Pairings | Courgettes

 The best wines to pair with courgettes or zucchini

The best wines to pair with courgettes or zucchini

There’a a fair chance that if you grow courgettes - or zucchini - you’re eating more than your fair share of them at this time of year but what wine should you drink with them?

The best food pairings for assyrtiko

The best food pairings for assyrtiko

There are few grapes that bring Greece to mind like Assyrtiko, the saline wonder of the Cyclades. But what do you pair with it? As often, the answer depends on the winemaking style and terroir, because there is not one Assyrtiko (I should know, I recently tried 80 of them.)

 Spaghetti with courgettes, basil, smoked almonds and Bordeaux rosé

Spaghetti with courgettes, basil, smoked almonds and Bordeaux rosé

I was sent a really unusual rosé the other day from biodynamic Bordeaux wine estate Chateau le Puy, their 2019 Rose-Marie.

Prawns with Ouzo, Orzo and Courgette

Prawns with Ouzo, Orzo and Courgette

A really lovely summery dish from Marianna Leivaditaki of Morito's Aegean: Recipes from the Mountains to the Sea. The tip of roasting the prawn shells before you make the stock is genius though, having made it, I think you can get away with using fewer of the other ingredients in the stock - see my note at the bottom of the recipe.

Courgette and feta fritters with yogurt

Courgette and feta fritters with yogurt

For those whose courgettes (zucchini) just won't stop producing here's the perfect way to use them from Tom Hunt's lovely book The Natural Cook.

Mezze and a Palestinian white wine

Mezze and a Palestinian white wine

Finding a Palestinian restaurant in London is unusual enough but discovering a Palestinian wine to go with the food is beyond all expectations

Wines - and other drinks - to match recipes from the Ottolenghi Cookbook

Wines - and other drinks - to match recipes from the Ottolenghi Cookbook

The book I’ve been looking forward to most so far this year has just started being serialised in the Guardian today. It’s by Yotam Ottolenghi who founded two exceptional London restaurants and is simply called Ottolenghi: the Cookbook. l love Ottolenghi's food - it’s so generous and big-flavoured, piled high on bright, colourful platters - you can't fail to be tempted by it. It also lends itself perfectly to entertaining for large numbers at home.

Spring vegetable tart with mustard cream and watercress

Spring vegetable tart with mustard cream and watercress

If you're looking for an impressive vegetarian centrepiece to a spring meal this lovely light recipe from Signe Johansen's and Peter's Yard's book Smörgåsbord, is perfect though if you serve it on its own I think it would probably only feed 4-6! (Only 4 in my family!)

Gazpacho, oak-smoked tomatoes and smoked vodka

Gazpacho, oak-smoked tomatoes and smoked vodka

I love it when a restaurant lays on an imaginative drink pairing and this was a terrific one from Ben Cooke at Little Gloster just outside Cowes on the Isle of Wight.

 Pistachio pesto and solaris

Pistachio pesto and solaris

One of the best food pairing experiences I’ve come across in a winery is the one laid on by Hebron vineyard in West Wales.

Domaine Gueguen Sacy Cepage Confidentiel Coteaux Bourguignons 2018

Domaine Gueguen Sacy Cepage Confidentiel Coteaux Bourguignons 2018

It’s always a thrill to come across a grape variety you don’t know, especially from an area with which you’re fairly familiar and when it adds another dimension to the wines already on offer there.

Salt cod croquettes and zero dosage champagne

Salt cod croquettes and zero dosage champagne

Even after all this time we still don’t often think of champagne in the context of a meal but a brilliant Champagne Leclerc Briant dinner I went to last week at Berry Bros & Rudd underlined that we might be missing a trick.

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