Text 33606, 83 rader
Skriven 2015-11-25 03:11:42 av MICHAEL LOO (1:123/140)
Ärende: at the house 549
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I was trying to catch up on sleep when Swisher woke me up 
by setting fire to the kitchen. No, seriously, the alarm 
was going off (deafening high-pitched scream) and there 
were billows of smoke coming from downstairs.

I went down to see what was what, and a pan was on fire.
Swisher was right outside, so I screamed at him to take
care of it and went upstairs to open all the windows and
get my earplugs. When these things had been done, the
kitchen was really smelly - when he said that he had
high-frequency hearing loss, he wasn't kidding - he 
hadn't heard the noise at all. Give him credit, with a
bunch of elbow grease and the sacrifice of a scrubby he
saved the pan, if not its contents, which turned out
to have been that okra from the market, which he'd boiled
dry, probably some secret inner part of him warning him
away from ingestion of this fell vegetable. Ian came out
to investigate, and when he'd been apprised of the
situation he said that it was Swisher's fault for having
bought okra in the first place.

To get rid of the acrid smell I started the chili for
Thursday. Cut up 3 1/2 lb of paleron (in these parts,
this means chuck blade) into tiny dice, separating the
dice into two piles - lean meat and gristly bits - ; if
there had been any fat there would have been three piles.

These were browned separately, the meat lightly and the
gristle heavily, in duck fat, then set to simmer with 
stock, onions and garlic preprepared, and chili spices. 
After a good long simmer, the stuff was put in the fridge 
for safekeeping and maturing.

As Swisher had ruined his breakfast, we had an early
lunch at the house of pate, walnut bread, and beer.
During the 2 1/2 weeks we did in about two cases of beer
of three varieties, 1664, a prestige brand of Kronenbourg, 
sort of like Stella only sweeter and weaker; regular 
Kronenbourg, surprisingly Budweiserlike; and Super U
Pilsner, which I believe was Kronenbourg seconds. Oh, 
when we went out, we got fancy stuff, Heineken. The
French really are not great on beer.

--

Ian had this idea to make fessenjan and pilaf for dinner.
Fessenjan (fesenjan) is a stew made with walnut meal and 
pomegranate: it usually uses poultry, but I've had it with
eggplant, which I like a lot. Ian used those magrets from
the market. Instead of a normal pilaf, too, he found one
using bulgur and tomatoes from Der Haroutunian. Upshot -
I prefer my fessenjan to have eggplant, my duck to be
more rare, and my pilaf to be made with rice. Just call
me a conservative. Not that this food was bad or even
average: it was very tasty and satisfying, but I'd go for
this only after having had rare pan-cooked duck and rice
pilaf for like a week running and craving a change.

The vegetable was tuberous chervil that we'd found in
the Grand Frais - it's more like sweetish potatoes or
delicate parsnips than anything to do with chervil; 
pleasant but not something to go out of my way for.

One thing, Ian's fessenjan sauce was well balanced and
very nice and a great pairing with the wine, which was
Bergerac rose Clos des Verdots 11, made mostly from 
Cabernet Sauvignon, which had bright curranty and
raspberry flavors and a decent sweet-sour balance (good
with pomegranate sauce) and a touch of bitterness that
accented the walnut. And I admit the slightly nubbly
texture of the pilaf was more interesting as it 
interacted with the sauce and the wine.

Maid of honour tart, which was sweet and dairyful, so
I didn't deal with it, preferring to concentrate my
attention on the remnants of the dessert wines from
the other day. Ch. Richard, as expected, had thinned
out even a little more, and the Monbazillac's 
superiority was even more evident. The similarities 
of fruit and acid-sweet balance were striking, though, 
in a side-by-side tasting.
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