Corned Beef Conundrum<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
With dash of Irish heritage (just a wee bit), my family diligently celebrates St. Patrick\u2019s Day each year with an old-school boiled <\/em>Corn Beef & Cabbage dinner. It’s a soggy, mushy, drab mess on a plate. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I was not going to serve mushy meat and vegetables for a wine pairing course. I had to break from my past and pursue making a tastier corn beef that could pair with wine. Plus, since it was the \u201cmain\u201d dish, I wanted it to look amazing plated. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The solution ended up being a two-punch approach \u2013 braise & glaze. I now have a terrific recipe for corned beef . I also swapped out all the soggy vegetables for a more elevated versions. Boiled potatoes were replaced with garlic mashed (yes, I know, it\u2019s still technically boiled). Boiled carrots became the beautifully caramelized roasted baby carrots. Finally, instead of a mess of wet cabbage, I did roasted brussels sprouts. <\/p>\n\n\n\n It was, and still is, the best tasting and looking corned beef dish I have had. I will never go back. I make this Guinness braised and mustard-whiskey glazed <\/em>version for St Patrick\u2019s day each year. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I promised myself I would upgrade my plating game for this round. That is, to at least have one. I became rather obsessed looking at Pinterest boards and YouTube videos. From how-to tutorials to just examples of beautiful plating from Michelin-starred restaurant experiences. <\/p>\n\n\n\n However my plating ambitions ran smack into a hurdle. My mother had already purchased clear, plastic plates for the party. Plastic and liquid are not terribly compatible. Liquid sauces tend to bead up and roll all around. Also, clear is not a great plating backdrop. <\/p>\n\n\n\n To manage, I focused on building layers for the dishes and using nice garnishes. Honestly, it was for the better because doing fancy plating by yourself for over 20 dishes at once across 6 courses just isn’t feasible. Even though I didn’t do a lot of fancy sauce plate work, I splurged on getting some really cool precision sauce spoons that were fun to try out. <\/p>\n\n\n\n For some insane reason, I wanted to do a 2-taste approach to the courses. Everyone has different tastes and flavors experiences. What I think goes best with a wine, may not be someone else\u2019s ideal flavor. Therefore, wouldn\u2019t it be more interesting to have two dishes per course, allowing guests to explore which flavors pair best for them? <\/p>\n\n\n\n It was a noble idea, but so much more work. Looking back, I should have trimmed some courses down. But for my folly, you get double the recipes to peruse. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Happily, this time, I tasted the wines as I was creating and experimenting with the dishes. I even used a family birthday party to trial run some dishes. It really helped hone the pairings and it was nice to have other opinions. For example, my starting dish was a lemon granita and I was trying out various herbs to infuse. Ginger was a favorite flavor without considering the wine. But it was basil that had an amazing transformational experience with the prosecco we were serving. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Testing also saved me from a failed pairing of certain chardonnay and a mango salsa I was envisioning for a fish taco. I had to go back to the drawing board on the whole dish. I highly recommend using your family and friends as test subjects \u2013 if it doesn\u2019t work out they should think no less of you. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Yet another consideration this round, gluten-free mindfulness. During the last party, I learned that one of the hosts had a gluten intolerance. And really, so many people avoid glutens these days. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Most of the courses I made this time were gluten-free. Not forgetting vegetarians, most of courses had a veggy component, or I just didn’t use meat for the person who requested meatless. Mashed potatoes with whiskey glaze sauce is still pretty awesome. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Having one party under my belt, I was far more prepared for all planning and prepping this round. But not that I did myself any favors, as I set myself up for a lot more work. I do that a lot, it\u2019s hard to back off when you start getting inspired. <\/p>\n\n\n\n When managing a multi-course menu with a lot of people, look at your menu and plating plan and give it one solid edit to streamline. What can you do to make it quicker, easier, or simpler? Good food does not have to be super complex to be impressive. (I say this now, but I got way more complex on the next gig\u2026will I ever learn?) <\/p>\n\n\n\n Even if I thought myself \u201cwiser\u201d, there were a couple missteps that night (see my notes below about sushi rice disaster *sigh*). But overall, I was very pleased with how this menu came together, the improved plating techniques and the stronger pairings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Below is the full six course menu for the entire Wine Pairing Party. Dishes titles will link to their corresponding recipe page (this is currently in progress). Wines will link to a 3rd party\u2019s wine shop\u2019s page on this wine or a comparable one (if the original vintage isn\u2019t available or no longer recommended).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Where<\/strong>: This wine pairing party was again hosted at a lovely home with a waterfront view. Very open floor plan and guests could see in to the kitchen. Luckily most were looking at the view or each other, not staring at me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When<\/strong>: St Patrick\u2019s Day, the evening of March 17th<\/sup>. We had an earlier spring that year, but still very cool at night at the early transition from Winter to Spring. Some ingredients were hard to find \u201cfresh\u201d so made due with a couple tricks (you can rehydrate dried figs.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n While I was more mentally prepared this round, I had much more work. Double the dishes and plating each course meant a lot of planning. <\/p>\n\n\n\n This was about a 4 hour event for guests, which started at 5pm and ended around 9pm. It took the full hour for most the guests to appear \u2013 but we cannot wait that long to get the party going. <\/p>\n\n\n\n My first course had a granita (a type of Italian ice). I would scoop a bit out at a time as I saw guests arrive and pop it back in the freezer. This meant I had to stop and serve the stragglers while I was prepping other rounds. It would have been nice to have another person in the kitchen to do that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It was a very tight race from some of the dishes that were not \u201cahead of time\u201d set up. This happened to be the situation for the second course, where I needed to sear shrimp and roast figs. I seem to always have timing issues for that course, I wonder if I will ever figure out a better solution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It is not just a very long day of the event, but the days leading up as well. I am prepping at home well into the night before, up early to finish off and pack up, and arrive at the house around 11am. Working with very small breaks, then clean up and repacking my supplies gets us to about 11pm. At least this time with my cushy mats and better shoes, I wasn\u2019t in as much pain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Similar set up as the last event, we had a very lean team. Two hosts (my mom and her friend), a wine \u201csommelier\u201d (my brother), and one cook (myself). An extra hand in the kitchen would have been great. My brother had to really help me out at plating time. Most of my family knows that if you are in the kitchen when I am cooking, you will be put to work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We had limited plates (don\u2019t ask) and had a set of reusable acrylic plates with an Asian design. We used them for the 4th<\/sup> course and the 6th<\/sup> course. So, we had to collect them and wash them during the 5th<\/sup> course (which was a longer course, but still). That put my mother on wash duty. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Plated Courses \u2013<\/strong> Each course was served on a single plate, which had a least 2 different items. We put the plates on the large counter the split off the kitchen from the dining room. The host would ring her large brass bell to signal guests to gather and hear about the next course. My brother would describe the wine and I would explain the food. Then they would pick up their plates as they got a pour of the next wine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Set Up <\/strong>\u2013 Napkins, utensils were placed next to the food. The standard dump bucket and water was placed out. We stopped having any other food out and about as six courses is really a good amount of food for the evening. Last time a lot of cheese, fruits and veg were barely touched.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bottle counting <\/strong>\u2013 There was 5 courses of wine, with 4 bottles for each. With basic math, that is 20 bottle of wine, which was plenty for the amount of guests (about 24??). The last course was not wine, but two ports: a ruby and a tawny. We had two bottles of the ruby port, which was good as it was a favorite. We also had a very lovely 10 year old tawny, and as it was a lot more than the ruby, only one bottle of that. While I really liked it, it was not a favorite of the crowd. Fine, extra for the cook!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Tasting Pour<\/strong> \u2013 We start with tasting pours in standard wine glasses. It\u2019s about \u00bc of the glass. And then guests can have another pour for as long as we have the wine. For the port, we had shot glasses, but not filled all the way to the top. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The hosts came up with trivia game to keep guests entertained during the wine pairing party. I can\u2019t remember much of it as I didn\u2019t have bandwidth to pay attention. <\/p>\n\n\n\n It was also St. Patricks day, so the d\u00e9cor reflected that with shamrock napkins and such. But that was about it as I recall. I believe there were flowers out and about. It\u2019s such a lovely home with nice furnishings and a great view, not much extra is needed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The menu was printed and left out for guests to review. For the menu, I describe key ingredients, if nuts are used, and if I have a vegetarian option.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Rice Fiasco<\/strong>: Sometimes, its the unexpected little things that can create drama. My garlic eggplant dish was served over sushi rice. I bought a little round mold to help me form patties. It worked well, but I underestimated the amount of rice needed for the size of the circle mold done 25 times. I scraped just enough rice to plate each guest (but not myself or the hosts, which was fine). I thought, \u201cwell that was close, but dish accomplished.\u201d How wrong I was.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Right after I served everyone, a couple people came up asking for just plain rice. Unfortunately, I was out of rice and it takes over 20 minutes to cook a new batch. They were annoyed with my “sorry, I don’t have any more” response.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Pizza mess<\/strong>: People often ask if I would do those cooking contest…no. I like to meticulously plan and not have my food disasters televised. This example reinfoces my stances.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Silly me, I was expecting everything on top of the polenta pizzas to just stay<\/em> there. Get melty, yes, but stay on stop of the polenta slices. Alas, that is not what happened. All the toppings started sliding every which way, off the polenta and into the pan. The sauce and the balsamic glaze combined into a dark red molten mess that I had to drain off without severely burning myself. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I fixed it as best I could. Future forward: less sauce, less cheese, and don\u2019t add the prosciutto or balsamic glaze until after<\/em> they come out of the oven.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019m melting:<\/strong> Because it was still March and cool in the evening, folks kept closing the only door to the outside that was airing me out. I had dual ovens blazing all night and stove top searing going on. There was one vent over a stove, but it\u2019s clanky, sputtering fan could not take on the amount of heat I was producing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n By dessert time, it was sauna-rific in the kitchen! I had made pretty little chocolate ladders with edible gold stars that were to stick straight up from the chocolate mousse. That\u2019s what is was supposed to do. But fate would not be so kind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I used a stupid short cut of regular whip cream out of a can ( for shame!). When I was plating the deserts and shoving in the ladders in the whip cream, at first it was lovely. But before I was halfway done, the whip cream was melting into white puddles, the ladders were going sideways and becoming a little melty themselves. Nooooo! <\/p>\n\n\n\n A quick last minute fix ensued. First, I opened wide the balcony doors for a blessed breeze. Next, I shoved the ladders deep into the mousse so they looked more like a chocolate step stool. Finally, I quickly reapplied whip cream right as people were gathering. Nothing like a boiling, stress-y, panicky serving of the final dish. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Three words I will never ignore again: stabilized whip cream.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Opinions are like…:<\/strong> The critics weren’t too much really. There is a difference between preferences and actual criticism that focuses on where the dish could improve. Other than the rice issue, I was probably more critical of the dishes than the guests. <\/p>\n\n\n\n This time my yellow curry that went with the shrimp was too spicy for some. But I didn\u2019t make it, I bought it. Trader Joe\u2019s Thai Curry Sauce, one of my favorites. It\u2019s delicious and I wouldn\u2019t change a thing, other than make spicier sauces more optional and not right on the food.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It’s surprising no one complained about the pizza (to my face, anyways). While I did recover them from the awful mess, but the dish was underwhelming at the time. I have since improved the technique. <\/p>\n\n\n\n No complaints on the corned beef. It was pretty much the star dish of the night. In fact, there were several requests for more and I did<\/em> make plenty. Not everyone finished off the desserts \u2013 but I think that was more a reflection of \u201cso full\u2026too much food.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Many people were complimentary of the plating and I got a lot of positive feedback on that front. The visual appeal of the food has a strong influence on the tasting experience. It was absolutely worth the effort.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Saint Patrick’s Day it is! After a successful first event, we decided to continue on with an annual version of the Wine Pairing Party fundraiser. I wanted to really elevate the dishes and create a more profound pairing experience. We didn\u2019t purposefully plan on having the next party on St. Patrick\u2019s Day. But after reviewing …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3335,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"template-3-no-sidebar.php","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","wprm-recipe-roundup-name":"","wprm-recipe-roundup-description":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"loftocean_post_primary_category":0,"loftocean_post_format_gallery":"","loftocean_post_format_gallery_ids":"","loftocean_post_format_gallery_urls":"","loftocean_post_format_video_id":0,"loftocean_post_format_video_url":"","loftocean_post_format_video_type":"","loftocean_post_format_video":"","loftocean_post_format_audio_type":"","loftocean_post_format_audio_url":"","loftocean_post_format_audio_id":0,"loftocean_post_format_audio":"","loftocean-featured-post":"","loftocean-like-count":0,"loftocean-view-count":16,"tinysalt_single_post_intro_label":"","tinysalt_single_post_intro_description":"","tinysalt_hide_post_featured_image":"","tinysalt_post_featured_media_position":"","tinysalt_single_site_header_source":"","tinysalt_single_custom_site_header":"0","tinysalt_single_custom_sticky_site_header":"0","tinysalt_single_custom_sticky_site_header_style":"sticky-scroll-up","tinysalt_single_site_footer_source":"","tinysalt_single_custom_site_footer":"0","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[4,6,5],"class_list":["post-392","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wine-party-stories","tag-event","tag-party-plans","tag-wine-pairing"],"yoast_head":"\n![\"Braised](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/havewinewillpair.com\/staging\/4627\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/cornbeef-horz-800x530-1.jpg?resize=800%2C530&ssl=1\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\nPrettier Plating Please<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Double Food, Double Pressure<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Taste Testing Time<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Free the Glutens<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
A year older, a little wiser<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
The Wine Pairing Menu<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
MENU<\/strong>
First Course - Prosecco
<\/span>Montelliano Prosecco<\/a><\/em>
+
Lemon Basil Granita<\/a><\/em>
Lemon ice infused with basil provides a sweet, tangy and remarkably refreshing pairing to a sparkling wine.
Fish on Chip<\/a><\/em>
Smoked salmon mousse atop a crunchy, salty potato chip gives the depth of a savory pairing.
Second Course- Chardonnay<\/span>
Raeburn Chardonnay<\/a><\/em>
+
Pineapple Shrimp Skewer over Yellow Curry<\/em>
Lime and coconut marinated shrimp grilled with pineapple atop Thai yellow curry sauce. A sweet and slightly spicy combination that is well offset by a light and crisp Chardonnay.
Stuffed Fig with goat cheese<\/em>
Black mission figs filled with creamy goat cheese and topped with toasted walnuts and drizzle of honey. Served atop an peppery arugula salad with a light vinaigrette dressing and caramelized onions. Smooth and creamy goat cheese with sweet and savory aspects area classic pairing with Chardonnay.
Third Course \u2013 Pinot Noir<\/span>
Duck Pond Pinot Noir
<\/a><\/em>+
Stuffed Strawberry Salad with balsamic glaze<\/a><\/em>
A classic strawberry salad condensed into a lush bite. Large balsamic-marinated strawberry filled with a blue cheese blend, crisp spinach and topped with toasted walnuts. Balsamic enhances the berry while blue cheese adds depth to create a balanced bite with a Pinot Noir.
Polenta Pizza with Prosciutto<\/em>
Sliced of firm polenta baked with marinara sauce, fresh mozzarella, basic and prosciutto. Topped with a thick balsamic glaze to marry all the fresh flavors of a classic pizza that marry to a Pinot Noir.
Fourth Course \u2013 Malbec<\/span>
Domaine Bosquet Malbec<\/a><\/em>
+
BBQ Chicken in Endive
<\/em>Tangy shredded BBQ chicken cradled in an endive leaf with cheese and green onion finish. Tanginess of BBQ and onion offset the velvety depth of the Malbec.
Garlic Eggplant over Sushi Rice
<\/em>Japanese eggplant saut\u00e9ed in a dark garlic sauce serve over a sushi rice patty. Deep umami flavor brings out the richness of the Malbec.
Fifth Course \u2013 Cabernet
<\/span>Michael David Freakshow Cabernet<\/a>
<\/em>+
Braised Corn Beef with a Whiskey Glaze<\/a>
<\/em>Slow-braised in Guinness port and spiced to give a deep caramel flavor to the corned beef. Finished with a whiskey mustard glaze with strong notes of clove and cinnamon to perfectly pair with this Cabernet. Served over garlic mashed potatoes with roasted carrots and brussels.
Six Course \u2013 Port <\/span>
Whidbey Island Ruby Port<\/a>
Kopke Tawny 10 Year Port<\/a><\/em>
+
Mocha dip cookie<\/em>
A soft butter cookie infused with coffee flavors then dipped in dark chocolate to create a mocha experience.
Mexican Chocolate Mousse<\/em>
Orange and cinnamon spiced chocolate whipped into a creamy mousse. Topped with whip cream and orange zest.
Toffee Truffle<\/em>
A decant dark chocolate ganache truffle rolled in crunchy toffee bits.
<\/pre>\n\n\n\nPARTY PLANNING NOTES<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Early Prep<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
\n
Wine Party Timing<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
\n
Volunteer Turnout<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Service Set Up<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Little Party Details<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Ongoing Learning<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n