Herring and aquavit

This week’s match of the week - herring and aquavit - was paired for me - appropriately enough - by the restaurant Aquavit which has just opened an outpost in London.

It’s not a groundbreaking match - I've recommended it before - but it was done particularly well.

I’d already been for breakfast, which I can highly recommend and had decided on the strength of that to meet up for an early dinner with a couple of food writer friends with whom I’d been on a trip to Scandinavia last year.

We’d spent a memorable evening at a totally unpronounceable herring restaurant called Bakklandet Skydsstasjon and had developed a bit of a thing about herrings.

Aquavit’s menu, which includes four different preparations - three as part of a herring selection - was the perfect opportunity to revisit our herring fetish, along with a few ice-cold shots of aquavit in beautiful little frozen glasses. I *tried* - OK I drank - two different kinds the Aalborg Dild (dill) and Aalborg Taffel (caraway), both delicious though I can’t say that one matched the herring better than the other.

It must have been along the right lines as on the menu they pair both the Matje herring (with potato, sour cream and egg yolk) and the herring selection which consists of Brantevik (dill pickled) herring and herring with mustard and curry sauces with O.P.Original which is flavoured with caraway, anise and fennel.

In Scandinavia aquavit would generally be accompanied by a glass of lager as a chaser as at this meal in Copenhagen I enjoyed a few years ago but I must confess I prefer sipping it on its own. A fun way to entertain friends in the new year.

Cannelloni and Refosco

When did you last see cannelloni on a menu? It was one of my favourite dishes when I was growing up then it seemed to vanish into the mists of time so it’s good to see it back at the boys from the Clove Club’s new restaurant Luca.

It’s quite a fancy version, mind you, filled with calves’ head ragu (‘course it is) with marjoram and artistic slicks of white sauce and tomato sauce - at the same time lighter and richer than the version I remember from my local trat.

It needed a wine with fresh acidity and got that in spades from a delicious 2013 Refosco Specogna from Friuli they have on their short but appealing wine by the glass list.

Valvona & Crolla and Wilde Wines stock the 2012 at £19.95 and £19.99 respectively. If you want to know more about Refosco consult Jancis Robinson et al's excellent Wine Grapes.

Fish tacos and Clare Valley riesling

Last week I pushed the envelope a bit further with wine and spice pairing with a Wine and Chilli dinner at The Spicery in Bristol

This is a really great little company which sells spices tailor-made to a specific recipe so you don’t have to buy more than you need and don’t get left with musty spices that have no taste (mea culpa). You can set up a monthly subscription which would make a great Christmas present for a keen cook.

Their development chef Matt Williamson (ex Flinty Red for the benefit of fellow Bristolians) devised a brilliant menu which took us through a whole variety of chillies (including some ancho chilli-spiked chocolate brownies) which I matched with a range of different wines.

The most popular pairing was a zingy 2015 Baily & Baily Clare Valley riesling (which is currently selling for a bargainous £6.49 at Waitrose) with a fish taco with a fruity aji amarillo sauce. It was just like having an extra squeeze of lime with the dish - a style of wine well worth thinking about for other fresh-tasting Mexican dishes.

Incidentally The Spicery is having an open day on Saturday December 10th if you’re in or around Bristol and want to go along and see what they do.

If you’d be interested in having me host an event for you do get in touch at fiona@matchingfoodandwine.com.

Practically every barbecued meat you can think of and an amazing Aussie grenache

Normally my matches of the week are quite specific - a dish and a drink - but it’s always great to find a wine that sails through everything on the table as this gorgeous grenache did at London’s latest barbecue restaurant Temper last week.

It was the Jauma Like Raindrops from the McLaren Vale in South Australia, recommended by their sommelier Donald Edwards and it took absolutely every dish in its stride from some intensely smokey beef to an outrageously good side of beef fat potatoes with raclette. Not to mention the sides of ‘MSG’ ketchup, green sauce and pork, habanero and pickled onion ‘sprinkle’, a battery of flavours for any wine to contend with.

The grapes which come from three different vineyards are organically grown and made without any chemical additions including sulphur which gives the wine a particularly pure, vibrant character. It’s a natural wine but a totally unscary one - just soft, ripe, gorgeous and delicious. There’s a good description of the winery from their American importer Vine Street Imports here.

You can see my article on how you can now drink fine wines in barbecue restaurants on the Decanter website.

I ate at Temper as a guest of the restaurant.