Sunday, July 24, 2011

Saturday Night – Hey Buddy, great 1000 Island dressing... sigh

This past Saturday Night, Chris and Jan joined Mick, Amy, Kathy and me for dinner. Dinner preparations ended up being a bit of an adventure as Mick was at home making his sauce for his chicken wings and I was making dipping sauce for my shrimp when both of our houses lost power at around 3:30pm. I was annoyed as I had fresh herbs, mayo and lemon juice in the food processor and was just about to puree them when the power went out. I left them there hoping the power would come back on but 30 minutes later no power. I ended up unplugging the food processor and going up to my office and used the battery backup for my computer to get enough power to finish pureeing the dip. Mick ended up moving the sauce pan from his now dead electric stove out to the backyard and used his BBQ to finish making the sauce.


Thankfully by 5:30pm the power was back on so the dinner was still on.

The first course I did poached pear salad and paired it with a 2007 Lingenfelder Kabinett Riesling. We have reviewed the wine before so I won’t do a full review of it. It wasn’t the greatest pairing as the sweetness of the poached pears was throwing the wine. If I do the poached pear recipe again, I will use a Spätlese Riesling as it will have enough sweetness to stand up to the pears.



For the second course Mick did two types of chicken wings, a cayenne based recipe served with sour cream and lime and my favourite wing recipe made from Dijon and marmalade.

He paired them with a 2008 Sebastiani Zinfandel.



The nose on the Zinfandel was huge and filled the room just after being poured out; Aromas of black licorice, chocolate, cinnamon, nutmeg with a hint of black berry in the background. Tasting the wine I was surprised as it wasn’t as fruit forward like most Zins are, instead flavours or pumpkin, nutmeg were the main flavours with some currant lurking in the background. Structure wise it had good acidity but was a touch tannic. With the tannin and the flavours to the wine, if the French made Zinfandel this would be how they’d make it. I found it was too dry/tannic on its own but it was an amazing pairing with the chicken wings.


Here is the group rating for the wine – Mick - 88, Mark - 88, Kathy – 86, Amy – 87, Overall – 87.25.


Here is the LCBO Information for the wine -

SEBASTIANI ZINFANDEL 2008

VINTAGES 672667
750 mL bottle
Price: $ 17.95
Wine, Red Wine
14.0% Alcohol/Vol.
Sugar Content : XD
Made in: California, USA
By: Sebastiani Vineyards
Release Date: Jun 25, 2011

Description - Wine & Spirits magazine, and Tim Fish of the Wine Spectator, each scored this superbly priced Zin 88 points.

Tasting Note - Quite lithe and lively for Zinfandel with very engaging notes of red cherry, raspberry pie, plum and cinnamon toast on the nose. The palate is dry and medium-full bodied with a bright acidity and well integrated, balanced ripe tannins. Impressively structured with lots of fruit without being jammy. Very nicely made. Perfect for beef kebabs or lasagna. (VINTAGES panel, April 2011)

I really liked this Zinfandel for being a little different from the normal California ‘fruit bomb’ Zinfandels and at $18 this wine is a good deal and I may have to grab a bottle or two for my cellar.



Mick’s wings were really good and even though I love the Dijon and marmalade ones, I was finding myself going back to the cayenne ones just as much as I was going for my favourite ones.

For the next course I did grilled shrimp with herb mayo dipping sauce with a tomato and corn salad and blue tortillas. Mick was nice enough to grill the shrimp for me while I got the rest of the food made and plated. I paired this course with a 2008 Kim Crawford Sauvignon Blanc. We have review Kim Crawford enough times that this blog could almost be called "Kim Crawford presents Zippy Sauce food and wine blog" so I won’t be reviewing again here. I will say that it was a very good pairing with this course.


Mick did a great job on grilling the shrimp. I was disappointed with my new herb mayo recipe; it had so many different ingredients (mayo, lemon juice, fresh parsley and oregano, cumin, chili powder, fresh garlic, salt and pepper) that I expect more from it. Instead it tasted exactly like 1000 Island dressing, not that there is anything wrong with 1000 Island dressing but after prepping all those ingredients it was disappointing to realize that I could have just gone out and spent $2 on some Kraft 1000 Island dressing and had the same results.


For dessert Jan and Chris bought a very nice selection of gourmet cupcakes and a bottle of 2008 Henry of Pelham late harvest Riesling. I didn’t review the late harvest Riesling, as I don’t like to rate wines that guests bring (excluding Mick and Amy of course). With this wine though, I should have reviewed as it was excellent as were the cupcakes.


It was a fun night and I would like to thank everyone for the foods and wines they added to the dinner and look forward to doing this again sometime soon.


Cheers!

Mark

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