“Iron Chef” and great wine!
Wine Club Insider back with you!
Well, I’m back from an out-of-town working sojourn in lovely central Oregon.
My last evening there, I competed in a little “Iron Chef meets Chopped” cooking contest against a local chef, and it was a blast!
The key ingredients were chicken, strawberries, Graham crackers, and the secret ingredient was Bok Choy (?). We could prepare as many dishes as we could, highlighting the ingredients, and using a few other things as well, so with the opening gong, the battle was on!
For my dishes, I prepared a double appetizer that was well received… I made a sauteed chicken taco, stuffed with diced bok choy, cilantro and a sour cream, yogurt and wasabi sauce with a lime wedge on top, and I made a mille feuilles of very thinly sliced chicken breast slices and super thinly sliced red potatoes, topped with a jumbo prawn and a strawberry emulsion.
For my main course, I took a piece of the chicken breast, sliced it and stuffed it with strawberry, graham cracker and a piece of Havarti cheese, and the baked it, wrapped in puff pastry.
I served it over sauteed bok choy with a mustard and white wine sauce, accompanied by diced red potatoes cooked up in the rest of the sour cream – wasabi sauce.
For dessert, I made a puff pastry crust, and coated it with Graham crackers and a butter/lemon cream. While that was cooking, I took rhubarb, lots of strawberries, raspberry liqueur and some sugar, and cooked them down to a nice coulis. I filled the pastry shell, let it chill a bit, and served it with a touch of whipped cream.
My opponent Lisa made a spinach and bok choy salad with strawberries and carmelized almonds (which were really good!)).
For her entree, she went with simple, pan seared chicken breast with a balsamic reduction, and baked bok choy in the same sauce. She served it with rice with raisins and almonds. For dessert, she made a graham cracker pie crust, and made a key lime pie topped with a couple of strawberries.
In the judging, I won the appetizer and entree unanimously, and narrowly lost the dessert, but won the overall. More importantly, we had a great time, and ate 5 terrific courses.
We also had some wine, and I’m not talking just any wine!
We started with the terrific Clos du Bois Zin, which, while not as good as the Ravenswood, was pretty special. Next, we had the Concannon Petite Syrah, which is one of our host’s favorites, and it didn’t disappoint. Then I brought out the Borra “Fusion,” a Syrah, Cab, Merlot, Zin blend from Lodi, and it was AMAZING! Everyone loved this wine… it was one of the best I’ve drank in some time, and even better under the circumstances.
For dessert, I cracked one of my treasures: a 750 of 1982 Renaissance Late Harvest Sauv Blanc. I’m not sure if I’ve had a better glass of dessert wine in a long time, Ice wine included.
I bought the last case a couple of years ago, and have been drinking them for special occasions. The wine is now the color of rich caramel, and the flavor just keeps getting better. What an awesome way to end a great evening!
Cheers,
Wine Club Insider out.
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