For dinner, I had boiled sausage with baked acorn squash and a glass of vinho verde.
The sausage came from the meat section of Central Market, and was chosen for its bizarrely tasty-sounding composition- chicken, kalamata olives, and feta. We chose to boil them to prevent the cheese from leaking out of the casing upon melting. They were surprisingly yummy, in a strange sort of way. The feta added a peculiar tang and good texture, while the olives added moisture and a nice saltiness. The chicken was on the dry side; ideally, the ratio of chicken to olives would be dialed down a little to improve texture.
The squash had been lingering around the house, one of my sad attempts at pretending it is fall despite the temperature outside. I baked it, cut in half, cut side down in a pan of water for about 45 minutes at 400 degrees. Every internet source I found said to cook it for an hour, but it was on the overdone side after 45 minutes. Slathered in butter and fleur de sel, it was still awesome.
The wine was decent- Famega vinho verde, about $7. Aveleda is still my favorite vinho verde, but this was better than Casal Garcia, and about on par with La Santola. It is relatively dry and tastes primarily of apples.
2 comments:
I loathe to admit this - but Rachael Ray has the best sausage cooking method that I've found. She puts them in a pot, just covers them with water, and adds a drizzle of oil. She boils them uncovered so that the water evaporates, and once the water is gone, the casings get browned up from the oil.
We also found an awesome bargain malbec at Argonaut - the $4.99 Astica. Have you tried it? Is it actually good, or is my palate ruined by Hungarian wine?
That sounds brilliant! I like Rachel Ray more than I'd like to admit. Never tried the Astica, I'll keep an eye out. We still haven't made it over to the huge Spec's, Houston's answer to Argonaut.It's really hard to find bad malbec (even for under $5), so I suspect it's good.
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