Lamb rogan josh with huitlacoche and Torres Milmanda chardonnay 2008

This may well be the most off-the-wall pairing I post this year: chardonnay with a lamb curry? Extraordinary - and this is why

I’ve been at the Wine and Culinary Forum, a biennual exploration of food and wine where I was suggesting food pairings for a star-studded tasting of wines from the Primum Familiae Vini (PFV) an association of 11 of the world’s top family winemakers

There were many fascinating presentations but the most spectacular was a session from the Canadian author François Chartier who takes a molecular approach to food and wine pairing.

He focused on the aromatic compound sotolon which is found in foods including fenugreek, maple syrup, brown sugar and soy sauce and drinks such as dark beers, coffee, aged dark rum, the Hungarian sweet wine Tokaji and aged white wine. He got three chefs to cook dishes that included some of these components but tasted as if they included others - like a dish based on pork fat which tasted as if it included maple syrup but didn’t.

But the dish that makes my match of the week slot was a rogan josh from chef Vineet Bhatia that included the sotolon-rich ingredient huitlacoche a naturally occurring fungus a bit like a truffle which grows on ears of corn. It was served with an unusually (for Indian cuisine) wet rice flavoured with coconut and fenugreek which spectacularly accentuated the sotolon hit. Paired with a mature, rich 2008 Milmanda chardonnay it was simply sensational, freshening the wine and leaving it beautifully in balance with the rich lamb dish.

Chartier has done more than anyone else except perhaps Josep Roca to put food and wine pairing on a scientific footing but although the pairing was undoubtedly dazzling I feel there still remains the problem of expectation. Your senses are telling you that the pairing of a dark curry with a rich chardonnay won’t work which militates against the success of the match in an ordinary dining context. That doesn’t, of course, mean you shouldn’t keep pushing the boundaries as Chartier undoubtedly will. If you want to know more about his theories read his book Tastebuds and Molecules.

Apologies for the photo which was of a tasting sample. Vineet plated up a full-size version with a lamb shank that looked far more spectacular.

Guineafowl and Oolong tea

Chinese meals apart it’s not often I get to match tea with savoury dishes but importer Lalani’s tea pairing lunch at Gauthier, Soho this week showed just how exciting the combination can be

It certainly helped that I’d come hotfoot from a wine tasting when the last thing I wanted to taste or drink was more wine but it seems I’m not alone in fancying something soft. According to James Lewis of Gauthier 50-60% of their clientele don’t drink alcohol at lunchtime.

Lalani specialises in small batch limited edition teas such as the Jade Mountain ‘The Honey Special’ Oolong from Taiwan the team paired with a deeply savoury dish of guinea fowl with turnips and a dark green swiss chard compote. (The Oolong was served lukewarm rather than piping hot and in Riedel ‘O’ wine glasses.)

It was intense enough to stand up to the guineafowl and its accompanying ‘spiced fowl jus’ (I think they might have found a better name for that) but the pairing also benefited from the slightly bitter notes in the turnip and the chard. It was also flavoured with fresh thyme which chimed in particularly well with the fragrance of the tea.

Jameel Lalani who was hosting the lunch said the key thing to bear in mind when matching food and tea was to make sure the tea and the dish are of a similar weight - not always easy given the delicacy of many fine teas. I thought the grassy 1st flush sencha for example that accompanied the first course of an intensely umami summer truffle risotto with more chicken jus struggled a bit (a spring vegetable risotto would have been more sympathetic) but this pairing was pitch perfect.

I attended the lunch as a guest of Lalani tea.

Red mullet, tapenade and white Saint Joseph

Last week I was in the Northern Rhone where the biggest challenge, from a food and wine matching perspective, is what you eat with its distinctive whites which are made from Marsanne and Roussanne

The confusing thing is that they’re all different. Some producers favour 100% Marsanne, others add up to 50% of Roussanne and a few focus on Roussanne exclusively.

It’s the Marsanne and Marsanne-dominated ones which are tricky. They’re rich but quite low in acidity and have a touch of bitterness on the finish which doesn’t make them an obvious match for normal white wine go-to’s such as salad and seafood. Red mullet, however, is a distinctive slightly earthy fish which, accompanied by tapenade (both black and a very garlicky green), made for a really good pairing. There were even preserved artichokes and sundried tomatoes on the plate which didn’t throw the wine off its stride.

The wine was Joel Durand’s 2013 white Saint Joseph which is 70% Marsanne, 30% of which is aged in wood. Unfortunately although Berry Bros has his reds it doesn’t appear to be available in the UK. In France you can buy it from Les Caves du Roy for 19€ or from the cellar door in Chateaubourg.

Salmon Uri with spicy ginger beer

It’s always good to find a restaurant that takes non-alcoholic drinks as seriously as it does boozy ones so it was an easy decision to order a spicy ginger beer cocktail at The Palomar the other day.

It’s a new modern Israeli restaurant in Rupert Street just off Piccadilly Circus which serves really original brightly flavoured Mediterranean food with a few Asian touches. The ‘Uri’ was a bit like a sashimi but with a cured onion and ginger vinaigrette - too much ginger you might have thought but there was also citrus peel (orange, lemon and lime) in the drink and salmon is so good with both citrus and ginger that it just worked brilliantly.

The drink also matched well with the other dishes we ordered including an excellent fattoush and kubania, their middle-eastern style take on a steak tartare.

Desserts, including basboussa - a semolina cake with whipped yogurt, orange syrup and ground walnut brittle and malabi (a rose-scented milk pudding with raspberry sauce, coconut meringue pistachio crunch, fresh raspberries & kataifi were delicious too.

The restaurant is tiny but they take walk-ins at the bar.