WISS, coppa & LET reunion
It’s almost one year now. Sad, really. November, in the year of our Lord, 2010, still goes down as one of those amazing times you have that define a period on your life. It was just a group of people getting together over some great wine, simple as that yet for the fact that it was an invitational event that only 12 people get to do each year and it was something like $100K worth of wine.
So when the word got out that we should get together for a reunion, relive the week, the amazing highlights, the silly comments and discuss that empty feeling you now get knowing that the 2011 applications are due and no matter what you’d do to get another seat at the tasting table, that we probably won’t ever have such a range again, well at least without having to pay for it.
A date and venue were selected, a private room at Circa in Melbourne’s St Kilda where they know all about fine wine being part of the Prince wine group. The challenge, attempt to put together a flight of wines worthy of such a celebration, the menu was planned a 5 course degustation.
You might remember the sequel to the remake of Ocean’s Eleven a few years ago? One of the opening scenes is the gathering of the just shy of a dozen criminals who pulled off the heist of a century, they all amber into the room – resplendent, elegant, mysterious – to plan the next seemingly impossible challenge. Well that was exactly how it felt walking into the restaurant the other night. Exactly, seeing as my sub-conscious vision of myself is always George Clooney anyway.
Well it was a terrific night, great wines going back 5 decades from the likes of: DRC, La Chapelle, Haut Brion, Bonneau du Martray, Muller-Catoir. The menu well tuned to the paired wine: warm miso glazed eel with an Arbois white and flinty Chenin; spanner crab cannelloni with three dry Riesling; Dory, mussel and clam risotto, urchin butter with white Burgundy; suckling pig (ssso good) with red Burgundy; veal loin with a neat handmade macaroni with an esoteric flight of Hermitage, Bordeaux and Peidmont.
Even ending up in a dark underground room filled with red smoke, highly repetitive dance music, bad dancers, contemplating celery flavour vodka whilst trying to hear a spoken work, could not dampen my mood.
One of the other scholars, Mike Bennie, or as I like to call him Brad Pitt on account of them being so alike, is one of the founders of WISS. What is WISS I hear you say, well, this acronym stands for Wine Industry Smallgoods Smackdown!
Most people who make wine also having a decent interest in food and it turns out that many have a crack at smallgoods when they can. A few reasons: one, well it goes with wine; two, a lot of winemakers are of European extraction and three, we get fairly quiet in winter.
As you possibly know, we do get into the curing mood each year, many a slaughtered pig and bucket of salt go into the annual salami making process and this year I’ve had an 8kg pork leg hanging on the back verandah, drying in the cool breeze. So when I heard about the competition that is judged in early September I just had to be involved with it. But what to cure? The prosciutto/ham/Jamon won’t be ready needing a full year to dry, sausage are but there are full-on profession salami makers in this industry so I settled on something that will be ready in the 12 week window we had and is a bit different.
If you run your hands down the back of a pig’s neck, don’t worry they sort of like it, but shouldn’t, you can feel two thick sections of meat just behind the where the skull ends, they are about 20cm long before they descent into the shoulder sections. That’s the cut I am talking about, capocollo or coppa both translate – Head-neck and nape – to this section. They make a nice little roast too being so well marbled.
The reason why I like this cut is that it has all the qualities of good prosciutto, soft, fatty, sort of dissolves in the mouth and you can cure it quickly, ours took about 6/7 weeks to cure and dry. So I’ll include a process of how it was made, say you wanted too to be a smallgoods producer but you can obviously just buy some readymade for this simple and fulfilling pasta dish but do go to an Italian butcher that makes it themselves like Eco-meats at Belconnen, tell them Bryan sent you.
Home-made coppa
1 x pig neck section (about 700-800g)
40g Murray river salt crystals
1 tbsp ground black pepper
2 tbsp coriander seeds, ground
½ tspn fennel seeds, ground
Pinch of mace
dried chilli to taste
Some rope
a 5kg weight
One salami net
Mix the salt and spices together and rub into the meat all over, place in a sealed container and cure for 14 days, turning every second day. Brush off any excess spice mixture, squeeze the salted meat into netting, it should be really tight. Tie both ends and then go outside, somewhere cold and hang the meat via a section of rope high enough so dogs won’t get interested. Now tie the weight to the bottom of the sausage so that this arrangement will stretch the meat as it dries. Cover with some muslin. Dry like this for 4 weeks, then take off the weight, the coppa is ready when it feel firm yet yielding.
Macaroni with coppa, sautéed kale and tuna
Good quality macaroni or penne
100g finely sliced coppa
2 bunches Tuscan black kale, chopped
1 tin Italian tomato, chopped
1 clove garlic
Olive oil
1 small tin of good tuna, with chilli if possible
Italian parsley, roughly chopped
salt and pepper
Cook the pasta as required. Ina small pot, heat some oil to sizzle, cook garlic until crisp, remove and discard, dump into the now garlicky oil, the tomatoes, cook down a little, set aside. In a non-stick pan, sauté coppa until just starting to crispen, remove and save, add kale and sauté until yielding, add back the coppa and tomato sauce, cook to combine, season and add cooked pasta and off the heat stir in tuna and parsley.
aR� yeX��X��ze:11.0pt;font-family:”Arial”,”sans-serif”‘>Steamed blue-eye with pickled vegetable noodles and ponzu
2 250g plump fillets of blue-eye, skin on (or use another big fish)
200g brine (35% salt)
Oils on hand: grapeseed and sesame
Vegetables: a mixture of cucumber, daikon, carrot and wombok (Asian cabbage)
2 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp salt flakes
Steamed sushi rice
Garnish, toasted sesame seeds, chopped spring onions
Ponzu dressing
60ml light soy sauce
40ml citrus juice (see above)
5ml rice wine vinegar
10ml mirin
60ml dashi
Pinch of minced ginger
Mix together
First prepare the vegetables, cut them all into a long julienne, you can get little hand shredders that do this, use about the same quantities of each vegetable. In a bowl season with sugar and salt and leave for 20 minutes, drain off any collected brine. Steam the fish for 8-10 minutes over barely simmering water, once almost ready heat a pan with a splash of both oils until it just starts to smoke. On a plate, have the fish skin side up, scatter spring onions and pour over the sizzling oil, this sears in the flavour a slightly crispens the skin, serve on a bed of vegetables, rice and dressing on the side, sprinkle all with sesame seed and extra spring onion.
