about Cynthia & cheese-onion pie

My ex-boyfriend’s mom Cynthia is really important to me. She is the first person outside of my family who i felt comfortable in the kitchen with. She noticed it too, she brought it up while inadvertently teaching me something else. That cuts and burns in the kitchen are a sign of a lack of attention, your carelessness ends up on your hands and arms. As a mother her intensity in the kitchen comes from wanting the people who eat her food to feel deeply cared for. I am often reminded of this emphasis on intentional gesture, at a different job I once ate a soup that had been aggressively oversalted. My coworker was mad a lot around that time and it made me think of his frustration, it tasted kind of angry. I asked (someone else) if he had made it. and yes he had. One's mind being preoccupied with something else, an intense feeling, worry about the future, necessarily takes away from the task at hand. Anyway, this is just to illustrate that Cynthia subscribed to the pretty common belief that food carries feelings and she wanted the food from her kitchen to be lavish in attention. also worth noting (to me) is that she was mostly vegan/vegetarian, sometimes a raw vegan but would cook anything for her kids and guests. Once we made an entire Easter dinner party centered around lamb based on a single article. It didn’t matter that she wasn’t going to eat the entree. I also learned to like red peppers that day, another lesson.

We got along really well, once we when we were talking she told me about how she always wanted to open a bakery but felt that the only creative expression available to her was to be a mom. It wasn’t in a regretful way, but we all have lives we could have lived. anyway i think about this a lot as I move through hospitality jobs, that I am trying to bring her lessons with me and share her creative spirit with the world even though she’s not doing it directly.

So here is a cheese onion pie recipe from her kitchen, it happens to be the first thing that I considered drinking food. I wanted to have a small bar at the time (hm) and I thought that a slice of this would be perfect with a small green salad and crisp beer. I still think that, it has been mentioned but cub and i often consider vegetarian drinking food. Drinking food as an idea, expressed in an entirely unsensual way is something fatty for the impact of alcohol on your stomach. I think I realized this both after reflecting upon certain dinner parties as well as choosing food for drinkers during the BASSET test. This quality is that which also makes it comfort food, especially encased in the pastry crust. One of the benefits of this being a blog for mostly chicagoans is that I can say it is rainy and the weather calls for this and you will know what I mean. I don’t drink as much beer as I used to and not as often with meals so I’d probably have a glass of wine instead. Since the cheese used is a little sharp, I would have a wine that is a bit softer that balances. Probably white wine like Blan 5.7 from Jordi Llorens, the ChMac Blanquet from Casa Pardet, or a gentler red wine if you prefer like On Verra la Mer from Les Cigales.

Cheese and onion pie from Mark Bittman, serves 4-6 but makes good leftovers

This recipe calls for lard which I replaced with butter last time I made it. Different but totally fine, so you can do that too. The sub also makes it suitable for vegetarians as mentioned. It also calls for Lancashire cheese but you can use an aged cheddar, ideally like the bandaged cheddar from Jasper Hill and Cabot but if it bums you out to cook with expensive cheese I get it and you again, don’t have to. Could just be something sharp.

 

1 1/2 c flour

6 tbsp butter divided, plus some for the baking dish

4 tbsp lard

3 tbsp ice water and a little extra just in case

3 medium onions

1 c boiling water

1/2 lb of Lancashire cheese or other

Enough milk to seal and glaze

Salt

1. Thinly slice the onions and set aside.
2. Grate the cheese and set aside.
3. Combine the flour and some salt in a large bowl and add 4 tbsp butter and the lard. Rub the fat into the flour until is feels like breadcrumbs.
4. Mix in enough ice water to just bind the dough and knead until smooth. Make a bowl of the dough, wrap it and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.
5. Preheat the oven to 350.
6. Melt the other 2 tbsp of butter in a pan over medium-low heat. Add the onions and a bit of salt. Cook for about 10 minutes try not to brown the onions.
7. Turn the heat up to medium and add the boiling water. Cook for 10 more minutes, or until they are soft and the water has cooked off.
8. Put the onions aside or in the fridge and grease a 9” pie dish or actually I used a cast iron skillet. 
9. Take out the dough. Divide it into two balls, one twice as big as the other. Roll both out on a floured surface. When the larger ball is about 10” diameter put it into the baking dish so it fits snugly on the bottom and sides. Prick the dough with a fork
10. Layer the onions and cheese on top of the dough in the pan. Then use the other piece you rolled out to cover it, pressing the edges together.
11. Brush the top with milk and cut 3 incisions in the top so steam can escape.
12. This is an optional step where I put this in the fridge so the butter doesn’t leak. If you are nervous about the dough temperature I recommend this.
13. Put this on a baking sheet (in case the cheese bubbles over) and bake for about 45 until the crust is nicely GBD, golden brown delicious. Let cool before serving.

Some shop notes: so many new things even since last week. Arrivals from California and France mostly. New wines from Stagiaire and Slow Dance, new vintage from Bruno Duchêne, mags from Babass, and cinsault from Les Cigales dans la Fourmilière that I keep thinking about.

ALSO: Cub and I are offering some discounted bottles to go this Sunday, October 31st from 1-4 PM. We’ll also have some things open for by the glass and some snacks if you want to hang out.

on the grill

I wouldn't normally offer a recipe that requires a grill. I don't grill. I usually ignore recipes for a grill, or try to imagine how to make them work on a stovetop. I lived in apartment buildings most of my adult life where having a grill, if at all possible, meant storing it in the basement somewhere, probably against the rules, half-hoping it would get stolen over the winter. To use it meant hauling it out to a park, although, in Chicago, one good place for a grill is the alley. From a practical standpoint, my household has owned and gotten great use out of this mini weber grill, a size that works for one or two people, plopping it down in the alley or in our apartment courtyard.

my attempt to photograph moving the coals to the grill basin

All this is to say, grilling seems fussy, and I only recommend it now because I had such a powerful experience with it. You might like to try it. 

I have been having trouble being in the moment lately. This is the time of year where many people who experience seasonal affective disorder like me start feeling depression and anxiety. I embrace the general wisdom that chicago winter is hard on everyone's psyche. It's the fall when I most notice its effects. It is still sunny and beautiful out, and even though the days are getting shorter, there's a lot I seem to miss, weighed down with worry about what's to come. The dread turns out to be more destructive than the season itself. 

By the time I mustered the strength to get out of the house to do my handful of errands on Monday, it was the evening. Why did I wait until there was traffic. I had planned to make chicken, but the co op had no chicken that wasn't frozen. In fact the only meat available was two shabby looking rib-eyes. In their vacuum-sealed packaging, they looked as if they'd been beaten with a bat, in kind of an intriguing way. I couldn't think on my feet very well, and so I bought the steaks. These were slimmer steaks, about 3/4 inch thick. I'm used to making thick rib-eyes in a skillet, basting them as they cook in their fat and some brown butter. These didn't seem like good candidates for that. And, steak, on a Monday, it didn't feel right to me. It's a special thing.  

I have to make a plug for the New York Times Cooking subscription, and give so much credit to the drawing board it offers. I usually go off-book but appreciate the inspiration, and the vastness of the resource that you can almost always find some direction. I searched 'ribeye' in the app and came across something called Ashkinaze Rib-Eye, after the cook Alan Ashkinaze. According to the description which came from a 2012 article by Sam Sifton, Ashkinaze is the longtime chef de cuisine for Laurent Manrique, the man in charge of Cafe de la Presse in San Francisco. It says, "Steak, in Mr. Ashkinaze's view, is crucial to the enjoyment of a grilled salad. And by steak, he means rib-eye, thick cut, on the bone." There is also a recipe for grilled caesar salad to accompany the steak, or rather for the steak to accompany. 

I love this idea. I never really liked grilled salad (by which I mean grilled caesar salad) and the idea of having a ribeye as a sort of side for it was delightful. I had thin cut ribeyes off the bone, but this sounded like the right direction. Steak salad. That makes it a bit more modest and monday night than steak and gratin potatoes or something lavish. 

I've never grilled a steak. My husband has said it's the most normative part of our dynamic that he is always the grill chef. We have only a charcoal grill. It occurred to me that grilling might benefit my mood. I would be compelled to tend the fire, and spend some time outside, and I might feel I'd done something more with my day. I asked the grill chef for directions, which he gave me and illustrated on a sheet of newspaper that would incidentally wind up in the fire.

I'm not very good at starting fires, so I was a little insecure about how this would go.I had the helpful directions and a charcoal chimney to assist. They are simple but worth outlining carefully, I think - 

Take two bi fold sheets of newspaper and crumple them each into a rather loose ball. 

Place your charcoal chimney on a flat and fire safe surface (concrete, not grass). 

Place the crumpled newspaper sheets inside the chimney next to each other, like half moons filling the circle. 

Fill the chimney up to the brim with coals. 

Use a match inserted into the holes in the sides of the chimney to light the newspaper in several places, I tried to ignite about 5 spots around the circumference of the chimney. 

Be patient. 

You can't see the flame from the top of the chimney, but as they say where's there's smoke, there's fire, so if you see smoke, you're good. The newsprint lights the bottom coals, which eventually light the top coals. 

Once you have red hot coals all the way to the top, use a metal rod to stir around the coals in the chimney. 

Carefully lift the chimney using the handle and pour the hot coals into the basin of your grill. 

Depending on how much cooking you're going to do, you might need a little more fuel (for this recipe, you might need to add just a little more) so at this time add some more coals onto the burning hot ones, and stir well again with your stick. 

Place the grate back on, close the grill, keep the vent open on the top of the grill, and let it heat for 5 - 10 minutes. 

The whole thing should take about 30 minutes.

I had decided to trust the instructions and act with confidence, and - it worked! The grill was very hot and ready to go. That moment of holding your nerve and trusting the paper to light the coals was the tense part. Seeing the neon sparks sly like tiny fireworks was exciting yet calming. 

For the salad

We didn't have any romaine but I found out something wonderful. A lot of the tough hearty type greens with bulbs whose lifespan we tend to push to powder in our fridge drawer, are excellent grilled when they're not as good fresh. Among the aging, we had, some small, old fennel, a raggedy head of radicchio, and escarole, with a limp-leaved exterior. I peeled off some of the saggier layers, halved them, tossed them in oil and salt.  

We didn't have any eggs or anchovies so I made a Caesar dressing with a little bit of Hellman's we had and fish sauce. I think this would be good with any creamy dressing, like green goddess or ranch, although the fishiness of caesar adds a piquancy that marries really well with the beef. 

An amazing wine 

It's been a while since I had wine from Portes Obertes, from Josep Serres Miranda. Josep is part of a crew of winemakers committed to working naturally in Terra Alta, Catalunya, in the Iberian mountains. He makes a lot of Garnaxta, and ages his wines in amphora for the most part. Petricor 1 is 1 of 2 wines made from the same vineyard, which grows Garnaxta Peluda, a very old type of Grenache, according to Mac Parsons of El Rancho Wine. It is aged in stainless steel. Until now, I think I'd only tried the amphora-aged Garnaxtas, which I found broad across the palette, pleasantly waxy in texture and weight and delicious. Petricor 1, however, is one of the lightest and yet most varietally-expressive Garnatxas I've tasted. There are a few folks working naturally who make lightly macerated Grenache, or lighter, fruitier styles. Perhaps most notably there is Eric Pfifferling or L'Anglore who uses carbonic maceration, or Tom Lubbe from Matassa, who makes silky but airy Grenache noir also off the Mediterranean coast. Petricor seems to carry a bit more of the mouth-coating, woody tannin of Grenache, in an extremely subtle way. I didn't really sense tannin, but then, after drinking a full glass, noticed a little dryness in my mouth. This part is maybe what makes the wine so nice for a grilled steak and bitter greens. There aren't too many wines that feel full of flavor and uncomprimising intensity that are also very light and quaffable. It's a feat to be celebrated, and that is what it felt like on Monday night, we were having something very special and super pleasant to drink and drink.

It was a really delicious dinner, and I really didn't think it would be. I really didn't think I could enjoy food and wine that night. Maybe I had inhaled too much smoke, maybe it was staring at the hot coals glow and fade for half an hour, but, for the duration of dinner I felt joy. 

I often write recipes about a seasonal fruit or vegetable that I'm excited about. But this week it eased my fear of the changing days to make this dinner that does not depend on the time of year, to decontextualize cooking for a moment, and to focus on a different method rather than unique ingredients. We can always cook, and that comforts me. 

head in hands level of deliciousness 

Mixed Grill

adapted from Alan Ashkinaze 

 

I took Ashkinaze's suggestion to crust the steaks in a sugar, salt and spice blend, though went a slightly different route in the composition of that blend. You can use whatever you have on hand, some mix of chili, salt, sugar and pepper can't go too wrong.

A couple of boiled potatoes on the side round out the meal, if you're up for it. 

        Spices for Steak: 

tablespoon kosher salt 
tablespoon black pepper 
tablespoon sugar
tablespoon ground cumin 
tablespoon ground celery seed 
teaspoon chili powder
teaspoon paprika 
teaspoon molasses 

 

Monday night Caesar Dressing: 

1/4 c storebought mayonnaise 
the juice of a whole lemon 
a few splashes of fish sauce 
black pepper 
1/4 c olive oil 
1/4 c grated parmigiano reggiano 

 

Main ingredients: 

2 steaks, can be mostly anything but should be kind of flat sided, like a top sirloin, a denver, a strip or rib-eye, a tri tip could be good but maybe not a flank, hanger, flap, skirt - 

A head of radicchio, a head of escarole, a bulb of fennel

Method:

Before you prep your grill, remove your steaks from the fridge and coat them in the spice blend. Let sit at room temp. Get your grill going. Once it's heating, halve your vegetables, and toss them in oil and salt. Make your dressing. Place your steaks on the grill and close grill. Open grill and flip and close lid again for another 2 minutes. (Grilling to temperature is a little tricky, since it depends on exactly how hot your grill is. I recommend about two minutes per side if you're using a thinner cut of steak, another minute per every half inch. My grill was 700 degrees, probably hotter than most. This will achieve medium rare, you can cook to you liking, although I think some pink is very good). Pull steaks and let rest. Grill your veg roughly the same way and same duration, about 2 minutes per side. Slice steak against the grain, plate and serve with grilled veg, topped with dressing and some more grated parm. 

You can buy Portes Obertes Petricor and many other thrilling new wines in our shop if you live in the Chicago area. We will bring them to you promptly and happily. As always, please email us at rainbowwinechi@gmail.com or dm @rainbow_wines with any questions. 

chunk of salad lessons

I’ve thought about salad a lot. When I was younger and adults would ask, “If you could only eat one food for the rest of your life what would it be?” I would say salad. Not because I’m obsessed with greens, a little bit because I was obsessed with vinegar, but I also knew that a salad could be many combinations of foods and I wouldn’t have to make a sacrifice even for a hypothetical moment. Like maybe salad is also a combination of different gummy fruit candies in a bowl. Many years later, there was a time it was the only food that I was really confident to make. An extremely post-Ottolenghi moment when I did not trust myself to cook a piece of meat thinking there is no way I could do justice to the life of the animal. Time’s passed and my cooking repertoire has a bit more confidence, but I still have the salad reputation amongst my friends. Which I don’t mind at all but it does make it a little intimidating to try to write about this. But a good salad is important, often the secret mortar holding a meal of more perhaps exciting foods together. Breaking up richness or offering another texture to the table. It’s also good to know salad because of the truism, “No one ever said there was too much salad or white wine at the potluck”.

The thing about salad though too, and maybe why I hadn’t been tending the flame of vegetal passion is that it’s notoriously hard to pair with wine because there is too much acidity between the salad’s dressing and your beverage. Cub and I have a joke or maybe just idea that the difficulty actually comes from the fact that wine is nourishing in the same way a green salad is and it’s really the double negative that makes it a hard pairing.

That’s one part of myself and the other part is that if you are enjoying your food and you are enjoying your wine that is a good pairing. Whenever we suggest something to eat and drink together know that we also believe this seemingly contradictory thing at exactly the same time.

Fennel salad I made for Cub's 31st bday in Ignacio Mattos' "hiding the food" style

Back to salad, presently

After 14 consecutive Greek salads on holiday this summer I learned a new lesson about what made a salad feel like a meal, which is that it is so satisfying to bite into a bigger chunk of the vegetable. The feeling of eating a hunk of cucumber is so different than the sliver circle or half moon that is usually mixed with green leaf lettuce. Bringing Greek salad home helped me get through the rest of the hot summer in Chicago, but not without feeling like the most obvious/boring tourist of all time. I had been making it a lot and I needed something fresh (both tasting and feeling, as in, new) for a lunch on the porch, especially for poor Mac who sat through a lot of those salads. In these moments I often browse Rachel Roddy’s backlog of Guardian recipes aimlessly because you see things differently when you’re in different moods. In this case I knew I was roasting a pork shoulder to serve with tonnato and wanted to make one thing on the side, which is when her recipe for Palermo salad leapt off the webpage.

Like Greek salad everything is chunked, I guess you could call it a fork and knife salad. Also like my approach to Greek salad every ingredient is treated separately, labor intensive but if you are able to give yourself enough time it is a labor of love. You can imagine the people you are feeding each component, separately and together, how the texture and intensity of flavor of each element feels. It’s fun actually. The other benefit of treating each part on its own terms is that it allows you to use produce that’s not the best most farmer’s market thing of all time and still make a good salad. More than the sum of its parts. Using this approach I will definitely make this in the winter even though it epitomizes summer in so many ways. It’s also a nice road map for some tricks you can use for other salads, the reason restaurant salads are so good is because each ingredient is prepped on its own and then combined later. Salting a tomato separately in advance can also make a pretty good BLT in the winter or spring. AKA when you might need something that feels like that.

back porch aka Palermo

I kind of think this is salad that is close to wine food, because it’s bold like the hearty fare required for drinking sessions and since you’re not dumping vinegar on top of everything the impact is much more subtle and totally in your control. There’s room for both your glass and your plate.

Palermo Salad adapted from Rachel Roddy

for 4 to 6 people depending on how much other food you are serving, you could also add tinned tuna and make this your meal

2 large potatoes

500g green beans

2 yellow peppers

1/4 red onion

4 medium tomatoes

1 handful basil leaves

Lemon

Olive oil

Red wine vinegar

1. Boil the potatoes until tender in salted water, I kind of like them to be a little over cooked.
2. When the potatoes are finished blanch the green beans in the same pot.
3. Scorch the peppers in the oven or directly on a burner. Let sit in a bowl covered in plastic wrap for 10 minutes. Once cool enough to handle remove the skin and seeds and rip the pepper into strips. Put into the bowl with a little salt, vinegar, and olive oil. Leave to marinate.
4. Slice the onion and soak it in water with a little vinegar mixed in.
5. Chop the tomatoes into rough chunks and salt them.
6. Chop the potatoes into rough chunks as well and squeeze some lemon juice over them.
7. Add the peppers, drained onion, green beans, tomatoes, and potatoes to a large bowl. Rip basil and add as well.
8. Add salt and oil to taste/coat. Let sit for 10 minutes, toss and serve with whatever wine you feel like drinking.

Some shop maintenance: we’re having a backyard party on Thursday with Motorshucker and Buen Viaje! Tickets are available here, or you can DM/email us for the address for some food & wine a la carte. New wines in the shop likely for this weekend and our shirts with a painting by Sofia Macht available too. Fall bounty looks a little different around here but we still got it:)

sometimes in the fall

Forgive me for not having a special topic this week, but rather just two accounts of really enjoying some wine with dinner. 

When the weather turns cooler, people often reach for red wine. One reason is possibly because white wines are served cold, and red wines typically at a warmer temperature. For us, however, we tend to drink all wines around 55 degrees (with some important exceptions, on both the white and the red side) so this is less of a concern.  We love to drink white wine in autumn. The nuttiness, herbaceousness and orchard fruit character of many white wines lends itself to the fall harvest of hearty greens and thicker-skinned squashes. If you're interested in a seasonally considerate wine selection, we have some new fall packs of our favorite wines to drink right now. They come in 3, 6 or 12 bottles. 

muscadet & vongole 

I was making spaghetti alle vongole. I would typically prefer an Italian white wine for this, Mediterranean or from further inland, just something dry but not overly acidic, textural, and briny. We didn't have any in my house that seemed to fit just at that time. We did have a cold bottle of NoLem from Complemen'Terre. It was very delicious. The wine is from Muscadet, near the Atlantic coast of France. White wines from here are classic pairings for oysters, although I'd never had a Muscadet with clams. Wasn't too much of a leap that it would work, but the sauce I make is fairly rich with butter, olive oil and garlic. This particular Muscadet from Manu Landron is made in such a way as to build and preserve the body of the wine. Maybe that's part of why it held up to the unctuous garlic and herbs so nicely. This is a special Muscadet. Many other wines from the region have their fermentations stopped to preserve a direct tartness, a crispness. While this wine doesn't lack acidity, it does have rounder edges and a fuller stride than most others. 

spaghetti alle vongole 

(It's untraditional that I take the clams out of the shells, but I think this allows me to make more of a stock from the shells without overcooking the clams). 

makes 2 entree portions 

about 1/4 lb spaghetti 

couple tablespoons butter 

couple tablespoons olive oil, plus a little more for drizzling 

2 handfuls fresh parsley, chopped 

4 cloves garlic, chopped 

2 lbs littleneck clams 

1/4 c grated parmesan cheese 

juice and zest of 1 lemon

1/2 c white wine 

get a big pot of salted water boiling for your pasta before starting the clams. personally, i hate waiting for water to boil. 

heat a medium-high-sided pot or pan. add butter and olive oil. when that's warm, add garlic, cook on medium-low for 10 minutes. add the white wine. when wine comes to a boil, adjust heat to simmer, add clams, then cover. check after 2 minutes - if clams have opened, remove from pot. if not, return the cover back on and give a few more minutes until most or all clams have opened. take the clam meats from the shells, and set aside. return shells to pan. keep shells and sauce at a simmer while you cook the pasta, at least another five minutes. dress your clam meats with olive oil, salt and pepper. 

cook the spaghetti for 6 minutes. (you will finish cooking it in the sauce). remove the shells from the sauce pot and discard. add the noodles to the sauce pot, and the juice of the lemon, and continue to cook until pasta is al dente, about another 3-4 minutes. if the sauce is low on liquid, add a little more butter and some water. you want there to be a bit of liquid in the pan, not so the noodles are swimming in it, but just keep in mind that the noodles will continue to absorb the sauce even when served on a plate. 

to finish, season the pasta with salt, pepper, olive oil, parsely, lemon zest, a little parm and clams. toss well and serve immediately, topping with some more cheese. 

aligoté & swiss Chard 

I was very excited to taste the new aligoté from Vini Viti Vincy. It is a fresh quaffer from Kikro, aka Nicolas Vaulthier, a celebrated natural winemaker. Kikro is in Northern Burgundy where most of the best aligoté is made. It is a high acid white wine variety. 

For dinner we'd found some porgy, which my partner was going to grill whole. I was worried that the porgy might have a bit of a fishy taste (I know it's fish but still) as the only other time I'd had it, it was not so fresh-tasting. It turned out that the fish was clean and delicious, but in any case, my concern led me to prepare a kind of a spicy and acidic salsa from some swiss chard, incorporating the acidic white wine. 

chard condiment / swiss salsa 

1 tablespoon butter 

big bunch washed swiss chard 

teaspoon of red chili flakes

1/4 c white wine 

splash olive oil 

De-bone your swiss chard leaves, and separate the leaves from the stems. Chop both leaves and steams up fairly finely - into about 1/4" pieces. The stems take longer than the leaves to cook. Heat a medium/ small frying pan, then melt the butter. Toss in stems, and season with salt, pepper and chili flakes. give them a little sweat, cooking and stirring for around 1 minute, then add the wine. Bring wine to simmer and gently boil the stems for about 10 minutes. Add the greens and cook for just 2 minutes before serving with grilled fish, sausage or steak.