Ingredient + Produce Features – Page 2 – Writing With My Mouth Full

Biscotti Di Vecchio

Here’s a stocking stuffer for your discerning friends: Biscotti Di Vecchio. These traditional twice-baked Tuscan cookies get a twist from Danielle Di Vecchio, who works the dough by hand using her grandmother’s original recipe.

From the savory, at $7.95 per dozen:

The sun-dried tomato with basil and cheddar cheese was awesome with a glass of Malbec because of its saltiness. It was flakier and more floury because of the cheese. It smelled good, too, even though the basil taste was barely there.

It was hard for me to tell the difference between the black pepper Asiago Parmesan from the rosemary and thyme walnut because I was eating them one after the other, but the black pepper was definitely present when I ate it separately. It remained my favorite savory flavor after everything else.

For the sweets, at $16.95 per dozen:

The cranberry in the cranberry orange zest added a good chewiness to the biscotti’s texture, but it was the zest that lingered and made an impression. I thought it would have been great with some peach or apricot-infused tea.

The pistachio chocolate chocolate chunk, according to my mother, was like eating a dark chocolate bar in a biscotti. (Twice the chocolate in the name!) She had no complaints. The white chocolate macadamia had a subtle vanilla taste. I wanted a cup of hot chocolate with marshmallows with it. The simplest one, toasted almond, was the most biscotti of them all, and just comforting with a cup of hot barley tea.

I think my favorite was the cayenne cherry chocolate chunk. The flavors came in stages: the chocolate was strong at first, followed by the faint tartness of the cherry; the spiciness gradually hit my tongue and then slowly settled in. I loved the unexpected combination and I think any recipient will be surprised.

All in all, Biscotti di Vecchio biscottis are not tough like the ones you buy in stores. They remained pleasantly crunchy even after a weekend in their plastic packaging and I was able to keep the leftovers fresh just by putting them in a resealable container.

I think these biscottis make classy gifts especially during these tough times. If you can’t decide which flavor to give, there is a sweet and savory gift combination for $44.50.

Di Palo’s Fine Foods

Since I’ve been mentioning gift ideas with sausage and cheese in the same post recently, I can’t ignore Di Palo’s new online store, Di Palo Selects, as another option for the holidays. New Yorkers and die-hard Italian tourists know that they can get the best of Italy from the Di Palo family on Grand Street, but now they can get the same products without spending money on airfare. The Web site is powered by iGourmet.com but it’s less confusing because they’ve trimmed down the content to Lou Di Palo’s favorites. While there are the useful related items cross-sells, descriptions are not as overwhelming. I love the glossary page and the Ask Lou feature: you get both in person when you visit the store, which is the main reason why wait times are usually longer than my allotted lunch hour.

Some of my favorite meats and cheeses that I buy regularly from Di Palo’s:
– Piave
– Truffle cheese
– Crucolo
– fresh mozarella
– Prosciutto de Parma
– Prosciutto de Coto
– one of the sausages hanging from the ceiling
– spicy soppressata

I also restock on Di Palo’s olive oil, those glass-jarred tuna, marinated olives and artichokes, as well as Illy coffee. Lou’s brother, Sal, is my favorite. He sounds like Raymond from Everybody Loves Raymond and he makes sure that I always leave with a free treat. When it’s your turn at Di Palo’s, it’s really your turn and no one else’s. Now you can go online and every good thing is just a click away.

Di Palo’s Fine Foods is at 200 Grand Street corner of Mott in Little Italy, New York.

Murray’s Real Salami

I broke the strap of my goggles so swimming after work was out. What does one do on a Friday night alone? If you’re me, then you’d also be on the 6 train to Grand Central Terminal to visit the new Murray’s Real Salami store. Rob Kaufelt, the owner of Murray’s Cheese, is now selling cooked and cured meats from artisan producers like Creminelli, Larchmont Charcuterie and Niman Ranch.

The staff, though not like the Di Palo family members who can recite the history of a cheese or cured meat off the top of their heads, was helpful and excited about letting you try almost anything you want. The Creminelli sausage was perfectly salty with some spice in the end, while the $99-per pound Ibérico de Bellota was naturally oily with some velvet in your mouth (must be all the acorns those happy pigs ate). Just try getting a sample of that at Despaña.

The venison paté was superb with apricot and hazelnuts. The pheasant was rich and had pistachios. Both were perfect on their own or on fresh baguette. I ended up buying with everything I tasted except for the Iberico, plus some bresaola and cornichons. I also took home a bonus package of Niman Ranch bacon because I spent more than $25 during opening week. Across the aisle was Murray’s Cheese where I picked up slivers of Ombra, Pecorino Ginepro and Le Chevre Noir. Back home, I saw no reason to stop: I opened a 2005 Chateauneuf du Pape bottle to go with everything.

There should be more Friday nights like this.

Murray’s Real Salami is inside the Grand Central Market, 212/867.7202. They are open until 9pm during the week.

Your Favorite Meats from DeBragga.com

It felt like Christmas morning when I received a Styrofoam box in the mail that was filled with two racks of lamb, four pork chops, four rib steaks and a container of fleur de sel. The Rack Pack grill kit from DeBragga.com was the only thing I was waiting for before I could begin my long weekend. When it arrived and I saw how beautiful the choice cuts were inside their vacuum-sealed plastics, I couldn’t wait to start cooking and grilling them for myself and my friends.

You know when they say you pay a price for something premium? This rack of lamb is it. In Austin, we bought the same size of rack for about $50; it would be a little more than that in New York City. If you think about the grill kit’s price, you already know you have a good deal if two racks will cost you at least $100 at your supermarket. But this is not your supermarket’s lamb–they had a good amount of fat and we only needed some salt and pepper to make a meal out of each rack.

For the beef steaks, we used the oil it rendered after roasting it in the oven and cooked it with some garlic, shallots, thyme and a splash of red wine to make an accompanying sauce. The steaks were delicious with the sauce, but I also found that they were rich and succulent on their own. I know you’re not supposed to say never, but after these DeBragga meats, I think I can comfortably say that I will never become a vegetarian.

Union Square Wine’s Chateauneuf-du-Pape Tasting

Feeling a lit bit under the weather, I’ve asked Cameron to guest-blog about the wine tasting we attended at Union Square Wines in New York City. Thanks, Cameron! The Chateaneuf-Du-Program:

Le Vieux Donjon 2003
Clos des Papes 2004 from Magnum
Domaine du Grand Tinel 2005 Cuvee Alexis Establet
Clos Saint Jean 2005 Cuvee Vieilles Vignes
Domaine Charvin 2005
Domaine du Pegau 2005 Cuvee Reservee
Chateau de Beaucastel 2005
Domaine du Vieux Telegraphe 2005
Domaine de Beaurenard 2005 Cuvee Boisrenard

I arrived at Union Square Wines to meet Cia on an unexpectedly chilly January night, ready to warm up with some nice reds in their Pape Stars Part One: The Golden Age of Chateauneuf-du-Pape: The Golden Age of Chateauneuf-du-Pape tasting. I’d been willing to overlook their puzzling use of italics in the event description, as my knowledge of these wines was pretty much limited to the pronunciation of the region’s name. A small crowd had assembled in the middle of the store by the time I joined Cia, and it was only a short wait before they welcomed us into the back tasting room of the store.

The first thing I noticed upon entering was the delicate placement of no less than 32 glasses of wine on each small round table. You know that person whose presence at a table guarantees that it’s only a matter of time before something gets knocked over, spilled, or broken? That’s me. I took my seat with trepidation, trying not to touch anything, as the tasting commenced.

The first ten minutes were filled by Wine Director Jesse Salazar’s effusive introduction of Chateauneuf-du-Pape, the current darling of oenophiles everywhere, and even more effusive introduction of special guest host Adrian Chalk, clearly a darling of the New York wine scene. Turns out it was well-deserved; Adrian’s knowledgeable and eloquent presentation of the C-d-P region and the particulars of each of its wines made the tasting worthwhile.

I’ve always loved Grenache (and my familiarity with it has come a long way since I first ordered a glass of “Gre-nach-ay” at The Room a few years ago), but I had no idea that Chateauneuf-du-Pape wines are characterized by the presence of its luscious, bold grape. Predictably, my favorites were the heaviest on Grenache–a pure-Grenache Domaine du Grand Tinel 2005 Cuvee Alexis Establet was the only red Cia and I ended up taking home at the end of the evening.

As far as the actual tasting went, we had fun laughing (especially as the night bore on) at our appraisals: I would detect strawberries at the exact same moment that Cia would exclaim that the same wine tasted like leather. Our tasting companions seemed to have the lingo down, citing things like “tannic euphoria” and “fennel on the nose.” This also became increasingly hilarious as the night bore on.

Of course, the problem with wine tastings, as anyone who has ever enjoyed a tasting menu with wine pairings can attest, is that by the time you get to the good stuff (the main courses and dessert, or in this case, the really expensive wines), you’re just drunk. The last few wines came with florid descriptions and price points to match, but all we could say was that they tasted like wine. By that point, we were also near hysterical about the absence of the promised spread of Murray’s cheeses. We did get our cheese (and meat and bread) in the end, but we were no closer to getting what was so great about these expensive bottles. All the better for spending that $50 wine voucher that came with the price of admission wisely, I suppose.

I liked this tasting not only for Adrian Chalk’s excellent presentation, but also for the discovery that all these wines from the same region really do taste different in ways both simple and complex. I loved hearing about how the tastes were affected by things like a rocky landscape in which sunlight reflected off the stone, creating intense heat. I was intrigued to hear how these sophisticated wines are born of a hellish landscape (the conditions are so hot and inhospitable, the soil so hardened with clay and rock, that Caterpillar tests their machinery here). I was excited to taste a white Chateauneuf-du-Pape on top of all those better-known reds; it turned out to be one of my favorites.

And all night, even after ten wines and several trips to the cheese plate, I didn’t spill a drop.