Champagne Night

Uly and I wanted to have a special meal, since I was going to India the next day and will be gone for a week. It was a nice warm day, and it had been a while since we had champagne night so we figured it was time to have another one!

We knew we definitely wanted caviar, and this time we decided to splurge on the good stuff: real Osetra caviar. Good thing BevMo carries the stuff. A couple years ago, I probably wouldn't have been able to tell the difference, but now I could definitely notice the higher quality. We decided to make the Jean-Georges style eggs with caviar again, which with the Osetra definitely tasted like what we had at the restaurant (though still not quite as pretty). We also had some of the caviar by itself, with some blinis and creme fraiche. Later on, we even tried the caviar with some vodka we had lying around...it did go pretty well, but I still prefer champagne!

We also had some oysters that we bought from the farmer's market, which I served with a mignonette sauce from Epicurious. I prefer my oysters raw, but unless I'm in a really good restaurant or I buy them at the farm, you can never be too sure so I broiled them for a bit as the recipe recommended. Still pretty damn good. Also made some gougeres, which always go great with champagne. For these I use the recipe from Alain Ducasse. Finally, we cannot have champagne night without some foie gras, good thing we still had some vacuum-packs left in the freezer. We just seared these quickly and had them over brioche.

Of course, the meal won't be complete without some cheese. I got some Brillat-Savarin with truffle paste at Whole Foods, probably my favorite cheese of all time. Since we had the brioche anyway, we also decided to make an hors d'oeuvre that we had at the Mayo Reserve Room winery. It's very simple, but tasty...Rogue river blue, sonoma honey, and truffles. Yum!

Lushes that we are, we had not just one but two(!) bottles of champagne that day. The first one was Guy Larmandier Brut NV, a champagne that we had at a New York restaurant that I absolutely loved. For our second bottle, we stuck with the French and had some Taittinger Brut that we had on hand.

We definitely went all out on this one, but it was oh-so worth it! Can't wait until our next champagne night!

Wine & Cheese

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We had quite a busy weekend in the city so we just wanted a simple meal that we didn't have to cook. We just went to Whole Foods and got some cheese and a baguette. We still had some blue cheese left over, so just got a triple-cream and a hard cheese. We also got a chance to open the chorizo iberico de bellota that we brought back from Spain...man, that was probably the best chorizo I've ever had...good thing we only ate half!

For our wine, drank the 2003 Casanova Di Neri Pietradonice "Super Tuscan" that's been sitting in our cellar for quite some time. It was nice and full-bodied, yet not too tannic. Nothing like some good wine and good cheese to wind down on a Sunday night!

Pork Chops

We still had some veggies left over from the farmers market the previous day, but what meat to make? We settled on pork chops since they were easy and we haven't cooked pork in a while. We loosely followed this recipe from Epicurious but we were missing some of the ingredients and skipped the brining part. It still turned out pretty well though, and was really tasty.

For our vegetable, we had the yellow/purple beans we got at the farmers market, unfortunately the purple color faded and we got yellow/green instead. Maybe it was just dyed? It was still good though. For our starch, we had some baby potatoes that were lightly pan-fried. For the wine, we opened a Hagafen Merlot that we got in Napa last summer...it was nice and mellow and went perfectly with the pork. All in all, it was a pretty simple meal, but hearty and made for a great Sunday dinner.


Pork Chops with Apples


Green and yellow beans


Sauteed baby potatoes


The final plate

Farmers' Market Seafood

Since it's been warm lately, Uly and I felt like it might be nice to have some white wine and seafood for dinner. It's been a few months since we've been to the Union City Farmers' Market...last time we were there, it was winter and there wasn't much going on, so we were pleased to see it bustling and full of activity yesterday morning. We wound up getting some oysters and wahoo (ono), a fish frequently found in Hawaii.

For the oysters, we just followed this recipe from epicurious. The oysters seemed fresh, but we didn't want to take any chances eating it raw, so a quick broil did the trick...the accompanying champagne vinegar mignonette went perfectly. Would have been nice to have some bubbly, but didn't seem worth it to open a whole bottle when we only had 3 oysters each.

The wahoo, we did a simple marinade of soy sauce, sesame oil, and garlic that I saw on Chowhound. It was supposed to also have ginger for even more Asian flavor, but alas I forgot to pick some up at the grocery store. It still turned out really well, though. We wanted some sort of fruity salsa to go with the grilled fish, considered mango but then ultimately decided to go with pineapple to give it more of the Hawaiian flavor. The salsa was just a mix of pineapple (we just used canned), onions, cilantro, jalapeno, and lemon. For sides, we sauteed some snow peas with shallot, and cooked some jasmine rice, flavoring it with a bit of scallions, cilantro, and lemon. The fish didn't look that big when we bought it, but it was huge (probably more than a pound) and we didn't even get to finish it.

For our wine, we opened a bottle of Mayo Chardonnay that had been sitting in our fridge for some time. It was actually a free bottle, since it had no label (not sure how a winery runs out of labels, but hey, it worked out for us!). It might have been a bit too full-bodied for the delicately flavored fish, but it held up well to the salsa, which had a bit of a kick from the jalapeno.

It was a pretty light meal, but very satisfying especially in the hot weather. Definitely looking forward to more warm summer nights!


Oysters with champagne vinegar mignonette


Grilled Wahoo (Ono) with sesame oil and soy marinade


Pineapple salsa, sauteed snow peas, and cilantro-scallion jasmine rice