Champagne and monkfish liver

OK, I appreciate this is a bit left-field but I was given some monkfish liver to try by Bristol fishmonger, Bristol Fish and also had a bottle of Aldi’s Easter champagne promotion to taste and they went brilliantly together. Often the best pairings come about by accident.

Sam of Bristol Fish maintains that monkfish liver is a kind alternative to foie gras and he’s right in one respect and wrong in another. Obviously it’s kinder - you can’t force feed a monkfish - but it’s not *quite* as smooth and unctious as the real thing which I still occasionally regret deciding not to eat any more.

It IS very good though. We cooked it in a pan with butter then once we’d removed the liver, added a bit more butter to the pan to sizzle up, added a squeeze of lemon and poured it over. Not a pretty picture but utterly delicious with a delicate and not particularly fishy taste and soft, melting texture - perhaps more like sweetbreads than foie gras

You can read about a rather more sophisticated way of serving it here and here - the Japanese call it Ankimo.

The champagne, which offset its richness perfectly, was a Champagne Philizot blanc de noirs which Aldi is promoting this Easter. I wouldn’t say it’s the finest example of a blanc de noirs I’ve ever tasted but it’s only £17.99, beautifully (and rather cheekily) packaged in Fortnum & Mason blue and would make the most fantastic gift for anyone you were seeing for Easter.

And you don’t necessarily have to eat monkfish liver to enjoy it!

Camembeso cheese and Ribera del Duero

I’m an ardent advocate of pairing cheese with white wine so it came as a bit of a surprise just how well the Spanish cheeses I was eating over the weekend went with the full-bodied Ribera del Duero wines I was tasting, many of which were over 14.5%

The cheese was a new one on me, a Camembeso from Quesos & Besos in the Sierra Morena in Andalucia, a gloriously silky goats cheese which I suspect had been partly coagulated or set with thistle extract as is common among artisanal cheeses in Spain. The distinctive shape is designed to represent lips - ‘Quesos y Besos’ means cheese and kisses!

You can’t find out much about it online because every time you look up Camembeso Google assumes you mean Camembert

It went with most of the wines I paired it with other than the most modern, sweetly fruited ones and was just glorious with them

You can order it, as I did, from specialist importer Mevalco for £6.50 - [a perfect sharing size for 2 cheese fanatics’, as the catalogue puts it). Mevalco stocks other excellent Spanish cheeses and Spanish charcuterie too: the Gomez Moreno Rosemary Manchego is also delicious.

I paid for the cheese and received the Ribera wines as a sample

Sashimi and koshu

Given that koshu is Japan's signature grape variety it’s perhaps not surprising that it’s a successful pairing with sashimi but two interesting things emerged from a recent tasting which was hosted by Sarah Abbott on behalf of Wines of Japan.

The first was the variety of styles there now are - much greater than when I last had an opportunity to compare them - from the original clean, precise unoaked koshus to wines with oak influence and skin contact.

The second that it was not so much the sashimi that was the influence on the pairing or even the accompanying wasabi and pickled ginger but a delicious vivid green, sesame-laced hiyashi seaweed salad, a powerful hit of umami that diminished the difference between the wines.

I liked it best with the first wine a very clean, precise unoaked 2019 Koshu Hikari from Chateau Lumière and with the rather more international style of the 2019 Iwasaki Koshu which had echoing notes of a sauvignon blanc with which it apparently has compounds in common. You can buy the latter from All About Wine for £16.29 though unfortunately only by the case.

It also went with a sparkling koshu, the Manns Wines Kobo No Awa Koshu Sparkling Brut, but that doesn’t seem to be stocked in the UK.

It would be good to see koshu more widely available. Maybe after this initiative it will be.

I attended the online tasting as a guest of Wines of Japan

Curried lentils with Waipara riesling

Riesling is often paired with Indian food though I don’t think it always works with hotter curries. But with this anglicized version of a dal from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s new book Eat Better Forever it was spot on.

I say anglicized because, cumin seeds apart, it was based on curry powder rather than individual spices and also had extra lentils stirred in at the end, hence the title double dahl. So it was quite mild, accentuated by two accompanying salads, a ‘raita’ salad with apple, cucumber and mint - quite similar to the Meera Sodha salad I made last week - and a lightly dressed carrot salad with a lemony dressing.

I had a bottle of New Zealand winery Pegasus Bay’s 2018 riesling from the Waipara Valley in North Canterbury. At 13% it was comparatively strong for riesling with a touch of sweetness that was easily able to handle the spice. I remember drinking a sylvaner with a mild vegetable curry that worked in a similar way. You can buy the 2017 vintage from Waitrose Cellar for £16.99 (and on promotion at £12.74 until tomorrow, March 9th 2021).

For other suggestions see What to Drink with Dal

The Pegasus Bay was a press sample and Eat Better Forever which is published by Bloomsbury at £26 (although you can buy it for £13.65 from their website currently), a review copy.