Steak and Trousseau

'Hmmm, steak and red wine - nothing particularly original about that' you might be thinking but bear with, as they say.

Trousseau which comes from the Arbois region of eastern France is a much lighter red wine than those you would probably normally think of pairing with steak and in this case - a 2018 from Domaine des Bodines I was sent as part of the September selection from a new set-up called Oranj - a natural wine to boot.

The steak - a recipe from Sabrina Ghayour’s excellent new book Simply* wasn’t cooked conventionally either but cut into cubes, rolled in a spicy dry rub, seared and served with labneh (soft cheese), pul biber (chilli) butter and crispy onions. So not the kind of steakhouse steak that sets off a cabernet to perfection.

In fact it was the freshness of the wine that worked particularly well with the spicing offset by the smooth creaminess of the labneh. Which goes to show, as I’m always saying, that it’s the way you cook a dish and the flavours you put with your base ingredient that determines the wine match

You can order the September selection from Oranj which contains other natural wines from the French side of the Jura mountains, online at oranj.co.uk. And listen to this track while you're drinking it!

See also The best wine pairings for steak

*Here is one of the other delicious recipes from the book - yoghurt and spice-roasted salmon.

I was sent the wine as a press sample and the book as a review copy.