Match of the week
Smoked jollof rice and pu’erh tea
I not only had one of the best meals I’ve had this year at Ikoyi last week but some of the most fascinating drinks pairings.
Two were with tea - a dish of turbot, crab salad and tonnato which went brilliantly with the Ali Shan, High Mountain Oolong from Taiwan and - better still - a dish with smoked jollof rice with an 8582 raw Pu Erh from Yunnan in China.
Both elements probably need explaining.
Jollof rice is a classic West African dish of spiced rice with tomatoes and peppers. (There’s a classic recipe by Yewande Komolafe in the New York Times which points out that it’s often prepared over an open fire so the smokiness in the Ikoyi version makes sense
Obviously it’s much more elaborate:
“We first barbeque vegetables covered in spices then we make a tea from this that we use to cook the rice” explains chef Jeremy Chan. “Then we fry it in a pan together with garlic, ginger and spring onion and top it with a lobster & scotch bonnet custard. It is then smoked with hickory and opened at the table.”
“There are layers of different types of heat to this dish, the intense spices in the tea that cooks the rice, the ginger the rice is fried with and the scotch bonnets used in the lobster custard. This leads to a crescendo of flavours and spices that while extremely spicy, has a certain comfort.”
Pu-erh is an aged fermented tea with an intensely earthy taste which in this case almost felt like smelling a forest floor after a rainstorm. That might not sound that appealing but it’s one of the headiest teas I’ve ever tasted and went stunningly well with the rice (though interestingly not quite as well with the beef rib that it accompanied which was better with a more conventional Julien Cecillon Saint-Pierre Cornas).
(8582 refers to the recipe, leaf size and factory the tea comes from. All pu’erh comes from Yunnan. There’s an interesting piece about it on Serious Eats.)
With a tasting menu at £350* Ikoyi is pretty well as expensive as restaurants get in London (though I was lucky enough to be taken there) but given its totally original menu and two Michelin stars (I reckon it should have three) it’s a restaurant right at the top of its game.
STOP PRESS: Ikoyi won the Highest Climber award in the World’s 50 Best awards this week coming in at no 15.
*there’s a shorter lunch menu for £150.
Apologies for rubbish photograph. We were in a relatively dark room under overhead lights. At least that’s my excuse.
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Crab pasta with chilli and Mission (Pais)
The one thing you’d think you could be sure of is that white wine would be the best pairing for crab but a meal last week at Toklas in London proved that isn’t necessarily the case.
The sommelier Agustina Basilico recommended a glass of 2019 La Malinche Mission from Sabelli-Frisch’s Somers Vineyard in Makelumne River, California.
Despite being only 12.5% it was intense enough to carry the spicy tonnarelle* with crab and chilli without contributing any jarring notes of its own. I think the fact the sauce contained a fair amount of brown meat also helped.
Mission, which is known in Chile as Pais, is an appealingly light wine, comparable as the importer Wanderlust Wine says on its website to a light Grenache.
It’s fruity but quite tart (think redcurrants and cranberries) and could be lightly chilled.
Unfortunately it seems to be out of stock in the UK currently though you can buy the 2018 if you’re in NYC at Village Wine Merchants for $29.99. (I was actually amazed the 2019 was still so fresh.)
Or obviously go and drink it at Toklas
For other crab pairings see The Best Wines to Pair with Crab
*Tonnarelle is a like a slightly thicker, squarer spaghetti and can be used in similar dishes. You can buy it from Sous Chef in the UK.
I ate at Toklas as a guest of the restaurant. (In case you’re wondering why I was eating chips with pasta they were served with my colleague’s Dover sole!)
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Cacio e pepe and Verdicchio dei Castelli di Jesi
That Italian white wine goes with pasta is not news I know but it was such a good pairing I’m going to make it my match of the week anyway.
Normally I prefer a light red wine with cacio e Pepe - I’ve previously enjoyed it with Frappato but there wasn’t anything particularly tempting on the list (at Prego, one of my local Italian restaurants in Bristol.)
It wasn’t a classic cacio e Pepe either - thoroughly enjoyable but a bit too cheesy (made with parmesan rather than the traditional pecorino) and not quite peppery enough. However it was topped with winter truffle, so I’m definitely not complaining.
The verdicchio, a 2022 Pallio di San Floriano from Monte Schiavo looked more tempting - and so it proved. Much more complex and flavourful than the average sub £10 Italian white. (It was organic.)
Verdicchio is a wine that goes with so many things, including artichokes - which means that you can happily drink it throughout a typical Italian meal especially if it’s based on vegetables or seafood. You can buy the 22 vintage online from N.D.John for £13.49.
For other pasta pairings see Wines to Match different Pasta Sauces
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Ox cheek lasagne and zinfandel
It’s always a treat going round to my friends Stephen and Judy for supper.
Stephen is one of my all-time favourite chefs and his former restaurant Culinaria in Redland was one of the reasons we moved to Bristol when we found the flat we were thinking of renting was just down the road!
Judy lets me know what he’s planning to cook so I can bring along an appropriate wine. In this case it was an ox cheek lasagne so I scanned my wine rack and came up with this single estate bottling of Ridge’s 2019 Pagani Ranch Zinfandel I’d splashed out on from The Wine Society a few months back. (I love Ridge!)
It comes from vines planted before Prohibition and is a field blend of (mainly) zinfandel, petite sirah and alicante bouschet
I’d prematurely opened a bottle not long after I'd bought it which I’d found too sweetly overripe but six months on it was spot on: smooth, rich and sumptuous, just perfect with the deep flavour of the oxtail and cheese.
Great dish. Great match! (Rubbish photo - sorry!)
See also:
The best food pairings for lasagne
The best food pairings for Zinfandel
Lasagna and Georgian saperavi
I’m beginning to think lasagna or lasagne is one of the perfect dishes to pair with a good red wine - it seems to go with practically every bottle you throw at it (metaphorically speaking).
Last week it was a saperavi from Teliani Valley - their Glekhuri Kisishevi Saperavi Qvevri 2021.
It’s aged, as you can see from the name of the wine, in qvevri, the distinctive clay pots that are used for ageing in Georgia and which give the wine a deeply savoury character.
I always think you need a red with some acidity with lasagne which is a rich dish. But the wine's exotically wild briary fruit was a delicious contrast too.
You can buy it online from The Secret Bottle Shop for £19.95.
There’s no picture of the bottle or the lasagne I’m afraid as I was round at a friend’s and off-duty so this is a stock photo.
For other possible wine matches see The best wine pairings for lasagna.
Image ©neil langan at shutterstock.com
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