Smashed potatoes and low alcohol IPA

You might not think that potatoes merited a pairing on their own account but then i guess you haven’t tried making Poppy O’Toole’s rosemary and garlic sharers.

Poppy is a young British chef who has amassed an incredible social media following for her immoderate love of potatoes and I don’t use the word incredible lightly. She has 1.8 MILLION followers on TikTok where she posts as poppycooks.

This is one of her recipes which if you’re not a subscriber to Tiktok you’ll find on Instagram (@poppy_cooks) and it’s basically super-crisp parmesan and rosemary crusted potatoes dunked in a parmesan, garlic and mayo dip. Which is as good as it sounds

I wouldn’t say I’d found the ultimate pairing for them (I’m leaning towards champagne though have yet to try out the combination) but can report that a well-chilled can of the impressively hoppy Green Light Quarter IPA - a 1.2% alcohol beer from Powderkeg - hit the spot nicely.

No and low-alcohol beers are getting so good these days.

And this may be the ultimate beer snack.

Photo © Nick Austin

Pumpkin ravioli and sparkling albarino

Having ended up unexpectedly in hospital last week I struggled a bit to find a match of the week. Water doesn’t make the most inspiring pairing for food although it (the food in hospital) isn't by any means as bad as it used to be. So I’ll tell you about the the dish I had before I was taken ill.

It was a guest lunch at The Seahorse in Dartmouth cooked by Angela Hartnett and featured one of her wonderful silky pastas - ravioli stuffed (I vaguely recall) with pumpkin and hazelnuts and scattered with lavish amounts of parmesan.

I wouldn’t say it was the perfect match with the glass of sparkling albarino I was drinking, an ultra-dry Albarino Brut Nature, from Mar de Frades which was probably designed to go with the antipasti but it was certainly good enough. I also loved the intelligent wine list which is divided up by price.

If you want to try Angela’s food - and you should - visit one of her Cafe Muranos in London in St James’s Street and Covent Garden. Or Murano itself though that's quite a bit more expensive.

Rheinhessen silvaner and penne with tomatoes and peppers

I must confess I’ve never associated German wines with pasta dishes especially ones based on summer vegetables like tomatoes and peppers but then I haven’t come across many genuinely dry German wines in Italian restaurants before.

This was our lunch on the first day of my current trip to Germany at Weingut Brüder Dr. Becker who make biodynamic wines in the village of Ludgwigshöhe in the Rheinhessen.

They make a couple of silvaners - a local grape for the region - both dry: a simple crisp fruity ‘Grüner Silvaner’ and a village wine - the Ludwigshöhe Silvaner which is fermented in large wooden vats and left on its lees for greater complexity. Neither, sadly, is available in the UK at the moment.

For lunch they laid out a summery spread of gazpacho and big dishes of vegetable pasta, obviously made with locally grown ingredients. As well as the penne, which was quite piquant, there was a linguine with chanterelles, chives and parmesan. Oh, and a generous bowl of freshly made pesto to spoon over them.

The silvaners were similar to drinking dry Italian whites - i.e. a very good match. Their rieslings went well too but I’ll be posting some more thoughts on matching German riesling after the trip.

Rocket and parmesan salad with dry amontillado sherry

I've taken recently to combining my salad course and cheese course. Over the years, influenced by the time we've spent in France, we've picked up the habit of following our main course with a salad and nowadays I prefer - and it's cheaper - to eat one cheese at a time.

My favourite combination is a rocket and parmesan salad - the peppery rocket and salty parmesan, which I shave over the top, just go so well together. I've been using some fabulous 22 year old parmesan which has a real depth of flavour and dress the salad lightly with an olive oil and balsamic vinegar dressing

It's a salad that works pretty well with whatever red wine you're drinking but the other day I thought I'd dry it with a dry amontillado sherry - nothing special just one in the Waitrose own label range - and it added a whole other dimension, almost like adding grilled nuts to the salad. With a nice little touch of sweetness, even though the sherry is technically dry.

Very easy to do at home - do try it!

Image © Maksim Shebeko - Fotolia.com