Cured and smoked pig jowl with Partizan IPA

I’ve highlighted the affinity of pork and IPA before but it’s good to be reminded just what a brilliant pairing it is.

Despite the excellent wine list the menu at the new Pitt Cue Co in the city actually cries out for a beer so we started with a Dr Rudi Lager from the Cloudwater Brew Co in Manchester (great with the grilled ‘kraut and smoked eel cream) and moved on to a Partizan IPA with the cured and smoked pig jowl and sides including an unctious bowl of mushroom and bone marrow mash and salt-baked celeriac and Isle of Mull. The sweetness (and strength) of the 7% beer was perfect with the slightly salty smoky pork. They’ll also be brewing their own beer shortly.

If you liked Pitt Cue in its previous incarnation you’ll love this new bigger version. Oh, and don’t miss the chicken and cep sausage.

Disclosure: I ate at Pitt Cue as a guest of the restaurant.

Turkish coffee cake and espresso

I was casting around for a dessert to make for friends on Saturday when I remembered this fantastic coffee cake from chef Margot Henderson’s book You’re all Invited. I suppose it’s more of a mid-morning or tea-time treat but I sometimes prefer cake to a full-blown pudding at the end of a rich meal.

It’s not as intensely coffee-flavoured as it sounds from the name. There’s a shedload of soft brown sugar - and sour cream - in the recipe which makes it taste quite fudgy (did I say it was light? Er, hem…) but you get that nice dark rich coffee taste without it being at all bitter.

I paired it on the night with a Noval 10 year old tawny port but it would also have been delicious with an Aussie port drinkalike like the D’Arenberg Nostalgia Rare Tawny or with a sweet oloroso sherry, madeira or marsala. But I enjoyed it most the following morning when I scoffed a piece for breakfast with a cup of espresso (which I always dilute with a bit of hot water). A black Americano would also hit the spot.

I do urge you to get the book which full of equally lovely recipes and quite delightful. You can read about Margot who happends to be married to Fergus Henderson of St John here or visit her restaurant Rochelle's Canteen which I'm ashamed to say I've so far not managed to get to.

Chicken korma and viognier

I spent last week on the road in Ireland with wine importer Febvre hosting food and wine matching events for some of their restaurant customers. We covered a lot of ground from Enniskillen to Cork taking in Belfast, Galway and Dublin on the way and enjoyed a lot of amazing food matches.

How to pick just one? Well that IS difficult but I’m going for a really unusual presentation of chicken korma at a brilliant Indian restaurant called Ananda on the outskirts of Dublin.

They serve their food in a very unconventional way - first of all as separate courses rather than putting all the dishes on the table at the same time and secondly, by plating the meat elegantly and serving the sauce separately (see below for their normal plating). So this was a chicken korma unlike those you would have tasted before with an elegant piece of marinated grilled chicken and a rich indulgently creamy sauce alongside.

On the basis that the dish contained saffron I’d opted for a viognier, the Triennes Viognier Sainte Fleur 2014 from Provence and it worked brilliantly with the sauce. (With the dish on its own, interestingly. which also had a smear of beetroot purée we found a Henry Fessy Brouilly was an equally good match.)

Triennes, incidentally, is a collaboration between two top Burgundian winemakers, Jacques Seysses of Domaine Dujac and Aubert de Villaine of Domaine de la Romanée Conti. You can buy the viognier online in the UK from The Vinorium for what I think is the very reasonable price of £15. It’s also quite heavenly with Vacherin Mont d’Or!

Photo (not of the original dish at Ananda) © paul_brighton at fotolia.com

Tamworth belly ribs and 2006 Qupé Roussanne

Sometimes the best matches are the unexpected ones. I was (shameless plug alert) helping the team at my son’s restaurant Hawksmoor select wines for a dinner to celebrate their 10th anniversary which will feature some of the classic dishes they’ve had on the menu since the early days.

One was Tamworth Belly Ribs which I remembered as a rich, sticky, American style pork rib. I was almost sure a lush red like grenache would be the ideal match but it turned out the dish had evolved into a lighter, more Asian style of dish and that the ribs were now accompanied by a punchy slaw.

It suggested a white rather than a red so Hawksmoor’s wine buyer Becca pulled out a range of options including this 2006 Roussanne from Qupé's Bien Nacido Hillside Estate*, a Californian producer who has also been on the winelist since the early days. It was absolutely stunning, partly because of the age of the wine but also its intensity and concentration (it’s a none-too-timid 14.5%).

For those of you in the restaurant business it goes to show you need to keep an eye on the wine pairings you recommend for signature dishes. Chef may have changed them while you weren't looking!

* and from the website it doesn't look as if they are actually making it any more