Time for a look back at some of our (and our customers’) favorite dishes of the last few meals at Casa SaltShaker. These include a couple of further iterations on dishes that I’ve presented in the past, and a new pasta dish that’s been in the works for awhile.
Tiradito de Corvina – I’m always looking at new approaches to ceviches, and this is a new one that brings in some Mediterranean influences. The fish is corvina negra, in English a “black drum”. It’s sliced in strips, sashimi style, then lightly cured in a vinaigrette made with lime juice and zest, sherry vinegar, a tarragon and parsley infused olive oil, salt and pepper. For a little crunch there are shards of fried plantain tossed with tajin spice, some diced rocoto chilies, and then some basil and lemon verbena leaves from our garden. Served with Concha y Toro’s “Devil’s Extra Brut” sparkling wine from Chile, a fascinating blend of Syrah, Cabernet sauvignon, Carmenere, and Chardonnay.
Umbricelli, Hongos, Crema de Caciocavallo – My favorite local cheese shop got in some lovely caciocavallo cheeses at my request – I just had to buy a couple of them. I’d wanted them for some southern Italian recipes I’m playing around with. This one is deceptively simple, but the flavors really punch – and it’s Italian with a little Andean influence to it. Handrolled umbricelli or pici, tossed with a saute of mixed mushrooms, green chilies, and sliced garlic, deglazed with white wine, and then emulsified with some of the pasta water. Spooned over the top a caciocavallo cream – first I had to make panna di cucina then melt the cheese into it and season with salt and white pepper. Atop that, a simple pesto made from huacatay (Amazonian mint), sunflower seeds, green peppercorns, salt, and olive oil. Served with Nina “Special Blend” Rosado 2021, an unidentified, “natural wine” blend of grapes from Bodegas San Huberto in Argentina’s La Rioja province.
Raviolo de Hongos Mixtos – I was going to call this one a Raviolo Meurette, but blending Italian and French on a Spanish and English language menu listing just seemed to much of a mashup. This one’s been in the works for some time, and is inspired by a classic French dish, oeufs meurette, a Burgundian dish of poached eggs in a red wine reduction sauce with bacon and mushrooms, served on toast. So here, reinterpreted as a pasta, we have large semolina ravioli filled with a duxelles made from portobello, button, and oyster mushrooms, cream, port, and shallots. Nestled into a scoop of that is an egg yolk. The sauce is a red wine and demiglace reduction sauce, and then there’s a sauté of the same mushrooms with crispy guanciale, finished with a sprinkling of garlic chives. How’s that for a French-Italian crossover? Paired with an unusual rosé wine that I discovered recently, the Terra Camiara “Indama” Rosado de Isabella 2022 from Cordoba. It has really interesting and exotic flavors, and is probably the first wine I’ve ever had made with the Isabella grape.
Palometa sobre Salpicón, Velouté de Pescado – A further iteration on the fish dish I posted about last roundup, these things are constantly in revision. There’s no such thing as perfection, right? Always something you can do. I switched up the fish for something a little meatier, palometa, a type of butterfish, simply sauteed in olive oil and butter. It’s served over a sauté of diced sopressata, fennel, palm hearts, almonds, green and black olives, limo chilies, yellow and black mustard seeds. Separately, I made a light roux with butter and walnut oil, and flavored it with crushed garlic and anchovies, and then used that to thicken a fish stock. Garnish of fennel fronds. To join it, a lighter red, Lagarde “Teia” Malbec-Petit Verdot 2022, from Mendoza, Argentina.
Arrollado “Pachamanca” – I’ve mentioned the Peruvian dish pachamanca various times, and we’ve served up some different versions of it over time, most notably, I suppose, our version using tentacles of Humboldt squid. The classic dish marries chicken, pork, and beef in a slow braised blend of chicha de jora (a sour corn beer of sorts), panca chilies, garlic, red onion, cilantro, and oregano. The chicha is difficult to obtain here, so we tend, as many who make this in Argentina do, with beer and a splash of vinegar.
Here, I made a roulade of the three meats – on the outside, a pounded out scallop of rump steak wrapped around a similar scallop of pork shoulder, and then the filling in the middle is a chicken mousse flavored with onion, tomato, ginger, garlic, chili, cinnamon, turmeric, fennel seed, cumin, clove, lots of black pepper, and salt, bound with an egg. The roulades were tightly wrapped in plastic wrap and then cooked sous vide. To serve, simply browned the outsides and then sliced them.
The sauce, the aforementioned braising liquid cooked down until concentrated, then pureed. served over a squash puree with yogurt, cumin, and salt; and accompanied by charred corn toassed with a little mayonnaise, salt, and tajin spice.
Served with a lighter red, Palo Santo Cabernet Franc 2021, from Urqo winery in Mendoza. Good match, but probably should have gone with a fuller bodied Cabernet franc.
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