Ham and Barossa Semillon

Thos of you of a certain age may remember that great ‘70s favourite ham and pineapple which conisisted of a large limp gammon steak, curling at the edges and a couple of fried pineapple rings. From a tin. There was one thing that was good about the dish though and that is that ham and pineapple are great together, something we’ve rather forgotten in these more sophisticated times.

It works too with Barossa Semillon which has a powerful pineapple flavour of its own. I discovered a 10 year old bottle, an inexpensive Peter Lehmann, at the weekend when I was clearing out the wine store and was amazed to find just how lush and rich it still was. I knew Semillon aged but it’s Hunter Valley Semillon that has the reputation for longevity not the Barossa and that matures in quite a different way - more like a Riesling.

If you want to repeat the experience you obviously don’t have to drink such a venerable bottle - a rich young Barossa Semillon will do nicely. Keep the ham - hot or cold - relatively plain like a good old fashioned glazed joint of gammon and serve in thick chunky slices. Resist the temptation to put tinned pineapple slices with it or they’ll knock out the pineapple flavours in the wine. Not that you would anyway . . .

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Roast lamb with a Douro red

Yesterday we had the family round for lunch and served a 2002 Douro red from Portugal with the main course of spice-crusted roast lamb with garlic and rosemary, roast potatoes (my youngest son managed to put away 15 but remains, annoyingly, as skinny as a rake) and in-season purple sprouting broccoli.

Now I know there are loads of reds which would have paired with that dish (Cabernet Sauvignon being an obvious contender) but the wine, a single vineyard Quinta do Vale Dona Maria made by Christiano van Zeller which came from English wine merchant Tanners was particularly delicious. It was soft and supple with rich, ripe bramble fruit: a sweet contrast to the cumin-dominated spicing and the slight bitterness of the greens or PSB as they now call it in the trade.

Sometimes it’s good to serve something that makes everyone sit up. My eldest son and his girlfriend are both doing wine qualifications so it was a chance for them to try a wine they hadn’t come across before.

For dessert we had fresh apricot pancakes I was testing for a book which I strongly recommend once they come into season. The apricot filling was laced with a gorgeous apricot liqueur made by the French firm Gabriel Boudier which really brought out the flavour of the fruit. (You can find it in Waitrose in the UK). It was so good I added an extra splash as I served them - plus a scoop of vanilla ice cream! (Well, it was the weekend . . . )

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Fairtrade chocolate brownies with Fairtrade black coffee

This week is the beginning of Fairtrade fortnight, the British Fairtrade Foundation’s annual push to encourage us all to buy more ethically traded products. There are now over 2000 Fairtrade certified products* available in the UK, ranging from peppercorns, cinnamon and vanilla pods, to avocados, rum and wine.

Two of the products that are easy to get hold of are Fairtrade chocolate and coffee which of course make the perfect match. Wine, as I’ve mentioned before on the site, isn’t the easiest pairing for rich dark chocolate cakes and puddings but black coffee is perfect, balancing the intense sweetness and palate coating richness of a full-on chocolate dessert while retaining its own flavour and freshness. If you find espresso too strong try a longer americano or cafetière-made coffee.

The quality of Fairtrade coffee has increased enormously over the past few years largely to an exceptional company called Union Coffee Roasters that I first came across about 15 years ago when they were operating a micro-roastery in Essex. The coffee I particularly like is their Rwanda Maraba Bourbon which is available in Sainsbury’s, Tesco and Waitrose. They are also selling two other ethically sourced brands Ethiopia Yirgacheffe and Natural Spirit which contains Fairtrade and organic coffee beans from central and south America which you can also buy from their website www.unioncoffeeroasters.com

So far as Fairtrade chocolate is concerned a good range is made by the Divine Chocolate Company. It confusingly has two websites, having changed ownership, but you’ll find some suitably indulgent recipes incorporating their products on their original website original.divinechocolate.com

If you want to do a bit more to help Fairtrade producers why not organise your own Faitrade coffee and chocolate morning (or evening) for a few friends and neighbours? Not that you probably need an incentive to eat chocolate...

* The FAIRTRADE Mark is the only consumer label that focuses on ensuring farmers in developing countries receive an agreed and stable price for the crops they grow, as well as additional income to invest for the future.

Savoury pancakes and sparkling cider

The English - and very delicious - way with pancakes is to serve them with granulated sugar and lemon (a dessert that pairs well with gently sparkling, sweet Asti or Moscato d’Asti). But an even better match is the French - or more specifically Breton - tradition of serving savoury pancakes with sparkling cider, a vastly underrated drink.

In Brittany savoury pancakes or crèpes tend to be made with a proportion of buckwheat flour which gives them a nutty, savoury, faintly bitter flavour that picks up on the bitter apple notes in genuine farmhouse cider. Fillings such as cheese, ham and tricky-to-match spinach all work well.

When I was in France recently I was amazed at the range of artisanal ciders in the supermarkets, and at the ridiculously cheap prices they were charging - in some cases as little as 2 or 3 euros (£1.35-£2 or $2.60-$4) for a 75 cl bottle.

In the UK I’d recommend Duché de Longueville from Normandy (available from Sainsbury’s) or a home grown sparkling cider from Gospel Green, near Haselmere in Surrey (+44(0)1428 654120) which sells in local off-licences and farm shops and also from Partridges in London. It is also quite widely stocked in Brighton, they say.