Lamb, courgettes, fennel and cider

If you’re wondering what to drink with lamb you’re most probably thinking in terms of red wine but as yesterday’s feast at Burrow Hill Cider, part of the Somerset Food Trail proved cider can be a surprisingly good pairing

Actually it wasn’t just the lamb, which was simply cooked (barbecued but without a strong marinade) but the accompanying vegetables chef Lucas Hollweg of the caterers On the Spoon had cooked with it that were the key to the pairing.

Drawing on local ingredients, as he did for the whole meal, he made a base of courgette & fennel agrodolce - a sweet-sour dish of slowly cooked vegetables to which he’d added Burrow Hill’s cider vinegar, cider and honey.

It chimed in perfectly with the medium sweet ‘cider bus sparkling cider’ that they sell at Glastonbury* and other events. (There was also some local Westcombe ricotta scattered over the top of the veg - rather like feta in a Greek lamb dish)

It proves yet again that it’s no so much the basic ingredient that determines a match but the way you cook it and the flavours you put with it.

For other lamb pairings see Top wine pairings for lamb 

For other cider pairings see Top food pairings for cider 

*Unsurprisingly sold out though you can find other ciders along with their marvellous Somerset Cider Brandy in their online shop

Sauvignon blanc and salsa verde

Sauvignon blanc might not strike you as the obvious wine to pair with lamb but when it’s accompanied by a salsa verde, as it was in this dish we made at a cookery class at the Square Food Foundation* last week it can work really well.

That makes sense as sauvignon blanc has a real affinity with herbs. Salsa verde is an Italian sauce made from chopped herbs such as mint, parsley, and basil along with garlic, capers, anchovies and mustard - so it’s really quite punchy. This is Jamie Oliver’s version which is pretty classic.

Red wine -especially Chianti, as you can see from this previous pairing - works really well but we were tasting a new range of wines called Spoke from New Zealand winemaker Ben Glover which includes three sauvignon blancs. I particularly liked the more complex, textured ‘Brink’ sauvignon-semillon and oaked ‘Resolute’ wines with it which will be available shortly from Red & White. Guessing white Bordeaux and sauvignon/semillon blends from Australia's Margaret River region would work too.

For other sauvignon blanc pairings click here

*Square Food Foundation is a Bristol-based charity that offers free cooking sessions and chef training for disadvantaged adults and community groups alongside private and corporate cooking classes.

Lamb with Nebbiolo d’Alba

For some reason I always think of beef with nebbiolo and other wines like Bordeaux and rioja with lamb but this combination at one of Bristol’s best restaurants Bulrush the other night was stunning.

The dish was a complicated one by chef George Livesey’s own admission. I got him to run through it and this is how he described it

"That particular dish is a labour of love with a lot of long processes like the dehydrated and smoked lambs heart which takes about a week, from start to finish! Here’s a recap:

BBQ loin and mini fillet

Slowly cooked and glazed belly with black garlic and mushroom ketchup

Shallot stuffed with lamb mousse and smoked lamb heart

Confit silver skin

Glazed sweetbread

The sauce is a classic lamb jus with slowly cooked tongue, crispy belly and pickled wild garlic stems

Nasturtium leaf and artichoke purée."

As you can see there were a couple of gamey and smoky elements - smoked lamb hearts and tongue and I think it was those that were the key to the match. That and the fact the dish was very rich and the nebbiolo, a 2017 La Pipina from La Biòca offered a contrasting freshness and acidity that certainly a riper new world wine would not have delivered. Unfortunately it doesn’t seem to be available in the UK.

It was part of an accompanying wine flight that included all sorts of interesting choices and the rest of the food was spectacular too as you can see from my recent instagram post. It’s not a cheap night out (count on £125 a head including wine and service) but for the quality of the food it’s well worth it. It deserves its Michelin star.

For other lamb pairings see Top wine pairings for lamb

Cassoulet and red Bordeaux

One of the questions I regularly get asked is what to drink with a special bottle. The general expectation is that I’ll suggest a meal of Michelin-starred quality but as this match of the week shows a rustic dish will do very nicely.

The wine was a 2009 Cuvée Barthélemy from a biodynamic Bordeaux producer Château le Puy whose wines I’ve written about before. Although they could legitimately be classified as ‘natural’ they don’t taste at all funky but smooth, polished and, in the case of this particular bottle, still surprisingly vibrant for a 12 year old wine.

I pulled one out to drink with a slow braised lamb dish from the Towpath café cookbook I made on Saturday night which includes 3 heads (heads not cloves) of garlic but is cooked for so long it doesn’t taste overly garlicky.

Even better I drink the remainder of the bottle with an improvised cassoulet I made with some of the leftover lamb, some Judion beans, half the remaining confit garlic, a duck leg I serendipitously found in the freezer and some mini chorizos which would no doubt outrage any self respecting Toulousian.

Anyway the Barthélemy was gorgeous with it, retaining all its richness and suppleness and handling the (admittedly) mild heat of the chorizo really well. A real treat but sadly not a cheap one. The cost of the more recent vintages at Buon Vino which stocks most of their range is £125-145 a bottle but their more affordable cuvées should work too.

For other cassoulet pairings see Six of the best wine pairings with Cassoulet. You'll find the cassoulet recipe I normally make rather than this cheat's version here.