The Chicken Dumpling

It must be confessed right off the bat that Daniel and I aren’t the best people to talk to when it comes to “pairings”. Occasionally we’ll get a hold of a decent bottle of wine and it tends to always shock us that, well, wine goes well with food. Even more surprising? Certain wines go really well with certain foods. Amazing! As unrepentant foodies, you’d think we would be somewhat into the whole wine thing, but honestly we tend to drink our Two Buck Chuck with everything we make, all the while snorting ironically, “Why, yes! This does go well with the ________! “ (Feel free to fill in that blank with coq-au-vin, frozen pizza, handful of semi-stale cereal from the box, etc.)

But all that changes, mes amis, when we’re talking liquor.

And when we talk liquor, we’re talking about our three dark muses; scotch, whiskey, and bourbon. Today though, in honor of really mixing our shit up here on the blog, we’re going to pass along a recipe that those of you who went to the wedding probably know all too well…The Infamous Basil Gimlet! We really are hard to sway from the muses (you remember also the “bride’s best” drink served at the wedding? – a shot of highlander served neat, yes?,) but the basil gimlet was a true standout. Slightly sweet, seriously summery, and very addictive, we’re sure this is what got you people moving when “brick house” came on.

We’ve also observed lately, that there’s some perfectly right-on mash-ups when it comes to liquor and sea creatures. That combo of salty, briny, smoky, and sweet is AWESOME in a platter of Hog Island Sweet Water oysters and Bulleit Bourbon. Hog Island may have gotten a little big for their britches in the last few years, but those are still some mighty fine oysters. They can stand up to a shot of bourbon, unlike the wildly popular Kumamotos, which you should probably save for something more mild, like a nice shot of sake. The Sweet Waters though, those dudes can hold their own. Bulleit is a smooth, carmel-y bourbon with a nice, light smokiness that backs up the Hog Island flavors nicely and goes together like…well, not exactly peanut butter and jelly, but pretty damned close.

But today is about the gin gimlet! And since it is a new drink in our repertoire, we did a new thing to the unsuspecting underwater beasties that we paired it up with. We roasted whole tiny rainbow trout and ATE them with heads on! We’d eaten fish that way before, but somehow never made them that way at home. We followed Julia’s recipe, which calls for a simple clarified butter, salt, and pepper preparation, and then recommends stuffing the eye cavities with charming little springs of parsley for presentation. We did this, substituting tufts of basil leaves for the parsley, and the camera immediately exploded from rendering something so incredibly gross and hilarious. No photo documentation remains, but we can report that A) The buttery fishes went very well with a basil gimlet B) Roasting whole fish is the most delicious way to go and, C) It’s hard to avoid eating oodles of fish bones when you’re constantly cracking up because of the garnish you’ve stuffed into a fish’s eye sockets. Bon Appetite, kiddies!