wine bar menu recipes

Mixing popcorn with glazed pistachios creates a sweet-salty snack that's fantastic with cocktails. From fried pickles to apricot glazed chicken wings, here are satisfying bar snacks.Porch Railing IdeasDeck RailingsFront Porch RailingsPorch IdeasFence IdeasModern RailingWood RailingFront StairsEntry IdeasForwardCreate front yard appeal by turning your home's entry into an inviting focal point and adding a few well-chosen and nicely arranged plants on the front porch. Vary the plant and container sizes, and arrange them on multiple levels.When it comes paring food with wine, cheese is just the beginning. All over Europe, in cities like Seville, Barcelona, Lisbon, and Athens, wine bars match native grapes with small dishes made from local ingredients. Perfect for afternoon or after-work, these plates are straightforward, robust, and meant to be shared. In Wine Bar Food, this week's Cook the Book selection, Cathy Mantuano and Tony Mantuano, award-winning chef of Chicago's Spiaggia, show you how to recreate these rustic Mediterranean dishes in your own kitchen, and offer tips on choosing interesting, affordable bottles.

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best cooking wine typeWhether you’re looking for a simple yet delicious appetizer for a get-together or trying to wow your valentine with your culinary skills, Cork chef Rob Weland has you covered. The avocado bruschetta is a favorite on the cozy wine bar’s menu, and is perfect for couples (halve the recipe if you’re serving it with a main course) or a Valentine’s Day party.

On the other end of the spectrum, seared scallops with pickled and puréed sunchokes make a delicious centerpiece for an intimate table. Avocado BruschettaServes up to 8½ baguette or crusty country loaf, sliced into ½-inch slices (about 16)3 large ripe avocados, thinly sliced½ cup toasted pistachios, shelled and choppedRoasted pistachio nut oil to taste (Weland suggests J. Leblanc pistachio nut oil, available at Cork Market)Sea salt to taste Olive oil for brushing bread Roast pistachios in oven at 250 degrees for 45 minutes to one hour. Brush the slices of bread with olive oil, place on the grill, and heat until browned on either side. If a grill is unavailable, toast lightly under the oven broiler until golden. With a spoon, scoop out thin layers of avocado and place on toast to cover each slice. Sprinkle with pistachios, drizzle with pistachio oil, and season with sea salt to taste. Seared Maine Sea Scallops With Sunchokes and American CaviarServes 48 sunchokes (reserve 1½ cups for garnish)2 tablespoons unsalted butter, plus 1 tablespoon butter for searing the scallops1 teaspoon thinly sliced garlic½ cup thinly sliced shallots½ cup chicken stock1 1/8 cups heavy creamSea salt and freshly ground white pepper8 medium-size sea scallops1 teaspoon grapeseed oil1 sprig of thyme½ ounce spoonbill caviar

, available at Cork Market8 sprigs of chervilPickled sunchokes for garnish (recipe below) Make the sunchoke purée: Scrub the sunchokes and carefully peel off the outer skin. Slice them thinly and store in ice water. Melt butter in a heavy-bottomed saucepan over medium heat. Add the garlic and shallots and sweat until softened (do not allow them to color), for about 10 minutes. Drain sunchokes and add to the pan, cover with stock, and simmer until sunchokes are soft, about 20 minutes. Add the cream, return to a boil, and remove from heat. Season with salt and pepper. Carefully ladle small quantities at a time into the blender and purée until smooth and velvety. Strain through a chinois (or a strainer if you do not have a chinois). Cook the scallops: Heat the the grapeseed oil in a sauté pan over medium-high heat. Season scallops with salt and pepper as needed. Add to the pan and let them sear until golden brown, about a minute. Flip the scallops, and add the butter. Once it melts, add the sprig of thyme and baste the scallops with the butter until golden brown, about a minute.

Set aside on a plate lined with a paper towel. Just before serving, warm the purée. Place three dollops down on a plate and top with seared scallops. Place a pickled sunchoke slice next to each scallop. Garnish with chervil and caviar. Pickled Sunchokes ½ cup (120 ml) apple cider vinegar ½ cup (120 ml) water 2 tablespoons sugar ¼ teaspoon salt1½ cups peeled sunchoke, thinly sliced1 large carrot, angle-sliced, thinly1 large stalk celery, sliced Combine first 4 ingredients in a medium bowl and stir to combine flavors. Add vegetables, stir well, and cover with plastic wrap. Store in the refrigerator to marinate for several hours or overnight. Makes about 4 cups (1 liter).Earlier this summer, at noon on what may have been the hottest day of the year, the buzzy new Brooklyn restaurant and wine bar the Four Horsemen hadn’t yet opened its doors for service — they usually serve from the late afternoon until late at night — but three tables had been pushed together and were being set for a feast.

The restaurant, which debuted in June, is a collaboration between the consultant Justin Chearno and partners Randy Moon, Christina Topsoe and her husband, the musician James Murphy — who invited the rest of their staff and collaborators to celebrate something of a milestone: making it past the one-month mark and finally having a moment to breathe.The first guest to emerge from the swelter of Grand Street was Brooklyn Brewery’s James Beard Award-winning brewmaster, Garrett Oliver, sporting a fedora and clutching an offering: “It’s a daruma doll,” he said, explaining that in Japanese culture, the papier-mâché representation of the founder of Zen Buddhism is given as a gift, usually around New Year’s. It comes with two blank eyes, one of which the receiver is meant to fill in with a pen while setting a goal for the year to come. “The daruma then watches everything, helping you reach your target,” Oliver said. “To return the favor, you eventually complete the pair.” With a Sharpie, Murphy painted a simple dot inside the talisman’s right socket, while Ole Sondresen, the architect of the space, and Café Integral’s César Vega, responsible for the bar’s coffee menu, looked on.

Meanwhile, Chearno poured two examples of the minimal intervention wines he’s championed ever since shifting careers from the fierce, beloved instrumental band Turing Machine. (It was when music was his main gig that Chearno befriended Murphy, then a producer, sound engineer and DJ without any designs of founding the group LCD Soundsystem.) Both wines— a Gamay and a Pet-nat, which owes its natural effervescence to a refermentation in the bottle — were made by a young winemaker from the Loire named François Saint-Lô. Such bottles are rare and likely to sell out quickly, so Chearno wanted to share them with the team first.In the back, chef Nick Curtola put the finishing touches on seasonal dishes he was testing for the menu: walnuts and almonds that he toasted for just a little longer than usual, to bring out their natural flavors, dusted with bits of fried sage and the Middle Eastern condiment za’atar; a mixture of corn, salted cod and olive oil spread on thick toast; a simple salad of cucumbers with crunchy buckwheat and a mustard vinaigrette;

house-made pork sausages infused with garlic scapes; and, the main attraction, a roasted chicken with a panzanella salad whose sesame croutons soaked up the bird’s juices and were amped up with plum, basil and shiso. The flavors were simple, satisfying — and paired with the wines on the table. The general manager, Katrina Birchmeier, Vega and Moon — a former tech guy who found his way into this world much like the rest of his partners (“through wine-music people,” he said) — served the food as it came to the table. Conversation ranged from the mayor’s new plan to curtail Uber (“I could be wearing a tuxedo in broad daylight and still have five yellow cabs go straight past me,” Oliver said in defense of the app) to the early days of LCD, when Murphy had just started to fall in love with wine and restaurants (“Back then, you could have put together the bank accounts of all of our friends and still not come up with $25,000A recurring subject was Topsoe and Murphy’s newborn son and the trials and tribulations of raising an infant (it mostly involves lots and lots of crying).

Plates filled the span of the table. Murphy offered to eat whatever the others didn’t finish: “I am your garbage disposal,” he said. After the food was cleared, there was no dessert. Vega made some espressos and cortados. Oliver returned to Brooklyn Brewery and Sondresen biked back into Manhattan. Topsoe and Murphy returned home to relieve the sitter. And the rest of the team went right into prep for the evening’s dinner service since, somewhere along the way, lunch had turned into a four-hour affair.Below, Curtola shares a few recipes from the milestone celebration. Walnuts and Almonds With Za’atar and Fried SageYield: 4-6 servings, as a snack2 cups walnuts2 cups almonds1 quart rice bran oil (or canola)¾ cup sage leaves (picked off stem)2 tablespoons olive oil1 teaspoon salt2 teaspoons za’atar1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Toast the walnuts and the almonds on a tray in the oven until golden brown, about 12 to 15 minutes. 2. While the nuts are toasting, heat a pot of the rice bran oil to 350 degrees.

Fry the sage leaves in the hot oil for about one minute or until bubbles stop popping out of the pot. Drain the leaves on paper towels and set aside. 3. Toss the warm nuts in the olive oil until they are evenly glazed in order to make the spices stick. Add the salt and za’atar and mix well. Add the fried sage and give one final toss so that some of the leaves are crushed and others remain whole. Serve warm or at room temperature. Cucumbers With Fennel, Herbs and BuckwheatYield: 4 servings4 cups cucumbers½ tablespoon salt2 tablespoons olive oil1 to 2 tablespoons lemon juice, adjusted to taste¼ cup sorrel, roughly chopped1 tablespoon toasted buckwheat, coarsely ground in a mortar and pestle1 teaspoon toasted nigella seeds, toasted in the oven at 325 degrees for 10 minutes, until fragrant½ tablespoon toasted flax seeds¼ cup chervil, roughly chopped¼ cup bronze fennel, picked and slightly chopped FOR THE VINAIGRETTEOne tablespoon dijon mustard One pinch salt ¼ cup red wine vinegar ¾ cup olive oil1.

First, make the mustard vinaigrette by combining the mustard, salt and red wine vinegar. Stir, and slowly mix in the olive oil and whisk the whole mixture until emulsified. 2. Cut the cucumbers into slices and rolls. The thicker the skin, the thinner you should slice them. We cut the thin-skinned cucumbers into bite-size chunks. if the seeds are bitter, scoop some out. 3. Sprinkle the cut cucumbers with the salt and gently massage them. Break a few of them up so they release a water to create a quick brine. Coat them cucumbers with the olive oil, lemon juice and 3 tablespoons of the mustard vinaigrette. You want to taste the brightness from the lemon, the spiciness and sharpness from the mustard and vinegar, and the slight salty sweetness of the cucumbers. Once the mixture is to your liking, add in the chopped sorrel.4. Combine the buckwheat, nigella seeds and flax seeds. Place the mixture on top of the cucumber salad. Add the chopped chervil and bronze fennel. Half Roast Chicken With Summer Squash Salad and Sesame CroutonsYield: 4 servings 1 whole chicken8 ½ cups water½ cup salt⅓ cup sugarSummer squash salad with sesame croutons, recipes below

1. Stir together the water, salt and sugar. Split the chicken into 2 breasts and 2 legs. Place the chicken parts into the brine and let them sit in the refrigerator overnight. 2. The next morning, separate the breasts and legs. Using a thermometer, steam the breasts until the internal temperature reaches 155 degrees and the legs reach 175 degrees. Place the steamed parts in the fridge and let them air for the rest of the day. 3. Roast the chicken in the oven at 425 degrees until golden brown and warm throughout, approximately 15 to 20 minutes. Set aside one breast and one thigh for later.4. Slice the breast in half and serve on a plate with the whole leg. Add the salad and serve. 2 plums 1 ½ cup mixed zucchini, cut into oblong small pieces 1 teaspoon kosher salt 1 tablespoon olive oil 2 teaspoons red wine vinegar ½ teaspoon cracked pink peppercorns 2 cups croutons, recipe below¼ cup torn basil¼ cup torn shiso 1. Slice the plums into smaller, bite-size pieces and set aside.2.