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Cooking with Wine: Winter Squash Chardonnay Risotto Recipe

Cooking with Wine: Winter Squash Chardonnay Risotto Recipe

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Every so often, you stumble upon a Chardonnay so refreshing and unique, so unlike typical oaky-buttery-California Chardonnays, that you want to drink it, cook with it, maybe even bathe in it.

You’re lucky if you can find on that is half steel-fermented and half oak-fermented! I love Chardonnay with a creamy freshness and lemon-lime quality that is opposite of oak and butter. That kind of Chardonnay is just as perfect in a rustic dish in front of the fire as a on a warm summer day in the garden. And cooking with wine is just as important as drinking or tasting wine.

Cooking with this kind of Chardonnay adds something special to the dish: a little more citrus, good acid and lots of flavor. And don’t forget to pour a glass to pair the wine to sip with the dish! It’s the perfect pair to either of these winter Chardonnay recipes: Winter Squash Chardonnay Risotto below and Chardonnay Roast Chicken with Santa Barbara herbs.

And for dessert, here’s my other favorite way to use winter squash…and summer squash and fall squash and…

Winter Squash Chardonnay Risotto recipe

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Winter Squash Chardonnay Risotto
Author: 
Recipe type: Main
Cuisine: Italian
Prep time: 
Cook time: 
Total time: 
Serves: 6
 
Cooking with a bright, acidic Chardonnay lends a savory, lemony quality that is perfect with creamy risotto and winter squash.
Ingredients
  • 2 cups (1/2-inch) cubed, peeled winter squash medley
  • 2 tablespoons olive oil
  • 4 cloves minced fresh garlic
  • 2 cups organic vegetable broth
  • 2 cups Chardonnay (brincy, acidic and lemony is best)
  • 1 ounce pancetta or prosciutto
  • 1 medium finely chopped onion
  • 1¼ cups uncooked Arborio rice
  • 2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh herb mix (like lemon thyme, oregano, rosemary, basil, lavender)
  • Juice of 1 lemon
  • ¼ teaspoon salt
  • ¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
  • ¼ cup (1 ounce) shaved Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese
Instructions
  1. Preheat oven to 400°.
  2. Combine squash and 1 tablespoon oil, tossing to coat. Arrange squash in a single layer on baking pan. Bake for 15 minutes or until squash is just tender. Remove from pan; set aside.
  3. Heat a large heavy-bottom stock pot over medium heat. Add pancetta to pot; cook 5 minutes or until browned, stirring frequently. Remove pancetta and set aside.
  4. Add remaining olive oil to pot, then add onion; cook 3 minutes or until tender, stirring occasionally. Add garlic and rice; cook 2 minutes, stirring constantly.
  5. Add ½ cup wine; cook 1 minute or until liquid is nearly absorbed, stirring constantly. Continue to add remaining wine and broth, ½ cup at a time, stirring constantly until each portion of broth is absorbed before adding the next (about 20 minutes total). Stir in squash, herbs, cheese, lemon juice, ¼ teaspoon salt, and ¼ teaspoon pepper.
  6. Top with pancetta.
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Winter Squash Chardonnay Risotto recipe

Cooking with Wine: Roast Chardonnay Chicken Recipe

Cooking with Wine: Roast Chardonnay Chicken Recipe

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2009 Alta Maria ChardonnayI love French food and wine…and I love eating and drinking local. These two loves inspired me to create a local version of a typical French dish: oven-roasted chicken with vegetables and herbs de Provence. Of course, this is using local Chardonnay – in the dish…and in my glass.

In a Santa Barbara County garden you can find rosemary, lemon thyme, basil and chives. And garlic, of course! Also, fennel is a bountiful crop on California’s central coast, which you can usually substitute for celery, instead of a traditional mirepoix (French base of onion, carrot and celery). Browning the chicken before roasting gives it a richer flavor than more simple roasts and the end result is a savory, delicious one-pot meal that pairs perfectly with the subtle body and flavors of a well-balanced Chardonnay. Think citrus and pear instead of oakey-buttery – find one fermented in steel or concrete if possible.

Also, try this Winter Squash Chardonnay Risotto.

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Roast Chardonnay Chicken with Santa Barbara Herbs
Author: 
Recipe type: Main
Cuisine: French
Prep time: 
Cook time: 
Total time: 
Serves: 6
 
Cooking with wine makes everything taste better, and Chardonnay is perfect for a French roast chicken made in Santa Barbara.
Ingredients
  • 1 4-pound chicken
  • 3 cups Chardonnay (look for well-balanced, citrusy and flinty)
  • 1 cup olive oil, plus 4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, divided
  • 8 cloves garlic: 6 whole, 2 diced
  • 3 tablespoons chopped mixed fresh herbs (like lemon thyme, rosemary, basil, chives, marjoram) or 1 tablespoon mixed dried herbs
  • 2 lemons: 1 sliced, 1 juiced
  • ½ teaspoon coarsely ground black pepper
  • Salt, to taste
  • 1 small onion, chopped
  • 4 carrots, chopped
  • 1 fennel bulb, chopped
  • 1 small green cabbage, cored and quartered
Instructions
  1. In large bowl, combine the Chardonnay, 1 cup olive oil, diced garlic, herbs, lemon juice, pepper and salt. Place chicken in the mixture. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight or for 6 hours. Turn occasionally.
  2. Preheat oven to 450°F. Heat remaining olive oil in a Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add the onions, carrots, fennel and garlic cloves and cook, stirring occasionally, for 10 minutes. When the vegetables are caramelized, spoon them along the sides of the pan.
  3. Remove chicken from marinade and add to the middle of the pan. Sear each side until slightly brown, about 3 minutes per side. Arrange the quartered cabbage around the sides of the chicken and pour the marinade into the pan over the chicken and vegetables.
  4. Cover the pan with a lid and roast in the oven for 60-70 minutes, until the chicken is done (meat is cooked through when cut, leg separates easily from the body, or 170 degrees on meat thermometer). Remove lid and let it rest at room temperature 10 minutes.
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Roast chardonnay chicken with santa barbara herbs recipe

Stone Fruit Clafoutis Recipe

Stone Fruit Clafoutis Recipe

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Living in California means having fruit trees in your yard, or in the yard of friends, coworkers and neighbors. If your produce yield is not high (unlikely here in the land of sunshine), you’ll surely receive piles of peaches, apricots, plums, oranges, lemons, avocado and figs from those living and working around you. Hint: it might help to be a little friendlier this time of year.

Stone Fruit Clafoutis

I had a large batch of plums this summer, and could hardly pick them fast enough to keep them from dropping to the ground where they became a sugary snack for the wildlife that’s claimed my home as their own. I also just read a book by one of my favorite pastry chefs, David Lebovitz. He moved to Paris, writing about his glorious and perplexing adventures in The Sweet Life in Paris. He described a summer fruit Clafoutis recipe, a simple French custardy dish that wasn’t too sweet and was served warm with morning coffee, which drove me straight to my kitchen with my plums in the midst of a heatwave.

I began baking a new clafoutis each week, with whatever fruit my friends and colleagues brought me. My favorite was using both plums and apricots, as well as whole wheat pastry flour, half and half and organic sugar. I knew just how David felt in Paris. Another similarity with David: I had recently begun doing my dishes in the bathtub (just like in Paris!), but that’s another story. On with the clafoutis recipe!

Stone Fruit Clafoutis Recipe
adpated from David Lebovitz
Ingredients:
  • 4 T butter, melted + more for preparing dish
  • 1¼ lb firm, ripe plums and apricots (or figs, cherries, raspberries)
  • 3 eggs
  • ½ C whole wheat pastry flour
  • 1 t vanilla
  • ½ C + 2 T organic sugar
  • 1 C half & half
 Instructions:
  1. Preheat the oven to 375 F. Liberally butter the bottom and sides of a 2 QT shallow baking dish. Halve the plums/apricots (or figs or cherries) and remove the pits. Place the plums/apricots cut side down over the bottom of the baking dish. If you’re adding figs, cherries or raspberries, sprinkle them over the plums or apricots.
  2. In a medium bowl, whisk the eggs until smooth. Whisk the butter and flour into the eggs until completely smooth, then add the vanilla. Whisk in ½ C of the sugar, then the cream.
  3. Pour the custard mixture over the fruit and bake for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes, sprinkle 2 T of sugar over the top. Continue baking the clafoutis for about 30 minutes more, until the custard feels slightly firm in the center and the top is a nice golden brown.

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Stone Fruit Clafoutis Recipe
Author: 
 
Ingredients
  • 4 T butter, melted + more for preparing dish
  • 1¼ lb firm, ripe plums and apricots (or figs, cherries, raspberries)
  • 3 eggs
  • ½ C whole wheat pastry flour
  • 1 t vanilla
  • ½ C + 2 T organic sugar
  • 1 C half & half
Instructions
  1. Preheat the oven to 375 F. Liberally butter the bottom and sides of a 2 QT shallow baking dish. Halve the plums/apricots (or figs or cherries) and remove the pits. Place the plums/apricots cut side down over the bottom of the baking dish. If you're adding figs, cherries or raspberries, sprinkle them over the plums or apricots.
  2. In a medium bowl, whisk the eggs until smooth. Whisk the butter and flour into the eggs until completely smooth, then add the vanilla. Whisk in ½ C of the sugar, then the cream.
  3. Pour the custard mixture over the fruit and bake for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes, sprinkle 2 T of sugar over the top. Continue baking the clafoutis for about 30 minutes more, until the custard feels slightly firm in the center and the top is a nice golden brown.
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Italian Food for a Broken Heart: California Sangiovese

Italian Food for a Broken Heart: California Sangiovese

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Each broken heart needs a specific fix: those induced by college athletes call for cigarettes, those from French men require fast-food burgers and stadium hot dogs, and from the tall and beautiful Swedes, plenty of ice cream, like his frozen heart.

So, what would ease the pain caused by an Italian-born food & wine snob, who, when given any ingredient, can tell you the right way to cook it, and helpfully correct any dish you’ll ever cook, especially Italian food? Frozen pizza from the supermarket, that’s what. The new-age vegetarian kind, from the neighborhood gourmet grocer.

I opened the frozen whole-wheat rolled-crust pizza with roasted vegetables, tofu and goat cheese, cooked it to crispy perfection directly on the oven rack, and defiantly put the whole pie on my plate. Eating the entire thing – and forgetting the Italian snob – was gonna take a lot of wine, so I opened a bottle of California Sangiovese; bold enough for California pizza and enough fruit and alcohol to repel him and his palate. He’s not the only one who can deliver a perfect pairing.

As frozen pizzas go, this one was surprisingly good. The vegetables tasted fresh, the crust was crispy and flavorful and the goat cheese added the perfect amount of tanginess. It was satisfyingly familiar, comforting and just a bit unexpected, which was more than I could say for him. As I finished the last crumbs on my plate, licking my fingers and draining my glass, I was smiling. I decided to keep this frozen pizza close to my heart, or at least in my freezer, at all times. Heart aches don’t stand a chance in my kitchen, no matter where they come from.