April 23, 2016 Brunch – Ham, Shallot, Garlic, Red Bell Pepper, and Avocado Omelet. Dinner – A Portuguese and Spanish Wine Adventure

April 23, 2016 Brunch – Ham, Shallot, Garlic, Red Bell Pepper, and Avocado Omelet. Dinner – A Portuguese and Spanish Wine Adventure 

In the morning we did research on the wines for the wine dinner at the Bistro and Suzette put together a slide show.  She also worked with Mario in the garden,who put new dirt into one of the beds in the old garden that he reconstructed this year with new wood and lights.

I decided to make an omelet with the ham we baked this week, so I fetched it from the garage fridge.  I cut a ½ lb. chunk from it and also several slices for sandwiches.  I diced the ham into bite size chunks.  Then I minced one of the garlic plants I pulled out of the tarragon this week.  I then diced two green onions and ¼ of a red bell pepper and salvaged some good pieces of two avocados that are rapidly ripening toward rotten.

I broke four eggs into a mixing bowl and added one small scoop of herbed salt,  two grinds of black pepper from the pepper mill, and a T. of water. I then sautéed the shallot, garlic, and bell pepper in melted butter for ten minutes to cook those ingredients.  Then I added the ham and cooked it for several minutes to heat it.  I added 1 heaping T. of Garduno’s green chile and cooked that for a couple of minutes.  Finally I added the avocado, stirred I into the other ingredients for a minute and added the whisked eggs.  I let the mixture cook on the stove for about five minutes until the bottom was firm and had developed a crust I then turned one-half of the omelet onto the other half.  It broke because it was so heavy and egg gushed out of the broken seam.  So I pushed the extra egg back to the main body of omelet and let it cook several more minutes until it was firm. Suzette came to the kitchen by now and served the omelet.  I drank Clamato with a squeeze of lime.

While we were cooking Willy started cooking his breakfast by sautéing four pieces of Applewood smoked thick sliced Bain (Costco) and the he peeled and finely diced two potatoes and sautéed them into cottage fries. At 11:00 Will Phipps showed up to help us move the furniture and rugs out of the dining room, living room, and foyer so the wood floors will be exposed for the re finishing.  

Suzette and I finished our omelet and Willy fried four over easy eggs and he and Will shared the cottage fries, bacon, and egg breakfast.  We then worked together to move all the stuff out of the front of the house, which took several hours. 

The front three rooms of the house looked very different and much larger without the furniture, like a large yoga institute.

Looking from the hallway through the foyer and living room into the dining room

AI 2:00 I took a shower and lay down to rest while Suzette showered.  We then dressed for dinner and at 3:15 drove to Gruet to pick up the case of wine I ordered for my wine club order.  Wine club members receive a 25% case discount. Since this year’s Rose was just released last weekend I ordered11 bottles of it and 1 bottle of the newly released 2011 Vintage Blanc de Blanc Extra.  I think the regular price for the new Rose is $13.00 per bottle and $30.00 for the Vintage Blanc de Blanc, so the Rose ended up costing around $10.00 per bottle and the Blanc de Blanc $22.50.  We intend to serve the 2015 Rose wine at my 70th Birthday Party this July.  

As members of the Gruet Wine Club one gets a free glass of the featured wine of the month each time one goes to the Tasting Room at the winery at 8400 Pan American Hwy., which is on the east side frontage road to I-25, just north of Paseo del Norte.

We sat at a table in the Tasting Room, which was very merry with folks enjoying tasting the wines?  Katie was pouring and offered us a taste of the new rose, which is 100% pinot Noir this year; less fruity, but more elegant and rich than last year’s blend with Chenin Blanc.  Suzette loved it and thought it would be perfect for the party because it tasted better as it warmed toward room temperature, like a good pinot.  Then Katie poured us glasses of the Blanc de Noir, which is April’s featured wine.  I loved it.  It was slightly pink and had the taste of pinot but also a lightness and slight sweetness.  It is a fabulous champagne.  

We had to go to Costco and then to Los Lunas for the Wine Dinner, so we could not linger at Gruet and left around 4:00.  Suzette bought ground black pepper for the Bistro and thin Coconut cookies for me and organic corn chips for her and Willy.

We arrived at the Bistro at the Center at 5:00.  I ate a bowl of the Caldo Verde and drank a glass of lemonade and talked to Barbara, who was waiting for dinner.  The soup was very spicy with black pepper, which took me several bites to adjust to.  I have sensitivity to black pepper and I often gag and can not swallow if there is too much in a dish, especially if it is uncooked.  Thank goodness the black pepper was cooked into the soup, so I was able to adjust my taste after the first bites numbed my lips.  This served me well when the first course of the dinner was served,because I had gotten over my gagging before dinner.  I can only guess what poor Barbara thought of my gagging on the soup.

Barbara had toured Spain recently so was excited about dinner, which she heard about at the Spa during her visit today.  

Suzette soon returned with the power point projector.  People started arriving and by 6:00 we were ready to start the meal. Suzette showed photos of Porto and Spain and explained that the wines were inexpensive, every day drinking wines.  I talked a little bit about the geography of Spain and Portugal’s wine districts and the types of grapes grown in each area.  Then Chef Kelly described the meal and dishes.  He emphasized that the meal was simple peasant cuisine.  The first course was a Caldo Verde (Green Soup), a simple caldo (clear broth) made with onions, potatoes, Linguica (Portugal’s famous sausage), sliced kale, olive oil, garlic and flavored with black pepper.  Chef Kelly is a masterful soup maker and this simple hardy soup wonderfully demonstrated his skill. The Caldo was served with a Spanish unoaked Chardonnay from Castilla, near Toledo, produced by Legado Munoz in the small town of Noblejas.  It had that distinctive chardonnay buttery flavor with a slightly off flavor that Suzette thought tasted like gum.  The JAP distributor thought the winery may have added some vegetable gum to the wine for some reason.  It was a pleasant wine but without the fruitiness or vibrancy of northern Chardonnays.

The next course was a seafood dish, a cup filled with clams cooked in a cilantro and lemon wedge broth with slices of toasted fresh French bread.  Again a wonderfully flavorful, simple, elegant dish. I took the clams out of their shells, removed the lemon wedge, and ate clams on the warm French bread as a warm tapa. 

The wine served with this course was my favorite of the evening, a Portuguese white blend including Sauvignon Blanc, something Broushet, and Albariño. The wine was light and fruity with an undeniable immediacy on the palate, a winner.

The clam dish also was outstanding in a wonderful menu.  The saltiness of the clams blending their juices with the cilantro, and lemon.  Neither i or Suzette had ever had clams with cilantro, but the combination was wonderful.  I was impressed that Chef Kelly created or found dishes that used fresh ingredients that expressed their best characteristics in creative combinations.

The entrée course was also a classic Portuguese dish of roasted chicken, garbanzo beans, onions, and tomatoes in a chili sour cream sauce, most popular in Brazil.  He did not include the Thai peppers that are traditionally an ingredient of the sauce, but brought us small ramekins filled with fresh chilis and instructed us to be careful in adding the chilis to the sauce. Neither I or Suzette added any chili and we both loved the dish.  The oven roasted tomatoes reminded me of the five course tomato dinner we ate at Christian Etienne’s restaurant in Avignon eighteen years ago on our first trip to France together. The Semaphore red produced in the Alentejo region south of Lisbon was better with the entrée.  It had a slightly chalky and, I thought, tannin flavor alone that evaporated when drunk with food.

The chef said there is a restaurant in Brazil that serves 500,000 plates of Peri Peri Chicken every year, to make us appreciate what a famous and popular dish the entrée was.

Finally, we were served parfait glasses filled with Baba de Carmelo, a caramel mousse made with reduced evaporated milk, egg yolks and whipped egg whites folded in.  Another simple delicious dish served with a vibrantly sweet, yet elegant moscato made with the La Ardilla White Muscat de Alexandria grape, whose light fruity sweetness was a wonderful complement to the creamy caramel mousse.  Suzette did a wonderful job of pairing the wines to the dishes for this meal, which both the wine and the food more enjoyable. 

I poured a small glass of Carvalhas Reserva tawny port, so each person could taste a tawny with dessert.

At $44.44 this was one of the best wine dinners for the money I have ever eaten.  The chef even said in his old restaurant, this would have been a $90.00 wine dinner.  God Bless Suzette and Chef Kelly and the Bistro.

My final thought is that this meal is an impressive example of how inexpensive wines matched with simple dishes of fresh ingredients prepared with creativity and skill can produce a wonderful result.  During the meal, Suzette said, I feel like we are eating in Portugal.”

There can be no greater compliment for this evening’s meal.

Wine Dinner

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Embark on a culinary adventure at the Green House Bistro & Bakery and sit down to a 4-Course Wine Dinner paired with newly selected wines from Spain & Portugal and listen to wine lover, Suzette Lindemuth, discuss the wines & food of this region. Ask your server for a list of our NEW wines

$44.44 per person, plus tax and gratuity

Call for RESERVATIONS 866-1936; Seating is Limited

THE MENU

COURSE ONE

Caldo Verde 
potato soup with kale, garlic,

olive oil & Linguiça

paired with Artisan Legado Munoz Chardonnay

 

COURSE TWO

Amêijoas à Bulhão Pato
 steamed clams with cilantro and

lemon butter 
paired with XODO

 

COURSE THREE

Peri Peri Chicken 
Portuguese chili spiced chicken

on roasted tomatoes, chickpeas,

red onions & herbs

paired with Alentejo Semaphore 7

 

COURSE FOUR

Baba de Camelo
 Carmel mousse

paired with Artisan La Ardilla
White Moscat

Bon Appetit