Laksa and Riesling

Laksa is one of those dishes you hesitate to pair with wine being both a soup and really spicy but the pairing I came across at the Pegasus Bay wine dinner at The Providores the other night was spot on.

One of the reasons I think it worked so well was that the chicken that had been used to make the laksa had apparently been smoked and smoked food is generally good with Riesling. It was also aromatic rather than fierily hot and contained - I would guess - a fair amount of coconut milk which tends to ease in a wine pairing.

As I’ve mentioned the Riesling, the 2008 Pegasus Bay ‘Bel Canto’, was already acquiring those appealing limey, kerosene notes which chimed in perfectly with the flavours of the soup. (You might think that you’d go for a simpler, less expensive Riesling with this sort of dish but in my opinion it was the intensity of the wine that made the match work so well.)

It’s not widely available but you should be able to track down a stockist through New Generation wines in the UK (info@newgenerationwines.com) and Empson USA in the US (nbarber@empsonusa.com). For other stockists see the Pegasus Bay website.

Image © FomaA - Fotolia

Vietnamese fish sauce chicken wings and tamarind whiskey sour

It might seem perverse to pick out a cocktail match during a week of drinking stellar wines in Oregon wine country but I’m saving my new thoughts on wine pairing with Pinot Noir for a more wide-ranging piece. And this is a great cocktail pairing

I came across it at one of Portland’s hottest restaurants Pok Pok which serves Thai street food and is famous for its Vietnamese Fish Sauce wings which were inspired by owner Andy Ricker’s trips to Thailand.

I’d been recommended the tamarind whisky sour (below, right) and it proved spot on, its fruity tartness perfectly offsetting the sweet and sourness of the wings. I can’t think of a wine that would have done that. Even Pinot Noir . . .

You can buy tamarind paste from Asian grocers. There’s a recipe for the Pok Pok whiskey sour here. I reckon it would be pretty good throughout a Thai meal.

Incidentally the drink on the left is a strawberry fruit vinegar, one of a range the restaurant offers. It also had a pleasing tartness which was really refreshing with the food. Coincidentally Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall recently posted a recipe for one in the Guardian. You simply top them up with fizzy water or soda.

Vegetable Thali and Flying Dog Tire Bite Golden Ale

Where I live in Bristol we’re lucky to have an unusually good Indian restaurant called Thali Café, that sells sophisticated street food which you can take away in your own tiffin box. I’m addicted to the vegetable-based ‘Dairy Free Tiffin’ which is light, fresh and aromatic and was wondering what to drink with it when I picked up a bottle of Tire Bite Golden Ale from the excellent Flying Dog brewery.

Described on the site as ‘a refreshing, light, warm weather slammer with a flavorful hop edge’ it’s sweeter than a British ale - as is typical of American beers. Hops are always good with a curry but I think it went particularly well with the coconut in the Thoran and mild vegetable curry underlining that different beers suit different types of Indian food.

They also suggest pairing it on the website with wings, seafood, salad, spicy Asian food and pasta with cream sauce - a suggestion that comes from a site called BeerDinners.com which seems to have some kind of tie-up with Flying Dog, encouraging people to host their own 'Dog' beer dinner. There are some useful recipe ideas on the site too.

Grilled sardines and - eeek! - Sir Cliff's Onda Nova Verdelho

As the best summer for a barbeque for some years it’s been a frustrating time for us flat-dwellers but when I was sent some fresh sardines* the other day I knew I was going to have to find some way to grill them outside if the flat wasn’t going to smell of fish for days.

We ended up buying a portable barbecue and cooking them in the gardens below and I have to say they were all the better for our campfire-style efforts. Sardines are made to be grilled.

They’re also made to be washed down with Portuguese Verdelho, a terroir-based match that makes eminent sense. My husband had discovered a bottle labelled Onda Nova on the ViniPortugal stand at the Bristol Wine and Food Fair the other day and we’d enjoyed its fresh green sappy almost Vinho Verde-esque character. It also picked up well on our accompanying veg: grilled fennel, courgettes (zucchini) and baby artichokes and on the radishes we nibbled while we were waiting for the fire to catch.

It wasn’t until I read about the wine afterwards I discovered that the estate Adega do Cantor, which is based in the Algarve, is owned by none other than British pop legend Cliff Richard, whose silver signature adorns the back label. The wine - according to Sir Cliff who I imagine doesn’t make it himself - is fermented in stainless steel and filtered and bottled with minimal handling within six months of vintage. It's a substantial 14% but wears its alcohol lightly.

Would I have enjoyed it as much if I’d known beforehand? I probably wouldn’t. I’d have expected it to be confected and commercial and I would have been wrong. You can buy it from everywine.co.uk for £73.59 - not bad but not nearly such a bargain as it was at the fair where we snapped it up for £7.99 a bottle. (It would have been €8.50 direct from the site but is unfortunately sold out. It might be worth keeping an eye out for the 2009 vintage)

*By mail by a firm called Fish for Thought which originally traded as Martin's Seafresh and was one of the original online fish suppliers.

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