I DRINK ON THE JOB - THE BLOG

Posts Tagged ‘culinaerie’

A Dramtastic Experience with The Glenlivet

June 12th, 2013 • No Comments

The Glenlivet Dram + Discover came to Washington, D.C. on Tuesday, June 11th with a fascinating mix: a cooking class experience at Culinaerie with recipes and Scotch pairing!

Craig Bridger - The Glenlivet Brand Ambassador

Craig Bridger – The Glenlivet Brand Ambassador

Part presentation, part tasting and part cooking class, this event showcased 2 really great Scotches produced by The Glenlivet: their 18 year old and the Nadurra Cask Strength. The question is: Does Scotch pair well with food?2013-06-11 18.56.23

Our chef for the event was Wendi James – I had met her at a prior cooking class at the Hill Center a few months before teaching a pasta class – she’s a very good cooking teacher with really great presentation skills (in other words, she uses plain English!) so it was easy to understand her directions. The recipes were for:

  • Smoked Chicken in Bacon Cream Sauce
  • Mashed Sweet Potatoes
  • Vanilla Vinaigrette
  • Butterscotch Bread Pudding

Little pointers along the way made it educational – for example, to make “lardons” (in essence crispy bacon pieces), Wendi said it’s best to start with a pan on low heat vs high heat. See, I always start with a hot pan – it’s just my way of getting food started quickly..but that’s actually a bad idea if you’re trying to render fat – so it makes more sense to put the bacon pieces in a low heat pan to let the fat melt and create “oil” and slowly crisp the exterior. Hmmm, good lesson!

2013-06-11 18.38.04Of course, my friend Emily is Kosher – and two immediate problems came to mind: 1)bacon! and 2)meat and dairy at the same meal..Emily was a real trooper (I swore to her – I had no idea what the dishes would be!) and she simply ate the chicken prepared without the bacon (I highly doubt the meal was even close to Kosher – Such is Life!)

So how did the Scotch and food pairing go? Well, of course, I had to raise my hand and ask Craig, Glenlivet’s Brand Ambassador how he suggested that Scotch and food be paired. His answer was also pretty insightful: the 18 Year Old Glenlivet is a rounder/mellower style of Scotch than the Nadurra which is full “Cask” strength and uses only Bourbon barrels (the 18 Year gets both Sherry and Bourbon barrel aging). Also one other quick point: Glenlivet uses minimal if any peat-smoked grains, so the smokyness of the Scotch is really not a factor. The 18 year went well with the bacon/cream sauce and the smoky chicken, but even better with the mashed Sweet Potatoes because they had orange zest in the ingredients – that really made it pair beautifully! Since the Nadurra is a more aggressive style, you need something to either cut the intensity or match it – so cheese being a fat often is paired with it, but also desserts – he mentioned chocolate is a great pairing, but I noticed the butterscotch sauce in the Bread Pudding sort of tamed the flames of the Scotch. When I looked at the recipes, I noticed: smoke, vanilla and butterscotch – these are noteworthy components of the Whisky aging process, so it just makes sense that using these in cooking will pair well..

Always finish with a dram..

Always finish with a dram..

Conclusion: Glenlivet, Culinaerie and everyone staffing the event did a bang up job of presenting Scotch as a wonderful addition to a meal – not just a drink to be enjoyed by itself. I suggest you look for these type of events in your city..and of course if you live in Washington, D.C., check out the TasteDC site for cooking classes and these type of events – Cheers!

Charlie “I Drink on the Job” Adler

How To Make Pasta with Class

February 18th, 2013 • No Comments

pastaravioli

I’ve been to many cooking classes and in fact many Pasta Making classes so it was really fun to attend a creative take on a cooking class organized as part of the Barracks Row Culinary Education Crawl on Sunday, February 17th, 2013 held at various restaurants on Capitol Hill, Washington, D.C. as well as the Hill Center at the Old Naval Hospital – a truly cool space!

I took 2 classes, but this article will only cover the class Pasta Making With Chef Wendi – a 60 minute class where 12 total participants got to make our own pasta and share in the meal afterwards – all for a whopping 20 Bucks! I’ll take you through a quick run-through of the class:

Instructor: Wendi James who teaches quite a few culinary classes at other schools in the region including at Culinaerie, Sur La Table – Pentagon City, VA (or she said she once did – another story!) and at her own cooking school Rutabaga Sweets. I spoke with her before class and she has quite a pedigree having worked at many top-rated restaurants in the U.S. (she worked at Restaurant Daniel NYC, The Inn at Little Washington and Charlie Trotters Chicago) and hailing from serious Foodie City Chicago. Her attitude was refreshingly honest and she spoke her mind about the local restaurant scene and her plans to open up a breakfast place in Asheville, NC. As an instructor, she was direct and “get to work” – but of course we only had 1 hour to make both hand-roll fettucine and ravioli with the hand-cranking pasta machines – no time to dilly-dally..

pastaingredientsraw

Flour, Eggs and maybe 1 tablespoon of Olive Oil!

Pasta Ingredients – simple..all you really need is All-Purpose flour, some eggs, and a little olive oil (you could actually skip the olive oil). I was working with 2 other cooks who had never made pasta homemade before. Maybe you can get a little fancy and learn to crack an egg with one hand, but one secret to getting the egg in the flour with No Shell is to crack the egg against a flat surface NOT the bowl. If you mix it in a bowl, it’s very forgiving, but it’s nice to make a small “well” in the middle of the flour to hold the eggs and then swirl a fork (or your hand – watch out, it can get sticky/messy!) until the ingredients all become a dough..if it’s too sticky, add some flour, if it’s too dry, add a little water, it’s very forgiving.

State of the Art Cooking Facility

State of the Art Cooking Facility

The Facility and Setup: Class is held in Hill Center’s state-of-the Art teaching kitchen. It was relatively small – only fitting 1 instructor and 12 participants, but it was truly an easy kitchen to learn from and to do hands-on cooking. There was the main table where everyone gathered round in a circle with the burners, and then there were 2 work tables in the back for up to 6 participants each. Things were kept very simple – we were given a bowl of flour and eggs, some olive oil and a tablespoon, and the ravioli filler which we had to cut up the basil and add to the ricotta and parmesan cheese to put into the ravioli’s – just like Italian food, there were simple ingredients and simple instructions. If you’ve ever been to Italy and have seen how pasta is made – it’s very simple and traditionally was done by Grandma at home. BTW – you can also make pasta without the eggs and just using water – that’s how it’s often done in the south of Italy. And then, we had to roll..

pastarolling1Rolling Pasta:

Hand making Ravioli

Hand making Ravioli

Once you make the dough, you can wait an hour or immediately begin rolling it out into sheets. The way it works is that you begin with the widest opening, do that a few times until the dough kind of “comes together” (the gluten begins to stretch and take shape) and then you keep feeding the sheet into smaller/narrower settings until you get to the lowest setting – and boy, does the dough spread out – I mean it can go for yards! The same sheet of dough can be used for noodles or for ravioli and fillings – I once took a class where different kinds of flour were used for both (All Purpose Flour for Ravioli because it’s relatively soft/tender, semolina flour for a chewier pasta) but frankly it’s a matter of personal taste.

Cooking Pasta: The sauce in this class was made for us (another post on Sauce..soon..) but in a nutshell there was a white sauce with cheese and cream and a red sauce with tomatoes of course. So Chef Wendi boiled the pasta in unsalted water – a discussion ensued – in Italy, they always salt their water for pasta (“as salty as the sea” is the famous quote on how much salt for pasta water – this always starts an argument with Italian cooks!) – her philosophy is you don’t salt the pan when you sear a steak, you salt the steak – so my interpretation is that the pasta/ingredients and the salt should be properly salted. In my own defense of the Italian way of salting the water – it depends – for example, if you cook your greens in the salted water before you cook your pasta (like for Broccoli Rabe and Orecchiette), you have a very flavorful pasta water..well, just like 2 Italians, Chef Wendi and I may never agree!pastasauce1

Upcoming Pasta Classes on the TasteDC Site:
Handmade Pasta Workshop at the Kitchen Studio (Frederick, MD) (February 21st, 2013)
Pasta Fatta in Casa (Pasta Made at Home) II at Culinaria (Saturday, February 23rd, 2013)
Pierogi Cooking Class at Hills Kitchen (February 23rd, 2013)
Fresh Pasta Workshop at Sur La Table (March 13th, 2013)
-Handmade Pasta and Sauce at Cookology (Ashburn, VA) (Saturday, March 23rd, 2013)

Get Thee To a Valentine..

January 31st, 2012 • No Comments

(Note: Updated on February 9th (Thursday) 2012 – will be updated as events unfold or get Sold Out..)

I’ve never been a huge fan of Valentine’s Day, but like Halloween, it’s a celebration/festivity that has taken on a life of it’s own. And 2012 is no exception, there are just a plethora of Valentine’s tastings for both the chocolate and non-chocolate lover – I’m not even sure if the latter exists! Some quick thoughts on Valentine’s and tastings: if you’re a restaurant or event provider who wishes to really draw people in this time of year, any theme with chocolate, sparkling wine (especially Champagne) or some over-the-top rich dish like braised meats seems to bring people in in droves – oh, and also any food/concept connected with Amore, for example oysters and fondue (both chocolate and cheese work). It’s also OK to add terms like “seduction”, “decadent”, “aphrodisiac” and even “libido” to your menu descriptions which breaks away from the everyday norm of exclusion of these concepts – Valentine’s gives you as the marketer the right to explore the racier side of life..and people will accept and forgive you for about a week! Of course, certain cultures are also associated with lasciviousness so French and Italian restaurants and themes have a distinct advantage. If you have a strong combination of all of these themes and concepts, you can also expect a marriage proposal or two to occur – and hopefully, not with your staff!

Oh, and to make all this information just a touch more confusing..Valentine’s Day is officially Tuesday, February 14th, but many events list their date on Saturday or Sunday as “official” Valentine’s Day events – it’s a celebration of love and romance, does it really matter what the official date is? I think not..

I will list the major tastings by date (Note: if you’re just looking for a listing of restaurants that have multi-course dinners especially for Valentine’s, here’s a pretty good list by Washingtonian):

Thursday, February 9th,

Sommelier Showdown (as part of the DC International Food and Wine Festival), 7:00pm-9:00pm
Ronald Reagan Building, 1300 Pennsylvania Avenue Northwest Washington, DC 20004

Tickets are $150/per person and can be Purchased Online

See top DC Sommeliers flex their knowledge at the Washington DC International Wine & Food Festival’s inaugural Sommelier Showdown. Our experts will engage in a friendly tête-à-tête and compete in a race of the taste, using deductive tasting to identify wines with hidden labels.

To complement the wines presented, the Showdown will feature five of DCs most noted chefs who will be tasked with bringing food and wine together, including Chefs Todd Gray (Equinox), Xavier Deshayes (Ronald Reagan Building), and Jaime Montes de Oca (Zentan).

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SOLD OUT-Savory Syrah – A Global Tour
7 pm
Chain Bridge Cellars, 1351 Chain Bridge Rd. McLean, VA 22101

Wine experts all agree that Syrah is one of the “noble” varietals, capable of making some of the most complex, layered and age-worthy wines in the world. But the kinship between a $10 Aussie Shiraz and a $70 Hermitage is pretty hard to fathom! So take a worldwide tour of everything Syrah/Shiraz can be and see if you can find some common themes. We’ll taste bargains from Australia and the South of France;  classic American, South African and Rhone wines; and a couple of “big guns” from the Barosa and Cote Rotie.

This class includes seven wines, Syrah-friendly snacks, and take-home descriptions of each wine and region covered.

To reserve a space, email [email protected] or call 703.356.6500

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TasteDC Chocolate Making 101 at Wanders Chocolaterie

How to Blind Taste Wine
February 9th (Thursday) Session 1: 6 – 7:30 pm; and Session 2: 8 – 9:30 pm
Adour in The St. Regis, 923 16th and K Streets, N.W., Washington, DC 20006

Wine Director Brent Kroll will conduct a sensory analysis on how to quantify wine flavors and origin.

Tickets are $60/per person.
Call (202) 509-8000 to Make Reservations

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