The Quaintrelle Conundrum
Two recipes and wine pairings, for when you're more than just one thing.
I was going to call this Substack blog, Drinks at 6, Dinner at 7. But that was too long.
So then I thought of just shortening it to Drinks at 6. But seemed rather limiting for all the subject content I want to cover – wine, cocktails, food, hosting, travel, books.
I toyed next with Apéro – the French term for cocktail hour, or what the Italians call aperitivo. It’s my absolute favourite time and way to entertain: the welcome unwind at the end of the day, the slow pause before dinner plans and evening commitments. The relaxed nature of free-flowing drinks, perhaps with no more effort than popping a cork. A wedge of good cheese, a slab of well-made bread, and a handful of kettle chips or salted pistachios is really all you need. You could elevate apéro into something more substantial, but no one would fault you for keeping your party stress free and seamless. In fact, they might like it more.
I still might call the blog Apèro, if Quaintrelle doesn’t catch on.
But hopefully it does.
To celebrate the mildly fickle nature of Quaintrelle, I bring you two recipes of what some might consider extremes.
A quick and easy kale salad and a hearty tartiflette. While the former is fresh and robust with all the vitamins, minerals, and good-for-youness that would make your microbes proud, the salad is also wholly satisfying and utterly delicious.
The tartiflette, that my French cooking instructor called, “the booze suck-aire” in his charming Normandy accent, is decadent and maximalist with layers of cheese, potato, and bacon. Come to think of it, the two make a wonderful pair, one offering gut-enhancing goodness, the other luxuriating in gut-busting hedonism.
A Smug Kale Salad
This is not a sad desk lunch. This is a smug desk lunch.
The kind of colourful, bring-to-work lunch that makes your co-workers think you’ve really got your life in order.
Rest assured, you don’t have to have anything in order, and you can still easily make and enjoy this beautiful salad. But it just may inspire you to actually use that yoga membership. Or not.
The Smug Kale Salad bursts with vitamins and is loaded with fibre – I can’t even imagine how many grams, but I bet it’s a lot. But better than the health-supporting bits and pieces this salad has in spades, it’s enticingly delicious, and wholly satisfying.
It’s also less of a recipe and more of an assemblage.
If you don’t care for kale, spinach, or even romaine, would work just fine. If you have run out of black beans, use chickpeas. And if you’re one of those confounding people who likes dried fruit in your salad (of which I am decidedly not one), throw in a handful of cranberries, blueberries, or cherries. Come to think of it, sun-dried tomatoes might make a suitable sweet-and-salty addition.
I often use frozen kale, as I find fresh kale wilts quickly and if I don’t get around to using it that day, I’m left with sad and wilting stocks. Frozen gives me much more flexibility, which satisfies my wonton ways. I quickly thaw it in a shallow frying pan over low heat, seasoning with salt, a pinch of chili flakes and a squeeze of lemon – just until it’s thawed, maybe slightly lukewarm, but definitely not hot.
I always hesitate to quantify how many people any recipe serves. Who am I to judge what will satisfactorily feed one, or four, or 10? I prefer to give quantities in cups or litres. You can decide for yourself how far that will go in your household, and if you need to halve or double or leave the recipe as is to suit your needs.
Makes: 5 cups
Chef level: Easy
Ingredients:
¼ cup red onion, thinly sliced
1 tsp sugar
2-3 Tbsp toasted pumpkin seeds
2 cups fresh or frozen kale
1 tsp Kosher salt
Pinch of chili flakes, optional
Squeeze of half a lemon
1 cup shredded purple cabbage
½ cup sauerkraut
¼ cup red pepper, thinly sliced
½ cup canned black beans
¼ cup thinly sliced radish – breakfast, watermelon, or regular red
1 Tbsp hemp seeds and /or chia seeds, optional
Lemon-Garlic Dressing (recipe below)
How to Make It:
Toss the onion sliced with the sugar and set aside for 15 minutes or so while you prep the rest of your salad ingredients. The sugar will help reduce the “bite” of the onion. This is optional but recommended, of course.
Either cook the frozen kale with the salt, optional chilli flakes, and lemon juice, or “massage” fresh kale with those ingredients for a few minutes until the kale starts to soften.
Add everything to a large bowl and toss to combine.
Wine Pairing:
Yes, you absolutely can pair wine and salad together. Whether it be for a first course, or a light-but-substantial meal on its own, there is no reason you couldn’t pair a wine if you wanted to.
I discussed this issue on The Wine Sisters’ blog years ago. People get a bit jumpy when looking to pair wines with strong vegetables like earthy kale and piquant onion, but it’s not difficult once you get the hang of it.
I like to think of pairing wines as I would any other sauce, seasoning, or condiment. And, seeing as we are dressing this salad with tangy lemon vinaigrette, I’m opting for a bright, crisp wine with the same acidity as the lemon, plus herbal flavours to echo the verdant notes of the vegetables.
Wines with high acidity and those green flavours include Sauvignon Blanc, Grüner Veltliner, Verdicchio, and Verdejo. All would work with this salad, so pick your favourite.
Lemon-Garlic Dressing:
Ingredients:
1 tsp Kosher salt
½ tsp honey
1 garlic clove, left whole but gently crushed
¼ cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
2 tsp Dijon mustard
A few cranks black pepper
½ cup extra virgin olive oil
How to Make It:
Place the salt, honey, and garlic clove in a jar and pour in the lemon juice. Set aside for 15-20 minutes, or however long it takes you to make the salad, to infuse with garlic flavour and allow the salt and honey to dissolve.
When ready, remove the garlic and throw away.
Add in the pepper, Dijon, and olive oil.
Seal the jar and shake with energetic vigour to blend and emulsify.
Use what you need and save the rest. This will last, sealed on the counter, for 3-5 days.
Tartiflette
I love this hedonistic recipe. I’ve featured it on The Wine Sisters’ blog and You Tube channel, and now here.
I was first introduced to the tartiflette when taking a French cooking course a few summers ago. It’s a hearty, cheese-laden, layered casserole from the Alps that I don’t recommend for 35-degree temperatures with near 100% humidity but it is perfect for crisp evenings when darkness creeps in early and the wind blows against the windows.
My teacher, Jean-Jacques, in his charming accent, calls the tartiflette a “booze sucker” (though it sounds more like, “booze-suck-aire” when he sing-songs his instructions.) Noting that after a hard day of negotiating moguls down the mountains, the French retire to the cozy warmth of the chalet to go equally hard on their post-athletic activities. As copious amount of crisp Jura wine celebrates a triumphant day on the slopes, and the fortifying tartiflette (almost always) ensures that the intrepid skier can hit the hills the next morning no worse for wear.
Reblochon is the traditional cheese to use here, and indeed is absolutely worth it. But it can be tough to find, and it is very expensive, so if you find yourself looking for an alternative, consider Fontina, Raclette, Taleggio or even Gruyere as a stand in.
(A note about the below formatting. The bullets are missing from the ingredient list and I wasn’t able to use the headline graphics like the above recipes. I wrote this first in a word doc and copied it over in which I suspect lies some of the problem. It’s making me crazy, but it is what it is. You likely won’t notice, and I probably shouldn’t even bring this up, however, the Type A journalist in me needs you to know that I know. I’m booking an emerg therapy appointment right now.)
Makes: a 9x13 casserole pan
Chef level: Easy
Ingredients:
3 lbs Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled and chopped
12 oz lardons
2-3 cups sliced white onion
½ cup dry white wine
Salt and pepper, to taste
1 lb Reblochon cheese or alternative, cut into strips or large cubes
Butter, softened for spreading the baking dish
How to Make It:
1. Butter a 9x13 casserole or lasagna pan.
2. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Add the potatoes and cook until softened, but not overcooked, about 8-10 minutes (a knife should pierce easily but not have the potato flake apart.)
3. Drain the potatoes and set aside.
4. Pre heat the oven to 425°F
5. In a large skillet fry the lardons until cooked but still soft. Using a slotted spoon, remove bacon from the pan and drain fat on a paper towel.
6. Using the remaining fat, add the onions and fry until soft and translucent.
7. Add the potatoes, onions, and bacon to the buttered casserole, pour in the white wine, and season with salt and pepper (be careful with salt as there will already be a fair amount from the cooked potatoes and the lardons). Stir to combine.
8. Bake in the oven for about 15 minutes, then remove it to sprinkle with a good layer of the cheese and return to the oven until the cheese is melted and golden, about another 15 minutes.
9. Serve with a green salad and generous glasses of cold, French, white wine.
Wine Pairing:
Wines from the Jura or Savoie regions are classic pairings, but very tough to find in Ontario, where I live. Among the numerous grapes the two regions grow is Pinot Gris, which is easier to source, albeit from other French areas such as Alsace.
Parting Thoughts
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But for now, I would really, really appreciate it if you could spread the word and share this newsletter with all the cocktail-loving, party-throwing, foodie, winos in your life.
Thanks for reading.