Single malt whisky and salted caramel fudge

One of the interesting trends I’ve noticed is the number of English whiskies that are now coming on stream including the Masthouse single malt from the Copper Rivet Distillery in Chatham, Kent I was sent the other day. (In fact there are, amazingly, more distilleries in England than Scotland now!)

Masthouse is what they call a ‘farm to glass’ whisky made with a Kentish malted barley called Belgravia, from the nearby Isle of Sheppey. It’s pot-distilled and matured in ex-bourbon and virgin American white oak barrels which gives the young spirit an appealing touch of almost heathery sweetness

That could well be why it went so well with the rather indulgent white chocolate and salted caramel fudge they sent as a snack to nibble with it which was apparently made by the head chef at their distillery restaurant The Pumproom. I certainly think fudge and whisky bears more exploration.

You can buy the Masthouse single malt which is bottled at 45% for £45 for 50cl from the distillery.

Picture of fudge by Sebastiana Raw at shutterstock.com - not specifically of the fudge mentioned in the post!

I was sent the whisky as a press sample.

Penne with gorgonzola and broccoli and malbec

Now here’s a wine pairing with pasta I didn’t wholly expect. The sauce - a gift from a neighbour - was a creamy gorgonzola one to which I added (just to make it fractionally more healthy ;-)) some steamed broccoli I had left in the fridge. (Well, it was raw but I steamed it!)

In general I go for white wines with creamy pasta sauces - and off-dry wines with blue cheese - but happened to have a bottle of young fruity Argentinian malbec open (the Punta de Vacas I made my wine of the week) and it really went brilliantly.

The cheese wasn’t that strong, mind you, and the broccoli added a slightly vegetal edge that kicked the wine into touch but it was interesting how well it worked. My only cautionary note would be that the wine was only 13.5%. A more full-bodied malbec might have overwhelmed the dish.

My neighbour says she enjoys a Gavi di Gavi with it too.

For other pasta and wine pairings see Wines to match different pasta sauces

Crab mac’n’cheese and champagne

I wouldn’t have necessarily opened a bottle specifically to drink with Nigella’s crab mac’n’cheese but Biden had just won the presidency and it seemed like the right thing to do. And in fact it went brilliantly.

The recipe is from her fabulous new book Cook, eat, repeat and is a bit spicier from the standard recipe with smoked paprika and aleppo pepper which offsets the crab meat (white and, crucially, brown) nicely. Interestingly she doesn’t add extra cheese or breadcrumbs as a topping or put it under the grill. I was a bit sceptical about that but went along with it and she was 100% right as it gives a silky texture to the dish you wouldn’t otherwise get. And, appropriately enough, it’s crabby rather than cheesy.

I had a bottle of Pol Roger to hand which I was, um, *tasting* for a feature and it seemed rude not to demolish the rest of it. Just in order to be able to report back, of course and it IS the perfect match though I'm thinking a good Chablis would be spot on too.

Anyway you should buy the book, make the recipe and try it for yourself!

See also The best wine - and other drinks - to pair with macaroni cheese.

Roast cauliflower with preserved lemon dressing and Assyrtiko

A similar type of salad to last week’s match of the week (as you can see I’m already not getting out much!) from Claire Thomson’s excellent Home Cookery Year

It was a roasted cauliflower and red onion salad with a punchy lemony dressing made from preserved lemons, garlic, lemon juice and fresh coriander to which I added some extra chickpeas

What was interesting about the match was that the Assyrtiko, a 2019 Gavalas from Santorini, was quite citrussy itself. I don’t normally go for lemony notes in wine with a lemony dish as it strips the flavour out of the wine but this survived admirably, probably to do with it’s searing acidity. Or maybe the preserved lemons whose saltiness heightened its own lemony character. Or, maybe the most likely explanation, the fact that it was an outstandingly good wine (it costs £29 from Kudos wines from a vineyard that is claimed to be the oldest in Greece)

You can find another one of Claire’s recipes here.