Good Wine, Good Food, Good Friends on Saturday night

Shrimp in Champagne Reduction with Green Rice and
Molten Chocolate Souffle

We were having close friends Joe and Melissa Blanchard for dinner on Saturday. Karen had been to Charleston and went to Magwood's Seafood in Mt Pleasant and brought home fresh shrimp so the main course was set.

Note:
If you want to buy only fresh caught shrimp then Magwood Seafood is the best around. Located on Shem Creek in Mt Pleasant, SC, the address is 100 Haddrell St. and the phone number is 843.884.3352.

Joe likes rice (it is one of the few things he can cook since all he has to do is boil water and stick a bag of rice in it). So rice was going to be the starch, but since I wasn't making a creole sauce I wanted to make sure I had a rice recipe that was rich and would not be dried out.

A dessert I haven't fixed in a while is a rich chocolate souffle that used to be a staple on the menu at Commander's Palace in New Orleans. It is not complicated to make but be warned......it is heart-stoppingly rich.

As I mentioned in my earlier post about shrimp, when I peel the shrimp I save the peels and use them to make shrimp stock. The stock can be used for a variety of purposes but  in this case, I use the stock to cook the rice:

Green Rice
Take four cups of shrimp stock and bring to a boil. Add two cups of basmati rice and two bay leaves then reduce to a simmer, cover and cook for around twenty minutes.
While the rice is cooking, melt a stick of butter (yes a whole stick...this is nothin.....wait until you get to the dessert!) in the sauce pan. With the butter add:
1/2 cup of green onion
1 can of artichoke hearts (canned in water not oil) drained and chopped coarsely
1/2 cup of diced green bell pepper
1 cup of diced celery
1/2 cup of chopped parsley
1 bag of baby leaf spinach, roughly chopped,stems removed and washed.

Simmer slowly until the spinach is cooked down. By this time the rice should be cooked.

In a casserole dish, combine the rice and sauteed vegetables, cover with tin foil and set aside.

Now let's prepare the dessert

Molten Chocolate Souffle

Soften 1 1/2 sticks of butter. Take two tablespoons and liberally grease six ramekins that hold six ounces.
Take the remaining butter and 1 pound of good quality semi-sweet chocolate, chopped; into to the top of a double boiler over simmering water to melt stirring periodically.
In a food processor, crack 8 eggs. Mix together the eggs and 1 1/2 cup of sugar until smooth. Add the blended butter and chocolate mixer to the food processor and blend with the egg/sugar mixer for three minutes. Add 1 1/2 cups of flour and blend for another three minutes. Pour the mixture into the six ramekins, place on a cookie sheet, cover with wax paper and set aside.

OK, let's get ready to cook the shrimp and eat.

Shrimp in Champagne Reduction

In a large saute pan, put 3 tablespoons of olive olive oil. Add 4 or 5 thin slices of fresh ginger. Heat the olive oil over a low fire and and gently "sweat" the ginger for 5 minutes or so to infuse the ginger into the olive oil. Add the shrimp and continue to saute over low heat until the shrimp  are barely pink. Be careful not to have too hot a fire or cook the shrimp too long or they will be tough.

Remove the shrimp and ginger from the oil, and add to the pan:
1/2 cup of chopped green onion
1/2 cup of chopped red bell pepper
1 tablespoon of mince shallots
2 tablespoons of chopped parsley

Saute until the vegetables are cooked, about 3 minutes. Add three cups of champagne. Increase the heat until the champagne is simmering briskly. Reduce the champagne to about 2 cups. Turn of the burner and add the shrimp to the pan. Then add two tablespoons of cold butter and stir in to incorporate into the liquid to make a sauce.


Remove the rice from the oven and put a serving of rice in the middle of the dinner plate and top with a serving of the shrimp and serve.




While eating the shrimp, place the baking sheet with the souffles in the oven at 350 degrees. Let them cook while eating the main course. Check after 30 minutes. When the souffles are puffed and a toothpick can be inserted and removed cleanly, remove from the oven.




 Carefully invert a ramekin over a desert plate and remove the souffle from the ramekin onto the plate. Sprinkle with powdered sugar and serve. The outside will be nicely baked and the inside should be a gooey, "molten" chocolate.




What am I pouring with this?




We started with a vintage 2003 rose' champagne from Pommery. That was my offerring.

Now Joe has an excellent cellar which includes a diverse selection of white wines. He selected three very different French whites: one from Alsace, one from the Northern Rhone Valley and one from Bordeaux.

The clear winner was the Laville Haut-Brion from Bordeaux. The Alsatian wine and the Condrieu from the Rhone were too sweet for the dish although excellent representatives of their Appelations.

Since most of us don't have access to these kinds of wine, I would suggest, as always, anything that doesn't over-power the food. That immediately rules out California Chardonnay which, as those of you who know me, know I consider the worst wine bottled. Look for a sauvignon blanc from France or South America. From South America,  look for the wines from the Mendoza region of Argentina. There is a Spanish white made from the Albarino grape which would also go nicely with the shrimp. The Spanish wines are reasonably priced and quite good.
The wines from Spain and Argentina aren't easy to fine but are worth looking for. If you are local, check with Bryan at the Gourmet Shop.

Cookies for the 4th

I don't bake.....well....not much. It's not really a guy thing but the main reason is I'm not very good at it. (Now ask me to make a porcini sauce with a Marsalla reduction for veal like I did last night and your on).

 I made french bread once that alternated from perfect to something with the consistency of rebar. I make cheese straws from time to time that are never as good as everybody else's.

But Karen has a few traditional items she bakes at holidays and these 4th of July cookies are one she and her buddy Bitsey have been doing for years

It takes a little time but it is worth it.:

Watermelon Cookies

2/3 cups butter softened(5 1/2 Tbsp)

2/3 cups shortening, softened

1/2 cup sugar

2 eggs

2 Tbsp milk

2 tsp vanilla

4 cups plain flour

3 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

Red paste food coloring

2/3 cup semi sweet mini morsels

3 cups powdered sugar

4 Tbsp water

Green paste food coloring

Beat butter and shortening in a large bowl until it is blended well. Gradually add sugar - mix well. Stir in eggs, milk and vanilla. Combine dry ingredients and slowly add to the other mixture. Add red paste and mix well. Put in a smaller bow, cover, chill well (at least three hour or overnight). On floured wax paper, roll out a portion of the dough to 1/4 thickness. Cut with round cookie cutter, then cut in half. Put on ungreased cookie sheet, put chocolate chips in the middle as "seeds". Bake at 375 for 8-10 minutes. Do not brown. Cool on a wire rack.

Combine green paste, water and powdered sugar. Dip rounded edge of cookie in this mixture and let dry on wax paper. Store with wax paper between layers. This will freeze well. (Makes approximately 110 cookies).





Cooking with Wine

I haven't met too many dishes that I prepare that I don't think are better after I add wine.
The question is, when the recipe says: "And add wine"......what kind of wine do you add? Is it OK to just grab whatever is open in the fridge?

If all else fails, follow the one golden rule: "If you wouldn't drink it.....don't cook with it".

Now assuming you don't keep wine around that you wouldn't drink, let's talk about which wines are better for cooking.

Domestic Chardonnay

Probably the one white wine most Americans drink and probably the worst wine to cook with. The intense oaky flavor of these wines rarely will add to the flavor of food. So even if you like drinking the stuff, I would not recommend cooking with it.

Pinot Grigio

Next to chardonnay, pinot grigio is the most popular white wine consumed in America. The wine is so light in taste that it doesn't hurt to cook with it but, in my opinion, it doesn't add anything either.

Savignon Blanc

This popular white is produced world-wide and has a pleasing citrusy taste. Non-oakie it does not change the taste of food like the domestic chards but does have a distinct taste unlike the pinot grigio. So of the "big three" I give the nod to savignon blanc with one major proviso: I wouldn't cook with the popular savignon blanc wines from New Zealand. They have a much stronger "grassy" taste then their cousins from France or from the U.S.

What about red wines?

Reds don't seem to have the same differing effect on food as do whites. But because of the strength of the taste, be careful as to how much you use.

What about other wines?

I suggest you try something different from whites or reds such as sherry, port and even champagne.  I have found champagne is a zippy alternative to white wines.....must be the bubbles. Try it and I think you will like it.

Port and sherry are fortified wines that have very rich flavors. They can both add a lot to food but can also overwhelm food. If you use sherry, use a medium bodied sherry like an Oloroso. Stay away from the sweet stuff.

Here are some suggestions for cooking with wine.

Try this with chicken:
Melt a tablespoon or so of butter in a sauce pan and add a package of chicken tenders. Cook over medium/high heat until browned and cooked through. Remove the chicken from the pan. Add a half of a thinly sliced onion and saute until starting to brown. The bottom of the pan should be dark brown from the chicken and the onions. Once the onions are browned, had a cup of white wine to the pan stirring and scraping up the brown bits from the bottom of the pan. Continue to cook until the wine is reduced by half. Remove the pan from the heat and stir in one tablespoon of cold butter. This will thicken the sauce and give it a velvety texture. Spoon the sauce over the chicken and serve.

There are a number of variations to this basic sauce. Sometimes I will use champagne. Sometimes I'll add flour, make a roux, and add chicken broth and cook it down to make a rich gravy. Sometimes I'll use sherry. The Oloroso I mentioned earlier can give the sauce a pleasant nutty taste.

Oh yeah.....here is another idea. Brown some butter in a sauce pan (be careful not to burn it). In a separate pan poach a fillet of fish like flounder or tilapia in champagne (see my post about bubbles for non-champagne ideas). Spoon the butter over the fish and serve with lemon wedges and capers. It will eat.

What would I pour with that?

Any bold tasting white will overpower the fish. A white Bordeaux will go nicely or try one of the white Burgundies from Macon. They are inexpensive and no oak.