A Crown Not Fit for a King

This past weekend, we invited a co-worker of Peta's and his wife and young son over for a dinner. We traveled to nearby Arroyo Grande to check out the local butcher shop and to purchase a replacement honing steel. Dangerous dull knives be gone! They didn't have pork shanks, although they thought that they did in the freezer, for a dish that we have made before called Stinchetti di Maiale Arrosto (Roast Pork Shanks) then they didn't have duck legs (for some sort of confit over bitter greens) because they only get Muscovy breasts.

But they did have rib roast, so we decided to do a standing rib roast. Jim used this recipe and sort of blew it in two ways. When we couldn't find the kosher salt and Peta asked, "More salt than that?" and Jim said, "Does the Pope shit in the woods?", it was profane and wrong. Too much salt. Then, because we started early and later than expected, turning the heat down to 300 F for 4 hours rather than 325 for 3 hours was not nearly low enough. The meat was tender, but over-cooked. Not by much, but over-cooked none the less.

The two pluses were that 1) we had wanted to use a coffee rub on meat for a while and the flavor was good and and 2) we eschewed the vanilla in the recipe because there was no way that either of us would add vanilla to a rib roast. No &%*^ way!

As for the accompaniments, there were issues there too. For the first time in a while, we have a TV. We've been watching a bit (too much) and on the food network, it's been "gastrique this" and "gastrique that". We finally looked it up and realized that a gastrique is what we do every time we make BBQ sauce. Who knew? So we found a recipe for Skillet Greens with Crispy Shallots and Cider Gastrique. We used beet greens so that the cooking time would be less than say, collard greens, and so that we'd have the beets themselves to roast with thyme. Unfortunately, it takes a lot more greens that the greens from two bunches of beets to serve four people. Another mis-step.

To accompany the meal, Josh and Katie brought a smooth, aged (2006?) BV cabernet sauvignon. We also cracked a magnum of what was most likely a Louis Martini Monterosso cab that Jim's brother bought (stole for) him a few years back. No label but it was good. We only had a glass each so we just polished it off last night with some friends over beautiful big burgers.

And that's all we've got to say about that.
Jim and Peta