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Nathan P.

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  1. I agree that this is the new local cuisine. If you want to go this route: My favorite Indian is Tirupathi Bhimas http://www.thirupathibhimas.com/ on Abel just south of Great Mall Pkwy in Milpitas. Its vegetarian if that is an issue for you. Interesting Thali meals and good dosas and other crepe/bread items. I also have enojyed Darda when I have been. Try the lamb and sour cabbage soup or the cumin lamb. Be sure to get some sesame bread as well. For Vietnamese you can't go wrong with the classic Vung Tau on Santa Clara in San Jose or the newer Nha Toi. http://www.metroactive.com/metro/08.23.06/dining-0634.html is a Nha Toi review- you can also find some first hand comments on some of the other food boards out there. Vung Tau
  2. I think this is one of the best looking pork roasts I've seen on eGullet (Adam Balic's Porchetta from the Tuscan Food Diary Thread: http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=62033&st=10# Beyond the obvious belly wrap technique, perhaps Adam could be kind enough to give some cooking guidance so we could all achieve: "skin on this was so thin and crisp that it looked and crackled like toffee on a creme brulee."
  3. I had the southern California version of Burrata today so took a few pics for the board to add to this thread. No as nice packaging as the leaf wrapped ball from Puglia, but worth a try if you can find it. Seems much fresher than what I find flown in from Italy.
  4. Isn't the recipe generaly credited to Bernard Loiseau as a nouvelle update on a classic? Looks like Marcel missed the multiple garlic blanche steps based on the judges comments. Loiseau's Recipe from Great Chefs I thought Elia said that Marcel worked for her but perhaps his hair was still confusing me too much to listen closely. I'm finding the show a bit less entertaining than last years but it may just be that its harder to follow and love/hate the characters until they narrow it down to a smaller group.
  5. Nathan P.

    Wine Tag: B

    Its Thevenet. I actually just bought them at Kermit Lynch's shop in Berkeley a couple of weeks ago with a mess of Cab Franc. I've only been serious into wine for about a year so I don't have a cellar I have stocked and can't seem to keep myself away from my better bottles. I don't think I have tasted Beaujolais more than 4 years old though. My local wine shop/bar was pouring a 2002 Granger Julienas Cuvee Speciale earlier this year that I wish I had bought a few more of. Also from KL I have 4 or 5 bottles of the 2005 Fleurie "les Morieres" from Chignard. Super tasty as well and tastes more or less like the notes in Lynch's Aug. newsletter.
  6. Nathan P.

    Wine Tag: B

    Craig- What a great description of good Beaujolais. I keep meaning to get up to SF to get some of Brun's wines which are so popular with the internet wine crowd. Luckily there are other fine options around of which I think I have 5 or so at the house now. Everytime I open one I find the first sip to be light and simple after which it grows in complexity and beauty with every taste until the bottle is gone. I also love what I perceive as a subtle bitterness under the bright fruit. Tonights was a triple B threat: Beaujolais from Brouilly imported by Beaune imports. Not my favorite in the house, but another nice and fairly rich for the genre 2005. I'm not much of a deconstructionist so you will have to settle for subtle, pretty, balanced and took my mind off of a long day at the office. $17 I have a nice 2002 Morgon I may have to open while the B's are going as well. I'd open some Barolo/Barbaresco as well but unfortunately I don't own much
  7. What I have access to in CA is the Gioia product that Pontormo mentions below and the Puglia import that local italian grocery chain AG Ferrari carries. The Gioia is about 10X as good though it is impossible to extract how much of that value comes from my local cheese merchant who has it driven down from SF on the day it is flown there from LA. I am trying to see if they are going to get any in for the monthly cooking thread and will post photos if I can get some. This is the same product that hot Italian restaurants like A16 in SF have been getting raves for serving.
  8. Quiet in here this weekend! So meal (or snack) # 2 from Puglia. Start with a bottle of primitivo. THis one came complete with a pic of the trullo homes of the region. The Torta Tarantina di Patate finishes out a light meal. I followed the recipe from Rustico and used a combo of waxy potatoes and flour to make a dough. This was covered with lots of olive oil, dried oregano, and cherry tomatoes. After 10 minutes in the oven I added some mozzarella and pecorino. Super tasty stuff and it was a mistake to only make a single batch. and a super close up. Highly reccomended.
  9. Took my first shop at Puglia last night. Started off with a vegetable focused antipasti course. I hope no one minds that I snuck a bit of Spain in but when someone brings you a chorizo they bought in Spain and you find padron peppers at the farmers market you just have to serve them. The other dises are 2 kinds of eggplant suateed in EVOO and then marinated with a bit of garlic and parsley and some zephyr squash simply sauteed. Then moved on to a pasta course of orrechiete with dandelion greens and tomatoes. I used a healthy portion of olive oil and there was a few slices of garlic in there as well. Plus a bit of pecorino. This was good but dragged down by the horrible rustichello di abruzzo pasta. I don't know why I can't remember that this is not a shape they do well. Would have been better off to save $2 and get deCecco. For a main I roasted some local Monterey Bay halibut (caught the day before) with some beautiful violet artichokes I picked up that morning and a few slices of lemon. There was also a splash of wine and a fairly intensive drizzle of olive oil both in the roasting and raw as a finishing flavor. Plus some breadcrumbs for a bit of texture. This was not based upon a specific recipe i found but felt in the spirit of the region. and the fish plated... I have only been able to find red wines from Puglia so this was not exactly a perfect match to the food. This was a modernist wine from the area with a bit of cab sauv and merlot added to the blend and some small (and too much) barrel aging. Still it tasted of the sun and was a fairly murky bottle bottle with a rustic character that I enjoyed. It was from 1999. I am boiling potatoes right now for an attempt at a torta taranitina from the Rustico book. Stay tuned for pics.
  10. Well they missed 2 of the other key taco places in Santa Cruz including my favorite: La Cabana for great desebrada and carnitas tacos. You can find them on Mission just before HWY1 North begins. Do follow their tip for Fiesta Tepa Sahuayo in Watsonville. Great place though I can't imagine ordering tacos there with the range of foods on offer. Nathan
  11. I suspect you are admiring Kevin's pasta since I have been fairly quiet over the last couple weeks. Not that I won't gladly take the praise and credit for his food. And Kevin, truly magnificent Sardinian bread. I like the open book in the background that shows you clearly matched the instruction. Loved the final dish as well. I've been trying to dig through my copy of Colman Andrew's Catalan Cuisine book which has buried in it a few Sardininan recipes that reflect Catalan culture on the island but have been running short on time. Thought it would be an interesting variance on the theme.
  12. I broke open my bag of fregula for dinner last night. Most of the recipes I found online were for fregula dishes with seafood. I wanted to go another way so motivated by some comments that the pasta was also served with ragus I decided to go that route. I could not find any lamb shoulder in town so went with some bone-in pork shoulder pieces. I did not have a real Sardininan recipe so I follwed a fairly baisc ragu technique. I browned the meat in olive oil, added a bit of onion and carrot, some san marzanos, some red wine (primitivo) and a bit of chicken broth and water. I braised it until tender and shredded the meat and removed the bones. I finished the dish like a standard pasta dish; boil the fregula until just underdone then finish in the condimento. Interesting texture to the dish as the fregula had 2 distinct textures. The toasted ones were a touch underdone and firm while the untoasted ones were a bit soft and almost breaking down. Overall I quite enjoyed this dish and would do this again- hopefully with lamb for a bit stronger meat flavor. The finishing touches were extra EVOO, a bit of parsley and a good portion of my pecorino sardo. The food went nicely with the single bottle of Cannonau I was able to find in town. My wine merchant assured me that drinking Cannonau will let you live to 100... My only sides were a few olives as an antipasti and a simple green salad.
  13. Nice picture set... Any ideas on the likely reason my tortillas never puff up completely and evenly like the one in the photo? Temp, dough, pressing etc...??? I don't mix my own but buy premade masa at the local mexican markets and none of them ever get as puffy and as a result seem a bit dense. I have followed cooking directions from Bayless and Kennedy but neither have put me over the top to great tortillas.
  14. These were purchased- hard to to have time to make pasta after work on Friday. They were imprted from Sardinia though. I do have a recipe if you want it: 2.5 cup very fine semolina .5 cup ap flour pinch of ground saffron 1 cup lukewarm water After you make the dough just roll it into a long tube, cut the pieces and then roll them on your cuiliri/cuilini I think cavatelli would make a good stand in though some of the ones I see in stores are a bit longer. The recipe I have uses more ap and less semolina in the cavatelli but I don't think this would matter too much. I wish I had fresh tomatoes instead of canned for this since they would have made it less saucy and let the 2 colors of the pasta stand out more.
  15. And so I dedicate my first dish of Sardinia to Alberto : Malloreddus Alla Campidanese. Following the recipe in Bugialli on Pasta except for a mysterious lack of bay leaf in the house and it is too early for fresh tomatoes in NorCal so I used canned San Marzanos. I also cooked it a touch too long due to a delayed guest but still a perfect simple pasta dish. The ingredients were just olive oil, tomatoes, sausage, basil, garlic to perfume the oil and a pinch of saffron. Adding realism was a bit of mature pecorino sardo. The cheese I have was fairly subtle with a less pronounced flavor and salt level than the pecorino romano and parmigiano I buy. Good stuff. And if any one has not seen these pastas yet, here is a pic of my malloreddus and fregola. I have not cooked the fregola yet but the texture looks great! For those that can't track these down and don't want to try making them from scratch, I suspect the Israeli cous cous (as they are sold in the us) could stand in ok. These were made by Tanda e Spada in Sardegna.
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