Love is In The Air!
Whether French or Spanish, St. Valentin’s is all about celebrating love. The Paris-Madrid Grocery has lots of ideas to make it a special day for you and your loved one! Wine, bubbly, chocolates, scented soaps, and all kinds of gift items make deciding on a gift fun and easy. Be sure to stop by and check out our selections.
Heart Shaped Caramelizing Iron $12
Get creative this Valentine’s Day and treat a special someone to a decorative dessert. We love using this heart shaped iron for Crema Catalana or Creme Brulee! Heat the iron and sear the top of a custard to caramelize the sugar and form a glassy, heart shaped crust.
Chocolove Chocolates
Chocolove uses premium Belgian chocolate, all natural ingredients, and classic European techniques to make their chocolates. Bars come in milk and dark chocolate and a wide range of flavors, including Chilies and Cherries, Almonds and Sea Salt, and much more. A decadent treat made with love! Discover a love poem hidden inside each wrapper.
Banderillas Brochettes $5.99
Pre-skewered cornichons, onions, green olives, red peppers, and green chili peppers. A crunchy, delicious, and slightly spicy snack. These make for easy, tasty tapas!
French Wines That Speak Of Love!
With St. Valentine’s Day fast approaching, young and old minds should turn to thoughts of love and wine, (and maybe, chocolates)! What better way to express your love for that someone special than a bottle of fine, French Cru Beaujolais? It’s the essence of l’amour! Just to get you in the right frame of mind, let me suggest a few choices!
2012 Charly Thévenet Régnié ‘Grain et Granit’ $33.00
Thévenet is one of the region’s best known biodynamic practitioners. Their old vines naturally produced low yields that are hand-harvested, whole cluster fermented and aged in old Burgundy barrels with no fining or filtration. Worth every penny!
“The 2012 Regnie comes from three hectares of vine on granite soils. It has a well-defined and graceful bouquet with scents of fresh strawberry, raspberry and red plum gently unfolding in the glass with admirable purity. The palate is medium-bodied with supple, peppery red fruit, well-judged acidity and good substance on the finish that leaves you with a dash of spice on the aftertaste. This is wonderful – perhaps one of the best 2012 Regnie that I have tasted. Drink now-2020.”
91 points, Wine Advocate.
2014 Domaine de la Voûte des Crozes Côte-de-Brouilly $18.99
One of my favorite Beaujolais estates, Nicole Chanrion is a benchmark producer of Côte-de-Brouilly. Made from grapes grown on her 6.5ha family estate on the prehistoric Mont Brouilly volcano. This is a powerful wine with loads of pure fruit character and floral aromas—infectiously juicy red currant and black raspberry preserves, with an invigoratingly tart finish. If you have any preconceptions about Beaujolais being lightweight, this should take care of them! Delicious!
2015 Yohan Lardy Cru Fleurie ‘Le Vivier’ $17.99
The 2015 Fleurie Le Vivier has a well-defined raspberry and wild strawberry-scented bouquet, a touch of warmth here from the growing season but it does not denude it of precision. The palate is medium-bodied with a fleshy entry, good weight in the mouth with slightly edgy tannin. It does not quite deliver the knockout blow on the finish, but instead remains refined and elegant.
Piquillo Peppers Stuffed with Dungeness Crab
From The Spanish Table Cookbook by Steve Winston
The sweet tanginess of piquillo peppers enhances the richness of the Dungeness crab. The sherry adds sinfully Spanish aromas. The peppers are red as hearts pulsing love.
Ingredients
2 tablespoons Amontillado or cream sherry
½ cup White Sauce, divided (see recipe below)
¼ pound Dungeness crabmeat
½ cup dry white wine
1 tablespoon Picada
1 tablespoon minced parsley, divided
6 piquillo peppers
White Sauce:
Melt 2 tablespoons butter in a saucepan and then whisk in 2 tablespoons flour. Slowly add 1 cup milk, stirring continuously, until it thickens and is heated. Add ¼ teaspoon salt to taste.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
For the Filling:
Whisk sherry into ¼ cup of the White Sauce and heat until fully incorporated. Remove from the heat and fold in the crab. Let cool while you make the sauce.
For the Sauce:
Combine the remaining White Sauce with the white wine. Heat and then whisk in the Picada and half the parsley.
Holding the piquillo peppers suspended between your thumb and forefinger, spoon the crab mixture into them. Place the peppers in a 10-inch cazuela, with the points toward the center so they form a rose.
Spoon the sauce over the stuffed peppers and bake until they are hot in the center, about 20 minutes. Sprinkle the remaining parsley across the top.