Thursday, December 10, 2009

Andina; Zuppa alla Valpelleunenze

Portland, December 10—
LUNCH TODAY DOWNTOWN at Andino, a place Simon really likes because the cuisine is Ecuadorean/Peruvian, and he spent a year in Ecuador, and has a bit of what he calls gastralgia, a nostalgia for tastes past. (That's how I refer to it: the search for taste past; I find "gastralgia" a little too medicinal sounding.)
We began with pequeños platos: jamon y chorizo, both very nice indeed, the ham smoky and dry, toward the classic Serrano taste; the chorizo hot and dry. With them, three sauces: peanut, papaya, chile verde. Then I went on to Seco a la norteña, lamb shank slow-cooked, flavored slightly with peppers, and served on noodles; almost exactly the way Richard Olney prescribes it. A delicious lunch, with some fine conversation.
Apaltagua Pinot Noir Reserva, Curicó Valley, Chile, 2009
  • Andina Restaurant, 1314 NW Glisan, Portland OR; tel. 503.228.9535

  • pap.jpg

    DINNER AT HOME: Lindsey made a Zuppa alla Valpelleunenze from a book Giovanna had brought home from the library, Diana Henry's Roast Figs Sugar Snow (New York: Octopus Books, 2009). This is essentially pap, bread soup, though heavy also with cabbage and fortified with cheese — a real cold-weather mountain-resort kind of dish. Bread and cheese — Lindsey used Taleggio — are layered in a casserole, flavored with garlic butter, soaked in chicken stock, and baked; then butter-sautéed cabbage is stirred into the resulting soup, which is sprinkled with Parmesan and gratinéed further. For dessert, Lindsey's Chocolate Cake, vanilla ice cream on the side.
    Barolo d'Alba, Plan Romualdo, Prunotto, 2000

    No comments: