First of all I would like to extend a welcome to the blogspot community. Thank you for dabbling through my blog. In this blog you will find reviews, recipes, and recommendations that will shed a little light onto the daunting yet delectable world of food and wine. A combination of creative non-fiction and research, with a sprinkle of sass, will provide my point of view on pairings, both suggested and sought after, to harmonize the entire spectrum of food and wine.
***Disclaimer***
I do not claim to know everything. Being 22 years old, I have just begun my food and wine education. Through the help of websites, magazine articles, books, and sommeliers, I hope to share my findings and epiphanies. I will always be open to both criticism and correction.
So without further ado, lets talk about our first duo.
Yesterday morning, I pondered the evening’s meal over french toast and bacon. My boyfriend, Michael, suggested soup, seeing as yesterday was the first morning where there was that almost audible chill of fall whipping off the Lake Michigan. Perfect weather for a down home, classic meal. One hour, one trip to the grocery store, and one crock pot later, we had decided on pot roast, instead of soup (primarily because we found a roast on sale at the grocery store).
If you have never made a roast before the recipe is quite simple, especially if you have a crock pot.
Ingredients:
1 roast
16 sm. red skinned potatoes
1 bag of baby carrots,
1 onion chopped
1 1/2 cups of mushrooms
1 lipton onion soup mix
2 cups of water
Directions:
In the crock pot, pour in 2 cups of water. Next, layer potatoes, roast, onion soup mix, onion, and carrots, in that order. The soup mix should almost be a rub for the roast. Cook on low for 7-8 hours. Add mushrooms after 4-5 hours.
Seriously, that’s it. So for those of you who “don’t know how to cook”, I know we all know someone, this recipe is for you. Or if you are like some of my friends who choose not to have the gas in their apartment turned on, because they don’t want to pay a gas bill when they only use the stove maybe 1 a month, invest in a crock pot, so you have something to serve, when say, your parents come to visit.
Six hours or so went by and the smell of cooking carrots, onions, and braising beef, sparked a salivation from mouth to stomach, but dinner was still a few hours away. To pass the time I went to the liquor store to find a bottle of wine that would pair with our pot of pot roast.
Now your local grocery store will probably have a pretty good selection of wine, ranging in price, for you to choose from. But if you are like me, just beginning to learn about the intricacies of wine, and feel like a crawfish in a sea of lobsters, maybe a wine or liquor store is the place for you. That way, if you do get lost in the range of rieslings or the multitude of merlots, you can actually talk to someone well versed in wine. *hopefully*
Last night I went to Uncork It, on the corner of Illinois St. and McClurg Ct (across from the AMC River North), where they offer an exponentially greater selection of wines and beers than Dominick's down the street. Now, a book I have been enjoying, He said Beer. She said Wine. by Sam Calagione and Marnie Old, suggested pairing pot roast with a Pio Cesare Barolo, from Barolo Italy, because of its high acidity, alcohol content, and tannic quality, which would tame the rich braised flavor of the pot roast. But this gem costs $53.99 in the stores, which with Chicago’s new liquor tax, would be close to $60, and I was not looking to spend that much on bottle to pair with our “on sale” roast.
So I began to meander, an aimless type of meandering, until I stumbled upon a man dressed in a maroon apron, with a mustache that screamed “I’m knowledgeable”. When I found him he was helping an older lady pick out a riesling, I listened in and he seemed to have a pleasant tone in his voice, as he was describing the range of rieslings they offered. After he finished, I approached the man, who grew surprisingly taller the closer I got, and described my dilemma. While I should not have assumed anything, I was expecting the man to treat me the same way he did the lady, but instead I learned a valuable lesson. For a 22 year old to ask about a specific wine, using phrases like “high tannin”, and “full bodied”, the response is, sometimes, going to be met with hostility. For we live in America, and there are pre-conceptions we all carry with us, one being, that a early 20’s male cares more about getting drunk than the actual quality of the alcohol. Now, I know many early 20-somethings that this holds true for, but that does not mean I am one of them. If this, and I am sure it will, happens again, I will take it in stride, knowing that soon I will have the knowledge to talk even the finest intricacies with these wanna-be sommeliers.
Putting my offense aside, the man pointed me to the aisle I had originally found the Pio Cesare in. Next to this wine was a Nebbiolo D’Alba from La morra Italy. Which, if you look at the map, Barolo, Italy is in the same region as La Morra, and as I found out when I got home, Nebbiolo is the same grape that makes Barolo wine. The tall Colonel Mustard looking man, told me that the two wines would have a very similar flavor profile, the only difference, about 30 dollars in price. So in the end, I got what I wanted, but had to put up with some prejudice getting it. Will I go back to Uncork it? Probably, but each time I am sure I will have more knowledge than the last.
As I passed through the front door of my apartment, the roast greeted me like a dog happy to see his master. I un-corked the wine, let it breathe, plated the pot roast, tender enough to be eaten with a fork, and sat across the table form my boyfriend, our faces cast in amber light.
The pairing was everything I was hoping it would be. The Nebbiolo D’Alba had notes of black cherry and oak, which struck the nose more and more as the wine settled. Exemplified through the translucent maroon color, there was evidence of a longer skin-juice contact. Each swirl coated the bowl of the wine glass, showcasing the wine’s full body. Upon my first tasting, I was caught off guard by the high level of tannin in the wine, but pairing with my first bite, the tannin was able to cut through the fattiness of the roast, and provide complexity to the potatoes and carrots. Seized by the wine’s high acidity, the salty flavors from the onion soup mix “au jus” left the palate cleansed for each new bite. As the meal progressed neither the wine or the meat seemed to loose flavor, each bite was as new and exciting as the first.
By the end of our meal, we were both stuffed, and a little tipsy, having polished off the bottle. As we washed the dishes, and refrigerated the left-overs, the city seemed to glow from our 23rd floor view. Was it the Signature Room of the Hancock Building? Probably not, but sometimes a quiet evening in, shared with someone you love, is better than all that glitz anyways.
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