Meet Jun 4, 2013
The warm June weather and long daylight evenings were in full swing, making the patio a great place for consuming the hors d'oeuvres, but it was a little too cool for dinner which actually started about 7:30 PM.
With the hors d'oeuvres we started with the Halter Ranch Synthesis (46% Viognier, 35% Roussanne and 19% Marsanne), which everyone praised. We next opened the Rioja, which was also well-received.
Moving inside for dinner, we first dug into the cucumber salad. The chef stated that this was his 2nd time to make this salad. The first time he used cheap/ordinary/old red wine vinegar and rather ordinary EVOO. This time he sought out better quality at Sigona's tasting room at Stanford Shopping Center, which seemed to significantly improve the salad. By the way, the thin slicing of veggies is made infinitely easier by using a mandoline (or the equivalent, a Japanese benriner).
The Romesco sauce was made a day early and refrigerated overnight. It was made using dry-roasted almonds. The Spanish-style paprika is available at Penzeys. The chicken (from Schaub's) also was prepared a day early and refrigerated overnight.
In the morning of the CADS meeting, the rice was prepared. In this case Calrose (a specific medium-grain white rice) was used. The technique of first sauteing the rice in olive oil, then adding the exact amount of water (2:1 ratio for this rice) is similar to the technique used for a traditional paella.
Preparing the veggies was straight-forward, except perhaps that roasting the chiles (in this case Anaheims) is a little tricky. They were roasted under the broiler of a gas oven.
Having 2 people to assemble the ingredients into the parchment paper helps. After carefully letting the oven achieve a uniform 375 F, the 6 packets were loaded into the oven, removed about 35 minutes later, and served maybe 15 minutes after that. The parchment package was placed on each plate, the string cut, then each diner emptied the contents onto his plate. This gave everyone some "skin in the game."
With the main course we opened both the Beaujolais and the Desertaux-Ferrand Bourgogne. Both were disappointing.
The red wines were all purchased at K&L with the clerk helping to pick "interesting" low-alcohol reds. The low-alcohol requirement was to compliment what was expected to be a fairly spicy main course. The Rioja was definitely a special offer by K&L. The others were apparently mainly just "low alcohol."