V is for Venison and Various Other Things

Last weekend was Christmas with the Einsteins’.  That sentence is really funny to hear.  In addition to opening presents (and subsequently losing a present and then getting a replacement present) we went grocery shopping.  Mom explained that someone had given them half a deer, or maybe a whole deer.  I didn’t spend the time to piece together all the packages at the bottom of the freezer to see, but I did grab some loot.  Tonight is venison loin chops.  Next week will probably be venison stew of some sort.  I am excited about cooking venison, though I could never do the “Paleo” diet.  A friend of mine said you’re basically supposed to stay away from any processed food.  Is it weird that I’ll eat pretty much anything from the grocery store medium-rare, but I’m fearful to eat medium-rare venison?  Some levels of processing are apparently a security blanket. At the opposite end of the spectrum, I ate 1 chocolate covered Oreo cookie, and now I’ve bought an entire package for dessert tonight.  We can’t stop eating them.  And to throw the rest away feels like committing an unforgiveable sin.   I have reached a point where the most natural foods frighten me and I have a heroin-like addition to food made by heavy machinery.  Welcome to the new American Dream.

Beverage: 2008 BV Napa Cabernet

Entrée: Seared Venison Tenderloin with Sherry and Wild Mushroom Demiglaze

Sides: Vermouth Braised Cabbage and Spaghetti Squash Succotash

Dessert: Rum-Soaked Oreo Pudding Flambé

I sent Emily on the wine run and had her pick up a “decent” Cab.  My definition of decent Cab is around the $20 range, usually from Napa, and has a couple of years on the vintage.  I think Cabernets are really where you can see the difference price and time make in a wine.  The magnums of Cabernet priced under $10 – those taste like sandpaper made out of lemon rind.  The cabs that are in the $50 range, those are the ones that you have with huge steaks and decadent sides.  I wanted a decent cab, because I expected the venison to have a strong flavor and having a bold, dry wine to match it was a must.  Emily chose a great wine.  This was a wine that accompanied the meal super well.  Every once in a while, you get a wine that seems destined for the meal you pair it with.  This wasn’t quite that, but it was close. 

Having never made venison before, I was expecting red meat that had a strong, gamey flavor.  I thought the cabbage would turn out to be quite acidic, so I wanted the squash to be very basic so the meal would balance.  I also had a hard time figuring out just what kind of venison I was dealing with.  The package said “6 Loin Chops.”  I interpreted this to mean 6 individually cut chops.  I started to thaw the meat to make sure, and when it started thawing, I didn’t see any lines separating the chops, so I thought it meant a 6 oz loin chop.  I attribute this mistake to my parent’s freezer, which is kept close to absolute zero, so frozen items take approximately 4 days to thaw completely at room temperature.  I was quite surprised to find I was not dealing with a steak, but rather individual loin chops.  Dinner had now turned into venison tournedos. 

No pictures of the squash succotash, so I will make this brief.  I tried to do something creative/different with the succotash, so I added fresh sage.  The problem with spaghetti squash is that it makes a truly enormous amount of squash, and you feel like you need to use all of it.  We still have an entire half sitting in our refrigerator.  The succotash turned out really basic and I had overestimated the acidity of the cabbage.  Emily made a quick balsamic reduction.  I saw a chef make it with pork chops in the restaurant years ago, but had never done it myself.  That added a little zip and color to the squash, so it was rescued.

The movie “The Color Purple” has absolutely nothing to do with cabbage, at least, I can’t imagine it would.  However, the cabbage was the color purple.  Cabbage is also a huge food.  I added an apple, maple bacon, and red onion.  Might as well add to how purple it was going to be.  I underestimated the amount of vermouth by a lot.  I had a small bottle and I thought I’d use half.  I poured the whole thing in and it didn’t even come up halfway.  This is why you pay $2 for bullion to have around.  I made some vegetable bullion in the microwave and poured it on in.  I let that simmer and wilt for about an hour.  You could still taste a little bacon and the vermouth added something I can’t put my finger on. 

Utilizing my new Christmas purchases (Dutch Oven and French Skillet – both made in America, by non-union,  middle-class, moderate, mono-linguistic people just like us), I was able to make a demiglaze for the venison.  To be honest, I’m not really sure how you officially made a demiglaze.  I’ve only seen it made at a restaurant once and the chef made it in the oven, which I thought was strange. 

The thing about the French Skillet is that meat sticks to the bottom of the pan and roasts further, concentrating the flavor.  When I poured in the sherry it pulled the flavors off the bottom of the pan into the glaze.  The wild mushrooms finished the earthiness of the steak and paired well with it.  There was just enough butter to add a small creaminess for the wine to cut through. 

Finally, dessert.  I love my Oreos soggy with milk.  I used to get really angry in Sunday school when they would give us Hydrox cookies instead of Oreos, because the cheap knockoffs don’t soak in milk.  I thought if I put the cookies on a plate they would absorb all the milk poured onto the plate.  I mixed in a little rum to add to the flavor. 

If 1 layer of Oreos is good, 2 are better.  I don’t know why in the world I wanted to flambé soaked oreos, but I did it anyway.  I never miss a chance to play with fire.  It looks cool even if it didn’t really work right.  I’ll make bananas foster and try it again.  It always works with that. 

There’s dinner.  The best America has to offer, from the natural beast to the mass-manufactured polyhydrogenated cookie, formerly sponsored by Paula Dean.  Speaking of the American Dream who wouldn’t make $1 million doing what you love and then score an endorsement to tell people what is really none of their business?  The people who are watching Paula Dean and making any of her recipes are people who could choose to be healthy.  Chances are they’re paying someone to make Paula Dean’s meals for them.  If it’s a mother trying to figure out how to feed her family with $10, she’s not spending 40% of it on a pound of butter to cook it all in.  I used 6 oz of butter for the total meal.  Maybe I’ll be fortunate enough someday to retire, sponsored by a drug company fixing whatever ailment I have from eating 6oz of butter a week. 

Pumpkin Truffle Anniversary (Lasagna in Lowell)

I want to apologize to my avid fan base (all 3 of you) who have subtly reminded me I have not posted a blog in quite some time.  Moving out, driving across the country, living in a hotel room, and moving into a new apartment is more work than it sounds.  I did take some pictures for a blog in our hotel kitchen, so look for that sometime in the near future.  I hope everyone had a fabulous New Year’s Eve.  New Year’s is my favorite holiday without a doubt.  It’s fun to think about the past year and everything that happened; how I never imagined myself to be doing what I’m doing at that exact time, and looking forward to the expected events of the New Year.  This is a fitting finale to the 2011 year as this meal is without a doubt the best meal I made this year.  Forgive the arrogance, but this is one of the top 2 meals I’ve ever made.  The other competitor came the Christmas after I graduated from college, so it’s not something that happens often.  Fortunately, I was able to make this on the 2^nd anniversary of the most amazing relationship I’ve ever been a part of.  Unfortunately, we have lived in more apartments than years we’ve been together. 

Beverage: 2003 Bella Vida Pinot Noir 

Main Entrée: Pumpkin Truffle Sage Lasagna

Side Dish: Seriously?

I picked up the bottle of wine on my road trip from Portland to San Francisco.  It’s a Pinot Noir from Oregon that is delicious, even though the label looks like something that belongs in the maple syrup aisle.  I’m not sure why they chose such an ugly label, but they do make good wine.  I thought an Oregon Pinot would be perfect for this type of lasagna.  I wanted something red and dry to cut through some of the creaminess the lasagna was destined to have, but not be so overpowering that you couldn’t taste the pumpkin.  I wasn’t sure how much the truffle flavor would come out.  I didn’t think it could be overpowered by wine, but I didn’t want to take any chances.  I was slightly inconvenienced by a broken cork – more than likely a memento from having moved 4 times since I bought the bottle and not storing it well.  I solved this inconvenience by decanting the wine, even though I do not have a decanter. 

The glass bottle and plastic funnel sufficed, but it’s not something I would serve at a restaurant.  Just take my word, despite a maple leaf label and broken cork, it’s good wine. 

I’m including a few pictures of the few from our apartment.  We’re living in a remodeled textile mill on the 5^th floor.  There’s another mill a few hundred yards away that they hung green lights from, so it looks like a 70 ft. Christmas tree. 

Here's a view of a church with a beautiful Massachusetts sunset in the background.  The time is 1:30 in the afternoon.

Here's the smoke stack at 1:45 p.m.

There's the smoke stack all lit up.  Audrey looks on pondering what life is like when it's still light out at 3 in the afternoon. 

I wish I could take full credit for making this, but I can’t.  I got the idea from a chef on the cbsnews.com a few months ago.  I had never heard of him before, but they asked him what his favorite meal was to make.  He responded with pumpkin truffle sage lasagna, because that’s what his mom used to make.  Okay, first of all, whose mother cooks that?  Seriously, even if you did grow up in Italy, what mother goes out and harvests pumpkins to make sauce, buys truffles for her family, and then makes a lasagna when all is said and done?  Regardless, I love that woman for what she produced.  I read a little bit of the article, but just enough to learn about sage pasta and mascarpone cheese.  Over the next few weeks, a series of unrelated events gave me faith that mimicking this lasagna was as much my destiny as Harry’s was to face Voldemort.  Emily and I were shopping for some early Christmas presents when we found a jar of pumpkin parmesan pasta sauce.  Having moved to Boston, we were also within driving distance of Dave’s Fresh Pasta  - a local pasta making store that takes special orders.  We ordered some of their fresh herb pasta, which has sage, thyme, and parsley in the semolina pasta.  The woman who pressed the pasta for us told us we didn’t have to cook it before making lasagna, but that the lasagna should have extra liquid and be “soupy.” 

I wasn’t convinced the flavor of sage would come through enough in the pasta, so I bought some fresh sage and added it to both the pumpkin sauce and the cheese layer.  I added some ground turkey (what man eats a lasagna that has no meat in it?) as well as chicken stock and wine to make the sauce “soupy.” 

I’m sorry I don’t have pictures of the truffle cheese filling.  I think the original recipe called for some type of truffle paste.  I had never heard of it before and I wasn’t about to fork over however much money for it.  Fortunately, my movers were kind enough to pack the truffle oil I had purchased in Tucson.  And they packed it well enough so that even being upside down and leaking in our cooler for a month, I still had enough to use for the lasagna.  I just chopped up a bunch of mushrooms really fine and sautéed them in an egregious amount of truffle oil.  For those of you reminiscing about my desire to make more healthy meals in my early blogs…it’s the last blog of the year and we’re all on the treadmills now.  I mixed the mushrooms with 2 containers of mascarpone cheese.  Normally you use Ricotta cheese in lasagna and mascarpone in tiramisu – enough said.  On the top Emily suggested some additional mushrooms, so I braised some mushrooms in sherry and had that be the final layer before the mozzarella cheese.

The picture is why I never want to make this again.  I dare say I could compare this with meals made by Julia Child, even Meryl Streep’s Julia Child.  The pasta texture was perfect.  The lasagna stayed together when you cut it into pieces and the flavor was this rich, deep, creamy freshness. 

Thanks Dave's Fresh Pasta.  Thanks to my greatest love for being the most amazing woman that I have ever met.  I can't wait to cook more anniversary dinners for you.  That's a wrap for 2011; thanks for stopping by, bring on 2012!