This video, about 3 and a half minutes long, shows Sandro Piliego of Palo Cortado slicing Jamon Iberico, and discussing Jamon and Sherry. I shot the video on my phone and of course forgot to turn it sideways, so sorry about the rather narrow picture.
I want to tell you about my favorite place to drink Sherry in NYC, a tapas bar called Palo Cortado. Palo Cortado is actually a restaurant with a full menu, and it serves a wide and interesting selection of wine and beer. You can go there and have a "normal" restaurant experience, with an appetizer, an entree, and dessert. But I'm going to talk about Palo Cortado in the way that I experience it, as a tapas bar.
Let me start by saying this: Palo Cortado has as good of a by-the-glass Sherry list as anyplace I've seen. There are about 20 Sherries on the list at any time, and wines rotate in and out.
This is a place where you can drink interesting wines in each category of Sherry, wines that can be quite difficult (in some cases, impossible) to find on retail shelves. There are lovely Finos and Manzanillas, interesting Amontillados and Palo Cortados, and several examples of Moscatel and Sweet Pedro Ximenez wines too. The most expensive wine I've seen, I believe, is the Bodegas Tradición Amontillado at perhaps $20 a glass. That's right - you can drink things like Bodegas Tradición Amontillado, by the glass, at Palo Cortado. The least expensive is the extremely delicious Emilio Hidalgo Fino at $6. Think about it - you can sample Sherries of all types for very reasonable prices, play around, try new things, expand your understanding of this forgotten (but perhaps now re-discovered) great wine of the world.
The wines are served in Sherry glasses and this is a great decision, particularly with the brown Sherries. I think Amontillado and Palo Cortado wines show best in these copitas, benefiting from the focus the glass confers. I prefer the way Fino style wines smell and taste out of white wine glasses, but copitas are fine too, and it certainly feels more like a tapas bar that way. Alessandro Piliego (pouring, above), who goes by Sandro and is one of the owners of Palo Cortado, is a true believer, and will be happy and excited to pour various wines for you, to talk about them with you, to support you in exploring the bottles he offers. If you go, you should talk with him - you will feel as though you have been well taken care of.
Palo Cortado is a destination place, it's worth traveling to because of the great Sherry selection and the great service. The food can be good too - there are dishes that I love to eat at Palo Cortado and I always enjoy my meals there. But the reason to travel to Palo Cortado is the great Sherry and the great service, and there are also some good things to eat. And I should say that I've never tasted even one of the main dishes. I order tapas, that's it.
To me, the most delicious and very best thing to eat at Palo Cortado is Jamon Iberico. Sandro simply does this right, no question about it. High quality jamon, aged two years, cut by hand into thin (but not too thin) toothsome and highly perfumed slices. A plate of jamon is served with large caper berries, Marcona almonds, fig bread, and pickled Basque peppers. A little bread on the side, a nice glass of Sherry...what could be better? I usually drink Palo Cortado with the jamon, like the wonderful Emilio Hidalgo Marqués de Rodil, but Sandro recommends Fino, and I tried this last time and it was great.
The other tapas that I always enjoy at Palo Cortado include Pulpo a la Gallega (tender octopus and potatoes with vinegar and lots of pimenton), Empanadas, which are completely home made and stuffed with delicious flank steak and melted Tetilla cheese, Patatas Bravas (fried potato chunks in pimenton and aioli, the Tortilla a la Cazadora (mushoom and potato omelet), the Albondigas de Cordero (lamb meatballs) and a frequent special of fluke crudo with grapefruit. And if you think about it, along with the spectacular (I would say, best in NYC) Jamon Iberico, that's plenty of tapas. Order a plate or two with a copita, and when you and your friend finish, order another plate or two and another copita, and continue until exhausted or the bar closes.
Another thing I appreciate about Palo Cortado is that it actually reminds me of being in Jerez. Okay, every tapas bar I can think of in Jerez and surrounding environs shows you many of the tapas you can order - they sit under glass and are served from troughs as you order them. That's not going to happen here, and that's fine. But the decor is right at Palo Cortado. Not too dark, not bright at all, some interesting paintings around, and they perfectly hit that critical mix of giving you enough space and somehow maximizing the hum of conversation from other tables.
And there is tile. Tile at the bar.
Tile on the tables.
You can always walk around and look at the paintings if you like.
Or sit at a table near the sultry painting in the back.
If you are interested in Sherry, and want to go beyond La Bota, go check out Palo Cortado. It might be a bit of a trip for you, yes. But you like Sherry, you're interested and curious. It's more than worth the trip.
You will have a great time here, trust me. And you will eat a glorious plate of Jamon Iberico that really tastes nutty like acorns and has a truly inviting and complex aroma. Careful, you might order a second plate. Or perhaps just return on another night and do it all over again. That's what I do.
Palo CortadoGot home late at night from a business trip. Tired, malnourished, mal-slept, dirty from airplanes. Hungry, very hungry, and thirsty too.
In the fridge - leftover spaghetti and meatballs. I made this, but it was four days earlier. Still pretty good. Served with the final third of a 375 ml bottle of 2003 Chateau Rieussec. This was opened three days earlier when a friend brought it over for dinner, and since then it sat in the door of the fridge, uncorked.
That's right...spaghetti with meatballs and Sauternes. Perhaps the worst wine and food pairing in history. If you think you can do better, let's hear it.
Probably the spaghetti would have benefited from being warmed up.
I like to travel within New York City, to explore the far away neighborhoods, and the not so faraway. There are so many ridiculously good things to eat here, we really are very lucky.
Just look at this bowl of Bun Rieu, the Vietnamese crab paste soup with vermicelli noodles that I recently ate in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. At Thanh Da, this soup is served with fried tofu, chunks of pork rib, tomatoes, and lots of mint. Pure savory satisfaction.
Not too long ago a good friend and I went on walkabout to explore the Forest Hills Gardens section of Queens. This is a neighborhood designed by Frederick Law Olmstead's son, and its streets are privately owned. They have their own garbage collection and security services, if I'm not mistaken. Anyway, I couldn't help but point out to my pal that Rego Park was within walking distance, and its incredible Bukharian restaurants.
We ate a memorable and very large meal at Restaurant Salute (108th street and 63rd Road). This is a kosher restaurant owned by Uzbek Jews. We began with a gorgeous plate of expertly made pickles, and two kinds of dumplings.
These are Uzbek dumplings called manti, filled with ground meat (lamb?) and spices. I love them at Salute. If they remind you of certain Chinese dumplings, that's because there was a lot of mixing of food and technique as people traveled along the silk road a long time ago.
On the Salute menu these are called "Juicy Crimean Dumplings," and I think the real name for them is Cheburek. They were delicately spiced with cumin, and were indeed very juicy and delicious.
We ate pilaf, rich with chunks of lamb, carrots, and cooked onions. Not a powerfully flavored dish, but savory and very comforting.
And we ate kabobs, of course, a skewer of lamb ribs and another of ground lamb and beef spiced with cumin. Both were expertly grilled and a with a little bit of the "sauce for meat," made of plums, dill, onions, chilis...wow, that's just good stuff.
I love to have a pot of green tea at Salute. Beautiful colors, delicious tea, and another reminder of how complicated the mingling of food and culture is all over the world.
Get ready for this last bit because if you live in New York, you're going to freak out a little. I was in Chicago recently and a colleague who lives there took me to a place for dinner in his neighborhood, called Humboldt Park. He had no idea that I'm into wine, he just likes this place called Rootstock. Whoa - what a find! This place simply couldn't exist in New York. There would be twice as many tables squeezed into the same space, and everything would need to be at least twice as expensive.
The food was delicious. A salad topped with pickled squash and sunflower seeds ($8) was refreshing and bright. I guess Portland and NYC are not the only places where anything can be pickled.
Chicken liver mousse with pickled cranberries and pink peppercorns ($6.50 !) was truly excellent, although served with rather uninspiring bread. But the mousse was so good that it almost doesn't matter. And that bottle you see there...it is the 2009 Alzinger Riesling Steinertal, and it cost all of $60 on the wine list!! This is a wine that typically costs more than that at a retail shoppe in NYC, if you can find it. The wine list was excellent, really really great. There were so many things that I wanted to drink, and the prices were great, from my NYC viewpoint. This is a place that serves Bernard Baudry Chinon Blanc by the glass. There are loads of interesting beers to try, the shelves were stocked with great spirits, and to top it off this place serves Sherry by the glass too - Gutierrez Colosía's lovely Oloroso called Sangre y Trabajadero, and El Maestro Sierra's Amontillado. I mean really, folks, this place is a gem and I would go back 10 times.
And by the way, the Steelhead Trout with lentils and grilled scallions ($13 !!)...not bad with Steinertal, not bad at all. Yes, it's probably 15 years too soon to get the most out of this wine, but a good decant and two hours in, this was singing a lovely tune.
The other night I had dinner with 7 other people in Manhattan, a dinner featuring 12 vintages of Marcarini Barolo Brunate. Three wines each from the 60's, 70's, 80's, two wines from the 90's, and the 2007. I had never before had such a broad array of Barolo vintages in one night. It was amazing to experience the evolution of such finely pedigreed Nebbiolo, to feel the changes as it gets older.
We drank the oldest wines first, and ended with the 1990, the 1996, and the 2007. We began with the flight from the 60's - the 1964, 1967, and 1969. There was some discussion at the table - is this the right way to do it? Some felt that we should have started with the young wines.
I appreciated drinking the oldest wines first, in that I was as sharp as a taster as I would be that evening, and perhaps best able to appreciate the fine subtlety of the grand old wines. Or maybe I should say, the young wine tannins hadn't yet affected my mouth. That said, when we got to the 80's flight (1982, 1985, and 1989), the wines seemed very young, nowhere near as thrilling as their older cousins. Perhaps a great 1982 served after a great 1964 just cannot shine as brightly as it would on its own.
This is not the first time I've gone oldest to youngest in the past few months. Not long ago at a Noel Verset dinner, we began with the older wines. I'm not sure how I feel about this yet (although clearly I would drink these wines in any order and enjoy them).
And at my Burgundy Wine Club dinner, I decided to put the flight of Comte Armand Clos des Epeneaux (1989, 1991, and 1993) before the de Montille Pommard Rugiens flight (1998, 1999). My thinking was that the younger brawnier more tannic de Montille wines, if served first, would obliterate the Comte Armand wines.
Curious to see if anyone has an opinion they'd be willing to share on this.
You know this to be true. You can get the best ingredients, prepare ahead of time, have great music on and be in the right mood and still, things don't always work out in the kitchen.
Last week I saw Tipo 00 flour sitting on the "fancy food" shelf in the food coop. I had only recently learned of Tipo 00 - a very finely ground flour that apparently makes the best pizza dough and pasta. I don;t bake much (read: never), but it seemed like something worth trying. Why not make pizza dough and have fun with the daughters? We could each make our own pizza. How hard could it really be?
I emailed an Italian friend who is a good cook and has made pizza dough on many occasions. She said to use good yeast, not the kind that comes dry in the packets. She said that in Italy pizza sauce is not cooked, it is simply pureed uncooked tomatoes. She also said that the oven must be as hot as possible so that the dough cooks quickly, and the mozzarella should be warmed and melted, but not browned. She described the process of making dough as a craft, not a science. "Use 300-500 grams of flour and about half that weight in water, mix in the yeast, some salt, a tablespoon and no less of good olive oil, kneed it and add more flour or water as needed." Loose directions, but I like that - get the feel for it by doing.
So I bought fresh yeast. and I dissolved half of it in a bowl of warm water. I added about a half teaspoon of sugar to the bowl.
Bought a box of tomatoes, planning to puree them, but they came out of the box basically pureed already. That was it for the sauce.
I mixed about a cup and a half of flour and the salt, added the yeasty water (after giving it a few minutes to activate), added the olive oil and about 3/4 cup of water, and was thrilled to feel the mixture get doughy in my hands. But it was too sticky, so I added some more flour - maybe another 1/3 cup, and it integrated easily and was no longer very sticky.
Covered the bowl with a wet towel and left in on the counter near the stove. Two hours later it had doubled in size. It worked - yeast works!
The girls came home, we washed hands and got ready to stretch out some pizza dough. We could have used a rolling pin but I like the idea of working with our hands here. I took the dough out of the bowl and learned lesson number 1: dust the bowl with flour before leaving it to rise. Very sticky. And it was immediately clear that I had not used enough flour. The dough was elastic, but entirely too sticky, too moist, and just not of the right consistency. I was tempted to ditch the plan and make something else quickly, but there were two daughters standing on footstools at the counter who were quite intent on working with this dough and putting sauce and cheese on top.
So we worked the dough and lost at least 20% of it because it stuck to our hands. But we shaped those pizzas. I decided to cook the dough for a minute or two in the 550 degree oven, just to firm it a bit before adding sauce. It was too moist otherwise. This helped, and they spooned some sauce on their pizzas, and then added cubes of cheese. Slices of cheese would melt quickly and then burn quickly in a 550 degree oven.
Their pizzas came out okay and they ate them, but the dough was just wrong. It smelled good but it didn't really crisp up, even though I cooked them long enough for the smoke alarm to blare. And the taste was more like a bread roll than pizza dough.
It says a lot that the daughters were more excited about the broccoli and peas with sliced radishes and garlic than they were about the pizza. Pizza is one of those very simple foods in which the quality of each element must be right - there is little room for error. The dough just wasn't right, and even a three year old could tell.
I decided to make a sliced fennel and dry sausage pizza. I rubbed my pre-baked dough with olive oil and a sprinkle of salt, and topped with slices of fennel and dry fennel sausage. This actually tasted very good, although again, it was like eating a fennel and sausage bread roll.
I feel good about this, in spite of the bad dough. Next time I will use more flour and I think I have a better idea of what the dough should feel like before leaving it to rise. And if not, if I mess it up again, I'm sure the daughters will be cheerful either way.
Not long ago Joe Salamone and Levi Dalton put together a Sherry dinner at the wonderful Prune on the lower east side, and I was lucky enough to attend. Peter Liem was there too, and he indirectly helped to make this happen, as last summer Peter pointed Joe in the right direction when Joe visited Jerez. Joe drank some wines that he loved, some of which were not available in New York. He decided to import them to NYC so the rest of us can buy them. On this night Joe wanted to share some of these finds with a few friends, lucky us. This was a merry situation, we were feeling the love. Good friends, good food, and absolutely world class wines, wines that until recently were unavailable here. Joe and Levi opened the brown wines at least a day in advance and they showed incredibly well, the wines were stunning as a group.
Sherry is far more versatile with food than is commonly thought. I think that we in this country are still familiarizing ourselves with dry Sherry, and we tend to think that Fino style wines are for garlicky shrimp and other tapas. Fino wines go well with all sorts of food, actually. And brown Sherries - Palo Cortado, Amontillado, and Oloroso - I don't think there is a stereotypical pairing idea here because these wines are still so new to most of us. The brown Sherries we drank on this night, these are Sherries that can complement even the richest of meat dishes, as we proved to ourselves at this dinner.
Here were some of the highlights for me:
We drank Valdespino Amontillado Tio Diego, a great wine that is quite unusual as an Amontillado in that it shows a very pronounced Flor character - buttery like a Fino. Tio Diego is what happens when Valdespino Fino Inocente becomes an Amontillado and then ages for a bit longer. This is a young and fresh Amontillado, it is refreshing and delicious, not expensive at all, and in Jerez it's everywhere - on grocery store shelves. Frustrating not to be able to buy it here. But now in NYC, finally, you might be able to buy this wine at Crush, as Joe is bringing it in.
We then drank the Fernando de Castilla Antique Palo Cortado. This is just a beautiful wine. Focus and intensity, grace, detailed aromas and flavors, and a satisfying and complex finish. Pure pleasure, and improves over several days open. This wine goes so well with basically anything on the table. At this dinner, I loved it with shrimp in anchovy butter, and also with thinly sliced roast pork and kale.
We drank Valdespino Palo Cortado VORS Cardenal, a fine old Sherry that represents the end of the line for Inocente - it contains wines that long ago were part of the Inocente solera before the cellar master selected them out to become Palo Cortado.
We also drank Valdespino Amontillado VORS Coliseo, an equally rare and fantastic old Sherry that begins its life as a Manzanilla, actually. Imagine going to a dinner where you drink DRC Richebourg and La Tâche. That's what we drank, but in Sherry they're called Cardenal and Coliseo. These are such grand old wines and trying to describe them by naming aromas or flavors is silly. For me, they are show-stoppers, wines that make the table go quiet for a while as people take in what it is that's in the glass. Wines that achieve the pinnacle of complexity and character and deliciousness, things that you should find a way to taste, the way you should read Shakespeare's sonnets at some point in your life.
They were brilliant with an amazing dish of braised short ribs and Yorkshire pudding, something that used to be on the menu at Prune a while back. Braised short ribs and Yorkshire pudding...that's a rich plate of food, and I found these two grand old Sherries complemented it perfectly. Honestly, even though these are expensive in an absolute sense, maybe $140 for a 375 ml bottle, Cardenal and Coliseo are worth every penny. They are wines that expand and improve for a week after opening and you only need a small bit at a time, so your pleasure is spread over many evenings.
We also drank a vintage Sherry. That's right, a vintage Sherry. The 1975 Bodegas Tradición Oloroso. Imagine that - the solera system is part of what makes these wines so great, and here is a Sherry wine that never sees a solera. It is vinified and put in barrels, and that's it, as a wine would be in most of the world. I had a few sips of this rare wine at the Bodega in October, but it was at here at this dinner with this food when I understood its charms. This wine had such impeccable balance and harmony, and such clarity and focus. And although its been aged in barrels and exposed to oxygen without Flor to protect it for almost 40 years, it had no rough edges, not at all. Pure class, all silk, just amazing.
Valdespino Moscatel Toneles is, with Cardenal and Coliseo, the third wonder of the Valdespino Bodegas. There is one barrel of this wine in the solera row, another in the first criadera, and so on. There is very little of the wine and it is very old. Many serious Sherry devotees can tell you about why it is so special, and although I enjoyed drinking it, I will admit that I do not yet understand the wine and cannot easily differentiate between the old black sweet Sherries. i know there is something to it, I just haven't figured it out yet...
Keep your eyes open for these wines as they should be available here and there, whereas previously you had to go abroad to buy them. This was a truly amazing dinner and reminded me again that at this point in my drinking experience, I think that great Sherry is as great as wine can be.
