Smoked Mangalitsa Bacon, KATZ Late Harvest Viognier Honey Vinegar, fresh Cherries...and much more - chefshop.com/enews
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In this issue:
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Vinegar
Smoked Bacon
Fresh Cherries
Back in Stock
Recipes of the Week
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 Best Spaghetti
This is the best Spaghetti on the planet. Blue, Yellow or Red box, when you eat one of these you realize how great pasta can be!
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 KATZ Late Harvest Viognier Honey Vinegar
Three years ago, Albert set off on a course to make a mead vinegar, combined with one of the many wine options available to him in the Napa Valley.
As a chef, he loves to use honey, an ingredient that he passionately uses in his dishes.
After almost two years, and many trials and tribulations, he decided to experiment and switch to a wine originally from the Rhoné Region but which is now grow in California and Oregon. It was this switch that changed the course of time, or at least it changed Albert's thoughts of how to create this perfect Honey Vinegar.
Starting with Late Harvest Viognier, which is often described as fruity, flowery and even honey-like, it was a brilliant revelation and ultimately the great combination that made this match heavenly.
No longer a mead-based vinegar, it is now a vinegar with honey. The honey is added into the vinegar at a later stage in the vinegar-making process.
In January of this year, when I visited with Albert and Kim, I got the first taste of this amazingly perfect vinegar; full of sweetness, sharpness, and combined with the ever-so-vibrant nuances that the honey has created within it. A vinegar that tests the imagination, inspiring thoughts of chicken, garbanzo salads, and as a way to deglaze a pan of princely perfect scallops. It was love at first sip!
I wanted it then. And now, almost five months later, better than ever, it has finally arrived. If you don’t know what to do with vinegar, this is one that will inspire you and help you understand the joys of both vinegar and honey as two perfect ingredients. Be the first on the planet to have this wonderful vinegar as part of your kitchen repertoire!
Shop now for KATZ honey vinegar
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Smoked Mangalitsa Bacon
I love this bacon! It's a different breed for sure. Place it in a cold frying pan, turn the heat up to high, and once it starts to sparkle or change, turn it down to medium. You can crisp this bacon right up as it cooks in its own glorious fat!
Crispy is the way I like my bacon. But, this bacon gets crispy like no other. Don't think of burned or charcoally, this bacon when cooked crisp doesn't crumble into little chards or lose its bacon'y flavor. Instead, it has crunch, a little chewiness on the edges, and it has got flavor. And what a flavor! You can taste what you smell when you are cooking it, and along with it comes a sweetness ... yes sweetness. It's like no other.
Master Butcher, Rick, brines the bellies in his secret salt bath, and then smokes it for days. Like his other bacons, and perhaps even less so, there really is no overpowering saltyness. I can eat a pound just standing at the stove!
Not only is this bacon wonderful to eat, but in the process cooking it, it produces about 1/3 of a cup of bacon drippings for two slices of bacon! So, if a tub of lard is too much (which I don't think it is ...) for you to deal with, this is the a sly way of getting some really nice oil to cook with. You can fry your eggs next, and then make baked beans!
The bacon was delicious - especially the fat!!! It was quite sweet - not very smoky, with a fantastic texture. and we thought it would be killer in a BLT! --
Tina - Food Editor
(The bacon) arrived this morning (in time for breakfast!) so, of course, I cooked some up immediately. IT IS AMAZING, DELICIOUS, MOUTH-WATERINGLY GOOD. It is not too salty, full of wonderful mangalitsa fat (which I saved as it rendered from the cooking of the bacon), and has a delightful mouth feel. Even my wife commented on how noticeably better it was than other bacon that we have had recently.
-- Paul, longtime customer and FB "liker"
Shop now for the best Smoked Bacon
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Early Robins
-the newest Cherry member
New this year, just in time for cherry season!
Early Robins come first. Smaller and sweeter than Rainiers, they extend the cherry season by coming in even earlier than the coveted Rainiers. From the Stennes Family Orchards, who have given us the amazing Rainier cherries, come these just-in-time, picked-at-their-peak cherries. It never is too early to place your order to hold your place in line for cherries!
The cool night time temperatures of northern Chelan help to create a firmer flesh than our brethren to the south. That is just one factor to why our cherries are so good and worth waiting for.
All of the varieties of cherries we carry are hand chosen in the orchard, hand sorted on the line, and then we sort them again twice in our cool room, before we ship them to you. No grab and bag here!
Shop now for Sweet Cherries!
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Pasta from Umbria
Divine pasta is nothing more than flour and water. Though a good pasta is like a parakeet in the pot. It tells you if the water was good, and if the wheat that was chosen is just that, chosen. It tells you if the ratio of flour to water is right, and if the drying was not rushed. It tells you if the pasta came from some commodity bag of flour brought in from who knows where, and if it was squeezed through a tube at breakneck speed to be shaped and dried all at once!
In the case of Etruria's pastas, Giuseppe has chosen the farmer and the grain from which his pasta will be made. We asked him the other day where he gets his flour. His answer was simple, “I go to the farm to look at the grain after harvest. I choose what is best.” It conjures up the image of a fishmonger at Tsukiji, but instead of fish, it's grains ... Though I think it is more like a friendly visit with the local farmers.
It is this personal attention to detail that only a small producer can still achieve. The bite, the taste, even the look is pronounced and notable; a pasta epiphany is beheld.
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| Just-in-Updates |
Click here to see Rick slice the bacon.
Click this link to see the slicing of the bacon and a previous post of the smoking of the bellies.
What's Cooking!
We have some of the finest artisan-made foods on the planet. The history these ingredients bring with them can be over a million years old, or as new as yesterday. Whether they are a new concept or a recipe that has been passed down from generation to generation, how to use them can be simple and obvious - or not.
Ever wonder what to do with an ingredient? That's what these classes are about. Don't be fooled, it's not just dessert or pasta, it's the real beans. We take the mundane and the plain, and turn it into the insane! Well, maybe not that far, but we do take some great ingredients and show you how to use them in moderation to get the most flavorful dishes and create the most memorable meals.
Tell your friends that we are giving away 8.8 pounds of Agostoni Italian Chocolate to one winner! The more the merrier!
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DESIGN: JODI LUBY & COMPANY, INC. NEW YORK CITY, NY; EMAIL STRATEGY: CRM Group USA, SEATTLE, WA
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