Our evening menu consisted of:
As an appetizer: Baba ganoush, with toasted pita bread (purchased), and assorted vegetable crudités
For the meal: Halibut steamed atop onions and mushrooms, with a tomato-green olive salsa; whole wheat couscous with figs, almonds, and chickpeas; roasted green beans, cherry tomatoes and cauliflower in a Dijon balsamic mixture
Ok, so the veggies aren’t too eastern Mediterranean, but balsamic and country Dijon mustard are so good on roasted veggies, that I couldn’t help myself (side note here: two years ago, I wouldn’t have eaten vinegar or mustard for all the beer in Belgium, but now I’m what Jim calls a “mustard nut” and I can tolerate certain types of vinegar—but straight white wine vinegar still makes me want to gag).
So, with the menu set, we were off to start the evening. As I began my prep work (you can see the stack of veggies waiting to be cut on the counter behind me in the picture below—it’s satisfying to slowly see that pile get smaller and smaller), we began our beer tasting for the night.
Tasting victim #1: the Red & White from Dogfishead Craft Brewery. The brewery describes this beer as “A big, belgian-style Wit brewed with coriander and orange peel and fermented with Pinot Noir juice. After fermentation a fraction of the batch is aged in Oregon Pinot Noir barrels, and another fraction is aged on oak staves. The beer is blended together before packaging.” We split the 750 mL bottle, which clocks in at 10% ABV (not the strongest beer we’re likely to drink, but not the weakest either).As you can see in the picture below, the color has a ruby tone. There was a sweet aroma, with maybe a hint of grape or wine (which makes sense, given that they added grape juice and aged a portion of it in Pinot Noir barrels). It has the effervescence of a Belgian beer, and the light taste of a wit. The grape juice clearly lends a fruity, winey flavor and there is a hint of tannins in the dry finish. Overall, a tasty beer—nothing either of us would say is terrible (yes, we’ve had a few of those), but probably not worth the $12.99 paid. If it was $6.99 a bottle, maybe. $12.99? Maybe not. Hey, I’m frugal—what I can I do.
As we wrapped up beer #1, the eggplant and garlic head were almost done roasting in the oven. So, I took a break from my other prep work, and proceeded to prepare the Baba ganoush. I roasted an entire eggplant (about 35 minutes at 400) and a head of garlic (wrapped in foil, same temperature and amount of time). After allowing the eggplant to cool a bit, I peeled the skin off (easy as pie after it’s been roasted to hell) and coarsely chopped the flesh. I freed the roasted garlic of it’s skins and added most of the head to the eggplant (after chopping it a bit; it’s so soft at that point that there’s little to do), reserving a couple of the fragrant roasted cloves for the tomato-green olive salsa that would later adorn our fish. I mixed the juice of one lemon with about 2 T of tahini paste. When that was blended, I added it to the eggplant, along with about ¾ t ground cumin, ½ t ground coriander and 1 T fresh mint. I topped it with two chopped plum tomatoes, a dash of sweet Hungarian paprika and some additional chopped parsley. I set it aside (on the counter away from Jim, so he wouldn’t touch it yet) to allow the flavors to meld while I toasted up some pita and cut the crudités. As I mention below, I used a recipe in a book as a starting point. However, I feel that I made enough additions and subsitutions (including all of the spices added--it seemed odd to me to make this dip without cumin) that I feel fairly comfortable calling it my own at this point (since it would have tasted quite different if I actually followed the author's instructions).
Jim, who has never had baba ganoush, gave it a rave. He continued to eat it while I charged ahead with the remaining prep work.
Now, a word about garlic. I said before; I love garlic—can’t get enough of it. That being said, I cannot eat raw garlic. When I decided to make baba ganoush, I looked up some recipes, and settled on one as one as my general guide. The author called for cloves of raw garlic to be added, and this dish is not cooked. I’ve been taught the lesson by my upper GI track that I cannot eat raw garlic or raw onions; I’ll be burping all night and miserable as hell. But, the oven’s on at roasting temperature anyway (for the eggplant), so why not roast a whole head and add that? (the original recipe called for 3 cloves of fresh garlic to 2 entire eggplants; I have one eggplant and I’m adding a whole roasted head—but the roasting mellows the flavor to a great extent, making it almost sweet). What is the total garlic load in our meal when you consider the head of roasted garlic that kicked off the evening? About 2 and a half heads of garlic. See the gigantic pile of whole peeled cloves of below and see them after they’ve been pulverized in my garlic press.
Ok, the garlic press. Probably a controversial issue for those who are into cooking. There is a time for sliced garlic, whole garlic, roughly chopped garlic…but sometimes you want a fine mince (for maximum flavor release and also when the dish won’t cook long enough for large chunks to melt down). If it were three cloves, I would do it by hand—no question. I’m painfully ultilitarian and, even though Jim is kind enough to do most of the dishes, I really hate to dirty something if it won’t get much use (my knife is already dirty, why not just use that?). But how many cloves are there, like 16 to 20? We want to eat tonight…time to pull out the press. I received this for Christmas from Steve and Sue (hi!), and it is just the best. It makes the one that I used to have seem ridiculous. And, it allowed me to infuse our meal with garlic heaven without having to spend 15 minutes mincing garlic by hand. Ahh, technology.
After finishing my garlic duty, we noticed that our glasses were oddly dry (heavens no!), so onto….
Tasting victim #2: Samichlaus from Castle Brewery in Eggenberg, Austria. Oh, the Samichlaus; it’s an evil master. I’m calling this a tasting, but we’ve had this before; a couple of times. Once, we were out with friends and had a few of these (as well as some other selections) and it hit us all like a ton of bricks—one of those nights where you’re not really sure how you made it home, but you’re so thankful that you did and you resolve to never allow that to happen again.
This beer is a strong one: 14% ABV. The aroma is sweet, with a light maltiness; we couldn’t quite put our finger on it, but we thought it was a note of butterscotch or caramel. In the taste, the alcohol is apparent but still pleasant; it’s not overpowering and you don’t feel like you’re drinking liquor (which often is the case with the high ABV beers that aren’t heavily hopped). There’s malt up front in the taste and malt all the way through; while there are surely hops in the beer, you wouldn’t know it from the taste—it’s malt heaven. This is one that falls into the dangerously drinkable category, as Mike and Andrea (partners in crime in what has come to be known as “the Samichlaus night”) can certainly attest.
Now, for the main event. I marinated the fish in a mixture of fresh orange juice, onion, minced garlic, orange zest, about 1 T anise seeds, about 1 t dried oregano and about ½ cup of dry sherry. The salsa to go on top consisted of two chopped plum tomatoes, about 10 chopped Greek green olives (I don’t know much about green olives, because I use kalamata and nicoise most often; I got these at the Whole Foods olive bar from a batch labeled “Greek olive mix”. I aimed for the green ones; presumably these are some type of green Greek olive, but I have no earthly clue what kind they are). I added 1 to 2 T chopped fresh dill, the remaining cloves of roasted garlic, about 1 T of chopped fresh mint and a splash of balsamic vinegar. And just a dash of salt. I set it aside and let the flavors meld.
To cook the fish, I slowly cooked some sliced onions in a medium sauté pan. When they were well softened, I added some sherry, minced garlic, about ½ t ground cumin and about ¼ t ground coriander. I placed some cleaned whole cremini mushrooms over top of the onions and added a bunch of chicken broth to the pan. I placed the fish atop the mushrooms, increased the heat, covered the pan and allowed the fish to steam, with a sprinkle of cinnamon on top. You can see the final product below, with a garnish of the salsa and some parsley and mint sprinkled on top.
The whole wheat couscous began with a chopped sweet yellow onion (my standard cooking onion) and about 4 large carrots, peeled and chopped. I sautéed them in some chicken broth (avoiding excess oil here—low fat cooking, folks). After they were well softened, I added about 6 minced cloves of garlic (who really knows how much, since I took it from the whole-custard-cup of garlic that I had for the meal), ½ t cumin, ½ t ground ginger, ½ t ground coriander, 1/4 t cinnamon and ¼ t turmeric. And some sherry, because everything needs to have sherry in it. I also added a can of chickpeas that had been drained and rinsed. After letting this sauté for a bit, I added 2/3 cup of chicken broth, about ¼ cup chopped dried figs and ¾ cup of whole wheat couscous. I gave it quick stir, put the lid on and removed it from heat. After about 5 minutes, I added about ½ c of chopped fresh mint, about 2 T chopped fresh parsley, 1 peeled and diced nectarine and about ½ cup of sliced almonds. Ready to serve.
The veggies were easy, and although I mention them last, they were the first thing to get going (since they bake in the oven and take a while). They were pretty simple: trimmed fresh green beans, a head of cauliflower, and about ¾ cup of cherry tomatoes thrown into a baking pan. I added about 1/4 cup of chopped onion, about 3 cloves of minced garlic (again, who knows because I got it from the custard cup garlic bank), about 2 T balsamic vinegar and about 2 T of country Dijon mustard (you know, with the mustard seeds in it—yum.) I also added some fresh dill and after they emerged from the oven, tossed in some spring onions and the parsley I had left from other dishes.
And you can see the final product of these efforts below. (Side salad not pictured—I must have salad with dinner, but it didn’t make the photo).
And we should not forget…
Tasting vitim #3: The 90-minute IPA from Dogfishhead Craft Brewery. Ok, another DFH; what can we say, we’re on kind of a kick. We’re not fans of really hoppy beers, and therefore usually avoid anything labeled as an IPA. But, we recently discovered the subset of IPAs knows as “imperial” or “double” IPAs. These have a noticeable hop presence, but it is usually well balanced by a strong malt profile. Which leads to some very complex beers—you can really enjoy the aromas and subtle flavors of the hops without feeling like you’re sucking on a lemon (some ultra-hoppy beers can just be too damn bitter; like Stone’s Arrogant Bastard, which in my opinion is probably the result of some bet between brewers as to how much hops you can really add—hops for the sake of hops is no fun for the taste buds).
This beer had a grassy aroma, with some citrus; it’s definitely the hops you’re smelling. The color is golden; the lightest colored beer we’ve had tonight. The malts balance the hops very well; the hops are dominate but gentle. Rather than bitterness, you really get the hop flavor. Some citrus and the same grassy notes that came through in the aroma. Overall, an excellent beer. This one clocks in at 9% ABV.
So, that was the Saturday night culinary classic. Good food, good company (thanks to Jim--pictured above), good beer. And I don’t have to work tomorrow. Perfect.
We'll have the lamb meatloaf soon, I promise ;)
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