Introducing Eat This, Drink That

Many of you will have already discovered my new subscription newsletter Eat This, Drink That and might be wondering where the idea came from and how it fits in with Matching Food & Wine.

As you no doubt know Matching Food & Wine is free to read but as I hope you’re also aware a lot of work goes into it and it costs money to run in terms of web hosting, design, marketing and the small but brilliant behind the scenes team who keep it on the road. (Thankyou David, Monica, Helen and Chantal!)

Many of you have generously made a donation towards its running costs over the years but that only just covers the costs let alone creating enough income to develop and improve the site - or pay its author a living wage 😉 Newsletters, in particular, had become really expensive because of the significant size of our subscriber base.

Then I heard about Substack which is a platform designed to give readers the opportunity to fund writers whose work they enjoy and it really appealed to me. It also gave me the opportunity to write more than I currently do about food which is where I started my career in journalism and for my readers to get the benefit of the 30 plus years I’ve spent writing about food and drink.

So I decided to do one myself and Eat This, Drink That was born.

The basic offering is a weekly newsletter called The Friday 5 which goes out, as the name suggests, on a Friday and includes five different types of recommendation which change from week to week.

Most weeks there will be something to cook, a bottle and some ingredient or ready-made product you can buy but it will also include cookbooks, the odd cocktail, restaurants and hotels I’ve been grabbed by - in short, the kind of places and things on which I’d be prepared to spend my own money and encourage my friends to spend theirs.

There are other monthly posts including:

• Raise your Game (how to cook, eat and drink better. Here’s one on perfecting your gin and tonic for example and another on how to cook perfect fluffy rice.
• The ETDT recipe edit, (sifting through the hundreds of recipes out there so you don’t have to. I did one for Easter here and there's one coming shortly on recipes you might want to make for the Jubilee weekend,
• So you think you don’t like …a feature on food dislikes and how to overcome them. So far I've tackled mushrooms and chardonnay.

There will also be the occasional feature as the mood takes me such as this one on what to eat if you lose your sense of taste (from first-hand experience of having Covid recently).

Meanwhile Matching Food & Wine will continue to focus on its main aim of being the most comprehensive food and wine pairing site out there - at least I like to think so! And there will still be a monthly newsletter updating you on what’s recently been published on the site. And all for free but you can support it by subscribing to Eat This Drink That.

By the way there's a 25% discount on an annual membership until the end of May 2022, bringing it down to £27 a year or just £2.25 a month, less than the cost of a flat white . . . Or sign up to a monthly subscription at £4 a month - still only £1 a week!

If you’d like to get a clearer idea of what you'd be signing up for you can see some of the free posts I published in April here. (You may have to scroll down to find them!)

Hope you’ll come on board!

Pairing wine with Chinese cuisine

I’ve written before about pairing wine with Chinese food - and so have some of my contributors but here’s a slightly different way of going about it that may help you decide which bottle to choose and make your pairings more successful. It involves deciding which flavours are predominant in a dish or selection of dishes.

Of course dishes of different types tend to be put on the table at the same time but they tend to be grouped together. You rarely find a delicate seafood dish served alongside a stir fry of beef in black bean sauce, for example, so it makes sense, as it does for a Western meal, to open more than one bottle. Be guided by the most intensely flavoured dish you’ve cooked or ordered - this is the one that’s going to dominate any wine that you’re drinking.

Delicate seafood flavours, typical of Cantonese cuisine as in steamed dim sum, scallops, steamed whole fish: Minerally Sauvignon Blanc e.g. Sancerre, young Chablis and other young white burgundy, dry German or Austrian Riesling, Champagne

Deep fried dim sum and other snacks: sparkling wine.

Spicy noodles: Viognier

Sweet and sour dishes: Fruity rosé e.g. Merlot-based Bordeaux, Australian and Chilean rosés, Australian Semillon-Chardonnay blends

Duck dishes such as crispy duck with pancakes: New World Pinot Noir, Merlot and Merlot blends

Dishes in which ginger is a dominant note e.g. crab or lobster with ginger: Gewürztraminer

Black bean sauce: Rich, velvety but not too tannic reds e.g. Chilean or other ripe New World Cabernet, fruity Zinfandel

Barbecued dishes such as spare ribs: As above

Rich braised dishes, hotpots: More tannic reds such as Syrah or blends of Syrah, Grenache and Mourvèdre

Hot, fiery dishes typical of Szechuan cuisine: Wines with a touch of sweetness especially Alsace Pinot Gris and Gewürztraminer - even sweet wine - see Margaret Rand’s article on Tokaji

For further reading:

Heavenly Match: wine meets Chinese cuisine by Lau Chin Sun published by Moët Hennessy Diageo Hong Kong. Some interesting insights although all the wines are from the Moet Hennessy portfolio.

Wine with Asian Food: new frontiers in taste. Patricia Guy and Edwin Soon. 2007 Tide-Mark Press . A more comprehensively thought-out Pan-Asian approach with Old World and New World recommendations. Some intriguing suggestions e.g. Rioja Gran Reserva or Grange with stir-fried beef and peppers but an odd bias in favour of Italian wines (Guy lives in Italy)

Image by Elena Eryomenko at shutterstock.com

20 Christmas wine pairings to learn by heart

One of the most popular posts I’ve ever written on this site was one called 20 food and wine pairings to learn by heart - an easy reference guide to commit to memory.

Here’s a special Christmas version to help you through the next few days along with links to longer posts on the site which will give you more options

1. Smoked salmon + champagne or sauvignon blanc

Champagne is the more festive pairing but Sauvignon is the better match IMO.

2. Oysters + Chablis

A French tradition so a French wine. Muscadet and Picpoul de Pinet, both from oyster producing areas are also good options.

3. Duck (or chicken) liver parfait + pinot gris

I've chosen this in preference to foie gras as I don't personally eat it but like foie gras it can also take a wine with a touch of sweetness. You could even go for Sauternes or a similar sweet Bordeaux.

4. Seafood cocktail + Riesling

An off-dry riesling from, say, Washington State or New Zealand

5. Roast turkey + Rhone reds such as Chateauneuf du Pape

There are many other options but it's hard to beat this one.

6. Christmas ham + bright fruity reds such as shiraz or Beaujolais

The sweeter the glaze, the riper and fruitier the wine you need

7. Goose + Barolo or Chianti

Whites like spätlese riesling work too but most people would expect a red

8. Duck + Pinot Noir

Always works

9. Roast beef + Cabernet Sauvignon, red Bordeaux

Or, to tell the truth, almost any medium to full-bodied red you enjoy

10. Roast pork + Côtes du Rhône

Or, if you prefer a white and it's served with apple sauce , German or Alsace riesling

11. Baked salmon + white burgundy

Salmon and chardonnay is always a winner

12. Christmas pudding + muscat

Such as Muscat de Beaumes-de-Venise or (a bargain this) Moscatel de Valencia

13. Christmas cake + tawny port

Sweet oloroso sherry is good too

14. Mince pies + cream or oloroso sherry or sweet madeira

Or port if that's what you happen to have open.

15. Chocolate Yule log + black muscat

Or any other sweet red wine

16. Stollen + auslese or other sweet riesling

But do check out the other options which are great too!

17. Panettone + prosecco

Cook's treat!

18. Trifle + Moscato d'Asti

Depending on the trifle and how boozy it is! Check my full post for more options.

19. Stilton + vintage port

THE Christmas pairing. Other types of port like Late Bottled Vintage (LBV) and 10 y.o. tawny are good too

20. Vacherin Mont d’Or + vintage champagne

Not the classic pairing of the region but a great way to end a meal!

You may also find the original 20 food and wine pairings to learn by heart useful.

Is there any other pairing you regard as classic or wouldn't miss over the Christmas period?

Image copyright jasoncoxphotography at fotolia.com

What to drink in a heatwave

With temperatures well into the 30's this week it's not a bad idea to cut down on the alcohol. Here's how to make your drinks a little less boozy

Choose wines and beers that are naturally lower in alcohol

Mosel riesling - generally about 8-9% - is the obvious choice but may be a bit sweet for some. Portugal’s Vinho Verde, often at 10-11% might be more palatable if you’re used to a drier white and there are plenty of lighter reds around 12-12.5% if you look out for them, Beaujolais being a good example. Natural wines also tend to be lower in alcohol than conventionally made ones.

There are also many good no- and low-alcohol beers around such as Kernel’s Table Beer and The Small Beer Co’s Original Small Beer. See my recent Guardian column for other suggestions

Forget the oak

If your normal tipple is a full-bodied chardonnay or shiraz you might want to wait until the weather cools down a bit to enjoy them.

Dilute your drink

Almost anything you drink can be diluted, gin and tonic being the obvious example (though maybe make it a single rather than a double in this weather). Serve white wine as a spritzer by adding chilled soda or sparkling water to it and beer as a shandy. Sherry and white port are delicious with tonic too. Traditional long drinks such as Cinzano (or other ‘bianco’ style vermouths) and soda are also great in the summer.

9 wine cocktails with a summer twist

Chill everything

Not just your white wines and rosés but reds too. And if you’ve forgotten to put it in the fridge pop a couple of ice cubes into your glass, stir and take them straight out again. Or leave them in if you don’t mind a bit of dilution.

Freeze it

Yes, freeze your wine! Frosé (frozen rosé) was a thing a few years back and not a bad thing to bring back in this sweltering heat.

Stay hydrated

Finally even if you are drinking stay hydrated - with water rather than with fizzy drinks like Coke - you should be drinking at least 2 litres a day. If you find it unpalatable add a slice of lemon or a couple of slices of cucumber to your glass. Cold brew tea is also a refreshing alternative - do try it if you haven't.

Image by Pexels from Pixabay