Cassoulet and Burgundy

Had some of the usual suspects over for Thomas Kellers "easy" Cassoulet last week. Some nice bottles brought by all. No real notes but some thoughts from what I remember....It's all a little foggy as lunch earlier in the day at Bocado included several bottles...

Pics here courtesy of the jedi master of the camera, Rowdy, who also put together a video clip of the evening which can be found at Rowdyfood.

Some really nice Burgs with the food, but the star was a '97 Grand Cru from Dominique Laurent.


1997 Dominique Laurent Charmes Chambertin--The Legend brought the heat...Wine of the night, and day, for me, and I think we all agreed. Stemmy, and earthy, but so nicely touched with dark fruit and notes of vanilla under the slight hints of green. Still some energy on the back side, but damn fine with the food.



Good times with good friends, good food, and very nice wines.

Quick Review: Lunching at Bocado

Met three local wine enthusiasts at Bocado for lunch recently. It was my third visit to Bocado, and I've now left happy three times. This time, we brought wine, a lot of wine, so my recollections aren't perhaps totally clear.

That being said, the food and service were really top-notch. Bocado staff was more than accommodating to our wine-dork requests for multiple wine glasses and spit buckets, while wine bottles laid strewn across our table. 

We each ordered a sandwich and cut them all in fours so to be able sample a bit of each. The burger was quite tasty,though perhaps a touch past done for my liking. My favorite was again the roasted cauliflower and eggplant sandwich with pickled veggies, cilantro, and spicy mayo. It's very much a roasted veggie banh mi. Yummy stuff, but some serious spice that didn't exactly fit too well with the wines...if you find yourself lunching at Bocado with wine.

We also had a few orders of garlic-herb fries that were seriously addictive.

After several bottles of wine, we talked to the chef into whipping up a couple orders of brussel sprouts which aren't on the lunch menu and usually only  appear at dinner. I don't even recall how they were done exactly, but they were finished with shaved parmesan and croutons. Delicious. 

I've yet to try Bocado for dinner, but I've certainly had three very tasty lunches there in the past couple of months. It is certainly worth a visit if you have not been.

Duck Confit & 2007 Louis Jadot Savigny Les Beaune La Dominode

 

As promised, here is the final product from my duck confit fun this past weekend. This dish is from Thomas Keller's Bouchon cookbook. If you like duck conift, this dish is worth checking out. The conift is browned to crispy on the outside, then warmed through in the oven. It is served over brussel sprouts and a mustard and creme fraiche sauce seasoned with shallots, thyme, and chives. The duck is meltingly tender and the texture contrast with the crispy skin is just delicious. An A+ dish.

With the confit we drank the 2007 Louis Jadot Savigny Les Beaune La Dominode. Duck confit and red Burgundy is as good as food and wine pairing gets. The 2007 was young, but showed great potential. It was lean and light on its feet as young SLB can be at times. Glad to have a few more to rest in the cellar for 5 years.

Duck Confit: A Work in Progress

Drawing inspiration from the killer duck dish I had on my visit to Cakes and Ale last week, I decided to do some duck confit myself this weekend. It's a process you need to spread out over a couple of days, but it's well worth the effort.

It all started with about 3 pounds of duck fat from Your Dekalb Famer's Market. It aint pretty, but after an hour in a large stock pot over low heat I was left with 5 cups of pure, golden, rendered duck fat.




While the duck fat was rendering, I got to work on making Thomas Keller's Green Salt Rub for the duck legs. The green salt recipe is from Keller's Bouchon cookbook. Sea salt is ground in a coffee grinder along with bay leaf, parsley, thyme, and black peppercorns. It's an easy process that leaves you with some really tasty salt that's also quite nice on eggs, burgers, or just about anything, really.

 I then rubbed the green salt liberally over six duck legs before placing the legs in the fridge to marinate for 20 hours.

On day two, I melted my rendered fat, cleaned the marinade off the legs, and submerged the legs in the liquified duck fat. I then covered the pot and placed in a 190 degree oven for 10 hours until the meat was meltingly tender, but not falling off the bone. It's important to keep the legs intact at this point.

 

After 10 hours in the oven, I removed the pot and let it cool slightly before straining the fat and pouring it back over the legs. It then cooled and solidified until it looked like it does in the last picture to the left. The finished confit can now rest in the fridge for up to two weeks, though I doubt mine will last that long!

Watch for a recipe using the confit legs in the next few days.

Quick Review: Cakes & Ale, Perhaps Decatur's Finest

Was able to make a last minute visit to Cakes and Ale Saturday night. Tables were all spoken for, but we were able to find a couple of seats at the bar where you can order from the full menu and still enjoy a great meal. We started with the tasty mushroom soup topped with candied pine nut brittle and the outrageously tasty Benton's prosciutto with pickled veggies.

  

For entrees, we tried the stuffed cabbage and the duck leg. Both dishes were extraordinary, the cabbage stuffed with farro and toasted bread crumbs over creamy tarbais beans and winter squash. The duck leg was perfectly crisped and served over brussel sprouts, turnips, fried gnocchi, and a red wine jus. Both dishes were tasty and comforting, speaking to the season with perfection. 

My only real issue with Cakes & Ale is there refusal to allow corkage as it is "technically" illegal in Decatur. For a wine lover, corkage is important to me, I have a decent wine collection and enjoy bringing my wines to restaurants and I'm happy to pay for corkage. I find Cakes & Ale's take strange as other local restaurants such as Watershed, Feast, and Parker's have always allowed corkage without question. I wish Caks & Ale would get on board, but I suppose it puts them in a difficult place legally.