Chefs Toolbox Party

Hi all,
You may have picked up that my friend Ainsley Kloeden, is a Chefs Toolbox Consultant. Yesterday I went to Wodonga to support her and another friend Marshall Callaghan who was hosting a party at his home. We had a great spread prepared for us and watched the miracle of modern cooking technology produce a pan baked pizza with toppings at least 3 cm thick, followed by the most amazing dessert of chocolate cases filled with Toblerone mousse. As you may guess I love cooking but I also love good cooking technology and Chefs Toolbox provides that in every facet. Also you might be interested in the huge array of recipes that are provided on the site at

http://www.chefstoolbox.com.au/recipes.aspx?recCat=All%20Recipes

I just loved the afternoon and sat back with my bottle of 5th Leg from Western Australia. That's why I love food and wine.

Well I said I would finish the DOs of Wine Tasting At A Cellar Door this week so here are the final four, of course the list is not exclusive so if you can identify more and want to add them as comments I would be glad to include them.

MORE DOS OF WINE TASTING AT A CELLAR DOOR

9. DO: Extend your Wine experience a little each time you visit a cellar door. Taste and if you like, purchase a new variety or style of wine on each occasion, couple that with the purchase of a wine which you are already familiar with and enjoy and you will be experimenting, painlessly. Also be aware that some wines do not show their full range of flavours and aromas until matched with food, so it is sometimes worthwhile to take home a bottle of wine that the person at cellar door describes as a food wine. Nick Bulleid a Meer of Wine has this to say about what makes a good food wine, in his Reflections on the Sydney International Wine Show.

"This is a Wine Show where wines .......... that show up best accompanying food - ... are rewarded."

He goes on to say:

Those of us who do frequent wine tastings get so used to the comment "that wine would look much better with food" that we still get surprised when the reality is clearly demonstrated. Good wines do taste better with food. And that's what the Sydney International is all about.

The differences between wines tasted by themselves in the first phase, judging and then with food in the second stage, were often marked. Specifically, white wines that showed phenolic characters, that impression of light tannin, mattiness, a touch of bitterness on the finish, mostly looked uglier with food, becoming more chewy and bitter. And with oaky whites, where the oak was not well integrated, the oak flavours became even more intrusive.

Some neutral whites, curiously, were not improved by food at all. Harvey (Steiman) and I sent a fresh, attractive, although rather neutral Chenin Blanc through to the Second Phase judging. Using fresh, but bland whites with food is a characteristically Italian approach to wine and food matching, as the wine is used, to refresh and cut through the flavours and textures of the food. But unfortunately, this wine looked even blander!

The whites which really succeeded were medium bodied wines with delicacy, good balance and depth of fruit. The Semillons, the finer Chardonnays, the less pungent Sauvignon Blancs and even the aromatic Rieslings were the most obvious examples and these wines were often spectacular with the food.

With the reds, again, the oaky wines were not assisted by food, and looked even oakier. It was the softer, medium bodied wines with good flavours and fine tannins that really shone. The full bodied reds did well, provided the oak was well integrated and there was no over-extraction of tannins. As with the whites, the food magnified the imperfections and caused me to pass over wines which, through their sheer strength of character, I probably would have supported in a typical “line-’em-up” wine show."

10. DO: Please store your wine in the coolest part of your car when travelling and if visiting several wineries park in the shadiest spots. I usually try to leave my wine purchases for the morning that I intend to return home from a trip to a wine region or festival. I then sweep round to the wineries from which I intend to purchase, during the cool of the morning and drive home by the most direct route. However I realise that this isn't always possible. Try to avoid direct sunlight, prolonged exposure to heat and too much bumping and shaking as this will damage the wine in ways that no amount of subsequent careful cellaring can rectify. If possible take an insulated carrier bag with you.

11. DO: When you get your wine home, leave it to settle for a couple of weeks before drinking, especially if you have travelled any distance. Believe it or not wine can get a condition called "travel sickness" – a flat, dull, out of balance character that goes away with time. ‘Travel sickness’ is usually the reason that wine tastes so differently at home compared to the cellar door.

12. DO: Appreciate that the cost of providing cellar door tastings is high. A sales tax applies to all wine consumed there. As well there is the much larger labour cost. A minimum cost to the winery for each cellar door visitor would be between AUD$5 - AUD$6. Not surprisingly some wineries charge a small nominal fee if a purchase is not made.

I hope that these tips are useful in increasing the breadth and depth of your wine experience as you explore the wine regions closest to you in the coming months.

MY WINE LOG

As you will discover, if you spend enough time with me on this blog, I love things a little bit different. So if you are a plain eater don't be discouraged, just leave the little extras out of each recipe and they will usually taste just fine.

Today I am opening a 1999 Pizzini Wines Cabernet Sauvignon. Pizzini wines are situated in the head of the King Valley and a substantial source of cool climate wines in the North East of Victoria.
The label on the bottle describes the wine in 1999 as grown in the Lana-Trento vineyard, the 1999 vintage has lush berry fruit flavours and finely textured tannins. The colour is dark ruby while the aromatics are earthy with layers of violets, wild blackberry and cedar.

My tasting notes in 2008 read, 'Deep crimson in the glass. The nose was awash with aromas including leather, tobacco and hints of fresh leaf litter. The palate was lush and full with a complex blend of fruit and tannins softened by age to a velvet finish. A rich and spectacular wine '. Although the 1999 vintage is no longer available at the cellar door, they are currently selling the 2001.

The tasting notes for this describe it as follows:
Rich, deep red in colour. The nose initially shows cassis, dried herbs, and tomato leaf. As the wine opens up, spiced plums, stewed rhubarb, and prune notes develop. It has lush, upfront acidity on the palate preparing the senses for rich intense berry fruit flavours. The wine is finely textured, showing warmth, elegance, good structure and longevity.

Today I am preparing a Korma dish as our evening meal. Korma is a pale mild creamy curry dish, which can have a host of varying ingredients. The herbs usually include Coriander and Cummin
The spices usually include chilli and paprika The creaminess is created by the use of either yoghurt or coconut milk.

I use a recipe that I picked up from a Jamie Oliver TV cooking program and have adapted:

The ingredients of the Korma

1 heaped tablespoon of finely grated fresh ginger
3 cloves of garlic, minced
150g thick (plain) yogurt
1 dried red chilli
2 finely chopped onions
1 tbsp ghee or veg. oil
1 tbsp ground coriander
Pinch of ground black pepper
1 tsp turmeric
1 tsp garam masala
water
75g creamed coconut
salt, to taste
2 heaped tbsps ground almonds
finely chopped Coriander Leaves, to garnish
juice of 1/2 lemon

Preparation of the Korma

1. Liquidise the chopped onion and red chillies, add a little water if you need to. blend till smooth.
2. Heat the oil in a pan.
3. Add the ground coriander, ground black pepper, turmeric and garam masala and stir fry for about 1-minute over a low heat.
4. Turn up the heat, add the onion and chilli paste and stir fry for 10-minutes.
5. Add the chicken and the marinade and continue to stir fry for another 10-minutes.
6. Add the creamed coconut and enough water to *just* cover the chicken and bring to the boil, stirring until the coconut is dissolved. Stir in the ground almonds.
7. Reduce heat to low, cover the pan and simmer until the chicken is tender (30-40 minutes).
8. Remove from heat, add lemon juice and salt to taste. Mix well.

Your choice of Vegetables
I love brussel sprouts and broccoli so they tend to be a feature of my cooking along with a mix of brown, white, and red onions. Some add small new potatoes.
In this case I used all the above except for the potatoes and cooked them in the steamer until crisp.

Your Choice of Meat
My choice of meat on this occasion was bacon and chicken. I marinated the chicken and bacon ends in the Korma for 12 hours prior to cooking, this process acts as a tenderiser. I then cooked both the chicken and bacon in the Korma sauce for 20 minutes on a medium heat.

After 20 minutes I added the vegetables to the sauce and continued to cook them for a further 20 minutes.
The dish was served as a one bowl meal, with crispy papadoms on the side.

Some people have asked when my Journey with Wine and The History of Wine will re - commence. Starting with my next post I will have one of those features and then will alternate them for the next few weeks.