Cauliflower popcorn and a Seedlip and pineapple cocktail

Most pairings focus on alcoholic drinks but it’s equally intriguing to see how a similar synergy can be achieved with an alcohol-free one.

Last week I tried out the new vegan menu at the Ravinder Bhogal residency at The Perception bar at the W hotel and wasn’t really in the mood for wine so we chose the ‘soft’ option on the cocktail menu, a cocktail called Naked which was based on the non-alcoholic ‘spirit’ Seedlip Spice 94. It wasn’t actually vegan as it contained egg white but wasn’t billed as such either (there were vegan wine options). Other ingredients were lemon juice, pineapple juice, peach purée, ginger & lemongrass and a walnut garnish.

Being refreshingly fruity and not too sweet it actually paired well with almost all the dishes we tried but particularly with what has already become the most talked about dish on the menu - the cauliflower ‘popcorn’ with Thai basil tempura and a black vinegar and chilli dip. Appropriately enough as it's the perfect bar snack.

I also particularly liked it with the summer rolls, the beetroot and walnut kibbeh and the tempura inari. (Ravinder, who owns the restaurant Jikoni, is playing with a wide palette of Asian flavours not just Indian ingredients in this pop-up).

You can eat her vegan menu at The Perception which is just off Leicester Square until the end of June. I ate there as a guest of the W hotel.

Dessert wine pairing: ‘Sweet Thai Green Curry’ with Lapeyre Jurancon

This wine pairing may sound difficult to get your head round - let’s face it, it is! - but it was a very clever dessert at the 3 star De Librije in Zwolle, Holland last week

Basically it was a fruit salad with Thai seasoning - mango, pineapple, sweet basil, galangal, wasabi meringues and green curry ice-cream according to my hastily scrawled notes with what tasted like a light but fiery ginger beer syrup. Served very cold on an ice pack in case you’re wondering what that is in the picture.

It paired perfectly with a light lush Jurancon from Clos Lapeyre - the 2009 ‘La Magendia’, a blend of Petit Manseng, Gros Manseng and Courbu. You can buy it in the UK from Ellis Wharton (it's currently on offer for £11.75 a half bottle), £14 from Bottle Apostle or £21.17 a full bottle from Wine Bear amongst others (see wine-searcher.com for other stockists).

Obviously this is a dish you’re not going to be easily able to replicate - unless you’re a three star chef - but it suggests that a tropical fruit salad with ginger or chilli might well work with the same type of wine.

Tipsy cake, roast pineapple and Chateau d’Yquem

Let’s face it, I don’t get to drink Chateau d’Yquem every day so what else could last week’s match of the week be than this stellar pairing I had at Dinner at Heston Blumenthal?

It was a dessert called tipsy cake which has been on the menu since the restaurant opened. Hard to describe - it’s a bit like a superlight sugary brioche with a layer of gorgeous gooey Sauternes-laced sauce underneath and is served with spit-roast pineapple. That was the key to the match bringing out all the apricot and tropical fruit flavours in the 2011 Yquem we were tasting. The dessert is dated 1810 but I bet they didn’t produce such a delicious version as that in those days - as Heston acknowledges in this video.

As I mentioned the other day in my post on whether great wine needs to be aged as long as we think it does it was extraordinary to be served an Yquem as young as that. Instinctively it seemed like baby-snatching but it couldn’t have been more delicious.

It may be worth applying that principle to cheaper Sauternes and similar sweet Bordeaux wines. And maybe thinking of roast pineapple when you next want to create a knock-out wine pairing for Yquem should you be fortunate enough to find yourself in that position . . .

I ate at Dinner as a guest of Chateau d’Yquem.

Ham and Barossa Semillon

Thos of you of a certain age may remember that great ‘70s favourite ham and pineapple which conisisted of a large limp gammon steak, curling at the edges and a couple of fried pineapple rings. From a tin. There was one thing that was good about the dish though and that is that ham and pineapple are great together, something we’ve rather forgotten in these more sophisticated times.

It works too with Barossa Semillon which has a powerful pineapple flavour of its own. I discovered a 10 year old bottle, an inexpensive Peter Lehmann, at the weekend when I was clearing out the wine store and was amazed to find just how lush and rich it still was. I knew Semillon aged but it’s Hunter Valley Semillon that has the reputation for longevity not the Barossa and that matures in quite a different way - more like a Riesling.

If you want to repeat the experience you obviously don’t have to drink such a venerable bottle - a rich young Barossa Semillon will do nicely. Keep the ham - hot or cold - relatively plain like a good old fashioned glazed joint of gammon and serve in thick chunky slices. Resist the temptation to put tinned pineapple slices with it or they’ll knock out the pineapple flavours in the wine. Not that you would anyway . . .

Image © viperagp - Fotolia.com