Dairy Free

Ancho chiles have an earthy, rich, raisiny flavor that adds depth to the sauce for these short ribs. The chiles are not particularly spicy, so the dish still works well with red wine. In fact, we serve a variation of this recipe in our Wine and Food Pairing Experience for winery visitors, pulling the short-rib meat from the bones and serving it on mini hamburger buns with coleslaw. For a dinner entrée, we serve the braised short ribs on the bone, as described here, with mashed potatoes or noodles.

Narsai David’s lamb marinated in pomegranate juice is famous in the San Francisco Bay Area from his days as a restaurant proprietor and popular caterer. Dennis Cakebread remembers that the first time he ever entertained at home, he prepared Narsai’s lamb. Brian has adapted the recipe slightly, reducing the marinade to create a basting glaze that accentuates the sweet-sour flavor of pomegranate. The dish is elegant and foolproof, so even a novice cook can look like a pro. Allow at least six hours for the lamb to marinate.

Eduardo Pria, a 2002 Workshop participant and Mexico City native, is probably the most passionate chef we have ever had at the Workshop. He was overjoyed to be at the winery and expressed it with frequent hugs for all, usually coupled with an enthusiastic “I love you, man!” The Argentinian chimichurri sauce that Eduardo made for Don Watson’s lamb was as exhilarating as he is. Brian has used the sauce frequently over the years, adapting it along the way. Prepared quickly in a blender, it is a vivid emerald green and like pesto in texture, with a fresh, zingy taste. It complements almost any grilled red meat—from leg of lamb to hanger steaks, flatiron steaks, or pork chops. Add roasted fingerling potatoes and Blistered Cherry Tomatoes (page 157) for an ideal summer meal. We also like chimichurri with grilled summer vegetables, such as zucchini, eggplant, and peppers. You can make the sauce a few hours ahead, but plan to use it the same day. It loses zip with time. Note that the lamb needs to marinate for at least two hours.

Brian mastered mole verde under the tutelage of Brenda Godinez, a Cakebread staffer who creates exquisite flower arrangements for the winery. Brenda taught Brian that a proper mole requires many steps: almost every ingredient needs to be fried or toasted first to deepen its flavor. The mole verde, or green mole, relies on fresh chiles, tomatillos, and cilantro for its emerald color. When well made, the mole is velvety smooth. This recipe features chicken, but we sometimes use duck legs or pork. Truly, the spotlight is on the sauce. Serve with rice and a salad. Note that this recipe makes twice as much mole (the sauce, not the chicken) as you need to serve six people. But why make mole in small amounts? It freezes well, giving you a running start on the next dinner.

Country-style ribs, from the shoulder end of the pork loin, turn succulent with long, slow braising. In late winter and early spring, when California’s blood orange harvest is peaking, Brian adds their tangy juice to the braise, along with fennel wedges and kalamata olives. Like many braises, this dish reheats well. Serve with wide ribbon noodles, such as pappardelle.

The spring release of Rubaiyat, our red wine blend, is a festive occasion at the winery. We invite our wine-club members to come sample the new release, and we set up several food stations in our courtyard. If the weather cooperates, the day is as much fun for the culinary staff as it is for our guests. Brian devises dishes expressly for the featured wines—not just Rubaiyat but other current releases, too. These juicy lamb kebabs, scented with North African spices, were a hit one year with Cakebread Cellars Syrah. Accompany with Carrot, Fennel, and Green Olive Slaw (page 56).

Who better to provide a cioppino recipe than Jesse Llapitan, the executive chef of San Francisco’s Palace Hotel, the city’s grande dame? Every San Franciscan puts his or her own stamp on this rustic fisherman’s stew, but the Dungeness crab is nonnegotiable. Chef Llapitan attended the 2005 Workshop.

Also known as sablefish, black cod thrives in the cold waters off the Pacific Coast, from California to Alaska. The fishery is managed sustainably, so many chefs have turned to black cod as a replacement for the more threatened Chilean sea bass. If you have ever had smoked sablefish in a New York delicatessen, you have eaten black cod. It is an oily fish, rich in heart-healthy omega-3 fatty acids. Chef Bruce Hill, who attended the 1998 Workshop, makes it the centerpiece of this inspired East-West seafood stew, which relies on fregola—a toasty, couscous-like Sardinian pasta—for texture and Japanese miso for flavor depth. Dashi is Japanese stock.

Seasoned with chorizo, dried oregano, and cilantro, this deconstructed fish stew tastes like the specialty of some upscale restaurant in Mexico City. But it came to Cakebread Cellars from one of Denver’s foremost chefs, Kevin Taylor, a 1997 Workshop participant. For a dinner party, you can make the tomato broth a couple of hours ahead, stopping after you add the cooked chorizo and potatoes. Then all you need to do at dinner time is steam the fish on this flavorful base. You could add some clams or shrimp to the pot as well.

After a few weeks in a brine of salt and lemon juice, lemons develop an appetizing, lightly pickled taste. Brian makes Moroccan-style preserved lemons at the winery and keeps a stash on hand to use in recipes like this one. The seasoned butter would complement swordfish, sole, shrimp, or salmon, or you could dollop it on steamed mussels or clams. For this dish, Brian slathers the butter on the grilled fish served over Frank Stitt’s Field Pea and Corn Salad (page 64), but wilted spinach would be an appealing accompaniment, too.

Although we grill a lot of salmon at Cakebread Cellars, we have also come to love the creamy texture of salmon roasted slowly in a low oven. This gentle cooking method seems to accentuate salmon’s richness and to yield a notably buttery result. Fish on the grill can overcook quickly, but the oven technique is much more forgiving. Accompany with Braised Radishes and Sugar Snap Peas (page 154).

At the 1992 Workshop, Chef Jim Mills accompanied rabbit with New Orleans–style “dirty rice,” a pilaf flavored with onion, celery, and chopped chicken livers. Brian makes the dish with Wehani rice, a nutty brown rice of basmati ancestry, created and grown exclusively by California’s Lundberg Family Farms. Serve with Braised Chicken with Cipolline Onions and Carrots (opposite page; recipe on page 141) or a simple roast chicken, or as a main course with vegetable sides and a salad.

When your menu calls for rice pilaf, consider this aromatic arroz verde instead. The flavor is more herbaceous than spicy, with a subtle sweetness from sautéed onion. You don’t have to limit the rice to occasions when you are serving Mexican food. Try it with grilled pork tenderloin, skirt steaks, or a pork stew.

Brian teaches a paella class at the winery occasionally to help take the fear out of preparing rice the Spanish way. It’s a great dish for parties because guests love watching paella come together, the flavors and fragrance building as ingredients are added. Brian cooks his paella by the traditional method, outdoors over a hardwood fire. Gauging the heat of the fire is the only challenge; if it is too hot, the rice will scorch. Be sure to let the coals burn down until they are well covered with white ash before starting. And if you still lack confidence after trying this recipe, sign up for the class. Paella tastes best warm, not hot, so allow for some cooling time.

Narsai David, a San Francisco Bay Area radio personality and former restaurateur, joined us at the Workshop for many years as a sort of camp counselor. He would lead the chefs in their brainstorming sessions, and while the chefs worked feverishly on their courses, he would co-opt one quiet corner of the kitchen to make bread. Narsai surprised us every year with imaginative loaves that almost always incorporated whole grains, like the brown rice from California’s Lundberg Family Farms, or this three-seeded bread that he devised after sampling a similar bread in Australia.

On the first morning of the Workshop, participants rise early to pick grapes before the temperature soars. These chefs may labor in hot kitchens every day, but on grape-harvest day, they learn what real work is like. By midday, they are famished. We keep lunch casual, knowing that a big dinner will follow. Typically, we serve Mexican food, like these soft tacos, with from-scratch tortillas prepared outdoors on a comal (Mexican griddle) by winery staffers Brenda Godinez and Virginia Barrera. Rubaiyat, a blend of red varieties, is perfect for the occasion. Note that the beans need to soak overnight.

Brian does most of the cooking at home for his wife, Kristina, and their two small children, but this salad is one of Kristina’s specialties. She adapts it to the season, but quinoa is always the starting point. Nutty and quick cooking, quinoa is high in protein and will hold up for about an hour after it’s dressed. Serve this refreshing winter salad with pork, chicken, or fish, or with feta for a meatless meal.

As Cakebread Cellars expanded sales overseas, we began inviting chefs from abroad to participate in the Workshop. Predictably, some new and intriguing scents soon emerged from our kitchen. This warmly spiced lentil soup is Brian’s invention, but he devised it after working with Indian chef Sujan Mukherjee at the 2008 Workshop and observing his spicing. Now Brian makes this wholesome soup with the Napa elementary school students that he teaches regularly, and he demonstrates the recipe at our employees’ wellness classes.

Many Workshop chefs are unfamiliar with the clamshell mushrooms, maitake, and other exotic fungi that Gourmet Mushrooms cultivates (see page 84), so this company’s table is always a magnet at our opening-day farmers’ market. Chef George Brown, a 2006 participant, took advantage of the bounty to create a warm grilled mushroom and bacon salad. Although many people would be inclined to pair a red wine with a mushroom dish, we chose a mature Cakebread Cellars Chardonnay Reserve, which echoed all the earthy and smoky notes. In this adaptation of George’s recipe, Brian has moved the preparation indoors for ease—first oven-roasting the mushrooms, then tossing them with browned cipolline onions, thick bacon, and tender greens. Serve at the first sign of autumn weather, followed with a pork roast or seared duck breasts.

If you have ever made hummus, you probably still have a partial jar of tahini in your refrigerator. Here’s one way to use more of it: in a creamy dressing for a grilled chicken salad. Brian seasons the chicken with za’atar, a Middle Eastern seasoning, and balances the tahini’s faint bitterness with the sweetness of pine nuts to make the dish more wine friendly. You could substitute a meaty fish, such as mahimahi or tuna, for the chicken. That jar of tahini will be empty in no time. Note that the chicken needs to marinate for at least two hours.