'Tis the season and as sure and the sun rises in the morning, people all over the world prepare for celebration of some sort. Christmas, Channukah, Kwaanza, and the end of the calendar year, bring folks of all faiths and races together to rejoice, reflect, and prepare for the coming New Year. Celebration and food are inseparable, and for most people that includes wine. We feel the need to pull out all the stops at in December. The most grand and treasured recipes, some passed many generations down, are required. Sometimes new ones are added keeping the menus fresh and alive. When I cooked professionally, I was relied on heavily for my own family's feasting. Sometimes it was the tomato sauce or “gravy” for Christmas Eve's Feast of Seven Fishes, or a whole poached salmon. I am the default carver for Christmas roast beef and always look forward to pitching in in the kitchen with my Sister, Brother, and my Mom putting that dinner out. Of course I always need to provide the wine and we do our best to go big there also. I recall one year I prepared a leg of lamb that needed to roast in the oven for seven hours. It was a real nail biter because we had just bought our house and the oven we inherited had a tendency to shut down on its own at the most inconvenient times. We lucked out that night and the lamb was tender, moist and falling off the bone.
Bordeaux was the wine for that night. Pichon Lalande Longueville 2004, young to be sure but definitely open for business with lively fruit and mineral flavors and a touch of herbaceousness that set up perfectly against the gamey flavor of lamb, rosemary, and garlic.
My heritage being Italian, Christmas Eve was always a culinary three ring circus. It started with my childhood at my Grandmother's house. Josephine did more to open my eyes to the wonders of good food as a child than any celebrity chef could do now. At ten years of age I was eating eel braised in tomato sauce, escargot or frog's legs in garlic butter, shrimp fra diavolo and Fettucine Alfredo. This was the mid 60s and James Beard and Julia Child were just getting rolling. We have for the last few years been at my Sister's in-laws on Christmas Eve, and the traditional Italian seven fishes menu has been put aside for the moment. I look forward to the opportunity to pull out some of those recipes again though. One of my very favorites is Squid braised with red wine and tomatoes. It is a simple dish relying more on great simple ingredients and watchful execution than flashy tricks and exotic foods. The single most important thing is the freshness of the squid. If it isn't pristine, the recipe will suffer.
Once prepared this can work on its own as an appetizer or tossed with pasta such as linguine for a pasta course.
-2# fresh cleaned squid, tubes and tentacles
-½ cup EVOO (extra virgin olive oil)
-crushed red pepper flakes
-8 cloves of garlic peeled and sliced thin
-2 tsp kosher or sea salt
-2 cups of good red (Italian) wine such as Montepulciano D'Abruzzo
-2 24 ounce cans of plum tomatoes crushed by hand
Heat the olive oil in a 6qt pot. Add the garlic, pepper flakes and salt. Saute the garlic over low to medium heat until it turns golden. While this is going on slice the squid tubes into rings ½" wide. When the garlic is ready add all the squid and raise the heat to high. Saute' the squid until it turns from translucent to milky white and firms up. Add the wine and bring it to a boil, then simmer for 3-5 minutes. Add the tomatoes, return the pot to a simmer and simmer slowly for 60 – 90 minutes or until the squid is very tender. Adjust the seasoning, add a little more EVOO, and serve.
A good quality Montepulciano D'Abruzzo such as the Poggio Samael Anima that I mentioned last week drinks very well with this. It is always a good idea to drink the wine you cook with unless it is a Grand Cru Burgundy.
One of the meals that I look forward to the most of through all the holiday feasting is breakfast/brunch on New Year's Day. We inevitably sleep late and I'm usually the first to rise. I'll prepare coffee and work up a frittata to soak up the alcohol from the night before. A frittata is an open face omelette of Italian origin. I'll usually start with thin slices of potato and onion sauteed in a big cast iron skillet. I cook them slowly until they are tender, then pour in the beaten eggs. The pan gets covered so the top cooks along with the bottom. When the eggs are nearly set, I'll add herbs and whatever cheese I have on hand. The whole thing gets inverted out onto a plate and cut like a pizza.
Egg dishes like this are a traditional component of anti-pasti, and this tastes as good cold as it does hot. Speaking of New Year's Eve, we will be going back to our old standbys, Chartogne-Taillet Cuvee Ste. Marie, and Vilmart Cuvee Rubis NV Rose. Unless of course I hit the lottery and then it will be vintage Krug.
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