They had three different styles of chairs in the room, all of which had a lot of character to them. The seat of any of these would make a fantastic surface to shoot on. You see that chair right by the front door? That chair yielded my favorite shot of the day, thankyouverymuch.

And hold on.. check out the floor. Stained concrete, that has a patina that only a well trodden floor can have. That would make a lovely contrast to a crisp white plate. Lets keep that in mind.

Whilst I was in the bathroom, I noticed a fantastic, really rustic cabinet in the corner of the bathroom, holding paper towel. It wasn’t heavy. In a crunch, I could easily move that to good light, and get another really unique surface to shoot on.

As for props - I like to take a few things along with me, just in case. Having been to this restaurant before I knew they had some pretty darn delicious dishes, so I wasn’t too concerned about having a collection to pick from.

What I didn’t expect was all of the rather amazing dishes she had. Old rustic wooden boards. Clean white plates, patterned fantastic Asian dishes. Turns out she loves dishes and surfaces. A guy could get used to a job like this.

PHOTOS:

These couple of photos below are some of my favorite from the shoot. Interestingly enough neither were shot on a tripod. Nether were shot tethered, and neither were shot on a table. They were both shot close to that bright front door, using a bounce card to project a bit more light in to the scene.

and one last favorite on mine, this time on a table, shot tethered and on a tripod:

FINAL TIPS FOR FOOD PHOTOGRAPHY SETUP:

1. Look at different surfaces. Look high, low, and in bathrooms if you must!
2. Always think about lighting - using scrims and bounce cards.
3. Vary up dishes. Pair rustic food with clean plates. Not much visual interest in the food? Use a fancy plate.
4. Be adaptive - take the camera off the tripod, shoot tethered, try high and low shots.
5. Vary camera angles - shoot some top down, other shots almost flat-on low.
6. Try different shots - some of plated food, others of ingredients. Even combine the two!
7. Take a lot of photos. Go crazy!
8. Natural light, not flash.

I will admit it now. I know nothing about wine and food pairing. Thankfully I have a friend who does, and has a lovely business selling wine to local Seattle people.

I first met Catherine over a year ago when I hosted and cooked a Seattle Food Bloggers Meat Party. The food had some high’s and low’s (totally overcooked some lentils..) but one thing that stayed consistent was the quality of the wine being served, and just how well the wine was paired with the food.

That was nothing to do with me. That was all to do with Catherine. She had recently started a wine business called Queso Y Vino here in Seattle. Each week she sends out newsletters highlighting new and old wines she is selling direct to the customer. You place your order with her, then she delivers. You avoid the middleman, get some fantastic wine, along with a great education in wine.

A few weeks before that Meat Party dinner I sent the proposed menu off to her. I left it all up to her, just gave her a budget and let her work her magic. Magic it was indeed. Catherine and her husband Ken were of course invited to the party, to eat some meat, and drink some of their handpicked wines. Catherine also talked about the wine - why she paired that wine with the certain course, along with giving lots of advice to us all on pairing wines.

Now, I certainly don’t want to go cooking a bloody great party every time I want to get some great wine pairing from Catherine. Thankfully I don’t have to. Catherine hosts wine pairing dinners each month at varying Seattle restaurants. Each month is a different restaurant, with obviously different food, and thus different pairings. What is great is that you get a sheet of all the wines you are drinking, some history about them (along with some pretty comedic interludes about how Catherine found the wine), and why she paired what she did.

Danika and I were fortunate enough to go along to her most recent dinner - at La Cote Creperie in Madison Valley, Seattle. We have had lunch many times at La Cote, given a rather large passion for crepes, but never for dinner and certainly never with Catherine pairing the wines. The evening was fantastic, the food was great and the wine pairings were excellent. Much to my amazement my favorite wine of the evening was a dessert wine that she had picked. Normally I absolutely detest sweet wines, but this one was truly brilliant. More on that later.

Whilst chatting to Catherine at the dinner, I wanted to find out more about how she pairs wines with food, since really I am rather rubbish at it. She gave lots of good advice, which I promptly forgot, thanks to the rather generous (and ample quantity) of the pours that evening. Wine will do that to ya. So, anyhow I asked her rather kindly to email me her wine pairing tips, so that I could share her advice and knowledge here! I figured it would make a rather nice break from seafood and charcuterie recipes!

Take it away Catherine:

1. Go with your gut.

2. Be a poet, not a professor. Envision the Proustian Madeleine. Think about the flavors, aromas, even the view out your window or the country table where your dish hails from. A Provencal dish might like a red with a flourish of lavendar or rosemary, a paella craves smoke from the fire it was created on or a sea breeze-laden crustacean-loving Galician white.

3. Riesling loves EVERYTHING! I happen to be a big fan of Cuvee St. Catherine, which my husband collected even before we met, & it is the one wine I can think of that defies all the rules. We brought a bottle with us to Cafe Juanita & Rover’s on special occasions & the wine simply went with just about every course.

4. Think like a European & don’t pigeon-hole sparkling wine as an aperitif only. I remember a remarkable wine dinner at Harvest Vine where a renowned cava producer paired sparkling wine with every course, including roast lamb–yes, roast WA lamb. The cava was aged, full-bodied & allowed the dish to shine while it quietly accented the flavors that surrounded the meat. The minerailty was a great pairing for the sanguinal notes. See below.

5. Don’t think meat always = red! And rose’s are awesome food wines.

6. Break out the map! Have fun learning about wine by cracking open Oz Clarke’s Wine Atlas or Hugh Johnson/Jancis Robinson’s World Atlas of Wine after you crack open your bottle. Study the hills & valleys of origin, & transport yourself. Often times wines pair well with traditional dishes from a region because they are derived from the same earth.

7. Cheese & wine is tricky, fickle business. One of the best pairings I’ve stumbled upon, not even thinking geographically ahead of time, was a slice of nutty Beaufort with a doughy Brut de Savoie with reflections of dried apple slices. Heaven!

8. IF YOU LIKE IT, IT’S A GOOD PAIRING!

9. People are always SO apologetic, “I don’t know anything about wine!” they whined at me surrounded by shelves of bottles. BUT everyone is an expert in what they like! You know more about that than anyone even if you don’t have the vocabulary to describe it. I started out drinking oaky buttery Chardonnay’s because those was the few & far between wine jargon I knew, & when I said those magic words, I knew what the sommelier was going to bring me & felt less embarrassed.

10. Find your own lexicon. It drove me crazy trying to help people as a sommelier when they would talk varietals rather than characteristics. I literally had two people come in within 15 minutes of each other saying, “I like Cab’s!” Well working in a Spanish store, where you don’t really have Cab’s & Merlot, I tried to steer them into describing characteristics rather than straight varietals. One person said, I like Cab’s because they are spicy & in your face!” while the next person said, “I like Cab’s because they’re smooth & fruity.” If you think like that, you may open the door to entirely new grapes & parts of the world!

11. The world of wine is waiting for you– don’t be intimidated by it! It’s there to be enjoyed.

If you are interested in any of Catherine’s wine dinners, or want to know more about her awesome email list and wine delivery service - here is how to get a hold of her: quesoyvino(at)gmail.com (I don’t want her to get spam, so replace the (at) with @ in your email editor of choice).

The wines of the evening:

Schroedel Brut Rose, Cremant d’Alsace, France

Chateau du Lancyre Rose 2009, Pic St-Loup, France

Colombelle Blanc 2008, Cote de Gascogne, France

Pierre Boniface Apremont 2008, Vin de Savoie, France

Chateau Pesquie 2007, Cotes du Ventoux, France

Plume Beue 2006, Vin de Pays d’Oc, France

Mario Giribaldi Moscato d’Asti 2008, Piemonte, Italy (this was the dessert wine I was batty about).

(Yes, after all that wine I was totally sloshed.)