Pair It! http://blog.pairitapp.com Changing How You Pair Wine posterous.com Sat, 02 Oct 2010 10:34:23 -0700 The New Greengrocer Cookbook http://blog.pairitapp.com/the-new-greengrocer-cookbook http://blog.pairitapp.com/the-new-greengrocer-cookbook I am very pleased and proud to be a part of The New Greengrocer Cookbook by Pete Carcione, and I highly recommend anyone reading this to go out and purchase a copy.
It is filled with great, easy-to-make and healthy recipes using seasonal produce you can find at your local market.

I remember listening to Joe Carcione, The Greengrocer (Pete's grandfather), so when I was asked to contribute to Pete's book, I was thrilled.

Before it was fashionable, the Carcione's were extolling the virtues of seasonal, fresh produce. This book contains classic recipes that never go out of style, blended with contemporary recipes from many talented chefs. The recipes are simple to make and focus on the use of fresh fruits and vegetables.

The book is chock full of recipes that will keep you cooking and eating healthy all year-round.

I have been an advocate of fresh, seasonal ingredients for many years and as the Executive Chef and owner of a Green Certified Catering company, I would like to applaud the books' focus on healthy food.

You can find the book at http://www.greengrocercookbook.com/

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/155059/bruce-riezenman_bigger.png http://posterous.com/users/eDAZvdp6RX Bruce Riezenman Bruce Bruce Riezenman Tue, 26 Jan 2010 16:32:40 -0800 A wonderful combination... http://blog.pairitapp.com/a-wonderful-combination-1 http://blog.pairitapp.com/a-wonderful-combination-1 I had a great Dungeness crab dinner tonight with my brother and some good friends.
I served the crab with a dill & creme fraiche aioli, wedges of lemon, sautéed green beans, celery root cooked with leeks and some brown rice.
It was a simple and satisfying meal, and paired very well with a Martin Codax Albariño.

After dinner we had a memorable combination that I will most certainly try again.
A 2004 Merriam Vineyards Merlot, Valrhona 70% dark chocolate and Hoshigaki.
The dark berry flavors of the wine blended beautifully with the persimmon.
The bitterness of the chocolate and it's creamy texture created a great balance with the medium tannins in the wine.

Hoshigaki are persimmons that are dried in a traditional Japanese style. They are hand-peeled, tied with string and hung to dry for several weeks.
They are hand-massaged every few days. The final product has a concentrated flavor, with a rich and creamy texture.
Hoshigaki are hard to find, but you can ask for them at the farmer's market.

A nice savory hors d'oeuvre is to serve a slice of Hoshigaki with slice of medium-rare duck breast. Sprinkle it with black tea and Maldon salt.

Chef Bruce
Pair It!

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/155059/bruce-riezenman_bigger.png http://posterous.com/users/eDAZvdp6RX Bruce Riezenman Bruce Bruce Riezenman Tue, 19 Jan 2010 22:45:30 -0800 Dinner last night... http://blog.pairitapp.com/dinner-last-night-26 http://blog.pairitapp.com/dinner-last-night-26 I had dinner last night at Perbacco in San Francisco with two of my brother-in-laws.

The place was very busy, which was great to see for a Monday night.
We had a bottle of Rock "Judge Family Vineyards" Syrah which we brought with us.
The wine was great and it worked beautifully with the "Papardelle with Short Rib Ragu and Horseradish".

I don't often order Vitello Tonnato, but this was done perfectly. Medium-rare, room temp veal, thinly sliced with a lemon-tuna sauce, capers and arugula.

We also shared a bottle of Uvaggio from Propieta Sperino in the Piedmonte region of Italy. It was a wonderful red wine. Slightly minty, smooth and silky. Light smoke with good fruit and well-balanced.
It is a blend Nebbiolo, Vespolina and Croatina. Uvaggio means that the juice from the grapes were blended before fermentation.

This was a recommendation from the owner Umberto and it paired nicely with my Rabbit cooked in Spiced Red Wine Sauce.

Chef Bruce

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/155059/bruce-riezenman_bigger.png http://posterous.com/users/eDAZvdp6RX Bruce Riezenman Bruce Bruce Riezenman Wed, 30 Sep 2009 07:29:23 -0700 Food and wine pairing, is it worth the effort? http://blog.pairitapp.com/food-and-wine-pairing-is-it-worth-the-effort http://blog.pairitapp.com/food-and-wine-pairing-is-it-worth-the-effort
Yes…

If you want to get more enjoyment out of your meals.

The taste of a wine can be greatly influenced by what you eat. What happens when you combine food and wine is that the food effects your perception of the way a wine tastes.

At the same time, wine adds another dimension to the food.

Let me give you an example:

Drinking a crisp white wine, like a Sauvignon Blanc is in a way like adding a squeeze of lemon to a dish. Crispness in wine is acidity.

Imagine a grilled mahi-mahi (or other fish) that you might want to top with a squeeze of lemon. What does the lemon do? It perks up your palate. The combination of grilled fish and lemon is cleaner and more refreshing than the fish on it’s own. Try a sip of Sauvignon Blanc (SB) with the same fish and you’ll see it does a similar thing. The crispness of the wine also perks up the fish and cleans your palate for the next bite.

Try them both together. Squeeze of lemon on the fish and then the SB. What happens? It is clean and refreshing and it brings out some new flavors in the wine as well. Maybe you’ll notice a little more “fruit” in the wine that you didn’t notice before. I call this a great pairing!

Drinking the right wine with a meal can add depth to the food.

For example, try serving a good Syrah (red wine) with a slow-cooked pork ragu over pasta. On it’s own, the pasta and ragu is very good.

Try it with a glass of Syrah, and you’ll find the wine “rounds out” the flavors in your mouth. Sort of like adding shading to a picture you have drawn. It was good before but now has more depth.

Try it and see what you think. Just like grating cheese on the pasta adds another dimension to it, so does drinking the right wine with it.

Food and wine should be considered part of making dinner.

If you think about it, all the flavors are combined when you eat food and drink wine. Your mouth does not separate them. Flavors linger and then combine with the next taste or sip.

So yes, choosing the right combination of wine and food does matter.

If done well, each on it’s own is wonderful and worth slowing down to appreciate. Together, they can be exceptional.

So if we understand a little more about the dynamic, we can create something that is better than the sum of its parts. 

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/155059/bruce-riezenman_bigger.png http://posterous.com/users/eDAZvdp6RX Bruce Riezenman Bruce Bruce Riezenman Wed, 16 Sep 2009 23:53:00 -0700 Balancing Food & Wine Tastes to Create a Great Pairing - Part 1 http://blog.pairitapp.com/balancing-food-and-wine-tastes-to-create-a-gr http://blog.pairitapp.com/balancing-food-and-wine-tastes-to-create-a-gr
A few years ago, I was asked to create an interactive class in food and wine pairing that would teach experienced wines sales people the basics of pairing.

The challenge was for me to understand what I had been doing for so many years and to understand the basics well enough to teach others. The outcome was the balancing chart, which you can download here.
Here is the start of what I consider the 3 Steps of Food & Wine Pairing...

Let's start with the end game:
The goal of wine and food pairing is for you to like the combination of the food and wine in front of you... end of sentence. Nothing else matters.

It starts with the wine since that is the one part of the food & wine equation you cannot change. I'm not giving you permission to add anything to the wine. No spritzers or wine coolers in this particular conversation. We'll save that for another time. 

That means that the only thing you can do is "play with your food" by adjusting how it tastes with anything you have in your refrigerator or your cupboard: salt, spice, heat, fruit, chutneys, etc...

Remember in food and wine pairing, it is all about "perception"...

By having food and wine together, we change the way the wine tastes but we are not actually changing the wine. We are simply changing the way you perceive the wine because the food you have just eaten is still on your palate when you drink the wine. 

If you were to wait 15 minutes between bites and sips of wine, it might not matter at all. (I have never really timed it but there must be a certain time when the taste of what you have eaten is no longer on your palate. Has anyone ever tried this? If not, we'll have to try this some time soon...)

Since I pair food and wine for more than just myself and friends, I have to look at a broader definition. My goal is to highlight what I find most appealing in a wine and to minimize any aspects of the wine I like least. If I like the wine as is, then my goal is for the wine with food to resemble the way tasted on its' own. The way the winemaker meant it to be. 

The right food can bring out the fruit, the tartness, the body of the wine and many other features. You can really make a wine "sing" with the right pairings. 

I recommend when you drink wine with a meal or even a snack that you pay attention to what they do to each other. Truly "play with your food" and see what happens!

The more you do it the better you get at it. Just like most other things in life.

The bottom line is that the final opinion in food and wine pairing is yours. 

No matter what the "experts" say, only you know what you like and that is all that counts when the glass and the plate are in front of you. Therefore, you are the final expert.

Steps of Food & Wine Pairing

Step 1
Matching the "weight" of the wine to that of the food
The relative weight of a wine means: Is the wine light or heavy when you drink it? On the far extremes, Cabernet Sauvignon is a big or heavy red wine. Sauvignon Blanc is a light white wine. 
There are many wines in the middle. In general, white wines are lighter than red wines. That is not always the case, but we'll save that for another blog.

What makes a wine heavy are tannins, sweetness, alcohol, barrel aging, and intensity of fruit. Pretty much what ever makes a wine "linger" on your palate is what makes it heavy.
What makes a food heavy is richness (fat), umami (another topic for the future), and the style of cooking (grilled foods are heavier than poached). 

So, we balance food and wine by choosing items that are similar in weight. Lighter red wines with salmon or chicken. Heavier red wines with stews. These are just a couple of examples.

Step 2
Flavor bridges, connections and affinities
On the simplest level, if a wine has the flavor of cherry in it, there is a good chance a food dish with cherry will pair well with it. I call this a bridge from food to wine.

The next level is what I call a connection. If wine has pear flavor (like many Chardonnays) you can guess that since ginger pairs with pears (sorry, couldn't help it!), you could guess that your wine would also pair well with ginger.

Then there are affinities... These are combinations that we know from experience work well. One good example is corn and Chardonnay. We list some better known affiinities in Pair It!

Now you have what will probably be a good pairing. But to make a good pairing great, you need Step 3.

And here is where the fun begins...

My next blog will discuss Step 3: Balancing tastes to make good pairings great
I'll discuss the definition of "tastes" and how to use them. 

To this end, I developed the "Balancing Chart for Food & Wine", which is the basis of Step 3. 

You can find more pairing information and advice on the Pair It! and Great Pairings websites.

Until then...


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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/155059/bruce-riezenman_bigger.png http://posterous.com/users/eDAZvdp6RX Bruce Riezenman Bruce Bruce Riezenman Thu, 03 Sep 2009 23:36:00 -0700 Eggs for Dinner http://blog.pairitapp.com/eggs-for-dinner http://blog.pairitapp.com/eggs-for-dinner

When all else fails, and I don't feel like shopping, I fall back on eggs or pasta for dinner.

Tonight was one of those nights...

It was 95 degrees today and by the time I arrived home at 6PM, I decided I was in for the evening. Lots of work to do. I relaxed for a bit then sat down at the computer. By the time I realized it, it was 9:00 and was time to see what I had in the house for dinner.

One of my favorite egg dishes is a cross between a Spanish Tortilla (Tortilla Española) and a frrittata. It is an open-faced omelette with lots of vegetables and thinly sliced potatoes. The potatoes give it body and structure. Cheese, vegetables and herbs give it texture and flavor. Eggs hold it together. I like it with corn during the summer and cauliflower in the winter. When I make my omelettes, I take great care to ensure the eggs do not get any color from cooking. With a frittata, the bottom will be browned and the top might also have a little color to it.

I usually stop at the farmers' market on the weekend and again on Wednesdays, so there are always fresh vegetables in the fridge.

If I use an 8" non-stick pan, 3 extra large eggs are enough to serve two. Tonight's dinner was just me, so 2 eggs were all I needed. 

So, what wine to drink with a frittata? Some would say a sparkling wine or a lighter white and those would be good choices. My question is, what's in it and what's on top? 
The wine of choice for tonight was Zinfandel (red). With an heirloom tomato salsa, cheddar cheese and leafy greens, the eggs and the Zin complemented each other very nicely.

Here's how I put it together. Start to finish was about 20 minutes:

2 each eggs, extra large
2 Tablespoons milk

Combine the eggs and the milk and stir with a fork until smooth.

1 teaspoon butter, unsalted
1 Tablespoon  leeks, sliced
1/2 each Jimmy Nardellos sweet Italian frying peppers (or any other good sweet red pepper)

Place in sauté pan on medium heat and cover until it foams and the leeks have softened.
Season with salt and pepper.

8 each green beans, cleaned & cut into 1 inch pieces
4 leaves red chard, without the stem, chopped
1Teaspoon water

Add beans and chard. Stir and cover for 2-3 minutes. Then add water and cover. 
Once the green beans soften and the chard is wilted, remove the cover and let all the liquid evaporate. 
Check your seasonings and adjust with salt and pepper if needed.
Add the vegetables to the egg mixture and stir it in.

2 each red potatoes, medium-small
1 teaspoon butter
3 Tablespoons water

Wash and slice the potatoes thinly (they should be low-starch, "creamy" potatoes). Place in sauté pan with butter and a touch of salt. Toss for a minute then add the water.
Cover and simmer. Make sure there is always a little bit of water in the pan. If you don't have enough water, the potatoes come out too dry. 
Once the potatoes are almost cooked, remove the cover and cook until all the liquid has evaporated.
Add to the egg/vegetable mixture and stir it in. 

1/4 cup excellent quality cheddar, grated
2 leaves sage, fresh, minced

Add the cheese & sage to the egg mixture. 
Clean the sauté pan and rub with some butter to coat (or spray if you don't like butter as much as I). Place over medium flame and pour the egg/vegetable mixture into the pan. As the egg starts to set, stir it once gently with a wooden spoon or a hi-temp rubber spatula. Place the pan with the eggs & veggies in a 325 degree (pre-heated) oven and bake until the top is slightly puffed and golden and the center is firm. That should take around 5-8 minutes. 

Remove and slide out of the pan and onto a pre-warmed plate. Top with a fresh salsa.

Chef Bruce

Eat well!

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/155059/bruce-riezenman_bigger.png http://posterous.com/users/eDAZvdp6RX Bruce Riezenman Bruce Bruce Riezenman Mon, 31 Aug 2009 20:55:00 -0700 First Blog ... http://blog.pairitapp.com/first-blog-102 http://blog.pairitapp.com/first-blog-102
This is my first blog after launching our new food and wine pairing app for the iPhone called Pair It! (www.PairItApp.com).

The app has been a wonderful project that challenged me to put much of what I know about food & wine into what would eventually become the 20,000+ pairings listed in Pair It!

I am a lucky man... I've been a chef for most of my adult life and love what I do. For the past twenty three years, it has been in the California Wine Country. My interest in wine and food is what brought me out here. I am curious by nature and love building and tweaking things. I look at food and wine pairing as a do-it-yourself project. There are so many nuances to a good wine, and then when you add in food to the mix, it becomes a fantastic building project of tastes and flavors, all influenced by personal taste. In other words, there is no right or wrong, just what you like.

There are, however, rules to guide you about how certain tastes and flavors in food and wine will effect each other. Some of this appears in the app itself under the "More" tab. And you can find more info about it under the "Perfect match" section at GreatPairings.com. 

The nice thing about being a good chef is that when you invite people for dinner, they usually say "yes!". 

For me, it is always better to cook and eat with friends and family. My youngest two sons started college last week, so now it's my goal to have friends often for dinner. Although, one good dinner usually yields leftovers that last another two nights. At least that's the way I like to plan it.

Tonight's dinner was Ling Cod with a Sun Gold tomato & herb salad (from my garden). Some braised greens, a little pasta with corn and a glass (or two, maybe three) or Dutcher Creek Stuhmuller Chardonnay. The wine has just the right acidity and fruit to handle these relatively low-acid tomatoes. It's a nice combination and is part of a menu I am working on for the winery. This is not all I do, but it is my favorite part of the job. I taste wines and create dishes to work with them.

I will try to be diligent about blogging regularly and we will set up a place for recipes on the site very soon. As I create them, I'll try and post them. If not, I'll at least give a description of how to make the dish. Similar to the way we set up Pair It! I'll also post some menus for inspiration.

My hope is that the blog and Pair It! will help to start a fun and interesting interaction between you and me. I will keep adding content to Pair It! as I come up with new dishes and I will also add your suggestions to the app as well. If you use the app and have some pairings that you like, send them to me. If they make sense based on things I've tasted before, I'll add it to the app and mention it in the blog. If it's new to me, well, I guess I'll just have to try it myself... as I said, I am a lucky man.  :)


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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/155059/bruce-riezenman_bigger.png http://posterous.com/users/eDAZvdp6RX Bruce Riezenman Bruce Bruce Riezenman