From Salt Cod to Brandade

by Phil Rubino

The dish that prompted this blog post—and the brandade is hidden!

I saw the post we put up last night on our Facebook page about the brandade filled calamari dish we have on the menu right now at the cafe, and was inspired to talk a bit more about this funny food called brandade.

Brandade, in the simplest of terms, is salt cod and olive oil, whipped with potatoes. And if you haven't noticed, the chefs here in Chicago love to cook the stuff. Koren Grieveson is known for her brandade at avec and I hear Steph Izard has a pumpkin brandade with one of her dishes right now—and that's just not surprising. This is some damn tasty stuff with roots all over western Europe. It's old school cooking. But it still I think leaves one stone unturned that people might overlook: what the heck is salt cod?

Grand Banks cod salted and drying circa 1890 via I Am Provincetown.

Well, that's where this gets fun. You can find a Mark Bittman piece he wrote for the New York Times a few years ago that points out how some people might easily assume salt cod would just be a salted piece of codfish—because yeah, a chef would naturally salt his fish before cooking it. But, as Bittman says, "There is a big difference between salt cod and salted fresh cod." Like, thick as a tree trunk kind of a difference. Salt cod can't be eaten without lengthy preparation, unlike a fresh piece of cod, salt or no salt. See, salt cod is hard as wood. I mean seriously hard. You could hurt somebody by whacking them across the head with a large piece of the stuff it's so stiff. Which means it's obviously nowhere near edible off the market shelf. But before thinking about how to cook something like this, I think it's worth looking at why anybody would ever even think to make it happen in the first place.

The answer is actually pretty simple: refrigeration. Before refrigerators, if a fisherman didn't pack his cod in salt and dry it on the ship-deck, his catch would rot and he'd make no money. So salt cod was born out of necessity.

Salt cod at La Boqueria in Barcelona via ggmackem's photostream.

There's a great book called Cod by Mark Kurlansky, and he goes up and down the whole history of the fish dating back to hundreds of years ago. He points to some of the first people to salt cod as the fisherman in the Basque region of Spain, who salted whale meat before transferring the practice to cod. He says, "When the Basque whalers applied to cod the salting techniques they were using on whale, they discovered a particularly good marriage because the cod is virtually without fat, and so if salted and dried well, would rarely spoil." And we're talking about a way of preserving food that dates back to over one thousand years ago.

Pick up a regional cookbook for any European country with access to the Atlantic, and you'll find recipes for salt cod. In Italy it's baccalà and in Portugal bacalhau. In France, it's bacalao. For those countries, this food was for years and years a crucial source of nutrition and health—Kurlansky even argues that that United States would never have declared its independence if it weren't for the cod trade with European nations. This taken-for-granted fish plays quite the role in history.

And despite all this complex and in depth backstory, the food itself is pretty easy to prepare. Whether making brandade or something else using salt cod, the stuff has to soak for hours in order to extract some of the salt and add moisture back to the fish. In our case, we poach the fish in milk with garlic and thyme to enhance the flavor while it softens—and for the brandade, we take the fish and whip it together with potatoes and extra virgin olive oil. I'm telling you, other than the amount of time it takes to soften the fish, this is easy stuff.

Brandade and toast via tiny banquet committee's photostream.

And that's it, really. It's been mentioned that the cooks love this dish over at the cafe, and that's 100% true. This is one of those rustic dishes that take big flavors and slow cooking and create the result of a warm, comfort laden plate of food.

As a chef, I'm driven by the little things. With this dish for example, the brandade is just one element of a whole plate full of components. And yet, I can write a blog about it—and someone else can write a book on it. That's the power of food, and I think we often take it for granted. Just a little something to think about next time you're out to dinner and stumble across a food you may not know, or a dish inspired by a rustic classic.

But in the meantime, come try ours. And in true BIN style, have it with a glass of wine—I hear the Pacific Rim, Gewurtztraminer is a perfect match.

Thanks for reading.

(Phil Rubino is Chef de Cuisine at bin wine cafe and is taking Wicker Park to a whole new level!)

Free Tasting of Lieb Family Cellars at BIN 36

by Jan Henrichsen

Making great wine in Long Island via jpm44's photostream.

On Wednesday evening, we're hosting Gary Madden of Lieb Family Cellars from 6:30 to 8:30.

He's a Chicago native, helps make really wonderful wine in New York, and we're super glad to have him! Here's a bit about him:

In his role as general manager for Lieb Family Cellars, a small winery located on the North Fork of Long Island, Gary Madden has merged his passion for wine with his entrepreneurial business zeal. “Wine has been a persistent passion for me from my college days working in restaurants and serving/tasting wine, through my computer industry career where it was a weekend hobby as I trekked through Napa, studied wine at UC Davis, and made wine at home. It finally emerged as a fulltime job when I switched careers after the Internet bubble burst.” Gary’s marketing and business skills include corporate development and marketing at Apple Computer, product planning at Texas Instruments, and market research for the Gartner Group and Dun & Bradstreet.

Working with owner Mark Lieb, Gary has grown Lieb Cellars into one of the most highly respected producers in the North Fork of Long Island wine region, offering varietals including Pinot Blanc, Chardonnay, sparkling wine, Merlot and Meritage. The Pinot Blanc vines are some of the oldest on Long Island, producing critically acclaimed award winning wines that are offered at many of the best restaurants in New York City. The winery added Cabernet Franc and a dry rose to the product line in 2005.

Gary grew up on Chicago’s South Side in the shadow of Midway airport and attended Loyola and DePaul before moving to California.

The cork from North Fork via lenndevours' photostream.

We'll be pouring four of the Lieb cellars wines by the glass (which is a special treat...usually these wines are only available by the bottle) and we've put together a special flight available exclusively at the restaurant for those who are curious about what Lieb does, and why it tastes so good.

We'll have their sparkling, the reserve Chardonnay, the white merlot (not like white zin at all!) and the reserve Cabernet Franc.

Stop in, taste some great wines, nibble some cheese and talk to Gary.

Nonna Caputo’s Lasagna Bolognese

Taken from the dining room of the now closed A MANO,
the lasagna was a perennial favorite.

The beauty of having a blog in this day and age when you're a restaurant? As a chef, I can communicate and share things never before possible. Like recipes. Which is exactly what I'm sharing with you today.

You might remember the piece I wrote for the Sun-Times a couple years ago on my nonna's lasagna, and I thought it'd be the perfect thing to revive and share here on the blog. This was a staple at A MANO, and is the perfect dish when entertaining in the coming cold nights ahead.

The secret to my grandmother’s perfect lasagna was the long, slow braising of the meat. It takes extra time to produce, but it is most definitely worth the work. So here it is:

Nonna Caputo’s Lasagna Bolognese

Serves 8-10

Bolognese Ingredients:

• 2 lbs pork butt, boneless, cut into 2 inch cubes
• 2 lbs veal shoulder, boneless, cut into 2 inch cubes
• 2 lbs short ribs, boneless, cut into 2 inch cubes
• 2 carrots, peeled, chopped
• 1 onion, peeled, chopped
• 2 stalks celery, chopped
• 1 head garlic
• 3 bay leaves and 2 oz. fresh thyme twigs tied together with butcher string
• 3 cups red wine
• 1 gal chicken stock or water
• 1/2 cup olive oil
• 3 cups tomato-based pasta sauce (Rao’s is a good brand)
• salt and pepper

Braising Procedure:

Add the olive oil to a large sauce pot over high heat, and get very hot. Season all the cubed meat with salt and pepper, then place carefully in the hot oil and sear on all sides. Do at least 2-3 batches; if you add too much meat, it will cool the pan down too much and won’t allow a good caramel color to develop, which provides flavor.

When all the meat has been seared, add the vegetables and sauté about 5 minutes until they develop some color. Add wine and cook until reduced by half (about 5 minutes). Add the chicken stock and herbs and bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer. Cover and simmer about 2 hours until the meat is falling apart tender. Remove from the stove and allow to cool slightly.

Strain the broth from the meat and reserve it in the sauce pot. Remove and discard the vegetables and the herbs. When the meat is cool enough to touch, shred it by hand and add it back into the broth. Return the pot to medium heat and reduce the liquid around the meat until pan is not quite dry, making sure to stir every 5 minutes so the bottom does not scorch. Add the tomato sauce to the mixture. Reserve some of the bolognese to spoon over the lasagna when serving.

Other Ingredients:

• 1.5 lb mozzarella, shredded
• 1 lb ricotta cheese
• 1/4 lb fresh basil leaves 
• 1.5 lbs dry pasta sheets (preferably De Cecco), cooked and cooled in ice water bath

Assembly:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In an 8 x 11 roasting pan, place a ladle of tomato sauce without any meat along the bottom of the pan. Fill the bottom with a layer of pasta, then spread a thin layer of ricotta across the pasta sheets with a spatula. Sprinkle some mozzarella on top of the ricotta, and follow with a ladle of the bolognese sauce with lots of meat. Finish the layer with some torn basil leaves. Repeat this process until all ingredients are gone. The final layer should pasta topped with mozzarella cheese. Place the lasagna in the oven, covered with aluminum foil, and cook about 45 minutes. At the 35 minute mark, remove the foil, turn the oven up to 400 degrees and allow the top to crisp. Remove lasagna from oven and let rest 10 minutes before serving. Serve with the reserved bolognese, fresh grated parmesan cheese and a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil.

This recipe originally appeared on November 19, 2008 in the Chicago Sun-Times.

Rockin' Out For Harvest

Brian sent us this from Hahn.

Harvest. Such a simple word that means so little to most people. But not to the BIN family. Not at all.

When Harvest comes, a lot comes with it. It means the grapes on our California vines are packed and full of juice, destined for bottles that will be stamped with the BIN 36 label. It means Brian Duncan hits the road, leaving Chicago in the dust, for the West Coast sunshine—where he plays a crucial role in the winemaking process. Harvest means labor and long hours and lots of volunteer work from friends and family. It means laughs and good food and even better company. And behind that dust, back here in Chicago? It means we kick up our heels too, not letting Brian and the winemakers take all the fun—because it's party time!

The Hahn barrels, where BIN magic is made!

And last Sunday, that's exactly what we did.

We held our 8th annual Harvest event at the restaurant this past weekend, and nearly 200 people joined us to help bring in the oenophile celebration—each of them walking out with a bottle of wine when all was said and done. And it's that bottle that's become the symbol for Harvest at BIN. Because of our unique structure as both restaurant and winemaker, we're equipped with the tools to on hand to give people that chance to create their own blended bottle of wine, based on their own palettes and adjustments as they go on tasting the wine.

What to blend, what to blend...

It's simple, really. We introduced everyone to Cabernet, Merlot, and Syrah, and in true BIN style broke down the characteristics of each varietal with fruit and spices and other descriptors so that everyone could see firsthand what elements are in each grape, and how they might compliment the others.

Getting those characteristics down.

Then, it's experimentation time! With the help of the BIN staff, everyone had the chance to create their own blend using these grapes—and make adjustments if they weren't quite confident with the first attempts. So cool, taste the grapes; blend the grapes; then take a bottle home. Not too shabby, right?

Blending it... from a beaker!

Well, the real fun comes months later. Months later after Brian's gone back to California and personally made the blends of each person's specific blend at Hahn Family Wines. Months later when the blends are bottled and shipped back to Chicago, personally labeled for each person whose ordered wine. Can you imagine having five cases of your own wine in your closet? Gifting them to co-workers or sharing with family over the holidays? I'm bordering sentimental here, but come on, I don't even have to point out how rare this is for people to experience. Your own wine!

Empty bottles waiting to be filled...

And Harvest also means a change in season—and when it comes to BIN, a change in season means a change across the board. Those who stayed for dinner Sunday night saw this first hand as we've completely revamped the wines, the cheese, and the food, which means there's just a whole heck of a lot going on over here in River North. So yeah, now might be a good time to stop in for a glass of wine!

And where the grapes are coming from.

Thanks to all who joined us on Sunday—it's always a thrill to see familiar faces who have returned, and new ones we hope we'll see next year and the year after. And for those lucky enough to have actually lent a hand on a vineyard during Harvest? Well, I guess you can rub elbows with Brian Duncan now...

Cheers!

A Restaurant Evolving

I think it's safe to assume that most of the traffic driven to this blog is generated by some sort of experience with our restaurants, or possibly our wine if you're elsewhere in the country other than Chicago. BIN 36, our first restaurant, has been open for ten years. She's the one that started it all, but she hasn't been the only one. In fact at the start of the year, we had two additional restaurants in Cook County: A Mano and bin wine cafe. Sadly, and I say sadly because we truly believed in the restaurant and loved having it, A Mano closed early on in the year. But bin wine cafe? It's still going strong!

A little Wicker Park flavor.

The Wicker Park restaurant is something of an anomaly when you compare it to it's older, more equipped sister downtown. To begin with, Wicker Park is a neighborhood for locals. There are no hotels. No swanky night clubs. It's just a different breed. What you'll find are second-hand stores and Chuck Taylor clad window display models, tattooed clerks and old underground music venues that have left a large imprint on the Chicago music scene over the past two decades. Some might call this area the center of hipsterdom in Chicago, but it's a lot more than that. Certainly, it's a place that embraces alternative lifestyles, but Wicker Park also is home to families and young professionals. It's where tourists in the know come to experience true Chicago, something different than deep dish pizza and neon-green hot dog relish.

And that's exactly why we opened our (baby) wine bar in the center of it all. We've written often about the way the landscape of wine has changed over the past ten years—but what it all comes down to is that more people drink wine now than ever before, and they want to try new and adventurous wines that don't cost half a week's salary. Through our wine flights at the cafe, people have been exposed to wines in a way, and at an affordable price, never seen before. Wine was the focus, and cheese was an important supporting element, and so was the food. But what it came down to was developing a concept that let the wine really shine.

Hand Cut Tagliatelle.
button clams, crispy pancetta, orange segments, toasted bread crumbs.

But things change, and sometimes you need to evolve. Well, there's certainly something of an evolution happening over there now. We announced Phil Rubino's hiring at the cafe on this blog a few months back, and however transparent we might be in having this blog, I'm not sure it's obvious how important of a move this was for the restaurant to take. Phil has an impressive resume—have you been to L2O, what an experience—and with his youthful enthusiasm plus vibrant commitment to locally sourced and farmed foods, plus a flare for molecular gastronomy in the kitchen, we hired a chef who would lead the restaurant to a whole new level.

Gunthorp Farms Chicken Breast.
rock cornish hen, crispy mushroom risotto cake,
braised chicken roulade,  caramelized onion sauce.

Much was made by the media about his first menu, which featured an Alaskan Halibut dish that had, among other things, 'bacon dust' on the plate. And you might've seen the short video we put together in which he made 'Olive Oil Powder'. This just shows Phil's talent, his ability to put familiar flavors on your plate, but masked in a way you've maybe never seen or felt on your tongue before. But what these things don't show is that the guy can flat out cook. That when we hired Phil, we gave him the power to restructure his kitchen and bring in a new staff if need be to help support his vision as he moved forward. That was months ago.

Pan Roasted Trout.
artichokes, baby leeks, purple potatoes, brown butter powder. 

So what's the point—I mean, why bring this up now?

Well, we rolled out a brand new menu at the cafe last week—and Phil's getting married this weekend. He'll be out of the kitchen for ten straight days. Sure, that's a little nerve wracking for me to think about, but you know what? I'm not nervous. These guys know what they're doing, and what they're doing is cooking some damn fine food.

Seared Flat Iron Steak.
smokey home fries, "creamed spinach dumplings,"
pink peppercorn reduction.

In the hands of Phil's sous chef Jack Stankovic, the baby bin team rolled out this week's Farm to Plate menu after a morning spent at Green City Market—a job Jack will take over for the next two weeks. Quite the task given the new menu is still just a few days old!

So I'm writing to say how proud I am of this transition. We're working closely with Chicago's surrounding farmers and are often hand selecting ingredients from the farmers' markets that'll be used later in the night for service. The restaurant, a cute and cozy place for wine and cheese, is now boasting a menu with stellar plates, and new techniques, from top to bottom.

Chicken Liver Mousse.
house made blackberry preserves, toast.

I want to give a huge congratulations to Phil on his wedding, and for also putting a team in place that we hope will make a name for its food in the coming months. You guys should all give yourselves a good hard tap on each other's shoulders. In the meantime, I think it's time we start eating...

Thoughts on Food and Wine Pairing

By Jan Henrichsen

Tasting wines to pair with the new menu at bin wine cafe.

Even the pros don't get it right all the time...

We have had a flurry of menu changes...dessert, cheese, dinner and lunch downtown, and along with our seasonal by the glass changes, it all adds up to a lot of moving parts.

A lot of pairings.

A lot of tastings.

A lot of things that taste really great together, and a couple that really don't.

I remember the first time had to pair wine and food professionally, and all the research I did. I bought the books. I tried the wines. I learned how the food was made...and still, I make mistakes all these years later.

Pairing is personal...sort of. Most wine professionals have their own process to good pairings. I have a rather dry, chemistry based approach (how rich is the food, how much butter, or fat is in the food, how much protein is in the food...you get the picture). Other folks have a more imaginative, intuitive approach. Both are pretty valid, and odds are, anybody who is really good at pairing, no matter what their approach, gets pretty good at it with time.

Brandade stuffed calamari is salty, but spicy with romesco and chorizo,
and intense from the smoke of the wood oven. Not easy to pair.

I bat pretty high, even under the conditions that most pairings are made under... which is absolutely theoretical. We read the menu specs, we pair a wine with that dish while remembering what that wine tasted like, and once everything is all printed out, we cross our fingers and actually try the actual food and wine together.

So, when you're trying it at home, and it doesnt work exactly how you thought it would, I know how you feel.

The advantage that I have that most people don't, is that when push comes to shove, I have hundreds of options to choose from, and at least 50 wines that are open to taste... it is pretty easy to figure out where I went wrong, and to find my way back to something that works.

The staff takes notes while getting to know the new menu,
but that doesn't mean they're not thinking about wine, too...

Out of all the menus that we changed, I personally think that desserts are the most difficult to pair— and also think dessert wines are universally under rated, that most folks think that dessert/dessert wine is an either/or proposition. It most certainly think not. But, I digress.

The trick to dessert pairings is finding the exact level of sweetness to match between the wine and the dessert. If one is even the tiniest bit sweeter than the other, it either makes the wine taste sour, or the dessert taste flat. How much butter or cream is in the dessert is also important, because a raspberry sorbet tastes lovely with a light moscato, but a raspberry tart will bully that same wine into a position that is just sad.

In short, pairings are not always easy for the pros—even though we have special tools that you dont have. And sometimes, believe it or not, it's not the most glamours pairings that I find to be the best, but rather the most challenging. And that's wine for you, isn't it? Always a changing landscape, always a challenge.

(Jan Henrichsen is Beverage Director for BIN 36 and hosts the mini-bin classes. After years spent at Pastoral, Jan has a bevy of knowledge on cheese and wine: the heart of BIN.)