Match of the week
Sausage rolls and champagne
The idea of drinking champagne with fast food might seem outrageous but you have to believe me it works!
In the past I’ve paired champagne successfully with popcorn, hot dogs, fried chicken and fish fingers - the discovery that it also matches with spicy pork and chorizo sausage rolls was a logical follow-on.
The eureka moment occurred at the Bon Vivant wine bar in Edinburgh last week when we ordered a (very well priced*) half bottle of Billecart Salmon NV to celebrate my birthday and some bar food to nibble with it. (We were eating out later on**.)
As well as the sausage rolls which also, I suspect, contained wine-loving fennel seeds, we had some anchovy beignets (fried food, like pastry, is always good with bubbly) and some venison salami on oatcakes which were less of a hit. I don’t think charcuterie has a particular affinity with champagne. You need something with more acidity.
It’s worth bearing in mind as a general rule that if a food pairs with a light beer or lager it’ll match with champagne. Salty, fatty, crispy foods are a good foil for fizz!
*£21 which is not much more than the retail price and far better value than buying 2 £9 glasses.
** At one of my favourite restaurants, Timberyard. You can read my review here.
Pork pie and pale ale
Today, being St George’s Day, what other pairing could I offer you but a classic British dish with a classic British beer?
Pork pies, for those of you who are unfamiliar with them are quintessential British pub grub, coarsely chopped or minced pork encased in crisp pastry. At least it should be crisp. Many pork pies suffer from spending days on a supermarket - or garage forecourt - chill counter so that the pastry become leaden and soggy.
A freshly baked pie, on the other hand is an irresistible treat. Just warm, oozing with savoury jelly, the meat sweet and flavoursome. The best come from the Leicestershire town of Melton Mowbray though I’ve had some wonderful pies from butchers in Yorkshire too. You can buy them online from Dickinson & Morris on www.porkpie.co.uk
The pale ale I would choose - and not simply because Madonna claims that it is her favourite beer - is Timothy Taylor's Landlord from Keighley in Yorkshire, a multi-award-winning, intensely hoppy brew that has four times been CAMRA (Campaign for Real Ale) Supreme Champion. Pale ale is the bottled version of the bitter you find in pubs so a best bitter would of course do equally well.
The match is so great because it contains two ingredients that pair brilliantly with traditional British ales, pork and pastry. Home made sausage rolls would be equally good.
Image by Elena Zajchikova at shutterstock.com
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