Veal is the Meal

Wine: Shotfire Barossa Shiraz 2005


At Campanile, Mark used to make a great dish: Roasted Veal Shank. He served it standing up and besides being delicious, it always wowed the room as it was served. Years ago, when I went to Chicago, Cathy's father to me to a restaurant in Deerfield where they also served Stinco. Unfortunately it is no longer there and to make it worse, Cathy never got to eat there! We have been thinking about it, and decided to make it ourselves. We actually have two different recipes the one from Campanile and the one from Angelini Osteria. We decided to do the one from Angelini. Hopefully, Mark will take our hints and his version will occasionally return to rightful place on the menu.


We had a first course of a great salad from the Zuni Cafe Cookbook: Radicchio with Croutons, Hardboiled Eggs and Anchovy Vinaigrette. It is an excellent salad and easy to make.

Shredded Radicchio with Anchovy Vinaigrette, Bread crumbs, & Sieved Egg

A strong-flavored salad with an unusual texture. For a different flavor balance, you can replace some of the radicchio with escarole hearts or Belgian endive, or use a bitter radicchio - Castelfranco or Treviso variety.

for 4 servings:
1/2 ounces fresh, soft bread crumbs (about 3/4 cup) made from slightly stale, crustless, chewy,white peasant-style bread
about 1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil
about 1-1/2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
about 1-1/2 teaspoons chopped
salt-packed anchovy fillets {2 to 3fillets)
1 large shallot {about 1 ounce), finely diced
About 2 medium heads radicchio (about 12 ounces)
2 hard-cooked freshly cooked and peeled
Salt
Freshly cracked black pepper
Preheat the oven to 400°.
Combine the bread crumbs with about a tablespoon of the olive oil and knead very gently to distribute it. Spread the crumbs on a sheet pan and bake until they are unevenly golden, about 6 minutes. You may need to rotate the pan or stir the crumbs with a spatula. {The crumbs will shrink to about 1/2 cup in volume.) Cool completely. You could cheat and buy store bought croutons!
Combine the remaining oil, the vinegar, anchovies, shallot, and salt to taste.

Remove any damaged outer leaves from the radicchio, then rinse, dry, and quarter it. Remove the stem and core, then slice as if for coleslaw, about 1/8 inch thick. Place in a salad bowl and toss and fluff to separate into individual threads. Incorporate the toasted crumbs. Drizzle the vinaigrette evenly over the salad and toss well to combine. Taste and add more salt, oil, or vinegar as needed.
Press the eggs through a strainer, or grate on the finest face of a grater, letting the mimosa-like bits fall evenly over the salad. Give the salad only one or two folds to distribute the eggs, then serve. Offer cracked black pepper.


We then made the Roasted Veal Shank Stinco from Angelini. They call it Stinco, I always wondered why, guess I could have asked, but through the magic of the internet I found that Stinco is Italian for shin.

I purchased the Shanks from Guss Meats. As it happens he provides the Shanks to both Campanile and Angelini. They were huge! It could have served 6. In fact, it will serve 3 meals for 2. The house smelled great as they roasted away in the stove.

With them we served a Roasted Beet Farrotto from The Babbo Cookbook by Mario Batali. It was a wonderful side dish to serve with the veal.

ROASTED BEET FARROTTO
Adapted from ''The Babbo Cookbook''
by Mario Batali (Clarkson Potter, 2002)
Time: 1 hour 20 minutes
1 bunch beets, about a pound, scrubbed
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 1/2 cups farro, rinsed and drained
2 tablespoons pomegranate molasses or saba, unfermented boiled-down grape must (sold in specialty food shops)
1/2 cup brown chicken stock or half chicken, half beef stock
Parmigiano-reggiano, for grating.
1. Heat oven to 400 degrees. Trim tops off beets, drizzle with oil, and season with salt and pepper. Wrap in heavy-duty aluminum foil and roast until tender, about 45 minutes. Cool.
2. Bring 3 quarts of salted water to a boil. Add farro and cook until just tender, about 20 minutes.
3. While farro cooks, peel beets, cut in two and slice in half-moons 1/4-inch thick. Place in a bowl and toss with pomegranate molasses or saba.
4. Drain farro, and place in a skillet with stock. Add sliced beets, and toss over high heat until most of the stock is absorbed and farro is tender, about 5 minutes. Season to taste with salt and pepper and serve, topped with grated cheese.
Yield: 4 to 6 first-course servings.

Tangine

Wine (by Bea):
Kosta Browne 2005 Pinot Noir Rose
Thorn Clarke Shotfire Ridge 2003 Barossa Shiraz

We munched on cheese and salumi with the Rose before dinner.

We started with a very unusual salad from the Los Angles Times. It was a Warm Salad with Pancetta and Eggs.


January 17, 2007

Servings: 4

Note: This is adapted from Cesare Casella, chef-owner of Maremma in New York. Good-quality pancetta is available at the Cheese Store of Beverly Hills and Cube in Los Angeles. Use the best salad greens you can find, such as from farmers markets.

1 1/2 teaspoons red wine vinegar

1 1/2 teaspoons balsamic vinegar

1 1/2 teaspoons red wine

3/8 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

4 tablespoons good-quality olive oil, divided

3 1/2 ounces Italian pancetta, sliced 1/2-inch thick and cut into 1/4-inch-by- 1/2-inch strips

1 tablespoon mixed fresh herbs (any combination of rosemary, thyme, basil, savory, chives, oregano and mint)

6 large eggs

Salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste

4 cups washed, mixed salad greens, torn into bite-size pieces

1. For the dressing, whisk together the red wine vinegar, balsamic vinegar and red wine in a small bowl with the salt and pepper. Whisk in 2 tablespoons of olive oil and set aside.

2. Place the remaining olive oil and pancetta in a large frying pan and cook over medium heat until the pancetta is transparent, about 5 to 7 minutes. Add the herbs.

3. Beat the eggs with a pinch of salt and pepper to taste and pour them into the pan. Cook, stirring, until they form large, soft curds. If you see they are drying, take them off the heat and continue stirring.

4. Place the greens in a large shallow bowl and dress with just enough of the dressing to coat the leaves very lightly. Add the egg mixture and toss until well distributed. Serve immediately.

We then served the Lamb Tangine. It is a great dish to serve with couscous. The recipe is a for Lamb Tangine Steamed with preserved lemons and cumin. It is from the Casa Moro Cookbook. We actually put it in the oven at 1pm and served it at 8pm after 7 hours of cooking. The whole house had the aroma of the tangine. It was a wonderful winter dish.

For desert we served German Chocolate Cake.

The Joy of Thinking You Will Win, The Agony of Defeat

Whining with Wine!

Salads, Roast Chicken with Preserved Lemons and Potatoes

Wine:
Tobiano Sauvignon blanc 2005
Domaine des Grecaux Terra Solis – Montpeyroux 2004

We started with a great salad. It is called: Coleman farm’s Treviso with gorgonzola, walnuts, and saba from Sunday Suppers at Lucques. We used Radicchio because it is less bitter and added some sliced apples.

This is a fabulous recipe from the New York Times.





Roast Chicken with Preserved Lemons
Adapted from Laurent Tourondel
Time: 1 hour 45 minutes

1 6 1/2- to 7-pound chicken
6 ounces (1 1/2 sticks) soft butter
2 tablespoons chopped fresh rosemary
3 tablespoons finely diced onions, plus 2 large onions, sliced
1/4 cup finely diced preserved lemons (available at Middle Eastern markets and specialty food stores)
1/2 cup fresh bread crumbs
Salt and pepper
3 pounds unpeeled fingerling potatoes, cut in two lengthwise
8 large garlic cloves, peeled and halved
1/4 cup olive oil.

1. Heat oven to 375 degrees. Using a cleaver, chop wings from chicken at joint closest to breast; reserve.
2. In a medium mixing bowl, combine butter, one tablespoon rosemary, diced onions, lemons and bread crumbs to form a thick paste. Using your fingers, separate skin from breast of chicken, and slather mixture under skin about 1/2 inch thick. Sprinkle skin liberally with salt.
3. Place wings in a roasting pan, and place chicken on top. In a large mixing bowl, combine remaining rosemary, the potatoes, garlic, sliced onions, olive oil, and salt and pepper to taste. Toss to mix well and add to pan around chicken. Roast, occasionally basting chicken and tossing potatoes, until juices run clear when chicken is pierced with a knife at joint of leg, about 1 1/2 hours. Carve and serve each portion with some seasoned skin and potatoes and onions.

When we served the left-overs we made a Frisee Salad from The Nancy Silverton Sandwich Cookbook. It was very good.

Smoked Trout Salad, Veal Pasta, Baked Apples

Wine: 1999 Cellius

We made a Salad with Smoked Trout, we made a Sour Cream based dressing with Brauerei Noble Sour P.X. and hazelnuts.

We made the Veal Pasta from the: Patricia Wells Bistro Cookbook. This is one of my favorite flavorful pastas. We make it every winter. We always make more than we can eat and we enjoy having it for several days. It is very rich, and Cathy cooks the veal from cut-up veal shanks. The marrow makes it even richer.

For desert we made the Baked Apples – from the Sunday Supper at Lucques Cookbook. Wow what a winter treat! It is an easy to make recipe.

Roasted Apples with Calvados and Cinnamon Ice Cream

Pre-heat oven to 425

1 vanilla bean
6 baking apples such as pink lady or macintosh
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons brown sugar
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
¼ teaspoon grated nutmeg
2 tablespoons Calvados
¼ teaspoon kosher salt
Ice Cream

1. Slice the bean lengthwise and add pulp and seeds to butter
2. Add the pod to small pan and cook butter and pod for 6 to 8 minutes over medium heat
3. Remove from heat and discard pod
4. Cut the apples in ½ through the core, remove core end with paring knife
5. Toss the apples into large mixing bowl with sugars, brown butter, cinnamon, nutmeg, calvados, and salt – mix well
6. Arrange the apples cut side up in a roasting pan
7. Top the apples with remaining mixture from mixing bowl
8. Bake about 40 minutes, basting them with pan juices every 10 minutes, until the flesh pulls away skin and the apples are tender and carmalized.
9. Serve topped with ice cream

Shrimp, Pork, Lots of Wine and Mahjong

Wine:

Debich Debit 03 North Dalmatia
Elizabeth Spencer Special Cuvee Pinot Noir Sonoma Coast 2005
Cambria 2002 Pinot Noir Clone 115
Renard 2005 California Syrah
Jorge Ordonez Malaga 2004 (desert wine)

This was the least Kosher meal of the year, so far. Shrimp, Bacon, Pork and Milk. Oye! It was really wonderful.

We invited Billy and Kevin over for dinner and more Mahjong. We started with wine and pate. We served D’Artagnan Mousketeer Pate. We had purchased Mustard from The Cheese Store of Silver Lake. They have a special mustard that you have to ask for. It is excellent. The mustard is from Provence and is very strong. We love it. From Surfas we had bought Smoked Trout and Truffle butter. along with the D'Artagan Pate. We served cornichone pickles with the pate. I had stopped at La Brea Bakery and purchased some pastries. In addition, we picked up some Navat Spanish Goat Cheese that we served with the pate.

For our first course we served the Potato Leek Soup we had made for New Years. We went to Whole Food and purchased some fresh Pink Large Shrimp. We boiled the shrimp, shelled and de-veined them. We then cut them into ½ inch pieces. We cooked bacon to add to the soup. We added the shrimp and bacon to the soup, just before serving.

With the soup we served the Cheese Rolls from The Bread Bar. These rolls are exceptional! We really like them, especially when heated. We first had them at Hatfield's.

We served the Pork and Polenta Casserole as the main course. We really liked it. The intense truffle butter aroma filled the room!

We then went to play Mahjong. In the middle of the game we served German Chocolate Cake and the Malaga desert wine we had purchased at Silver Lake Wine. At 1:30am Cathy declared it was time to go to bed! I was surprised how quickly the time had past. Maybe the 5 bottles of wine made the time go faster!

Leftovers and More

French Onion Soup

For a first course, since it was winter and getting cool (at least by LA standards), we made French Onion Soup. We always use Julia Child’s recipe. It is very rich with lots of beef broth and cheese. We usually grate the Gruyere Cheese over toast in the soup then broil the cheese. We decided to perform an experiment and grated the cheese on one of the bowls of soup. For the other bowl we thinly sliced the cheese and put it on the soup. What we discovered was that it made no difference once the cheese melted. So, since it is easier to slice then grate, we will slice the cheese in the future.

Lobster Pasta

We wanted to use the leftover Lobster from New Years. We had this incredibly rich lobster butter that we had used to poach the lobster. We had saved the butter and knew we would be re-using it. We made pasta and then melted the butter, and added the lobster. It was very rich and wonderful.

Smoked Salmon Spread

We had smoked salmon and made a salmon spread that we have always liked.
We first found it in the Los Angeles Times. It is very easy to make.

Salmon Spread

8 oz smoked salmon cut up
2 tbl chopped onion
1 tsp chopped drained capers
2 tbl sour cream
1 tsp lemon juice or to taste

Mix and serve on crackers or toast points


Pork Braised in Milk and Polenta

This was one more dinner we made in the post holiday vacation. This is one of our all-time favorites. It was one of the first dishes that we jointly made, years ago. It sounds weird to braise pork in milk, but is an excellent preparation. The milk eventually boils off, creating a dark thick sauce as it combines with the pork drippings during cooking. The recipe we use is from Marcella Hazan: The Classic Italian Cookbook. Matt Molina who used to cook at Campanile, and now is the executive chief at Mozza, served it once and made an addition that we have incorporated. He added sautéed onions, garlic, lemon peel and sage to the recipe. It was a good addition to the recipe.

1. 2 tablespoons butter
2. 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
3. 2 pounds boneless pork loin, with some fat on it
4. 1 teaspoon salt
5. freshly group pepper
6. 2 ½ cups milk
7. 2 chopped onions sauted with chopped garlic and sage leaves and lemon peel

Use a casserole pan slightly larger then the pork. Heat the butter and oil and brown onions 1 or 2 chopped garlic cloves some fresh sage leaves and lemon peel. When golden remove from pan.

Add the pork and on a medium high heat braise on all sides till brown. Reduce the heat and slowly add the milk and salt and pepper. Bring to boil then reduce heat to medium and cover with lid slightly open. Cook 1 ½ to 2 hours turning the meat every 30 minutes. By the time the meat is cooked, the milk should have evaporated, leaving a brown nutty sauce. Remove the pork and add the onion and garlic to the sauce in the pan and heat.

Let the meat slightly cool, slice and serve with sauce.

We made polenta to serve as a side with the pork. For this version of polenta we had purchased truffle butter and added it to the polenta. It was unbelievably fragrant. It made the polenta very special.

We took the leftover and make a casserole with it. Take a large ceramic dish, butter and then layer with polenta, sliced pork, the sauce, more polenta. When ready to serve top with grated parmesan and bake at 350 till sizzling.

New Years 2007

Our neighbors collectively decided we would hold a progressive - dinner one course at each house. We started at Shelley and Dave’s house. They served great cured salmon, tuna tartar, scallops and Shrimp. Lots of Champagne, wine and pomegranate martini’s.

We then trouped down in the dark (for some reason the street lights didn’t work) so it made it fun to walk in the dark from house to house.

At our house we made a potato leek soup that had lobster and caviar. We had to butter poach the raw lobster and I had never removed a lobster from its tail when it was uncooked. I learned. Bea was dragging a suitcase on wheels (our official wine cart) filled with all kinds of wine and we served our bubbly Domaine J. Lauens Brut then the wine Bea brought - le secret ivre. Our other neighbor Bea phoned to say although she couldn’t join us, she had cooked some sides to eat with our main course.

We all poured out of the house and walked down to Bea’s to pick up her contributions and drop off some soup. Bea had a cold and couldn’t join. She had cooked a potato kugel and a luxion kugel (Noodle based). We then walked up to Les and Linda’s for the main course - dragging Bea’s wine behind. Their daughter had a party and about 50 folks were dancing and partying – one part of the house had been reserved for us, so they effectively had two parties going on in the same house at the same time - we were in “The not a party zone” area.

The shiksa can cook! Linda made her famous brisket. She gives credit to Les’s mom for the recipe. It was excellent as usual. We served Bea’s two sides and a vegetable casserole that Mike made. We drank two more bottles of wine that Bea brought. (There are two different Bea’s in this story – if you are confused).

We then walked out through the party of young dancers and walked next door to Terry and Mike’s for desert. Mike had baked a pecan pie that was great. We had tea and more champagne. Mike heard all kinds of noise outside so he checked and realized it was New Year’s. We had missed the actual countdown, but that probably due to the fact we were having a good time! The party eventually ended and we walked Bea home and returned to our house deciding to leave the dishes for another day!

It was a great way to spend New Year’s Eve! We will see what 2007 brings!














For a short clip of our dinner, click below turn your speakers on.