Pairings | Crab
The best food pairings for dry Furmint
All countries like to boast that their signature grape variety goes with practically everything but in the case of Hungary’s furmint it’s true.
With “the aromatics of sauvignon blanc, the rich mouthfeel of chardonnay and the vibrant acidity of riesling” as my colleague Tim Atkin neatly puts it it really is a take-me-anywhere wine.
Hungary of course has a great gastronomic tradition of its own so you could obviously drink it with everything from foie gras which is hugely popular in the country to chicken paprikash.
But its rare combination of lushness and searing acidity makes it an incredibly good partner for the dishes that involve sweet and savoury elements that you often find in Asian cuisines and in Moroccan tagines. I reckon it would work with many Chinese, Korean, Burmese and Thai recipes that mingle hot, sour and sweet.
And at a recent online tasting, sommelier Isa Bal and Jonny Lake of Trivet played around with Japanese tastes and flavours using miso, sesame and kombu (seaweed) in their presentation.
I confess I’m still in the process of learning about this rather miraculous variety which you also find in Austria and Slovakia but some avenues you might want to explore are:
With fresh unoaked young furmints
Like other crisp white wines it would go with simply cooked fish and shellfish especially crab and prawns.
Smoked and cured fish like this beetroot cured salmon with horseradish I wrote about a while ago
Chicken with a creamy or herby sauce such as this Pot roast chicken with herby crème fraîche from Olia Hercules.
Sushi and tempura (Isa Bal suggested tempura of red mullet and sea vegetables (kombu) with a sweet and sour dip)
Salads and vegetable dishes that include citrus, especially orange
Lightly pickled vegetables
White asparagus
Goats’ or young sheep cheeses
You could also take a look at these pairings with Chablis which should work with lighter styles of furmint too.
With richer styles with oak or a few years maturity
Chicken or duck liver parfait (Ronan Sayburn and Marcus Verberne of 67 Pall Mall pair it with a chicken liver parfait with an orchard fruit compote of quince, pear, peach and apple in their book Wine and Food.
Seared scallops
Grilled or roast lobster
Roast goose
Duck à l’orange
Roast celeriac
Pork belly
Moroccan tagines
Aged Comté or Gruyère
Umami-rich Japanese or Japanese-influenced dishes (see above)
Off-dry styles which would still classify as dry rather than sweet should work with milder curries and, according to Hungarian wine expert Caroline Gilby, with chicken katsu! (In his book Tastebuds and Molecules Francois Chartier identifies a compound called sotolon which is present in curry powder and fenugreek and also in sweet wines such as Tokaji Aszú, Hungary’s famous sweet wine.
For more on late harvest furmints see The best food pairings for Tokai Aszu.
The wines shown above were provided as press samples by Wines of Hungary
The best wines to pair with crab
Crab is one of the most delicious kinds of shellfish and the perfect foil for a crisp white wine. But there are other crab dishes that pair better with a fuller-bodied white or even a red.
In this post I’ll dive into my top wine pairings for different preparations of crab, including popular dishes like
- Dressed crab
- Crab bisque
- Thai crab cakes
- Deep fried softshell crab
As always, it’s not just about the crab but how it’s prepared and the other flavours involved...
Top wine pairings with crab
Dressed crab
You want to be able to taste the delicate meat so I’d suggest a classic Chablis or fine white burgundy such as Puligny-Montrachet. (The same would apply to fresh crab sandwiches or a simple crab salad though I might well pick a Sancerre or Pouilly Fumé for the latter, especially if it included asparagus. See also this match with 17 year old Muscadet!)
Linguine with crab
Quite a spicy recipe that usually includes garlic and red chilli and occasionally lemon. You could drink a citrussy (rather than a herbaceous) Sauvignon Blanc or a dry Kabinett Riesling with it but I’d go for a good quality Pinot Grigio, Soave or Albariño.
Crab bisque
Rich and luxurious this recipe normally contains cream and cognac as well as having a dominant flavour of brown crab meat - a good opportunity to crack open a seriously good barrel-fermented Chardonnay with a couple of years’ bottle age. White Rhône and Languedoc blends of Roussanne, Marsanne and Viognier work well too.
Thai crab cakes
My choice would depend on whether I was having these as a snack on their own or as part of a Thai meal. If it was the former I’d go for a dry Riesling or a Loire Sauvignon Blanc. With the latter I’d look for a wine with slightly more sweetness such as a Pinot Gris or a spätlese Riesling. Witbier is the other great pick as you’ll see from this Match of the Week.
Maryland crab cakes
The classic American crab cake, much richer than the Thai ones, but with a spicy kick. Unoaked or lightly oaked Chardonnay would be the safe choice but I’m not sure I wouldn’t reach for an Albariño.
Crab, saffron and leek quiche
Saffron is the key in this Rick Stein recipe. I love Viognier and Viognier blends with saffron-infused dishes so I’d go for that.
Deep-fried soft shell crabs
Sometimes these are served with a strong punchy dressing but I think, if you want to appreciate the delicate flavour of the crab, it’s better to serve them relatively simply. As with other deep-fried foods they go fantastically well with champagne and other sparkling wines.
Crab in black bean sauce
Always a tricky one as black bean sauce is so pungent but I came across a brilliant match at the Four Seasons hotel in Park Lane where chef Tak of Lung King Heen, the Cantonese restaurant at the Four Seasons Hong Kong was cooking for a week to celebrate the Chinese New Year.
His version was the best crab in black bean sauce I’ve ever eaten - deep and aromatic in flavour, sweet but not cloying. It was matched with a decent but not exceptional Mud House Pinot Noir from New Zealand and the pairing was spot on. I suspect you’d need a fuller, richer Pinot with most commercial black bean sauces.
Image by Larisa Blinova at shutterstock.com
The best food pairings with white burgundy
White burgundy includes a multitude of wines from generic bourgogne blanc to the grandeur of a Bâtard-Montrachet or Corton-Charlemagne. But it’s the affordable wines that I’m focussing on in this post. What type of food do they pair with best?
White burgundy - and that includes Chablis - is of course chardonnay but ranges from the lean minerality of Chablis (which I’ve dealt with in a separate post on food and Chablis) to the sumptuous richness of a Meursault.
The two things that will affect your food pairing is whether the wine is oaked and the age of the wine. Oh, and the price. It’s safe to assume, barring some Chablis, that most of the more expensive wines will have received some oak ageing. Oak-aged wines like Meursault can carry richer sauces or deeply savoury dishes like roast chicken - and even turkey. But to sum it up in one word you’re on safe ground with dairy, especially cream and butter.
Anything buttery
Fish cooked in butter (like sole meunière), a buttery roast chicken, buttery sauces like hollandaise or béarnaise, potted shrimps (a British delicacy - small brown shrimps preserved in spiced (generally mace and a touch of cayenne) butter). The richer the dish the fuller-bodied wine it can take.
Creamy and even slightly cheesy sauces
So dishes like chicken pot pie, chicken with a creamy mushroom sauce or fish pie - or a cauliflower cheese (see below). Random discovery - bacon with a parsley sauce is magnificent with Meursault!
Simply cooked fish
Most fish pairs well with white burgundy but salmon - cooked simply rather than, say, given the teriyaki treatment is particularly good. That includes salmon fishcakes
Wine with salmon: 10 ways to serve salmon and the wines to pair with them
Seared scallops
Good - as you can see here - when you have a classy white burgundy such as a Puligny-Montrachet (or cheaper Saint-Aubin) to show off
Top wine pairings with scallops
Crab
Delicate white crabmeat is lovely with a young unoaked or subtly oaked white burgundy. Brown crabmeat, particularly served baked with cheese is better with a richer or more mature one
Which wines would you pair with crab?
Mushrooms
Think button or wild mushrooms such as chanterelles rather than dark, richly flavoured porcini or portobello ones which tend to be better with a red burgundy. White burgundy is great matched with a mushroom risotto (but that’s back to that creamy texture again) or even mushrooms on toast.
Which wines pair best with mushrooms?
Cauliflower purée or soup
Cooked cauliflower with a degree of caramelisation really shows off a good white burgundy. So it’s perfect for a dish that includes cauliflower purée, a cauliflower soup or on-trend cauliflower steaks.
The best wine pairings for cauliflower
Braised fennel
The ideal side to enhance the match with a good piece of fish. Fennel purée does the trick too
Chalky cheeses
Like Caerphilly and Chaource. White burgundy can be a great pairing with cheese provided it’s not too strong.
For more food pairing ideas see
Six of the best matches for Bacchus and Bacchus-based wine blends
If you've bough a bottle of English wine to celebrate St George's Day or English Wine Week you may be wondering what sort of food suits it best.
Chances are it may be Bacchus, a cross between Müller Thurgau and Silvaner-Riesling that tastes quite similar to a sauvignon blanc. It works well with the sort of food that pairs with sauvignon but is usually a degree or so lighter in alcohol so may not be able to cope with such intense flavours. English whites also have a delicate elderflower character which makes me think of classic summery English food.
Here are six pairings I think work really well.
*fresh goats cheese and goats cheese salads. Just as sauvignon loves goats cheese so do English whites
*spring vegetables such as asparagus, peas and broad beans - such as this dish of asparagus with gnocchi and a wild garlic pesto.
*fresh seafood particularly crab salads or sandwiches and prawns
*other light salads without powerfully flavoured dressings - a seafood or chicken salad for example or even a fresh tomato salad
*poached or grilled salmon without a rich sauce. (Mayonnaise is fine. So is cucumber which is lovely with this style of wine)
*light fish dishes like the celery risotto with Westcombe cheddar and smoked haddock I had at Pump House in Bristol a while back. Simply pan-fried or grilled fish is perfect too.
Photo ©Linda at fotolia.com
The best food matches with New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc
The flavours of New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc - and this is why it is so popular - are powerful and aromatic: citrus, gooseberry and passionfruit in spades. So you if you're looking for a food match need big flavours on your plate to stand up to it.
Here are my top suggestions:
Asian-style seafood dishes - oysters, scallops, crab, clams, lobster, prawns - any shellfish with zingy flavours or a citrus or garlic marinade or dressing. (Big fat garlicky prawns - mmmm).
Thai food generally. A Thai green chicken curry or a Thai-style chicken salad is ace.
Grilled fish especially squid* or swordfish.
Dishes with herbs and greens - salmon with dill, for instance, but great with recipes that contain basil, coriander, rocket and especially mint.
Salads with goats cheese and feta, asparagus, avocado or grilled red peppers, fresh tomato salads or salads with fennel, mango or papaya. (A great suggestion from Canadian wine pairing expert Francois Chartier: add a tabbouleh to a salad selection to show off a sauvignon blanc.)
Other good matches (though I personally prefer a less assertive style of sauvignon with them) include smoked salmon, fish and chips and oily fish such as mackerel and sardines.
Dishes that don't work so well are ones with creamy sauces or cooked tomato or, more obviously, meaty dishes with gravy or dark savoury sauces
* Basically if you see big flavoured fusion dishes like these (from Peter Gordon’s Kopapa, which has sadly now closed) reach for a New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc:
Deep-fried sesame Urfa chilli salted squid, sumac aïoli, caramelised peanuts & cucumber
Fregola, chorizo & lemon stuffed squid, avocado puree, white radicchio, caper & mustard slaw, chervil vinaigrette
RSS
Most popular
12 great wine pairings with salmon
My latest book
How to Drink without DrinkingNews and views
What to drink in a heatwave
About Fiona
About Matching Food & Wine
Work with me
