Scattershot Attempts at Gourmandism: Vino Edition

I like to cook, but I’m no expert. Just a guy who likes losing his mind for a short piece of time in spices and ingredients and flames. My cooking tends to be like a night of heavy drinking: you had a good time, but you barely remember the events that led to your general sense of “All right! That was fun!” So I’m going to attempt to document my culinary exploits. I must warn you though; I rarely deal in measurements. The thought of being constrained by a recipe gives me the howlers and a feeling of being chained to a wall. So here’s what I hope to be a running account of my shotgun cooking experiments.

I’m planning on attempting a simple mead recipe soon, and one of the things needed for the recipe is a gallon-sized jug. I bought a gallon of wine thus proving that drinking breeds more drinking. Despite my beastly desire to consume the whole gallon, I realize that with a two-month old at home and a desire to remain alive, I shouldn’t attempt to drink the whole thing. So I put a nice dent into the gallon one night in the most responsible way, and got the great idea to try out a recipe with wine. The wine was a cabernet sauvignon. I’m no wine expert so I took to the internet for a recipe. I do this often when trying out a new ingredient, though I rarely follow the recipe exactly as written.

 

Here’s the recipe I used as inspiration: http://www.food.com/recipe/crock-pot-chicken-stew-with-mushrooms-249463

 

The girlfriend and I are not fans of mushrooms (some gourmand I am, huh) so I added some other things.

 

Vino Experiments #1

 

I made the first attempt at vino culinary experimentation in a crock pot. Here’s the ingredients:

 

1. 3 carrots
2. 1 medium-sized onion, sliced
3. 3 cloves of garlic (the GF is a huge fan of garlic, which is no problem with me), minced
4. 3 celery stalks, cut lengthwise and then into bite-size pieces
5. 3 rather hefty chicken breasts
6. 1 6 oz can of tomato paste
7. ½ cup of homemade chicken broth
8. ½ cup of cabernet sauvignon
9. I teaspoon of thyme

10. Few dashes of rosemary (approx. a teaspoon)

11. About ½ cup homemade spaghetti sauce

12. Salt

13. Pepper

 

So I dumped #s 1 – 5 in the crock pot.

 

 

 

I then seasoned the chicken with salt and pepper and laid it on top of the vegetables (herein pronounced veg – et – ables).

 

 

I combined #s 6 – 10 in a mixing bowl (I added the spaghetti sauce on a whim. After loading all this in the crock pot, I performed Vino Experiment #2 (to follow), to which I added some spaghetti sauce, and since I knew the particular flavors of the sauce (not gravy because no meat – South Philly rules) from tasting it on pasta beforehand, I figured it’d be a great addition to the chicken stew.). I then poured it over everything already in the crock pot. I cooked it on high for about 3 hours, then turned it to low. I’m not sure exactly how long it stayed on low (I tend to start crock pot experiments dangerously close to bedtime. They hence usually cook all night, to delicious results. This time, I asked the GF when she got up with the baby that night to turn it off. She did, and when I got up for work the next morning, the stew looked great, and the pot was still a little warm.), but I’d guess about two hours.

 

Sorry, no pic of the sauce being poured over the vegetables and meat concoction, but here’s the final product, served over rice made in half homemade chicken broth/half water:

 

 

The Verdict:

 

Awesome. This was an easy recipe, yet still fun to make. I noticed three things about the flavor:

1. The wine flavor. It wasn’t strong or overpowering, but I could tell it was in there. Very much like cooking with wine.
2. The tomato paste/spaghetti sauce. The tomato flavor seemed to pop. It also seemed to marry well with the subtle wine flavor. Symbiotic relationship here?
3. The addition of the carrots and celery really gave this a “stew” flavor. My mom made beef stew regularly growing up, and that distinct smell of carrots and celery (and maybe onion? And garlic?) brings back fond memories.

 

Vino Experiment #2

 

Given my complete lack of understanding regarding time, and hence my usually 8:00 start time for crock pot recipes, the GF and I were left famished after a long day of baby-taking-care-of. So I had two pieces of chicken left over from the above experiment, and all the ingredients for said experiment laying about on the counter.

 

Here’s the ingredients list, as far as I can remember:

 

1. About 2 tablespoons of olive oil
2. ½ a medium-sized onion, sliced
3. 2 cloves of garlic, minced
4. 2 chicken breasts
5. ½ cup of cabernet sauvignon
6. ½ cup of homemade chicken broth
7. ½ cup of spaghetti sauce (maybe less. It was the remainder of the batch.)
8. Salt
9. Pepper

 

I heated the oil in a pan. Once hot, I threw the seasoned breasts in the pan. I threw the onion and garlic in all around the chicken and did my best to coat the O and G with the remaining olive oil in the pan. Once there was a good sear on each side of the breasts, I poured the wine in, deglazing the pan with a wooden spoon. Once finished, I quickly poured in the chicken stock. I mixed things together as much as possible (I had accidentally poured some of the wine directly over one of the breasts and it seemed to turn a reddish color. Fearing that I’d have wine-flavored chicken, once I’d mixed the broth in, I spooned the liquid over the breasts until the red wine color dissolved.). I then added the spaghetti sauce and mixed everything together. I lowered the heat from medium and covered it. I cooked it for about 30 minutes, then took off the lid and spooned the liquid over the chicken a couple times over the next 5 minutes.

The finished product:

 

 

The Verdict:

 

Another successful exploration of the culinary wonders of vino. The chicken was moist and brimming with flavor. The flavors were the same as the crock pot version, but a little less married, if that makes sense. Everything still jived, but in a more fresh, less compact way. Overall, I love the interaction of tomatoes and wine and look forward to adding this to my repertoire.

A final note about my cooking preferences. I’m a spice guy. I love working with spices, coming up with unique combination, and using spices alone to fuel the flavor of a dish. But I only used salt and pepper in the above dishes. It was kinda tough, letting my spice racks sit all alone on the wall, leaving them on the bench, so to speak. But I’m glad I branched out a little and learned a little about the flavors of things beyond spices.