The Bubbly Girl

Croque Monsieur With Cheese Bechamel for #letslunch

August 12, 2011

Open-faced croque monsieur is delicious hot, cold or in-between.

Just like revenge, sometimes dinner is best served cold — or at least at room temperature. It’s pretty comfortable here in California, but for the rest of the country, the idea of heating up the kitchen with the oven sounds pretty unappealing.

So the bloggers in the #letslunch group decided to share our favorite cold dinners this month. Whipping up a salad makes for a cool and easy meal, but I decided that that makes it too easy.

Croque Monsieur, the French grilled ham and cheese sandwich, is one of my favorite meals to eat lukewarm or hot from the oven. It takes a little time to whip up the bechamel, but aside from that, it’s as easy as toasting cheese on bread and so much more satisfying. There are lots of ways to present it, but I like Croque Monsieur open faced and topped with juicy summer tomatoes.

Croque Monsieur

4 slices of crusty levain bread
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 cup cheesy bechamel (recipe follows)
12 slices thin smoked black forest ham
4 slices ripe tomato seasoned with salt and pepper
8 tablespoons shredded melting cheese like fontina or swiss
2 teaspoons hard grating cheese like Pecorino Romano or parmesan
2 teaspoons olive oil

Slice bread about 1/2 inch thick. Drizzle with olive oil and then flip over. Spread top of each with 1/8 cup cheese bechamel sauce, being sure to take sauce to the edges of the bread. Top each piece of bread with 3 thin slices ham and a slice of ripe tomato seasoned with salt and pepper. Crown each slice with 2 tablespoons shredded melting cheese and then 1/2 teaspoon hard grating cheese. Drizzle each with a little olive oil.

Bake at 400 til brown and bubbly on top and crisp on the bottom, about 15 minutes. Let cool to room temperature or just warm, and serve. Makes a great lunch with poached or pickled asparagus or green beans.

Makes 4 servings

Cheese Bechamel Sauce

Makes 1-1/2 cups

4 tablespoons butter
4 T flour
3 cups warmed whole milk
salt to taste
a few grates of nutmeg
1/2 cup to 1 cup shredded cheese swiss or gruyere

Melt the butter in a heavy-bottomed pan over low-medium heat. Whisk in the flour. It will be bubbling. Let the sauce cook for several minutes. Watch it and keep whisking it keep it from browning.

Remove from the heat, pour the milk in all at once and continue to whisk. Now you can add more milk to make it thinner. Let it keep cooking until it doesn’t taste like flour any more. Once it’s nice tasting, add 1/2 cup to 1 cup of Swiss or gruyere and stir until it’s melted in.

Drinks, Sparkling Wine

Sparkling Moscato from Moldova – Who Knew?

August 3, 2011

Sunday afternoon brought a wine tasting party with the lovely ladies and a couple gentlemen from Cuisine Noir Mag.com to celebrate the launch of the first print issue in September. As our publisher Sheree Williams finished some last minute cooking, I made tasting sheets for the guests to write down their comments.

I shouldn’t have been surprised — but I was — to come across a pretty pink bottle of Moscato from Moldova. The aromatic Moscato grape is most famously made into aromatic, fruity, sweet-tart wines in Italy, but it gets around. It’s not unusual to see Moscatos from all over the world such as the organic Makulu Moscato from South Africa and the memorable Two Hands Brilliant Disguise Moscato from Australia.

And if you like your moscato to be refreshingly fruity, then you’ll enjoy the Exclusiv Rosé Moscato that was just released in the U.S. in June. It’s bursting with peach and berry aromas and flavors, but the sweetness is balanced by enough acid to make you want to take another sip.

According to the Moldova Wine Guild’s website, wine has been produced in Moldova — a boot shaped country between Romania and Ukraine — for more than 4,000 years. The Greeks and Romans helped the Moldovan wine industry along, but things really took off in the 15th century. That’s when the ruler Stefan the Great established a government position of chief wine steward or cupbearer (paharnic in Moldovan) whose job it was to make sure the vines were flourishing and winemakers were keeping quality up.

Moldova experienced a Prohibition in the 16th century when the Ottomans took over and forbade wine-making. The industry bounced back when Moldova became part of the Russian empire. Affluent Russians established winemaking estates growing native varietals like Rara Neagrā and Feteascā Albā, a white grape. Later, French experts brought in many noble grape varieties like merlot, cabernet sauvignon and aligoté. By 1837, Moldova produced 1.1 million cases of wine a year. While part of the former Soviet Union, Moldova made a third of all the sparkling wine and half of all still wine consumed in Russia.

Moldova’s wine industry had other setbacks in a phylloxera outbreak, both world wars and the Gorbachev era when many vineyards were ripped out. But each time, the industry has rebounded and now they’re producing a range of dry and sweet wines that use indigenous and international grape varietals.

And judging from the quality of the Exclusiv Moscato, Moldova will be sending plenty of well-made and affordable wines our way.

Cocktail Recipes, Drinks, Pop Culture

Three French Cocktails for Bastille Day!

July 14, 2011

Even if you’re not French, Liberté, Egalité & Fraternité — the rallying cry of the revolutionaries who stormed the Bastille Prison — is a pretty good motto to live by.

There’s a je ne sais quois I love about French culture, idea of taking pleasure in sharing a meal made with fine seasonal ingredients with friends and embracing your own special style. I still get choked up when Les MisÃérables comes on KQED. To celebrate Bastille Day, I thought I’d share three of my favorite French-inspired cocktails.

1. The French 75

The French 75 – image from The Bubbly Bar

This spirited combination of champagne, lemon and either gin or cognac depending on the season, is a quintessential aperitif. As the story goes, it was created by WWI American officers serving in France who marvelled at the 75mm artillery guns that were still quite powerful and smooth The piquant quality primes your appetite. Since it’s warm outside, I’ll be making mine with gin. In cooler weather, switch to cognac.

1 ounce gin (like Citadel or G’Vine from France)

1/2 ounce homemade sour mix

4 ounces brut champagne, chilled

brandy-soaked cherry, for garnish

Add the gin and sour mix to a cocktail shaker filled with ice. Shake until well-chilled and strain into a champagne flute. Top with the champagne and drop in the cherry.

2. The French Martini

French Martini – image courtesy Chambord

France has been the source of some amazing liqueurs and mixers — Grand Marnier, Chartreuse, creme de violette and the new darling St. Germain Elderflower Liqueur. But few are as beloved as Chambord, the black raspberry liqueur in the spherical bottle that dates to the late 1600s. The company created a French martini as a marketing campaign and the cocktail has found an appreciative audience.

1-1/2 ounces Chambord flavored vodka

1/2 ounce Chambord Liqueur

2 ounces pineapple juice

fresh raspberries, for garnish

Add the vodka, Chambord and pineapple juice to a cocktail shaker filled with ice. Shake until well-chilled and strain into a petite martini glass. Garnish with raspberries.

3. Kir Royale

The Kir Royale – image from The Bubbly Bar

This old favorite of mine honors Felix Kir, the former mayor of Dijon, France who was a heroic figure in the 1940s French Resistance. The regular Kir features white Burgundy (chardonnay) wine and crème de cassis; the upgraded Kir Royale is always made with champagne. Old Felix must have been an amazing guy to have such an elegant and enduring cocktail named after him.

½ ounce crème de cassis

5 to 6 ounces brut champagne, chilled

Lemon twist, for garnish

Add crème de cassis to a champagne flute. Top with champagne and garnish with a lemon twist.

Food + Recipes

Parmesan Toasts – A Champagne-Perfect Snack for #Let’sLunch

July 8, 2011

As the hostess of The Bubbly Girl, it’s probably no surprise that I think about enjoying champagne and sparkling wine a lot. But many people are surprised to learn that these effervescent wines are perfect for pairing with all kinds of foods.

When people hear the word “champagne,” high-end fare like caviar, lobster and cracked blue crab comes to mind. Those are all delicious with champagne and it’s sparkling sisters. But so are a range of foods that aren’t so high-falutin.

Potato chips, popcorn, french fries – basically anything salty, slightly greasy or crispy is wonderful with champagne and sparkling wine. Pizza and prosecco is fabulous. A juicy burger can be deliciously paired with a sparkling wine, as long as it’s got some gravitas from long-aging or richness from pinot noir.

The recipe section of The Bubbly Girl.com shares recipes for seasoned popcorn, savory cheddar shortbread and all sorts of foods that play well with bubbly. When I was invited to contribute a recipe to the #Let’sLunch champagne-friendly snacks lunch, I wanted to do something new and easy.

I kept thinking of the ghetto-gourmet spread I made for grilled corn on the cob this past weekend. The mix of mayonnaise, grated parmesan, seasoned salt and chili powder was exquisite on corn — and tasted pretty good by itself. I thought this slightly salty, slightly rich spread would taste even toasted on a baguette. You’ll find these Parmesan Toasts are perfect with sparkling wines of all kinds and they couldn’t be easier to make.

Parmesan Toasts

1/4 cup mayonnaise

4 tablespoons grated Parmesan (the crumbly kind)

seasoned salt, to taste

dash of paprika

1/4 French baguette, cut into thin rounds

Mix the mayonnaise, Parmesan, salt and paprika in a small bowl to make a uniform paste. Spread the mixture onto the baguette rounds, so you can’t see through to the bread.

Toast under a broiler – watching them carefully – until golden brown.

Eat while warm with your favorite bubbly.

Drinks

The Bubbly Girl Drink of the Week: Sparkling Strawberry Summer Sangria

June 19, 2011

This Sparkling Strawberry Summer Sangria stars everybody’s favorite berry, apricots and brachetto, the sweet-tart red sparkling wine from Italy that tastes of roses, currants and raspberries.

Summer is almost upon us, so I figured it was time to start concocting one of my favorite styles of summer drinks: sangria.

Sangria, which takes its name from the Spanish word for blood, is usually a mix of red wine, fruit, spirits and a little spice. But really, any inexpensive wine — red, white, or bubbly — can be the start of delicious sangria, as I learned while travelling through Spain’s cava sparkling wine region. Gareth of Mont Marçal Cava shared his Spanish sangria recipe that works equally well with red or white wine.

They can be made year-round with whatever fruit you have on hand, but to me sangrias are most delicious in summer, when they showcase fleeting gems like apricots, white cherries and ripe berries. One of my favorite sangria recipes ever is this Apricot & White Cherry Sangria I created a couple seasons ago.

Best of all, if you’re hosting a party, sangrias are crowd-pleasers – even people who claim not to like sweet drinks will be back for another fruity glass. The trick is achieving a balance between the sweet, tart and spirited elements in your mix.

Last weekend I discovered a bargain bottle of brachetto, a sweet-tart sparkling wine from Piedmont, Italy at a store called Grocery Outlet. Priced at just $7.99 this wine bursting with aromas and flavors of raspberries, strawberries and roses begged to be mixed with fruits in a sangria. So I gave in.

Sparkling Summer Strawberry Sangria

1 cup Limoncello liqueur

1 cup apricot liqueur

1 cup fresh strawberries, washed, hulled and quartered

1/2 cup fresh raspberries

4 ripe apricots, cut in slivers

4 key limes, thinly slices

¼ cup lime juice

1 bottle brachetto Italian sparkling wine, chilled

1/2 bottle peach sparkling cider

3 shakes orange bitters

whole strawberries, for garnish

If you’re starting your sangria a few hours or the night before you plan to serve it, combine the Limoncello, apricot liqueur, strawberries, raspberries, apricots, limes , and lime juice in a glass pitcher. Just before serving, add the chilled brachetto and the sparkling cider. Garnish the glasses with a whole strawberry.

Makes 6 to 8 servings