Match of the week
Crespelle with wild asparagus and fonduta and extra dry prosecco
I’ve spent the last 3 days in the Veneto at a prosecco festival called Vino in Villa (yup, alright for some, but if it’s any consolation the weather hasn’t been as good as it has in the UK)
Anyway it’s given me the chance to run the better quality proseccos of the Conegliano Valdobbiadene region (try saying that if you’ve had a few) through their paces with different foods - mainly the sort of buffet style canapés you would have at parties.
There was one hot dish though that went particularly well - a ‘moneybag’ style stuffed pancake with wild asparagus and sciopet (some kind of wild greens, a little like spinach, for which I’ve not been able to find the exact translation) and a rich fonduta cheese sauce.
You might think that would be too powerful for a light prosecco but the extra dry style which can contain up to 17g of sugar and is generally sweeter than brut coped really well. It’s a style that’s more popular in Italy than it is in the UK but I reckon a good quality brut prosecco would match well too.
More on prosecco pairings to come.
* I attended Vino in Villa as a guest of the Consorzio Conegliano Valdobbiadene Prosecco Superiore.
Apricot pancakes and apricot (or peach) beer
Pancakes and beer might not sound like the most obvious of combinations but as with other flour-based foods such as sandwiches or pies they work together remarkably well. Especially, as I discovered when I was writing my food and beer book An Appetite for Ale last year, fruit-filled pancakes and fruit beers.
You could have a cherry-filled pancake with a Belgian Kriek beer for example but my favourite was an apricot filled pancake with a apricot or peach-flavoured beer. There is (or was. I haven’t seen it lately) an English apricot beer made by Melbourn Brothers but I prefer the Belgian peach-flavoured beers such as Timmermans Pèche or even Floris Mango or Passionfruit.
The interesting thing about beer, unlike wine, is that you can pair beer and food with a similar flavour profile. The carbonation in the beer refreshes the palate so that you can pick up the fruit flavours in both the food and the drink.
I’m not sure that I’d pair the classic British pancake day pancake with sugar and lemon juice with a beer though. In the past I’ve found a glass of Asti works reasonably well though I’m not sure, being comfort food, that they aren’t nicer just on their own. Or with a cup of tea.
Savoury pancakes and sparkling cider
The English - and very delicious - way with pancakes is to serve them with granulated sugar and lemon (a dessert that pairs well with gently sparkling, sweet Asti or Moscato d’Asti). But an even better match is the French - or more specifically Breton - tradition of serving savoury pancakes with sparkling cider, a vastly underrated drink.
In Brittany savoury pancakes or crèpes tend to be made with a proportion of buckwheat flour which gives them a nutty, savoury, faintly bitter flavour that picks up on the bitter apple notes in genuine farmhouse cider. Fillings such as cheese, ham and tricky-to-match spinach all work well.
When I was in France recently I was amazed at the range of artisanal ciders in the supermarkets, and at the ridiculously cheap prices they were charging - in some cases as little as 2 or 3 euros (£1.35-£2 or $2.60-$4) for a 75 cl bottle.
In the UK I’d recommend Duché de Longueville from Normandy (available from Sainsbury’s) or a home grown sparkling cider from Gospel Green, near Haselmere in Surrey (+44(0)1428 654120) which sells in local off-licences and farm shops and also from Partridges in London. It is also quite widely stocked in Brighton, they say.
RSS
Most popular
.jpg)
9 great wine pairings for duck (updated)
My latest book
How to Drink without DrinkingNews and views
.jpg)
Fine Wine and Fast Food
About Fiona
About Matching Food & Wine
Work with me
