Spicy paneer pancakes and a ginger-turmeric soda

Although I’m not doing Dry January I am trying to take a break from booze on at least a couple of days a week so when I went to Romy Gill’s pop-up at Carousel last week I opted for the alcohol free options.

I started with a really good cocktail (hate the word mocktail) called a Tea Total Sour which was made with lapsang souchong tea, rhubarb cordial, lemon and egg white but the punchy ginger and turmeric soda they called A Sip of the Sun I had with the meal that was the real find from a pairing point of view. It was brilliant with Romy’s second course, a spicy Panch Phoran Chilli paneer pancake and also with the pan-fried Amritsari Masala hake with moilee (a Goan style fish and coconut curry) and tamarind spiced octopus that followed it (yes, the food was as exciting as it sounds)

The restaurant manager Matt Varonaangan told me he made the base cordial with cold-pressed ginger and turmeric juice, adding 25% of the volume of the resulting juice in sugar and a little citric acid then topping up with tonic or soda. The turmeric really chimed in well with the paneer and fish dishes - proving again that alcohol-free drinks are just as good, if not better than alcoholic ones with spicy food.

I attended Romy’s Carousel pop-up as her guest. Her own restaurant, Romy's Kitchen is in Thornbury, Gloucestershire.

Treacle tart with Ledaig 10 year old malt whisky

Occasionally you come across a pairing so brilliant, so simple that you wonder why you’ve never thought of it before and so it was on Saturday evening.

We’d been talking about whisky and my friend Nick had been saying I should try his 10 year old Ledaig from the Tobermory distillery on the Isle of Mull which he impressively pronounced correctly as lech-ig (for an explanation see this invaluable post on the blog Cask Notes. I’m glad he did - I’d have been going round pronouncing it le-dayg for ever more.)

My friend Andy (cookery writer Andrea Leeman) had made a traditional treacle tart* which is made not with treacle but golden syrup and I wondered if that might be a good opportunity to try the whisky rather than waiting until after dinner. And so it proved.

The whisky tastes (to me) like a cross between a lowland and an island whisky with traces of peat (although it’s described on some sites as heavily peated) and a charming sweet heathery character that chimed in perfectly with the tart making it even more of a treat.

I don’t think a richer sherried whisky like The Macallan would work as well though I’m thinking it *would* be good with a pecan pie. Either would make a great dessert for Burns Night.

* there's a similar recipe from James Martin on the BBC website

Roast turkey and zinfandel

This last fortnight, you won’t be surprised to hear, has been all about festive food particularly The Bird which we’ve finally despatched but before we move on to healthier fare I wanted to give a shout out to my top pairing for turkey this year which wasn’t even on my hitlist.

It’s zinfandel - or rather a zinfandel blend - the 2013 Geyserville from one of my favourite Californian producers, Ridge. (The other grapes are carignane, petite sirah and mataro aka mourvèdre) Five years on from harvest it was still wonderfully vibrant but with a delicious mellowness from a bit of bottle age. It took all the big flavours on the plate in its stride actually outshining the other bottle we had on the table, a 2007 Pomerol from Chateau La Conseillante although that was lovely too. (Both better suited to the main turkey dinner than the leftovers though, note)

If you fancy buying some Corks of Cotham have it at the best price I could spot in the UK at £39.99. Yes, I know that’s expensive but we didn’t pay that for it though more than the £18-odd I can remember it cost when it first came across my radar.

So bear that in mind for next year. I’ll be updating the post shortly!

Thanks for visiting the site in 2018 and a very happy new year to you all.

Chambolle-Musigny and game

No earth-shattering revelations this week, just a reminder that mature red burgundy is a brilliant match for game.

Our cooking group cooked up a feast on Saturday including partridge salad with beetroot and walnuts and an elaborate ‘chartreuse of game, a multi-layered beauty of a dish incorporating several kinds of game (partridge, pheasant and pigeon in this case), wrapped in vegetables (multi-coloured carrots and cabbage).

Neither of the dishes was particularly ‘gamey’ but had a distinctive game character you wanted to respect so thanks to my pal chef Barny Haughton for bringing along a delicate 2000 Chambolle Premier Cru Les Sentiers from Maison Roche de Bellene which was still astonishingly bright and fresh given the vintage. Chambolle is one of my favourite red burgundies especially with lighter game like partridge.

The best wine pairing for partridge

We also had a delicious (but not particularly photogenic) dish of gnocchi with wild boar and venison ragu which went brilliantly with a 2006 Gros Noré Bandol from Provence, an exotic, dark, sensuous red and one of my favourites with richer game dishes. Unfortunately I haven’t been buying it recently so am now clean out of it - I've just had to order a case of the 2012 (from Gauntleys in Nottingham if you want to do likewise)

Top wine and beer pairings for game