Match of the week
Grilled octopus and Baga
Octopus seems an unlikely ingredient to be on trend but you’ll find it on a lot of restaurant menus at the moment. It’s far from an easy creature to cook (like squid it’s classified as a cephalopod rather than a fish) and it’s a measure of the kitchen’s skill as to whether it turns out tough or not.
Bar Douro, an appealing little wine bar in Flatiron Square just down the road from Borough Market passed with flying colours - it was deeply savoury and beautifully tender, served with deep-fried and puréed sweet potato .
I had been drinking a white at the time it appeared but immediately thought I’d prefer a red once I tasted it. They suggested a 2015 Nossa Calcario Baga from the Bairrada region from a woman winemaker I very much like called Filipa Pato together with her husband William Wouters.
For a wine that was awarded an impressive 96 points by Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate it was listed at a very reasonable £12 a glass. (It retails for about £32.50 from importers Clark Foyster.
It showed the fine texture and delicacy Portuguese reds are capable of and suited the octopus very well. I also remember enjoying a baga with suckling pig a while back. It’s obviously a very good food wine.
I ate at the restaurant as a guest of Bar Douro.
Roast beef sandwich and a Virgin Mary
I’ve got a bit obsessed with Virgin Marys (alcohol-free Bloody Marys) over the last few days.
My food writer friend Signe Johansen ordered one at a rather splendid lunch we had at Claridges and it went perfectly with a roast beef sandwich I’d chosen, one of the more affordable options on the eyewateringly expensive menu. (Still, the surroundings are wonderfully glamorous and, as you can see, the sandwich was more than generous.)
I then ordered another one yesterday at brunch at my local Bristol restaurant Wallfish where they call it a Bloody Shame and where it went brilliantly with a full English breakfast.
The robust seasoning in a Virgin Mary (generally Worcestershire sauce, Tabasco and celery salt) more than makes up for the lack of alcohol and in fact it would go equally well with a steak sandwich or a burger. There was tarragon mayo and cornichons on the sandwich which added a piquancy of their own and chimed in nicely with the spicy tomato juice.
Anchovies and alvarinho
If you don’t like fish don’t go to Olhao! Restaurants in this bustling fishing port on the Algarve serve almost nothing else which is fine with me but less good for people, like my friend J, who has a real phobia about fishbones.
That sadly meant he had to miss out on these excellent fresh anchovies - even though they were already filleted he still found their fishiness offputting.
They were scattered with pink peppercorns - an underrated spice that gave them a fragrant, spicy lift that went particularly well with the crisp young (2017) Torre de Menagem alvarinho/trejadura we’d ordered (from the Monçao e Melgaço sub-region of Vinho Verde up in the north of the country. Alvarinho is Portugal's equivalent of Spain's albarino.)
It really underlines the fact that anchovies pair well with almost any crisp white (or rosé) wine - I also enjoyed them last year in San Sebastian with Txacoli.
Leeks and Skyborry perry
One of the many appealing things about Birch in Bristol is that they have an extensive list of artisanal ciders. Which is maybe not so surprising given that they are intending to sell the restaurant and concentrate on making cider themselves.
I always feel I should reward the effort that goes into this list by ordering at least a glass when I go there and in fact it does go brilliantly well with their largely vegetarian menu which is based on produce that is grown on their allotment.
The dish that particularly stood out this time was a beautifully presented plate of baked leeks with hazelnut mayo and the perkiest, freshest chervil I’ve ever tasted but it was the sweet oniony taste of the leeks themselves that was the key to the match with a zanily labelled sparkling perry called Waiting for the Miracle (after the Leonard Cohen song). It's made by a Welsh producer called Skyborry out of Brandy and Winnals Langdon pears
The best wine - and other - pairings for leeks
Although perry is made from pears it doesn’t taste quite so obviously of the fruit as cider does of apples but is more like a light dry or off-dry white wine. This one was only 5%. It’s a really versatile partner for summer food so well worth looking out for when you’re in a good local restaurant or pub.
Vignole and Friulano
As those of you who follow me on instagram (@food_writer) will know I’ve been in Venice for the past few days - and if I could would still be there!
We stayed in a wonderful Airbnb and made quite a lot of our own meals including this lovely spring vegetable stew called vignole from Russell Norman’s new book Venice: Four Seasons of Home Cooking.
In theory it should have been difficult to match as it included artichokes which are considered a wine-killer but as I’ve stated before I think the problem with wine and artichokes is overstated, particularly when they’re combined, as here, with more wine-friendly broad beans, peas and pancetta.
Dry Italian white wines certainly work especially this appealing Isola Augusta Friulano* from Friuli Latisana - a sub-region of the Friuli-Venezia Giulia region to the north-east of Venice.
Friulano, formerly known as Tokai Friulano, is a fresh, dry white, also known as sauvignonasse but it has a more floral, less citrussy character than sauvignon blanc. The kind of relatively neutral white wine that Italians do so well.
You can find the recipe for the vignole in the Guardian online but do buy the book which is charming.
* Not available in the UK or US, unfortunately.
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