January 2007 Newsletter
All of us at Giovanni's would like to wish you and your family a healthy and prosperous New Year!
Cooking fish perfectly is an easy thing to do. This, you may say, is presumptuous coming from a professional cook, but it’s true, cooking fish is simple, and its preparation should reflect this. In fact, in most cases the simplest preparations are usually the best. Overly complicated and labor-intensive recipes are unnecessary.
Actually, the most important thing to remember when cooking fish is not to overcook them. If fish is extremely fresh there is none that I can think of that doesn’t benefit from being just slightly underdone. Now I’m definitely not speaking of being cooked slightly rare—with the possible exception of tuna—but just barely done.
Chef Tim is featured in the February/March issue of Shore Magazine.
pomegranate liqueur and vodka
Wines by the Glass: Speicals
Ruffino Libaio Chardonnay
Libaio is a Tuscan white wine with a personality all its own - lively, delicious, and very easy to drink. Libaios Chardonnay grapes are complemented by 10% Pinot Grigio, both of which are grown entirely on Ruffinos Castelvecchio di Libaio estate near San Gimignano. In another unconventional turn, Libaio is fermented in stainless steel tanks, and is not aged in wood. With no oak aromas or flavors, the essence of Chardonnay sings through in the wine, with complexity and liveliness contributed by the additional Pinot Grigio. - Libaio is medium straw in color; its aroma suggests green apples, lemon, nuts, and even some pineapple. - The overall impression is fresh, crisp, lively - and yet full of flavor. Libaio is an extremely food-friendly wine, ideal as an aperitif, with chicken, seafood or delicate pasta dishes, and even with rich cream sauces. McWilliams Chardonnay
Intense lifted peach aromas are beautifully supported by lashings of melon and citrus. The intense fruit is well integrated with nuances of butter and high quality oak.
Ruffino Red Label IL Ducale Chianti An exciting effort in a Toscana IGT at this price point; Ruffino Il Ducale presents a razor sharp profile of the Sangiovese varietal; bright black fruit flavors abound.
Bridlewood Syrah Here's a way to introduce yourself to California Syrah. Intense and concentrated, with finely integrated raspberry, black cherry, beef and salty mineral flavors. Cedary, toasty oak and supple tannins fold into the lingering finish. Excellent value. Drink now through 2007
Acid is a compound present in all grapes and an essential component of wine that preserves it, enlivens and shapes its flavors and helps prolong its aftertaste. There are four major kinds of acids--tartaric, malic, lactic and citric--found in wine. Acid is identifiable by the crisp, sharp character it imparts to a wine. Wine of the Month Stonestreet Merlot "Dark ruby-purple in color, our Alexander Valley Merlot offers dense plum and cherry fruit flavors that are followed by a particularly lush mid-palate. Layers of spicy black fruit and olive complexity abound, along with hints of chocolate and coffee. The tannins of this well-balanced wine are supple and inviting." - Graham Weerts, Winemaker January 13th, Munster Parks and Recreation's Winter Arts & Crafts Fair. January 13th, Munster Business & Consumer Fair. January 13th, Chicago Bears Divisional Playoffs (get tickets) January 16th, Birthday of Martin Luther King January 21st, Chicago Bears NFC Championship (get tickets) Planning a Special event? We can help you plan a wonderful event and work with your special needs and budget.
Our main dining room is available for private parties and requires a reservation of 45 people and can accommodate up to 60 guests. It is available during lunch hours Monday through Friday, and dinner hours Monday through Thursday.
Saturday afternoons are available from 11am to 4pm. This reservation requires 30 people and can accommodate up to 60 guests. Advance reservations are required and a special menu applies.
Please contact our management staff for specific private party policies, reservations and further information. Showers • Birthday Parties • Anniversaries • Club Meetings • Funeral Luncheons
To call Libaio a Chardonnay does not fully explain this wine - even though it is made with 90% Chardonnay grapes. Nor can its personality be simply classified as a new-style Tuscan white or a single-estate wine.
Wine Definition of the Month: ACID
Special Events this Month
Cooking Pasta Properly
Avoid dense, stuck-together dishes by knowing the hows and whys of cooking pasta
by Shirley Corriher
For more flavorful pasta, drain it thoroughly yet quickly (so it doesn't cool) and toss it immediately with a hot sauce.
Pasta dishes can be so wonderful -- incredibly light, unbelievably flavorful -- but they can also be dense, stuck-together disappointments. You can help your pasta dish be its best -- whether it's a baked lasagne, a pasta salad, or a slap-dash plate of spaghetti and pesto -- by knowing a few of the hows and whys of cooking the pasta itself.
When you drop pasta into a pot of boiling water, the starch granules on the surface of the pasta instantly swell up to their maximum volume and then pop. The starch rushes out and, for a brief time, the pasta's surface is sticky with this exuded starch. Eventually, most of this surface starch dissolves in the water and washes away, and the pasta surface becomes a soft solid.
Stir at the start
Many pasta recipes begin like this: "Bring a large pot of water, 4 to 5 quarts, to a rapid boil." Do you really need this much water? Well, if you're only boiling a small amount of pasta (less than half a pound), you don't need so much, but a generous pot of rapidly boiling water is helpful for several reasons: it comes back to a boil faster when you add the pasta; it makes it easier to submerge long, rigid pastas like spaghetti; and it helps to reduce sticking slightly by quickly washing away the exuding starch from the pasta surface.
To keep pasta from sticking, stir during the first minute or two of cooking. This is the crucial time when the pasta surface is coated with sticky, glue-like starch. If you don't stir, pieces of pasta that are touching one another literally cook together.
Add salt, but not oil
You may have heard that you can avoid sticky pasta by adding oil to the pasta water. This can prevent sticking, but at a great price. Pasta that's cooked in oily water will become oily itself and, as a result, the sauce slides off, doesn't get absorbed, and you have flavorless pasta.
Adding oil may keep the pasta water from bubbling up and boiling over the rim, but this can also be achieved by making sure you use a large pot and also by reducing the heat a little (but still maintaining a boil). This is a much better solution than greasing your pasta and sacrificing flavor.
Salted water flavors the pasta. A generous amount of salt in the water seasons the pasta internally as it absorbs liquid and swells. The pasta dish may even require less salt overall. For a more complex, interesting flavor, I add 1 to 2 tablespoons sea salt to a large pot of rapidly boiling water. By the way, the claim that salted water cooks food faster (because of its higher boiling temperature) is exaggerated; you're not adding enough salt to raise the temperature more than about 1°F.
Hot pasta absorbs more sauce
Behind every great pasta is a great sauce. And it's not just the flavor of the sauce that matters, but when and how the sauce and the pasta get combined.
Toss hot pasta with hot sauce quickly -- without rinsing it
-- so the pasta absorbs more sauce and flavor. As it cools, the swollen starch in the pasta crystallizes and becomes insoluble, and the pasta won't absorb as much sauce. Just so there's no delay, I always prepare the sauce first in a large skillet, even if it's simply olive oil, garlic, and pepper flakes. The second the pasta is done (I like it just a breath beyond al dente), I scoop it out of the water with a big Chinese ladle-type strainer or spider. I let the pasta drain over the pot for a few seconds, and then I dump it into the hot sauce, stir well, and set a lid on the skillet. I let the pasta sit, covered, to absorb the sauce for a minute or two, and then I remove the lid, stir again, and serve instantly.
Starch-enriched cooking water thickens the sauce
Rinsing the pasta after cooking is a bad idea for a couple of reasons. It can cool the pasta and prevent absorption of a sauce, and it can wash away any remaining surface starch, which at this point in the cooking can work to your advantage. The small amount of starch left on the pasta by the cooking water can thicken your sauce slightly.
For pasta sauces that include egg, like carbonara, it's a good idea to reserve a bit of the pasta cooking water to stir into the sauce. In this case, the starch-enriched water not only thickens the sauce a bit, but it also helps prevent the egg from curdling when it meets the hot pasta.
Food scientist Shirley Corriher wrote CookWise (William Morrow) and is a contributing editor to Fine Cooking.
Photo: Judi Rutz
Server of the Month
Pam Ross
