PAIRING WINE WITH MEXICAN FOOD

Pairing wine with certain kinds of food can be a difficult matter for some diners.  There are certain cuisines which, for my palate, are generally better suited for beer than wine.  Indian food calls for a light lager; for Mexican food, give me a Negro Modelo.  

Wine Enthusiast ran a brief interview with Chef Gerardo Vázquez Lugo in which he spoke about pairing wine with Mexican food.

Lugo's Restaurante Nicos in Mexico City features an all-Mexican wine list, with the exception of one French wine - and that one is produced by a Mexican winemaker.

The magazine calls his efforts nothing short of heroic in a nation where even the locals look askance at Mexican wines.

Lugo says he doesn't think the pairing process for wine and Mexican food is too different from other cuisines.  He likes a barrel-aged Chardonnay with cheese and cream, Syrah with dried chili sauces and Barbera with mushroom quesadillas.  He does admit, though, that pairing wine with Mexican food is still rather a novelty, due to the tradition of pairing that country's food with beer.

One of Chef Lugo's favorite pairings is a mole Poblano or Oaxacan black mole with sparkling wine.  He says the Ensenada favorite, Lobster Puerto Nuevo - in which the crustacean is fried - is perfect for Chardonnay.

As far as tequila goes - the chef likes it before or after, not with, a meal.

Lugo is a fan of Mexican artisanal beers, but he feels the custom of drinking beer with Mexican food is more a matter of price and marketing efforts than preferential choice.

GARNACHA LAS ROCAS VINAS VIEJAS 2007

The Santa Monica restaurant called The Lobster is one of my favorite places for lunch in Southern California.  The view looking out into the Pacific Ocean and over the Santa Monica Pier are reason enough, but the food's pretty good, too - and that's the understatement of the year.

I never seem to order lobster at its namesake eatery, largely because Denise generally does the honors in the crustacean department and I am always awarded a choice morsel or two from her plate - as long as I've been a good boy.

It can be rather cool along the beach, too, unless it's the heat of summer.  Sometimes that cool ocean breeze puts me more in the mood for a red wine.  Then, I look for a meal more suited for that choice.

The wine that caught my eye this time was a Garnacha from the San Alejandro vineyard in Calatayud, in the province of Zaragoza, Aragon, Spain.  The Las Rocas Vinas Viejas is a rich ruby color with a big, jammy nose full of tar and black fruit.  It doesn't taste as brooding as it smells, with strident blackberry and cassis flavors.  It's $10 by the glass at The Lobster.

This wine paired perfectly with Tasmanian trout salmon in a Port reduction sauce on creamy polenta with browned Brussels sprouts.

For dessert, a little of Denise's lobster.

BUTTER AND WINE IS REALLY FINE

If you've ever had a wine butter compound at a restaurant - a mixture of butter and red wine - you know what a great tasting condiment this is, especially a dollop on top of a nice juicy steak.

I ran across a recipe for this concoction that you can easily make at home, from a fellow named Ben Carter, who goes by the name Benito on his Wine By Benito blog.

It sounds so easy even I could do it.  All you need is a half a cup of red wine and a stick of unsalted butter.

Boil the wine slowly until it's like a syrup.  Take care not to boil too long, or it will cake onto your pan.  Mash the wine syrup into the butter until it is mixed well.  It may take a little doing to accomplish this, and Benito advises an apron - like the one pictured - or some old clothes for this procedure.

When the butter is purple, put it on some wax paper and roll it into a log.  Put it in the fridge and let it cool for six hours before serving.

You can experiment by adding some garlic, chives or sage into the mixture.

Bon appetit!

WINE AND FOOD - ALONE AND TOGETHER

Wines And Vines reported on a study done by Wine Opinions which found that high-frequency wine drinkers prefer consuming their favorite beverage at places other than the dinner table.

The report states that only 41 percent of the wine consumed in America is paired with a meal.  59 percent of it is consumed without food, while preparing a meal or with snacks.  The amount of strictly solo wine drinking is 26 percent.

More figures are available in the report, which featured demographic and lifestyle breakdowns on wine consumption.

In what may come as a surprise to many, the stats showed that those high-frequency wine drinkers aren't all that concerned with food and wine pairings.  Also, white wine is the go-to "cocktail" wine for only 25 percent of the respondents.

The high-frequency wine consumers in this study are defined as people who drink wine daily or several times per week.  The daily wine drinkers accounted for 29 percent of the respondents, while 54 percent had a glass of wine several times weekly.

The biggest surprise of the report for me was that not even 30 percent of wine drinkers in America have a glass on a daily basis.

I have a glass of wine nightly, which has prompted some good-natured ribbing from my wife on occasion regarding what a "lush" I am.  I don't feel that a glass a night puts me in Foster Brooks territory, but then I suppose that might depend on the size of the glass.

COOKING WITH WINE

It's thought to be W.C. Fields who said, "I love cooking with wine.  Sometimes I even put it in the food."  It's not too clear how much cooking Mr. Fields ever did, but they say he really knew his way around a bottle of wine.

Cooking with wine is a great way to add flavor to a meal. You don't have to worry too much about the alcohol - cooking burns off a good bit of it - the longer you cook, the more it burns away - and leaves just the lovely aromas and flavors found in the wine.  The wine's flavor tends to become mellower the longer you cook it, too.

Don't cook with cheap wine, or cooking wines.  Use only a wine you would drink in your cooking.  You don't have to break open an expensive bottle you are saving for a special occasion, but remember that quality counts.  It is going into your meal, after all.

Wine is like any other spice when used in cooking.  Using the proper amount is just as important as with any other seasoning.  Use enough to make a difference, but don't overpower the food by using too much.  Cooking the wine makes the flavor concentrated, so pour with a steady hand.

You need to allow some time for the wine to do its work.  Don't taste right away after adding the wine. Wait at least a few minutes.

Red or white?  As the rule of thumb goes for serving wine with dinner, red is best with meat dishes, white with cream sauces, seafood or white meats.  But as you would when selecting a wine to drink, let your own palate be your guide.  And don't forget rosés.  They can be used with great success in pork and chicken dishes.

If you're cooking with less fat these days, wine is a nice addition because it will help bring more moisture to the food that is missing in the absence of the fat.

Leftover wine can be recorked, refrigerated and kept for future use, but not for more than a few weeks.  Of course, the best thing about cooking with wine is that you can always drink the remainder with dinner.

AMERICAN WINE AND FOOD FESTIVAL 2010 - BY DENISE FONDO

Since 1982, Wolfgang Puck (left) and Barbara Lazaroff have raised over $15 million dollars for Meals on Wheels Programs of Los Angeles.  The Puck-Lazaroff Charitable Foundation has raised millions primarily through the wildly popular American Wine and Food Festival.  Meals on Wheels Programs of Los Angeles is an extraordinary and vital service serving thousands of meals every day to homebound senior and disabled people.  Each year prestigious chefs and many businesses donate their time, talents, and wares to the festival.  Ticket prices are steep for the event but worth every dime for what people get in return, channeling money to a very worthy cause and enjoying a world class event.

This year’s American Wine and Food Festival is over but we can all continue to donate money and time to Meals on Wheels Programs of Los Angeles.  You’ll find plenty of useful information on their websites.  There are a number of Meals on Wheels programs in Greater Los Angeles including St. Vincent Meals on Wheels and Meals on Wheels of West Los Angeles.

I attended the Saturday evening (September 25th) Grand Tasting of the American Wine and Food Festival.  It was held on the Universal Studios Old Europe backlot.  As I pulled up to the festival, on one of the ubiquitous Universal Studios trams, the aroma of roasting meat was a very appropriate welcome to the evening.  Inside the festival, just to my right was Floyd Cardoz and his staff from Tabla, from New York City, grilling lobsters.  This was just the beginning of an evening of sensory satisfaction.

Everywhere I turned I saw chefs whose careers have been very important to the advancement of my own cooking skills.  I was, in all honesty, humbled.  It was such a pleasure to have the opportunity to speak with Chef Paul Prudhomme (left), the man responsible for bringing Cajun cuisine into the national and international spotlight.  He spoke to me about the struggles in New Orleans, a region still in recovery from Hurricane Katrina and now the Gulf oil disaster.  Chef Prudhomme urged me to come back to New Orleans and talked about how the food is as wonderful as it always has been.  He, like so many of his fellow New Orleans cooking brothers and sisters, are working so hard to breathe life back into the city.  He knows how to use his celebrity for good and found the time to come to Los Angeles to help out our own charities.

Everyone who participated deserves recognition for their contribution.  The food, wine, and other beverages served were all deserving of the $300 ticket price.  Not one table served up a sub-par meal. I talked to people who raved about the fried clams from Chef Jasper White and Chef Dean Fearing's fried quail.  The raw bar at the Bouchon table was very, very popular.  I was a little surprised that Nancy Silverton and Mozza decided to go with corn dogs and frozen bananas dipped in chocolate.  The more I thought about it, the more I understood the joke.  Yes, this was food more appropriate to the Los Angeles County Fair, but it struck a chord with people.  It was fun and the frozen bananas were a welcome treat on a sweltering evening. 

I think a lot of chefs made last minute changes to their menus based on the hot weather.  Chef Amar Santana from Charlie Palmer Bloomingdale’s South Coast Plaza served a cooling avocado gazpacho and a tequila and lychee juice cocktail, El Lychedor.  People loved both.  Both Chef Santana and Charlie Palmer worked the table.  Fiji Water was a big sponsor of this year's festival and Chef Santana used Fiji in the dishes he presented.  Please check out the complete list of chefs who were there at the festival website.  My one regret is that I didn't take the opportunity to speak Chef Jose Andres outside the Cosmopolitan (air conditioned!) cocktail lounge.

My favorite foods of the evening were the sandwich from The Hitching Post, featuring their very delicious house-made bacon and the pork belly sandwich from Slanted Door.  What was up with the location for Slanted Door?  Hidden away.  No line.  Is this San Francisco gem unknown to Los Angeles diners?  Chef Charles Phan playfully beckoned me to his table, where I was the only diner.  Buttery, tender pork belly.

Chef Wolfgang Puck was wearing a smile on his faceas he worked the crowd and talked with his friends from the culinaryworld.  It was great to watch everyone, including the chefs, (ThomasKeller lobbing beach balls!) having fun.  I know setting up and workingin the heat must have exhausted everyone before ticket holders even gotinto their cars to drive to the festival.

There was a very poignant end to the evening for me.  When I arrived at the tram pick-up, there was a huge line.  Hundreds of people were waiting for the tram to take them back to their cars.  The heat caused a number of the trams to suffer hydraulics failure.  So, in a small way, as we waited for the one working tram, we experienced what it feels like to be inconvenienced by a very brief lack of mobility.  However, unlike those who are housebound and dependent upon Meals on Wheels for daily sustenance, our inconvenience was temporary.

- See more of Denise Fondo's work at Truffles, Chestnuts, Cherries.  Follow her, tweeters:@DeniseFondo.