A New and Different Red Italian Wine

A few days back I wrote about selecting the wines for my wine and food pairing at the Winefest Renaissance coming up on April 9th. As it turned out, the two Italian red wines I chose were not going to be available after all, so I spoke with the wine representative, because after perusing the list again, I found that there were not two more Italian reds on the list at all. She called later to say they did have another Chianti available (which I wrote about a couple of days ago), but that second Italian red was proving elusive. Much later that day, she called to say they did find one more red Italian. She spelled it out for me, as I had never heard of this wine before! Planeta, Cerasuolo di Vittoria. 

Huh? 

Sausage and Cheese Crostini with Cherry Onion Relish

With absolutely no knowledge of what this was, I went online again. This time I found that "Cerasuolo di Vittoria" is the only DOCG (the highest designation for controlled wines in Italy) wine in Sicily. It is, by law, a blend of two grapes: 60% Nero d'Avola and 40% Frappato. Again, I still had never heard of either of these two grapes - but then again, I don't believe I have ever tried a wine from Sicily before. After researching more on these two grape varieties, I learned much about what the flavors should be when made together. The first grape, Nero d'Avola, is a dark ("Nero" means black) grape, with some similar characteristics to Pinot Noir. It provides the deeper color in this blend, giving a deeper ruby and with fruity flavors that run strongly to blackberry. The second grape, Frappato, is a much lighter grape, and if made solo as a wine is quite light ruby, with particular flavors of cherry and strawberry. 

When blended together, creating Cerasuolo d'Avola, the descriptors for this wine are things like "deep color with cherry highlights, and pronounced flavors of cherry and strawberry." The Nero d'Avola provides structure, body and depth, while the Frappato component lightens and brightens and adds fruitiness.
 

Sausage and Cheese Crostini
with Cherry Onion Relish

With all that in mind, I couldn't quite think of a food that would pair with this combo. "Spicy sausage" and "strong, aged cheese" were both recommended. While there are hot Italian sausages available, I didn't want to use something hot, only to find the majority of people would not want to try it. Instead, I opted to just use Italian Sausage. I am still up in the air about which of two cheeses to use: Fontina or Pecorino. Pecorino would likely be the better choice, but I am concerned at slicing it without having it crumble. Stacked on a toasted crostini with sausage and the relish I was planning, well, it seemed a bit of a gamble.

Yesterday, while creating a Cherry Swirl Cheesecake for Easter dinner, I also created the Cherry Onion Relish to be used on these Crostini stacks. Today, I cooked some sausage, sliced some cheese, poured a little wine and sat with my husband to try these out. I found a Nero'dAvola wine in the store here, but not the actual combo wine (with the other grape, Frappato) I will be serving that night of the Winefest. Still, it was the darker and bolder of the two, and easy enough to gauge. I believe that this combination will be just fine for the Wine pairing, so I am proceeding with that in mind. For now. It could change!

Meanwhile, the Cherry Onion Relish is truly fabulous. It has just a little sweetness, just a little tartness and just a little crunch. It really couldn't fit the bill any better, and it would be fabulous on most any sandwich. It takes only a short while to make, and I got 2 pints out of the recipe. I recommend it highly!  

Cherry Onion Relish

Cherry Onion Relish, atop Sausage and Cheese Crostini

Makes 2 pints

⅔ cup Balsamic vinegar
⅔ cup red wine vinegar
¾ cup sugar
½ teaspoon salt
2 pounds red onions, sliced in thin wedge-slices
1 bag (5-ounces) dried tart red cherries
zest of 1 orange
1 jalapeno pepper, seeded, minced
½ teaspoon fennel seeds

Set a 4 quart saucepan over medium heat with the first four ingredients, stirring to dissolve sugar. Once dissolved, add in all remaining ingredients and cook, stirring often for about 20 to 25 minutes, or until there is little liquid left and what liquid remains is syrupy. Spoon into clean jars and seal tightly. May be stored in the refrigerator for 2 weeks or so.

NOTE: I want to add here that because of the mention of cherry and strawberry flavors coming through on the Cerasuolo di Vittoria blend, I dried some strawberries, ground them into powder and added these to the relish while cooking. While I cannot specifically pick out the strawberry flavors in the relish, it is very good. I feel that not everyone will have dried strawberries at hand, so I left these out of the recipe. Should you have them to hand, please feel free to add them in. I used a whole quart box of strawberries, sliced them and dried them. Once well dried, I powdered them in a bullet blender, then passed the powder through a fine sieve, to remove all the little seeds. This was reduced to a usable 5 tablespoons of powder, and I used all of this in the relish.

My passion is teaching people how to create a harmony of flavors with their cooking, and passing along my love and joy of food, both simple or exotic, plain or fancy. I continue my journey in ethnic and domestic cuisines, continuing my journey to explore diverse culinary experiences and hopefully to start you on a journey of your own. Join me also at A Harmony of Flavors on Facebook, and Pinterest.

New Cheese Ball or Spread for an Open House

Guests enjoying the foods we prepared

Yesterday my good friend Tetiana, of Re/Max Preferred Choice here in Aberdeen, asked if I would come with her to help out with food for an open house she was hosting. I had made little appetizer foods for an open house here last summer. Despite being a truly lovely home, it is still on the market as of today. Tetiana assured me she was making the foods this time, but would appreciate help with serving, while she was busy with potential buyers. Still, I wanted to bring something, so I elected to make a version of some little filled sweet peppers I had made for the holidays a while back. 

Little Sweet Peppers

I started out with the idea of making them just as I made the ones back in December of 2013, but true to form, I cannot even follow my own recipes, even if they were great. Those appetizers were wonderful. I used a cheese ball mixture but softened it to fill those little sweet peppers that are available everywhere now. In lovely colors of red, orange and yellow, and perfect sized for appetizers, they are really attractive. In reading the mixture I made for the cheese ball, I immediately thought of substitutions. And more substitutions. And pretty soon it was such a different recipe that here I am, writing about it. 
 

My Cheese Mixture in little Sweet Pepper halves

Cheese Balls and Variations

Cheese Balls come in so many types and styles that there is really no particular way to make them. Almost any cheese, as long as it is either a smooth, soft type like cream cheese, chevre, blue, Gorgonzola and the like, with something that can be shredded, like cheddar, Jack, Parmesan or others, can be bound together into a cheese ball. It seems that little individual cheese balls have started popping up lately in magazines and on TV, but I came up with this concept on my own a little over 2 years ago. I thought of making tiny individual balls for this Open House, but then remembered those little sweet peppers and went that direction instead. 

"Cheese Ball" Filled Sweet Pepper

Many recipes for cheese balls, if left to soften at room temperature, are also good as a spread, or can be if thinned a little with milk or oil. In this case, I opted to leave out the bacon and go for a more herbal mixture. It seems that cream cheese is a sort of universal "base" or binder for other things. I really wanted to use goat cheese, but chevre tends to be a little crumbly, so cream cheese came to the rescue once again. I had planned to use plain chevre and add my own herbs. I did add more of my own herbs, but while perusing the options at the local grocery, I decided on a 4 ounce log of lemon flavored chevre and a 4 ounce log of garlic and herb flavored chevre. Between these two, there would already be a tasty base for the mixture. Other things to add to a cheese ball are so numerous it hardly seems possible to ever cover them all. I chose dried cherries for a sweet note, and used dill and parsley as the extra herbs. 

Mini Cheesecakes with Jam and Raspberry 

Though this new mixture was used to fill little sweet peppers, it could just as easily be formed into a ball and rolled in more herbs or nuts or cheese. Once chilled it is plenty firm enough to be used this way. Additions to this cheese ball recipe could be things like cracked black pepper (which I meant to use and forgot!), finely chopped fried bacon, nuts left in small chunks instead of ground. Cooked chicken could be finely chopped and added, or smoked salmon or trout. For more ideas see the recipe options here. 

If the mini sweet peppers are not available where you live, regular bell peppers of assorted colors would also work. They would need to be cut into approximately 1 1/2 x 2-inch sections. If the cheese mixture is fine enough, it could also be piped or scooped onto endive leaves, cucumber or zucchini medallions, celery sticks or even carrot coins. These ideas can be seen here.

Herbed Goat Cheese (Ball or Spread)

Herbed Goat Cheese Filled Sweet Peppers

Makes enough to fill one (1 pound) bag of sweet peppers

8 ounces chevre such as lemon and/or herb flavors
8 ounces cream cheese
1½ - 2 tablespoons finely minced fresh dill
1½ tablespoons finely minced fresh parsley
½ teaspoon lemon zest, or more, if desired
¼ cup chopped scallions
¼ cup chopped dried cherries
½ cup nuts, chopped or ground (I used walnuts)
1 pound bag mini sweet peppers

Allow the cheeses to soften at room temperature for about 1 hour. Place all the cheese into a bowl and with a hand mixer whip the cheeses until smooth. Add in all the remaining ingredients except the peppers and mix again to evenly distribute.

Cut off stem end of the peppers, then slice them in half lengthwise. Remove any seeds and membranes. With a small knife, fill each pepper half and smooth evenly. They can be served as is, or topped with a dill or parsley sprig. if desired.

If making a cheese ball, once all the ingredients are well blended, allow the mixture to firm up in the fridge. Once firm, scrape all the mixture together and roll into a ball. Roll the ball in one of the following: ground of chopped nuts, minced herbs (for this recipe, a combination of more minced dill and parsley), or shredded cheese such as finely shredded Swiss, or Parmesan or Romano.

My passion is teaching people how to create a harmony of flavors with their cooking, and passing along my love and joy of food, both simple or exotic, plain or fancy. I continue my journey in ethnic and domestic cuisines, continuing my journey to explore diverse culinary experiences and hopefully to start you on a journey of your own. Join me also at A Harmony of Flavors on Facebook, and Pinterest.

Musing on Thanksgiving Meals

My sister's feast with family, 2010

As an aside, it has been slow going, as it usually is when returning from a trip. I always have a hard time getting back into my routine, meaning things I normally get to are left for last - like this blog. That does not mean I have not been cooking! At present I have enough new things made to write for days. However, with Thanksgiving looming on the near horizon, some time has been spent pinpointing the recipes I want to make for this holiday. To change a recipe I love? Or not? Just an adjustment?

Our feast with friends, 2011

I never stray too far from my usual. All the things I grew up eating, like roast turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, sweet potatoes and cranberries are always on my menu. However, aside from the fact that I am making the same foods, none of my recipes are even comparable to what my Mom made.

I loved Thanksgiving at my Mom's table. She stuffed her bird, back before all the dire warnings of illness due to stuffing cooked wrongly, and I loved that stuffing best. It was made with a cubed loaf of bread, fried bacon, onion fried in the rendered grease, parsley, eggs and milk. Over the years things changed. As I learned more about cooking, I added things I thought would taste good. Making Mom's stuffing recipe, it seemed natural to add in some apple, some grated nuts, reduce some of the grease, try to approximate the flavors of stuffing in the bird - without stuffing the bird!  My stuffing recipe morphed over the years to become Better than Mom's Stuffing. This year it is morphing again, but I will get to that after the fact. My ideas at this point are to proceed as usual, but substitute cornbread for part of the bread in the recipe, and to add in a jar of whole chestnuts. 

Better than Mom's Stuffing

She made mashed potatoes with butter and milk, salt and pepper. Her sweet potatoes were canned, partially drained and cooked down with some butter and brown sugar as a glaze. Her gravy was delicious, though I cannot say how she made it. Cranberries were from a can and most usually the "jellied" variety, served sliced. Did you know that there exists a silver cranberry server? Actually, it seems that in Victorian times this piece was to serve tomatoes, but there is nothing like re-purposing, right?

Tomato or Cranberry Server

I do not stuff my turkey any longer; have not for many years. I often rub some mixture under the skin for flavor, like my Herbed Butter for Turkey or Chicken. In many prior years, I just stuck sprigs of fresh rosemary & thyme, with some onion wedges and garlic cloves under the skin. 

I cook 2 or 3 parsnips with my potatoes and then rice them, adding cream cheese or goat cheese and chopped scallions or chives. I make a Sweet Potato Casserole I have been making since the early 1980s. My stock is made using extraneous bits and pieces of the turkey (gizzards, neck, wingtips, extraneous fat chunks) and is used as the basis for my gravy. The pan drippings get added to the stock later on, before making the gravy.

Cranberry Orange Relish

I make my own Cranberry Orange Relish. My recipe for many, many years is a variation on many out there using orange juice as the cooking liquid. This year I am changing that recipe again. I had a bottle of Ruby Port open since using some to make the Fall Fruit Compote to accompany Pheasant Alfredo. I wanted to use some of this Port as a part of the cooking liquid for the fresh cranberries, along with orange juice. My thought was to first cook the Port down to about half the amount, to concentrate the flavors and lend sweetness. An alternative I would like to try some day is using pomegranate juice instead of the Port for this recipe. I imagine it will give great flavors also, and I would recommend it for those of you who do not use wine at all.

Yesterday was the day for this experiment. I have never, ever put spices into my cranberry sauce, but this year I did add in a small Cassia cinnamon stick, plus a little cheesecloth bag of ½ teaspoon each cardamom seeds and allspice berries. The smell in the kitchen was just heavenly while the wine cooked down!

A cup of Port  |  cooking Port with spices  | peeled sections of orange rind  |  orange sliced julienne style

I still used orange juice for the rest of the liquid, but used less sugar, overall. I added in a cup of dried cherries, for that flavor element. Along with orange zest, I also added lime zest and grated fresh ginger. I took plenty of photos while making it, but did not display the finished product  to get great photos. Those will be added in later on. Meanwhile, this is my Cran-Cherry Relish with Ruby Port:

Relish Cooked to Jam Consistency

Cran-Cherry Relish with Ruby Port

Makes about 4 cups

1 cup Ruby Port
½ teaspoon whole allspice berries
½ teaspoon whole cardamom seeds
1 stick (4-inches) cassia cinnamon stick

12 ounces fresh cranberries (about 3 cups)
1 cup dried cherries
1¼ cup orange juice
3 parings of fresh orange zest, about 1 x 3-inches each
1¼ cup granulated sugar
zest of one lime or lemon
1 tablespoon freshly grated ginger

In a 4 - 6 quart saucepan, bring the port to a boil. Wrap the allspice berries and cardamom seeds in a piece of cheesecloth and add them to the pot with the cassia cinnamon stick. Boil the mixture on medium for about 8 to 10 minutes, or until it has reduced to half. If the prep is not yet done, remove the pan from the heat until it is all done.

Grated lime zest, grated fresh ginger | dried cherries,
all added to the reduced Port and cooked to perfection

If the rest of the ingredients are prepped and ready, add all of them in now. Stir together and return the mixture to boil. Almost immediately, the cranberries will begin to pop. I like to mash them against the side of the pan with a wooden spoon, freeing the insides. This helps thicken the mixture. After about 8 to 10 minutes at a gentle boil, the mixture should have thickened appreciably, to a jam consistency. Remove from heat, cool. Pour into a container, cover and refrigerate. The relish will keep at least 2 weeks well covered in the refrigerator. A great Do-Ahead dish for a busy time!

My passion is teaching people how to create a harmony of flavors with their cooking, and passing along my love and joy of food, both simple or exotic, plain or fancy. I continue my journey in ethnic and domestic cuisines, continuing my journey to explore diverse culinary experiences and hopefully to start you on a journey of your own. Join me also at A Harmony of Flavors on Facebook, and Pinterest.