Easter Feaster! A last minute pantry pairing day.

Apr 14, 2020

Planning a last minute Easter Dinner

So I’ve been planning pairings recently and on Easter Morning realized that I had not even thought of an Easter pairing. So…I dove in on a last minute pantry pairing. Immediately I thought of gnocchi and got a craving. The sage in the backyard was in bloom and I visualized some Trader Joe’s sweet potato gnocchi with fresh sage and sage blossoms. Easy delicious and beautiful!

Change of plans

Sadly, when I went to the freezer, I found there was none there. (I thought for sure I had unpacked that from the stuff Michael picked up a week or so ago). So I asked Michael, who confirmed he had not picked that up and he suggested I make some homemade gnocchi. Hmmm…so he found a recipe and huzzah! We had all the ingredients.

You can’t eat just gnocchi

Well, now I was going to be really cooking, so we should probably have a protein, right? We have steak and fish and chicken in the freezer. Steak…red meat is not pastel and wouldn’t do for today. Fish? Not feelin’ it. Chicken? Okay, except I suck at cooking chicken. I have a tendency to dry it out or under cook it. But…I do have a sous vide cooker. Maybe I could find a recipe to sous vide the chicken.

Coincidences and kismet

So I set out to the internet and searched for a sous vide chicken recipe and since I wanted it to be pretty, I searched via images. One image caught my eye and I popped it open. The author was PlatingsandPairings.com! We met Erin of Platings and Pairings, last October at the Wine Media Conference in Australia. She has a stunning site and her photos are both magazine and drool worthy. Her Sous Vide Chicken Breasts Recipe gives you the basics as well as lots of flavor options.

Ingredients for our Sous Vide Chicken Breasts

Our Sous Vide Cooker set to 145 degrees — Ingredients for our Sous Vide Chicken Breasts

As we had traveled with Erin and her husband on a post conference tour through Orange Australia, I chose to season my chicken with orange slices and rosemary with a bit of salt and pepper. We had a great time in Orange and you can look forward to plenty of videos and posts on our trip there coming up!

There ought to be a salad

Lastly I had zucchini in the fridge and I determined I could make a beautiful decorative and delicious side salad with zucchini ribbons.

We did the dishes separately, starting with the gnocchi and then later the chicken and zucchini salad.

Making gnocchi

The gnocchi really is not difficult, it’s just a bit time consuming. The important thing is dealing with the potatoes to get the starch right.

Get the potatoes right!

Scrub the potatoes, and put them in a pot of cold water. No peeling, no cutting, no poking. Bring it to a boil and boil 35 to 45 minutes (depending on the size of your potatoes) until you can easily stick a knife into them. Then let them cool just enough to handle them. Peel them. The jackets will slide off easily now. Then if you have a ricer, get it out and rice them! If not mash them with a fork or potato masher. I love any opportunity to use my Grandmother’s ricer.

Ricing potatoes for gnocchi
Potato, flour, salt and a egg for gnocchi
Cutting up Gnocchi
Gnocchi ready to cook after being rolled on a fork
Butter, sage, and cheese for the sauce for our gnocchi.

Add the other ingredients and roll it out

Now let the potato cool. Once it is fairly cool, you add 1 ¼ cup of flour and 2 tsp of salt. Just pour or sprinkle it on top. Make a well in the center and crack your egg into it. Then mix it all up with a wooden spoon (some people use their hands…go for it if you are feelin’ it!).

Flour a surface and knead the dough on it for 2 minutes. Then cut the ball into 4 pieces. You will roll out each piece to about 24 inches long and ideally ½ wide (it’s tough…mine were bigger and I’m okay with that). Roll out from center. Then chop them into ½ inch pieces (again…mine were probably a little bigger).

Then you can use the back of a fork to roll them on, creating great little indentations for your sauce to stick to when they are done. Stick them on a cookie sheet and dust them with flour.

Cook the gnocchi and make the sauce right in the bowl

Cook them in hot salty water in batches. All at once and you will end up with them sticking together.

I had a big bowl waiting for them with ¼ cup of butter chopped into little pieces, fresh sage leaves and ¼ to ½ cup of shredded cheese (I used parmesan and asiago). As the gnocchi float to the top of the pot, scoop them out with a slotted spoon and stick them on top of the butter, sage and cheese. When they are all complete, add a ladle full of the water from the pot to the gnocchi mixture and stir until the cheese and butter make a delicious sauce.

Plating – Make it pretty!

I was determined to make a pretty plating, so we used some fancy bowls and garnished with salt, pepper, fresh parmesan, sage leaves and the beautiful (and edible) sage blossoms. The pastel colors were beautiful and I loved the purple, which was a celebration of my friend Emily’s birthday (her favorite color is purple and it was her birthday!).

Pantry pairing with Gnocchi in butter, sage and pamesan sauce — Gnocchi in butter, sage and parmesan sauce

On to the chicken!

So the chicken was sous vide according to Erin’s recipe and it was waiting now to be seared and served. But I was determined to have a pretty plating today, so I started with a zucchini salad. I made ribbons of zucchini, and soaked them in olive oil, orange juice, salt, pepper and a little dried orange zest. Then I rolled some and twisted some and added some strips of orange zest and a little arugula. Then I seared the chicken and topped it with some seared orange slices. Et viola!

Seared Sous Vide Chicken with zucchini salad and a 2018 Larner Viognier.

Pairing 2018 Larner Viognier

I picked the pairing to go with the chicken originally. A Chardonnay would have done the trick there, but the Viognier was likely to pair well with the gnocchi also.

Michael pulled out a bottle of 2018 Estate grown Viognier from Larner Vineyard and Winery in Santa Barbara’s Ballard Canyon. They are a favorite of ours and you can read so much more about this winery and see some great video interviews we have done with Michael Larner here on our site.

Larner Vineyards Ballard Canyon Santa Barbara County Bird netting

Syrah Grapes on vines, Larner Vineyard, Ballard canyon

It’s a big wine at 14.5% abv, but the weight and texture paired perfectly with the food. It was lovely with the herbs and pulled out the orange notes. It has great acid to balance the heavier notes of the gnocchi and the fat in the chicken dish. They only made 45 cases of this wine, so it will go fast and it’s a bargain as $30.00 SRP.

So all in all I was pretty pleased with our dishes and our pairing. It was a lovely day that revolved around the kitchen. Cooking can be such a comfort. Even unexpected cooking from the pantry.

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Robin Renken CSW (photo credit RuBen Permel)

Robin Renken is a wine writer and Certified Specialist of Wine. She and her husband Michael travel to wine regions interviewing vineyard owners and winemakers and learning the stories behind the glass.

When not traveling they indulge in cooking and pairing wines with food at home in Las Vegas.

Nesting and pairing – polenta with red pepper and eggplant with a Rhône Style blend

Mar 12, 2020

Many of us, find ourselves staying in more these days. As I write this, Broadway has announced that all theatres over 500 seats will go dark through April. I sit in Vegas, a member of the entertainment industry, waiting to see what will happen here. I have friends in Washington, who are staying at home. It’s an angsty time. We are all a little nervous. Many will be nesting out of necessity, not choice. I feel lucky to know that if I am stuck at home, I have a cellar to allow me to travel. If you find you must stay at home. Take the time for a bit of self care. This recipe and pairing is just an example. I look forward to hearing what amazing creations you pull out of your cupboard.

Staying in and traveling through a bottle of wine

Last week, I didn’t want to got to the grocery store. I was willing to cook, just not to drive.

So, what to pair?

What’s in the cupboard?

In the fridge I found a 1/4 of an onion, a red pepper, an eggplant, some olives and capers and a lemon. In the pantry a canned of diced tomatoes, garlic and polenta and in the back yard my rosemary and sage were taking off!

Polenta, eggplant, red pepper, lemon, garlic, onion — Ingredients on hand

Fresh herbs sage and rosemary — Ingredients on hand

Roasting vegetables

I diced the eggplant, onion and red pepper. Then I tossed in a couple of cloves of garlic, some fresh sage and rosemary. This all was doused with olive oil and sprinkle of salt and pepper. I lined a baking dish with parchment (for ease of clean up) and tossed the mixture in. The oven went to 450 degrees (on convection roast mode) and in it went for 45 minutes.

Chopped onion, pepper, eggplant and garlic with rosemary and sage

A couple minutes later it occurred to me that roasted lemon would play nicely in this so I sliced some lemon tossed it in.

Making polenta

While that roasted away, I whipped up the polenta. It takes about 30 minutes by the instructions on the bag of Bob’s Red Mill polenta. I kept long sleeves on and used oven mitts for stirring, cause it will bubble and pop and can really burn you, so stay safe. After 30 minutes I added some butter and then poured it into a pyramid shaped glass bowl that I had to mold it.

The roasted veggies came out of the oven and I added the can of diced tomatoes drained.

Finishing the dish

Polenta with roasted eggplant, garlic, lemon, red pepper with tomatoes, olives & capers — Polenta with roasted vegetables

After 10 minutes, the polenta was set (I threw it in the fridge to set faster). I sliced the polenta, and pan fried it in butter and olive oil to make it a little crispy. I found a pretty plate to put it on, and topped with my roasted vegetables. This was garnished with black olives and capers and some more fresh herbs.

Larner 2017 Elemental

I had pulled out a bottle of Larner Vineyards and winery 2017 Elemental. This wine from Santa Barbara’s Ballard Canyon AVA is 65% Grenache, 19% Syrah and 16% Mourvèdre. It is aged 22 months in neutral french oak.

This wine had a beautiful acidity that was really wonderful with this dish!

So, take an opportunity to nest. To curl up with a bottle and do some virtual travel. Dig through the cupboard. You might be surprised at the amazing things you can make.

For more information on the Larner Vineyard and Winery

Larner Vineyard & Winery (our page with lots of details on this vineyard and winery)
Larner Wine (their site)

As always be sure to follow us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter to keep up to date on all of our posts.

When not traveling they indulge in cooking and pairing wines with food at home in Las Vegas.

On the 11th Day – A Ballard Canyon Syrah from Larner & Beef Stew

Dec 23, 2018

We’ve come to the 11th Day in our 12 Days of Wine and we pulled a beautiful bottle of Ballard Canyon Syrah out from Larner Vineyard & Winery.

2013 Larner Estate Syrah – Reserve

Larner Ballard Canyon Syrah — Larner 2013 Ballard Canyon Syrah Reserve

Our finest Syrah from the 2013 vintage has a vivid bouquet of violets, cassis, blueberries, pepper, vanilla and espresso. The intense, full palate has a layered texture of chalky tannins followed by a smooth finish. Fermented with 20% whole cluster, 4% Viognier and aged 36 months in 30% new French oak barrels.
Larnerwine.com

So this is a big Syrah. This is not just their Estate Syrah, but a bottling of the best of the lots of the Estate Syrah from 2013.

Ballard Canyon AVA

11258267 848980338471603 1038551168 n — The view down @ballardcanyon from above @saarloosandsons Windmill Ranch Vineyard. #sbcwines

This AVA is in the Santa Barbara Region and is nested inside the Santa Ynez Valley AVA. At about the half way point of the East West Valley of Santa Barbara, the climate is perfect for Rhône Varieties and Syrah thrives here.

You can visit the AVA site and read about the climate and varieties here.

Larner Vineyard

We have been lucky enough to spend significant time with Michael Larner soaking up his amazing knowledge of the area and the soils. You can find all sorts of articles and interviews on our Larner Winery & Vineyard page.

What to Pair?

I reached out to Larner Vineyards and Jeni who runs the Tasting Room and Wine Club responded with a great pairing for winter. A Beef Stew made with the Syrah to pair with the Syrah!

Hi there Robin! Here is a recipe that we definitely recommend to go withour Reserve Syrah! Nice and hearty and pairs perfectly with the wonderfully balanced 2013 Syrah!
Jeni Torres Larner Wine Club Manager and Tasting Room Lead

Here is the beautiful recipe she shared with us.

Beef stew with mushrooms and polenta

3 pounds stewing beef, cut into 2-inch cubes
4 thick bacon slices, cut into 1-inch –wide strip. (I used unsalted bacon)
4 cups of beef broth
4 cups of 2011 Larner Syrah.
25 pearl onions
2 large cloves of garlic, minced
20 ounces of mushrooms, you can used brown button mushrooms, quartered, shitake cut in half,
cremini mushroom or if possible fresh porcini mushroom. I soaked the dry porcini mushrooms in the warm water and added this water to the stew.
1 medium onion, chopped
3 tablespoon of all-purpose flour
2 tablespoon on tomato paste
1 bunch of baby carrots, cut
2 bay leaves
3 springs of thyme
Salt. If you use the salted bacon don’t add salt,you can always do it at the table.
Some olive oil
3 cups of polenta

In the heavy pot cook bacon, until the bacon turns light brown and crisp. Remove the bacon from the pot and drain on paper towels. Keep the fat.

Dry the meat in the paper towel and cook it in the bacon fat until brown. Put the meat aside in the bowl. Add 1 cup of beef stock to the pot,increase the temperature and try to scrape all the brown bits from the bottom. Pour this liquid over the meat in the bowl.

Add 4 tablespoons of the olive oil to the clean pot and add chopped onion. Cook until golden.

Add garlic and cook until soft. Add all the mushrooms and cook until soften, about 2 minutes

Add 3 tablespoon of flower and cook for1 more minute stirring. Pour 2 cups of beef broth to the mixture, stir and add to the meat.

Return the beef and all the juices that have accumulated to the pot. Add 4 cups of red wine. I used Larner Syrah 2011.

Add 2 tablespoon of the tomato paste, herbs and bring the meat to the boil. Simmer for about 1 hour or until the meat is soft.

Boil some water in the pot, add small onions and cook for 10 minutes. Peel the onion. Clean the carrots and cook them until soft.

When the meat is ready add the bacon, onions and carrots to the pot. Remove the herbs.

If your beef stew is too thick add more beef broth.

In the medium pot bring 9 cups of water to the boil. Add polenta in the thin stream stirring all the time until polenta starts to separate from the side of the pot. Your polenta should be very soft and runny. You can also follow the instruction on the box.

Pour the polenta on the plates and cover it with beef stew. You can also sprinkle it with some chopped parsley. (Optional)

This was a delicious meal and was beautiful with the Syrah. As you can see I did not add the parsley, but I did add a pat of butter on top of the polenta before ladeling on the stew.

Want some?

Well I don’t know if there is any of the 2013 left but you can find their beautiful Syrahs as well as other Rhône style wines in single varieties as well as their Elemental Blend on their site.

They also have a tasting room in Los Olivos, next to the Los Olivos General Store where you can taste their wines.

Los Olivos General Store4992 — Los Olivos General Store

Larner Los Olivos Central Coast Wine Country — Los Olivos General Store

Larner Vineyard & Winery Tasting Room

2900 Grand Avenue
Los Olivos, CA 93441
T | (805) 688-8148

Want more? Click through to all of our 12 Days of Wine posts!

As always be sure to follow us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter to keep up to date on all of our posts.

A Trio of Syrahs from California’s Central Coast

Jan 25, 2018

I started out with a plan. It actually wasn’t Syrah. The plan was dinner and a Roussanne. We have spent a couple weeks doing research on Syrah and were almost complete. Our next varietal to focus on is Roussanne and we were going to start with that tonight. But…it got a little cloudy out and it was feeling a little cold and rather than the seafood companion to the Roussanne, we wanted something a little warmer and cozier.

I came across a post on my Twitter from Bonny Doon of two of their Syrah’s the 2013 Bien Nacido and the 2013 Le Pousseur. I was inspired and pretty sure I had a Le Pousseur in the cellar, so I did a little pairing research on the Bonny Doon site, and Randall Grahm their winemaker, suggests lamb chops with chimichurri. I don’t do lamb, (can’t eat baby animals) so I look a little further on the web for pairing advice and see sirloin as a pairing. Off we go to shop for dinner. We pick up a marinated sirloin with a chimichurri sauce! Upon arriving at home, I head down to grab the wine, only to find, well, to not find, the Le Pousseur. We must have already enjoyed that bottle! Luckily, we have a few other Syrahs (that’s kind of an understatement). So I debate between a 2013 Carhartt and a 2014 Larner Transverse. Both are from Santa Barbara County. Finally I decide that with a Tablas Creek 2014 Syrah already open, we might as well do a side by side with all 3.

Grilled sirloin & Syrah Tablas Creek 2014, Carhartt 2013 and Larner Transverse 2014

Grilled Sirloin with a chimichurri sauce, grilled eggplant and a salad to pair with our Trio of Syrahs.

The Syrahs

2014 Tablas Creek Syrah

The Tablas Creek Vineyard 2014 Syrah

At Tablas Creek in Paso Robles they have 4 clones of Syrah that were brought from France, from Chateau du Beaucastel. They planted these in 1994, so the vines are almost in their mid 20’s. The 2014 is the tenth bottling of this single varietal that they have done. This was fermented in open-top fermenters and was aged in a mix of smaller newer barrels (note that they are “newer” not “New”) and Neutral 1200- gallon foudres for 20 months. It is 100% Syrah and sits at 14.6% alcohol. If you are familiar with Rhône Syrahs, they say this wine is “more Cote Rotie than Cornas,”. Only 800 cases were produced. Visit https://tablascreek.com/ for all the details.

You will also find Vintage Charts (I love these) on their site, to let you know where their wines are at drinkability wise. Many of the Tablas Creek Wines are meant to age. They taste through their wines and update the vintage chart annually. The chart will let you know if the wine needs more aging, is drinking well but is youthful, is mature, is in a closed phase, if it’s time to drink it now, before it passes it’s prime or if you have waited too long. It will also tell you if they currently recommend decanting the wine.

2013 Carhartt Syrah

Carhartt 2013 Syrah.

This Syrah comes from Rancho Santa Ynez in the Santa Ynez Valley of Santa Barbara County. Carhartt prints all the good geeky details right on the back label and I love them for that! This vineyard is just 10 acres and sits on a mesa in the Santa Ynez Valley. The wine is 100% Syrah from clones 470 & 174 on 1103p Rootstock and 877 & Estrella clones on 5c rootstock. It is grown on vertical trellis. It is sustainably farmed, and fermented in small lots with a cold soak, punch downs and pump overs & gently pressed. It spends 17 months in barrel (35% new french oak). It sits at 13.5% alcohol. This wine is unfined and unfiltered and only 435 cases were made.

To learn a little more about Carhartt head to their website http://carharttvineyard.com On the home page you will find a digital magazine, written by Chase Carhartt. He will tell you the history of this small family business, where they produce only 5000 cases of wine per year and are dedicated making quality wine and treating customers like family. Their tasting room in Los Olivos is only 99 square feet, making it the tiniest tasting room, but then there is the back patio, which is the best place to be a 5 pm in Los Olivos.

2014 Larner Transverse

Larner 2014 Transverse Syrah

Michael Larner has a background as a Geologist, so his labels and names for his wine stem from this background. Transverse is the name for his Syrah that is not an estate wine.

“Transverse: A geologic structure lying or extending across an area, in a cross direction to other distinguishing local features” From his blog post on this wine

This wine is a blend of Syrah from across Santa Barbara County. The grapes come from 4 estates spread across the area: Verna’s vineyard is on the east side of the Los Alamos Valley, Coquelicot vineyard sits in the southern part of the Santa Ynez AVA east of Solvang, Rodney’s vineyard is in the Northern part of the Santa Ynez Valley AVA on Foxen Canyon Road (at Fess Parker) and Star Lane vineyard is in the Eastern most part of the Santa Ynez Valley in the Happy Canyon AVA. So these vineyards span the area and all sit outside the Ballard Canyon AVA, where Larner Vineyard is located.

The grapes for this wine were harvested between October 1st and November 10th, 2014. It was aged for 14 months in 100% neutral french oak puncheons and then spent 4 months in bottle before it was released. It sits at 14.7% Alcohol.

“100% Syrah, 10% Whole Cluster. All vineyard lots were fermented individually, macerated for a total of 15 days, initiated fermentation using native yeast, later inoculated with BM 45 yeast and pumped over 1x per day plus punched down 3x per day. Peak Temp averaged 86˚F.”

All these details can be found on the Larner site at http://www.larnerwine.com/product/2014-Transverse