Depending on how closely you follow this blog, you may or may not recall my making a pledge — a resolution if you will — regarding Food & First Fridays. What I resolved to do was try and make at least one “homemade” dish for each First Friday. I made it through the first two (January & February) without too much trouble. You can see write-ups on the previous renditions here:
http://blog.ridgewine.com/2012/02/04/first-friday-cookin/, and here: http://blog.ridgewine.com/2012/01/06/doin-a-lil-home-cookin-for-first-friday/
But given that I’d received a request to lay off the garlic a tad, I was a bit stumped for March. Cook without garlic? But how?
Fortunately, there is a sauce in my repertoire that can be made with or without garlic, so I decided to try the non-garlic version. The tricky part, is that it’s sort of an Asian-style sauce, so what to do as regards wine pairing with Ridge?
What I went for was perhaps a tad unusual, but I am happy to report (barring any negative comments that show up in the feed!) that people seemed to quite like what I concocted. Which is this:
Toasted Sesame Oil-Basted Grilled Tempeh topped with Tahini-Tamari Sauce.
The goal was to provide the salty umaminess that always works well with our wines, in combination with a nice toasty nuttiness and granularity that would ideally both play off the structured aspects of the wines, and also provide a good springboard for the fruit.
First, the ingredients …
The sauce (which begins with the tamari and the tahini) gets a thorough puree, sans basil, until creamy, and until the balance of umami and nuttiness is just right. The consistency should be thick, but not too thick; about halfway between tomato soup and split pea soup. Once the balance is right, and the puree thorough, in goes a quick splash of rice wine vinegar — just enough to cut — and then add in lots of fresh basil, until the sauce’s countenance is appropriately freckled …
After that, you can let the sauce sit. While the sauce relaxes, harmonizes, and self-jujus, it’s tempeh time. First, cut it into strips …
Then baste it with the sesame oil …
Then get it onto the grill …
Then once it’s good and grilled, lay the strips out on a platter, garnish with some fresh basil leaves, and enthusiastically coat with sauce …
The great thing about this dish, in addition to it incorporating a sauce that will see you mainlining it like a junkie within minutes, is that it’s extremely wine-flexible. That it paired very well with both the very young but very delicious 2010 Geyserville (bright, fresh, acidity-driven and herbaceous), AND the comparatively seasoned and also very delicious 2007 Lytton Estate Syrah (dark, earthy, complex, and tannin-forward) speaks volumes about said flexibility.
Wait, I hear my doorbell ringing. It’s you! What? You’ve got the shakes? You’re jonesing? You need more sauce?
I’m your pusherman.
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