Monkfish and Meursault - and Muscadet, come to that

One of the best restaurants to enjoy well thought out food and drink pairings is Trivet in London which comes as no great surprise when you learn that the two partners - Jonny Lake and Isa Bal - worked at one of the UK’s most famous restaurants, The Fat Duck.

The other day I was interviewing them for a feature and got a run-through of their menu into the bargain including a dish of monkfish, girolles and roast chicken beurre blanc which was described as ‘the best friend of white burgundy’. As indeed it was, paired with a glass of Domaine Buisson Battault’s 2018 Meursault 1er cru Les Gouttes d’Or (which you can buy from Four Walls Wine for £57.50.) A sumptuously rich dish with a sumptuously rich wine.

Interestingly I’d also had monkfish a couple of days previously at The French House where it had been served in a lighter, more summery style with a mussel vinaigrette which went perfectly with the simple but delicious muscadet I was drinking.

You can of course also pair monkfish with red wine as you can see here.

It underlines, yet again, that it’s not so much a question of the base ingredient you're dealing with as the way you cook it and in this case, the sauce you serve with it. Always pay attention to that!

I ate at Trivet as a guest of the restaurant

Roast monkfish with girolles and Kalimna cabernet/shiraz

If an Australian cabernet-shiraz is the last wine you’d think of pairing with fish here’s why it worked at a recent lunch that Penfolds hosted at Trivet in London

First of all the fish was monkfish, a meaty fish that can generally stand up to red wine

Secondly it was roasted - a more robust way of cooking fish than poaching or steaming

Thirdly it was accompanied by wine-friendly girolle mushrooms

And fourthly it was accompanied by a very skilfully made red wine sauce (the most impressive thing about the whole meal was the way chef Jonny Lake who used to head up the kitchen at The Fat Duck, crafted the sauces to suit each wine.)

But maybe the most important factor of all was that the wine was 60 years old. Given it wasn’t a massively expensive wine in the first place - we’re not talking Grange - it was still extraordinarily bright. Not with its primary fruit obviously but not in any way over the hill. And it was its lovely mellowness that made it such a good match.

You can buy the most recent vintages for £32.99 a bottle from Majestic or £28.99 on their mix six deal - not bad for a wine that might last 60 years!

For other monkfish matches see The Best Wine Pairings for Monkfish

Indian seafood and Sollasa Mumbai

Deciding what to drink in an Indian restaurant if you don’t go for beer is always a bit of a challenge but now there’s a new option in the form of Sollasa, a delicious aperitif-type drink that has been created to go with Indian food.

I met up with its young founder Vishal Patel and tried it out with several dishes at our local Indian restaurant Nutmeg (he turns out to live in my neighbourhood in Bristol).

At 20% it’s a bit like a cross between a gin and a ‘bianco’ vermouth - you can drink it with tonic or soda or as a cocktail (they suggest a Sollasa Collins or a Sollasa sour)

It’s actually really nice on its own too, quite fragrant - almost floral. I picked up passionfruit which proved not to be in it (what do I know? 🙄) but you will find orange, lychee, lime, mint, basil, coriander seeds cardamom and a pinch of sea salt. It's a bit like having a cocktail without having the bother of making one.

The two dishes I thought it went best with were some crispy Koliwada king prawns seasoned with smoked paprika and ginger and the Allepey Moli, or molee, a Keralan fish stew (on this occasion based on monkfish) in coconut sauce with mustard , fenugreek, curry leaf and tamarind. But it was surprisingly good with some Punjabi lamb chops too.

It’s only just been launched so it’s not widely available but you can buy it for £28.95 at 31dover.com, and £29 from Master of Malt or from their website sollasa.com

See also What wine to drink with curry - my top 5 picks

I tried the pairings at Nutmeg as a guest of Sollasa.

Champagne and monkfish liver

OK, I appreciate this is a bit left-field but I was given some monkfish liver to try by Bristol fishmonger, Bristol Fish and also had a bottle of Aldi’s Easter champagne promotion to taste and they went brilliantly together. Often the best pairings come about by accident.

Sam of Bristol Fish maintains that monkfish liver is a kind alternative to foie gras and he’s right in one respect and wrong in another. Obviously it’s kinder - you can’t force feed a monkfish - but it’s not *quite* as smooth and unctious as the real thing which I still occasionally regret deciding not to eat any more.

It IS very good though. We cooked it in a pan with butter then once we’d removed the liver, added a bit more butter to the pan to sizzle up, added a squeeze of lemon and poured it over. Not a pretty picture but utterly delicious with a delicate and not particularly fishy taste and soft, melting texture - perhaps more like sweetbreads than foie gras

You can read about a rather more sophisticated way of serving it here and here - the Japanese call it Ankimo.

The champagne, which offset its richness perfectly, was a Champagne Philizot blanc de noirs which Aldi is promoting this Easter. I wouldn’t say it’s the finest example of a blanc de noirs I’ve ever tasted but it’s only £17.99, beautifully (and rather cheekily) packaged in Fortnum & Mason blue and would make the most fantastic gift for anyone you were seeing for Easter.

And you don’t necessarily have to eat monkfish liver to enjoy it!