The best pairings for prawns or shrimp

A freezer staple in my house, prawns or shrimp are quick and easy to cook but what should you drink with them?

Like other ingredients it depends how you cook them.

The simple plate or tankard of cooked prawns in the shell is a different customer from a spicy Thai prawn curry but in general prawns or shrimp have a delicate flavour that you want to respect. Your wine should act like a squeeze of lemon which generally points to a white or a crisp rosé.

Great wine pairings for prawns

Prawns or shrimp on the shell

A seasonal treat so the simpler the wine the better. I love those French seaside whites like Muscadet or Picpoul de Pinet with freshly cooked prawns. Italian whites like Pinot Grigio and Greco di Tufo also work well as do Vinho Verde, Albarino or a crisp Sancerre. Unoaked fresh whites in other words. Nothing wrong with a glass of prosecco though, obviously.

Prawn or shrimp salad

Similar wines to the above should also work unless the salad has a richer ingredient like mango or a spicy or zesty dressing in which case I’d be looking for a white with more personality like a sauvignon or semillon or a blend of the two.

Prawn or shrimp cocktail

Again it’s more about the sauce than the prawns, especially if it’s the classic marie-rose sauce. I haven’t found a better pairing than an off-dry riesling though a fruity rosé works well too (and has the virtue of being pink if you’re colour-theming your pairings ;-)

Garlicky prawns or shrimp

Garlic LOVES sauvignon blanc so that’s a good starting point. Other citrussy whites like Rueda, unoaked white Rioja, Godello, southern Italian whites like Fiano and Falanghina and English Bacchus will all work. Goodness, almost anything barring a big oaky chardonnay will do. Try manzanilla or fino sherry too.

Prawn or shrimp curry

How hot is the curry? If it’s a korma or dry tandoori try a fruity rosé, if it’s a Thai green curry, a pinot gris or a medium dry riesling may be the better pairing.

Spanish prawn or shrimp rice dishes like paella

Often contain chorizo, certainly seasonings like saffron, garlic and pimenton so they can be quite spicy. Dry Spanish rosados such as those from Rioja and Navarra work well but you could even try a young (joven) red Rioja.

Prawn or shrimp linguine - or other pasta

If your sauce is tomato-based like this one I’d lean towards a dry Italian white or light rosé like a Provence rosé or Bardolino. If it’s creamy like this tagliolini with prawns and treviso try a white with a litlle bit more weight and roundness like a Soave, Gavi, Chenin Blanc or Chablis

See also

Prawns and Greco di Tufo

Prawn raviole and white Bordeaux

photo © bit24 - Fotolia.com

Which wine pairs best with salad?

Asking which wine to pair with salad is a bit like asking about what wine to match with meat or fish. There's no single answer. It depends on the vegetables you use, what other ingredients it contains and what type of dressing you use.

That said, salad is normally a light dish so a full-bodied wine - white or red - is almost certainly going to overwhelm it. Unless you’re talking about steak and salad in which case it’s a question of matching the steak not the leaves. Or salads for a barbecue when the marinades used for the meat will probably have more of an impact than the dressings.

The problem ingredient in salads is vinegar which can throw wines off balance, accentuating the tannins in serious reds and making whites seem excessively sweet. You can get round this by including a bit of cream in the dressing or whisking in some meat juices, especially the juice from a roasted chicken. Rice and cider vinegar are also less harsh than wine vinegar

Other tricky ingredients are raw onion or garlic, best dealt with, I find, by pairing them with dry whites or rosés that have a high level of acidity.

Wines that have an overtly fruity character tend to match well with salad especially if it contains fruit such as peach or apricot (try a fruity Chardonnay, Colombard or Viognier) or cherries (good with a fruity red such as a Gamay or Pinot Noir)

If there’s more than one salad on the table good all-rounders are fruity whites such as Riesling and Sauvignon Blanc and fruity rosés

Wine pairings for 10 popular salads

Chicken caesar salad
Reasonably easy so long as it doesn’t have too much of an anchovy kick. A lightly oaked Chardonnay is a good match, a slightly fuller-bodied one if the chicken is chargrilled. Oaked Sauvignon Blanc and dry rosé also work well

Greek salad
Here the dominant ingredients are feta and olives which tend to work best with a citrussy white. Sauvignon Blanc - or Rueda - is fine but why not try a Greek Assyrtiko?

Salade Niçoise
The locals would drink dry Provençal rosé and I can’t think of a better match. Although Cotes du Rhône rosés are quite a bit cheaper.

Spinach and bacon salad with blue cheese dressing
Ah. Blue cheese dressing. Very tricky! I’d personally go for a soft red like a medium-bodied Merlot but you could equally well drink a white. What’s needed I think is a slight touch of sweetness - a German Kabinett Riesling should fit the bill. Or an off-dry one from New Zealand or Washington State

Goats cheese salad with asparagus or beetroot
Goats cheese overrides all other ingredients when it comes to salads, even powerfully flavoured ones like asparagus and beetroot. Sauvignon Blanc is the classic match and hard to better, I find.

Warm pigeon, duck or chicken liver salad
Once you introduce meat into a salad I reckon you’re better off to think in terms of reds than whites. Pinot Noir is the obvious pairing but Loire reds and other light-bodied reds from e.g. south-west France work well too.

Thai beef salad and other Asian salads
Great with Australian riesling as you can see from these matches of the week here and here. Gruner Veltliner is another good pairing

Seafood, prawn or shrimp salad, crab salad
Perhaps depend more than any other salad on the dressing. If the salad is built round some super-fresh shellfish like crab or prawns (shrimp) I’d go for a crisp minerally white like a Sancerre, Albarino, Picpoul de Pinet or Italian whites such as Pecorino and good quality Pinot Grigio. If you’re using a 1000 island dressing off-dry riesling should see you through. For tomato-based dressings see below.

Tomato-based salads
Raw tomatoes are supposed to pose problems for wine, tomato salad even more so though I’ve never found it much of a problem. Dry rosé, crisp whites and Sauvignon Blanc generally hit the spot though I generally go for an Italian white like a Verdicchio with a tomato, mozzarella and basil salad or pappa al pomodoro

Pasta salads
More often than not these are dressed with mayonnaise and are therefore quite mild in taste. I’d go for a smooth dry white like a Soave, Gavi, unoaked Chardonnay or Chenin Blanc

And here are five more:

Crisp duck salad with Fielding estate riesling

Layered tomato and egg salad with Verdejo

Pork, chilli, coconut and gapi salad with Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc

Rocket and parmesan salad with dry amontillado sherry

Smoked duck and blood orange salad with Chilean gewurztraminer

And don't forget, beer and cider pair well with salad too, sometimes better than wine!

The best wines to pair with crab

Crab is one of the most delicious kinds of shellfish and the perfect foil for a crisp white wine. But there are other crab dishes that pair better with a fuller-bodied white or even a red.

In this post I’ll dive into my top wine pairings for different preparations of crab, including popular dishes like 

• Dressed crab
• Crab bisque
• Thai crab cakes
• Deep fried softshell crab

As always, it’s not just about the crab but how it’s prepared and the other flavours involved...

Top wine pairings with crab

Dressed crab

You want to be able to taste the delicate meat so I’d suggest a classic Chablis or fine white burgundy such as Puligny-Montrachet. (The same would apply to fresh crab sandwiches or a simple crab salad though I might well pick a Sancerre or Pouilly Fumé for the latter, especially if it included asparagus. See also this match with 17 year old Muscadet!)

Linguine with crab

Quite a spicy recipe that usually includes garlic and red chilli and occasionally lemon. You could drink a citrussy (rather than a herbaceous) Sauvignon Blanc or a dry Kabinett Riesling with it but I’d go for a good quality Pinot Grigio, Soave or Albariño.

Crab bisque

Rich and luxurious this recipe normally contains cream and cognac as well as having a dominant flavour of brown crab meat - a good opportunity to crack open a seriously good barrel-fermented Chardonnay with a couple of years’ bottle age. White Rhône and Languedoc blends of Roussanne, Marsanne and Viognier work well too.

Thai crab cakes

My choice would depend on whether I was having these as a snack on their own or as part of a Thai meal. If it was the former I’d go for a dry Riesling or a Loire Sauvignon Blanc. With the latter I’d look for a wine with slightly more sweetness such as a Pinot Gris or a spätlese Riesling. Witbier is the other great pick as you’ll see from this Match of the Week.

Maryland crab cakes

The classic American crab cake, much richer than the Thai ones, but with a spicy kick. Unoaked or lightly oaked Chardonnay would be the safe choice but I’m not sure I wouldn’t reach for an Albariño.

Crab, saffron and leek quiche

Saffron is the key in this Rick Stein recipe. I love Viognier and Viognier blends with saffron-infused dishes so I’d go for that.

Deep-fried soft shell crabs

Sometimes these are served with a strong punchy dressing but I think, if you want to appreciate the delicate flavour of the crab, it’s better to serve them relatively simply. As with other deep-fried foods they go fantastically well with champagne and other sparkling wines.

Crab in black bean sauce

Always a tricky one as black bean sauce is so pungent but I came across a brilliant match at the Four Seasons hotel in Park Lane where chef Tak of Lung King Heen, the Cantonese restaurant at the Four Seasons Hong Kong was cooking for a week to celebrate the Chinese New Year.

His version was the best crab in black bean sauce I’ve ever eaten - deep and aromatic in flavour, sweet but not cloying. It was matched with a decent but not exceptional Mud House Pinot Noir from New Zealand and the pairing was spot on. I suspect you’d need a fuller, richer Pinot with most commercial black bean sauces.

Image by Larisa Blinova at shutterstock.com

Which wines pair best with pork?

As with most foods, the best wine pairing with pork depends how the pork is cooked, and what it’s served with.

Technically it's regarded as a white meat but ‘whiteness’ somehow seems to suggest lack of flavour. Although that’s still true of much mass-produced pork there’s far more rare breed pork around these days which has a great deal of character.

It’s certainly substantial enough to carry a red, on the other hand it is often accompanied by ingredients - such as apples or fennel - that point in the direction of a white. And it does have chicken’s chameleon-like ability to take on other flavours which means you often have to think of pairing the sauce rather than the meat. It can also be quite fatty which calls for a wine - white or red - with some freshness and acidity to cut through.

It’s not a ‘noble meat’ - I don’t often think of pork and Cabernet or pork and Barolo in the same breath but it can be a fine one, well worth bringing out a good bottle for.

Here are my favourite wine pairings for different ways of cooking pork:

The best wine for roast pork

To tell the truth white wine is a better match than red with most roast pork dishes but psychologically one tends to expect a red with a roast, even one cooked, Italian-style with fennel, lemon and garlic. I personally enjoy Northern Rhône and Italian reds with pork: something like a decent Crozes-Hermitage or a Chianti Classico (particularly with the latter dish) though I know many pork fans prefer a Pinot Noir.

With a more traditional dish of roast pork and apple sauce a decent Côtes du Rhône Villages will do the trick. Even with more delicate roast suckling pig a light to medium-bodied red can work well. I recently enjoyed a Portuguese Bairrada, a Casa de Saima with this dish which hit the spot perfectly.

If you can move outside your comfort zone you will find many whites will match well with roast pork, especially when it’s served cold. Old vine Chenin Blanc is a very enjoyable match for cold roast pork while an off-dry German Riesling makes a delicious match for roast belly pork (though watch the accompanying vegetables. Tomato-based dishes won’t help the pairing).

See also Six of the best pairings for roast pork

Wine pairing with pork chops

Similar recommendations to the above, depending on the saucing (if creamy, follow the recommendations below). You might well be thinking of accompanying it with something more Italianate like a salsa verde, in which case a dry Italian white or a decent Valpolicella or Chianti would be a good choice.

Pork in a creamy sauce - with mushrooms or mustard

Both red and white burgundy work well (unsurprisingly) with this classic French bistro dish which is often made with pork tenderloin. Other cool climate unoaked or subtly oaked Chardonnay or Pinot Noir should work too as would a dry Alsace Riesling or Pinot Gris or a Vouvray.

Pork casserole or pie with cider or apples

Cider is actually by far the best match here but if you want to drink wine I’d again suggest a good Chenin, Chardonnay or easy-going inexpensive southern French red that’s relatively modest in alcohol. Like Côtes du Rhône again.

Barbecued/char siu pork

The combination of spice and sweetness tends to strip the fruit out of whites so I’d pick a robust jammy red with either of these dishes. A mid-weight Shiraz or Australian Cabernet-Shiraz, a Chilean Merlot or Carmenère, a Pinotage, a Zinfandel - you get the picture. Gutsy wine, sweet fruit.

Pulled pork

Pulled pork is suggesting beer to me (a good IPA for preference) but pinot noir proved a surprisingly good wine pairing recently. If its more about the barbecue sauce follow the suggestions above

Sweet and sour pork

More often than not combined with other dishes that may affect the pairing but a fruity new world rosé especially a Merlot rosé should take it in its stride. Better than the often-recommended match of Riesling, I find. A very fruity white such as a Colombard or Semillon-Chardonnay can also work

Goulash

The paprika is always more important than the pork to me and suggests a rustic red. You could try the Hungarian Kékfrankos (Austrian Blaufrankisch) if you wanted a regional pairing, otherwise I suggest a Rioja or similar Spanish red.

Wines with pork and bean stews e.g. Cassoulet, Feijoada, Fabada

These tend to be quite filling so you don’t want a wine that’s too high in alcohol. A simple medium bodied red, even carafe wine works with Cassoulet. Go for a slightly fuller fruitier wine - maybe an inexpensive Navarra or other Spanish red or a Malbec if the stew is a touch spicier.

See also six of the best wine pairings with cassoulet 

Charcuterie

Pork is what classic French charcuterie is all about so it seems apt to pair a French wine with it. With its bright fruit Beaujolais works particularly well with preparations like terrines, jambon persillé and rillettes - chose a Beaujolais Villages or cru Beaujolais (Morgon particularly appeals). You could also try a rustic Marcillac or a dry rosé

Top image by Jez Timms on Unsplash