April 13, 2015  Lunch  Spaghetti with Meat Sauce    Dinner  Bobby Flay Chicken with Gratin Savoyard and Steamed Broccoli

I ate the PPI Spaghetti and Meat Sauce we made last week for lunch.  I added about ¼ cup of water to the overly thick sauce to make a lovely thin sauce that coated the spaghetti nicely.

Yesterday Suzette said, “We need to use the cheese we bought in Santa Fe on Saturday.”

The cheese in question is Abondance that I bought with the specific purpose of using to make Gratin Savoyard.  It cost about $28.00 per lb. at Cheese Monger’s in  Santa Fe, which is 50% to 100% more than Raclette at Whole Foods, when they have it, which is the cheese I usually use.  But this new cheese is a A.O.C. cheese and I do not think the Raclette Whole Foods sells is an A.O.C. 

Here is some biographical information:

Abondance

Tomme d'Abondance or Abondance is a medium-sized mountain cheese from the Haute Savoie region of France in the Rhone-Alps. For centuries, this deep golden cheese has been made in mountain chalets, near the border between France and Switzerland. It is made exclusively from unpasteurised milk produced by the Abondance breed of cattle. Since 1990, the cheese has been enjoying the prestigious AOC designation. The handcrafted, wheel shaped cheese, is made using traditional methods only in the geographical area specified by AOC/PDO label.

It has a strong smell and an intensely fruity, buttery and hazelnut flavour, with balance of acidity and sweetness, followed by a lingering aftertaste. Unearth an aroma of nutty vegetation as you slice the cheese. However, remember the crust including the gray layer beneath, should be removed before eating. Firm but supple and slightly grainy, the texture of the ivory-yellow pâté is creamy and velvety. Its rind is smooth with an amber colour showing canvas marks. The affinage takes at least 100 days, so all the subtle aromas are realized.

Abondance can be eaten straight off, or added to salads or melted in Berthoud. A very special cheese, it pairs well with Malbec and Cabernet Sauvignon.

·         Made from unpasteurized cow's milk

·         Country of origin: France

·         Region: Haute-Savoie, Abondance

·         Family: Tomme

·         Type: semi-hard, artisan

·         Fat content: 48%

·         Texture: creamy, open and supple

·         Rind: natural

·         Colour: pale yellow

·         Flavour: acidic, buttery, fruity, sweet

·         Aroma: nutty

·         Vegetarian: no

·         Alternative spellings: Tomme d'Abondance

Here is some information on Raclette cheese:

Raclette /rəˈklɛt/ is both a semi-firm cow's milk cheese that is usually fashioned into a wheel of about 6 kg (13 lb). It is most commonly used for melting. It is also a Swiss dish based on heating the cheese and scraping off (racler) the melted part.

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• History[edit]

Raclette was mentioned in medieval writings, in texts from Swiss-German convents dating from as far as 1291,^[1] as a particularly nutritious meal consumed by peasants in mountainous Switzerland and France (Savoy region). It was then known in the German-speaking part of Switzerland as Bratchäs, or "roasted cheese." Traditionally, the Swiss cow herders used to take the cheese with them when they were moving cows to or from the pastures up in the mountains. In the evenings around the campfire, they would place the cheese next to the fire and, when it had reached the perfect softness, scrape it on top of bread.

In the Swiss canton of Valais, raclette is typically served with tea or other warm beverages. Another popular option is to serve raclette with white wine, such as the traditional Savoy wine or Fendant, but Riesling and Pinot gris are also common. Local tradition cautions that other drinks – water for example – will cause the cheese to harden in the stomach, leading to indigestion

As you can see both cheeses are made in the Haute Savoie region of France and both are semi-firm and melt well, but the Abondance has a slightly nuttier and more fragrant flavor.

I had intended to make Gratin Savoyard but also had bought a lamb shoulder at Sprouts on Saturday, so this afternoon I called her and mentioned lamb stew with root vegetables and she said, “I am tired of lamb.”

I suggested other meats and we both agreed on chicken, so I took a package of chicken thighs from the fridge and went for a bike ride to Montano and back.

When I returned at 6:00 I started making the

Gratin Savoyard,

peel and slice 2 to 3 lb. of potatoes

cut a garlic clove in half and rub the inside of a ceramic baking dish with fresh garlic

slice the garlic clove into thin rounds.

Slice 3 Tbsp. of onion

Grate 1 cup of cheese (about 1/2 lb.)

1 tsp. of salt

1/8 pepper

I made 1 ½ cups of beef stock with 1 beef cube and boiling water; the recipe calls for 1 cup

I layered the garlic rubbed and buttered baking dish with one half of the potatoes and then sprinkled ½ of the salt and a couple of grinds of pepper on the potatoes and then laid ½ of the grated cheese on and four pads of butter (about 3 oz.).  I then repeated the first step but with 4 oz. of butter this time.  Then I poured the beef stock into the baking dish.  Suzette had arrived in the middle of my prep.  We decided not to heat the ceramic baking dish on the gas burner of the stove to heat the liquid.  Instead we cooked the dish in an oven preheated to 400˚and then reduced the heat to 350˚ and baked the Gratin for about an hour.  This produced a perfect dish; the butter was bubbling and the cheese had melted into the cooked potatoes.

Here are the Julia Child recipes:

Bobby Flay Chicken

We then turned our attention to the chicken.  Suzette said you simply rub the chicken with paprika, so I fetched the new bottle of paprika I bought at Sprouts while Suzette washed and dried the chicken thighs.  We then dusted the chicken with salt, pepper and paprika. And Suzette sautéed in an iron skillet in about 1/4 inch of heated canola oil for 8 to 10 minutes with a pan of hot water to weigh the chicken pieces down.  Then the skillet with the chicken is put into a 350˚ heated oven for 30 minutes.  I call this method of cooking chicken the Bobby Flay method because it is a method he used in one of his recipes.

I then de-flowered a head of broccoli and we steamed the flowerets when we thought the Gratin was about 8 minutes from being ready.

After the chicken was sautéing I went to the basement and fetched a bottle of Domaine Roger Luquet 2013 Clos de Condemine Mâcon-villages.  This is a new wine for me that I bought on the suggestion of a wine person at Total Wine on Friday for $11.89 after the 15% discount.  It is a monople, which means it is a combination of grapes from different properties so the use of the words Clos de Condemine is confusing because a clos typically is a stone wall around a vineyard.

This confusion was clarified when I went to the Roger Luquet website.  Here is the explanation:

OUR APPELLATIONS

Mâcon-Villages

» MÂCON-VILLAGES "Clos de Condemine"

The Clos de Condemine is located in the commune of Charnay-lés-Mâcon, roughly 3 kilometres from Mâcon. This splendid, gently sloping nine-hectare site lies between the old borough of Charnay and the TGV Station at Mâcon-Loché. Half of the area is allocated to Chardonnay vines. Cultivation here combines modernism, by using modern methods of vine work, and tradition, by manual harvesting.

Luquet's Clos de Condemine is a recent development. In fact, many years ago, Clos de Condemine was an entire estate with its own vineyards and its own wine. After the spread of the Phylloxera virus, the vines were attacked,
and then uprooted, giving place to other crops.

When taken on by Domaine Roger Luquet in January 1984, Clos de Condemine consisted of only 3200 sq. metres of vines. Planting began in March 1984 and continued until March 1987 to produce an area of 4.30 hectares. With three years of hard work and determination, we have been successful in recreating this vineyard.

It is on this siliceous (silica-rich) soil, very slightly undulating and exposed to the South-West, that the Chardonnay vineyard extends and gives you the Mâcon-Villages you know so well.
Today, some 35,000 bottles are produced every year and bottled at Domaine Roger Luquet.

Mâcon-Villages "Clos de Condemine", generously fruity and light, will accompany all your entrées. This is a wine that drinks well young, or you can keep it for 3 years.

So I understood the unusual naming and description on the label of this wine.  It is produced in an area that once was a clos, but then abandoned and now has been replanted inside and outside the area of the old clos.  So now it is a combination (monople) of grapes grown within what was the old clos and outside the old clos.  We both liked the wine.  It was a slightly oaky which gave it a more lively taste, yet had the smoothness and richness of a good white Burgundy chardonnay.  According to the salesperson it is exclusive to Total Wine and I noticed that is a Alfio Moriconi Selection, which may be an indication of exclusivity to total Wine.  If you want a really representative bottle of white Burgundy, you might want to try this one.

I had a few last sips of the Wellington Roussanne as dinner was roasting in the oven.  Then we poured the Mâcon-Villages and plated dinner.  The Gratin Savoyard potatoes were wonderful, buttery, creamy and slightly tangy.  The potatoes’ creamy tangy flavor complemented the slightly fruity tangy flavor of the wine.  We felt like we were dining in France.      

This meal is a reminder of how easy it is to make a couple of adjustments to one’s meal prep at a little greater expense (about $5.00 for the wine and $5.00 for the cheese) that make a huge difference in the outcome and raise the meal to fine dining status.

Bon Appétit