Pairings | Stew

Six of the best food pairings for Australian Shiraz

Six of the best food pairings for Australian Shiraz

What most people probably think of in terms of Australian red wine is a Barossa or McLaren Vale shiraz - big, lush, sweet and ripe, the ideal pairing for grilled or barbecued beef. Hunter Valley shiraz typically has a more savoury character that suits meats like venison and kangaroo while Western Australian shiraz is made in a more elegant style, almost like a red Bordeaux, making it a good pairing for lamb.

 How to pair wine with fish

How to pair wine with fish

Advertisement feature Fish can be cooked so many different ways these days that you may wonder what kind of wine you should pair with it.

Wine and lamb: my 5 favourite pairings

Wine and lamb: my 5 favourite pairings

It’s tough to say what the best wine matches for lamb are - it’s served so many different ways and there are so many wines (mainly red) that work but here are my five favourites.

The best food pairings for white rioja

The best food pairings for white rioja

White rioja is tricky when it comes to wine pairing as it comes in such contrasting styles. There are the crisp fresh unoaked white riojas which behave much like a sauvignon blanc and much richer barrel-fermented ones which can tackle more intensely-flavoured fish and meat dishes

The best food pairings for Pinotage

The best food pairings for Pinotage

Like any other red South Africa's Pinotage comes in different styles - some lighter and fruitier than others. When you're matching it with food you take a cue from the sort of ingredients and dishes that go with its two ancestors - Pinot Noir and Cinsault.

Root Vegetable Stew with Herb and Mustard Dumplings

Root Vegetable Stew with Herb and Mustard Dumplings

If you've been experimenting with vegan food this January or 'veganuary' as it's been dubbed you'll know that vegan food doesn't have to be insubstantial or, indeed uninteresting. For those of you who remain to be convinced here's a hearty stew from Rachel Demuth of Demuth's Cookery School in Bath which contains both cider and sherry!

Layered sweet and sour beef stew (Lah'meh Fil Meh'leh)

Layered sweet and sour beef stew (Lah'meh Fil Meh'leh)

So many cookbooks these days have similar dishes that it's great to come across one that includes recipes you won't find elsewhere. That's absolutely the case with Eat Share Love a collection of recipes and stories from the home cooks of Bristol's 91 language communities collated by food writer and campaigner Kalpna Woolf.

Moqueca baiana (Bahia-style fish stew)

Moqueca baiana (Bahia-style fish stew)

If you're inspired to cook Brazilian with the Olympics kicking off this weekend try this classic fish stew from Thiago Castanho and Luciana Bianchi's Brazilian Food.

West African pork and peanut stew with Heartland Dolcetto & Lagrein

West African pork and peanut stew with Heartland Dolcetto & Lagrein

Quite an adventurous pairing this week which you might have thought on paper wouldn’t come off. A hot, spicy pork and peanut stew and a glass of Ben Glaetzer’s bold, ripe 2010 Heartland Dolcetto & Lagrein from South Australia's Langhorne Creek.

Beef stew and Bordeaux

Beef stew and Bordeaux

Coming home to the UK after 10 days in the Caribbean was a bit of a shock to the system especially when we were snowed in on Friday so I leapt at a neighbour’s invitation to come round for a hearty beef stew.

Spicy lamb stew with Coonawarra Cabernet

Spicy lamb stew with Coonawarra Cabernet

I’m aware that there’s a Francophile bias to this site but there are recipes where I automatically turn to the New World. The spicy lamb dish I picked up the other night from my local restaurant and takeaway Culinaria is one of them - a hottish tagine-style dish of spiced lamb, aubergines, chickpeas & merguez sausage which was almost on the verge of being a curry.

Monkfish, chorizo, saffron and chickpea stew

Monkfish, chorizo, saffron and chickpea stew

One of the things I’ve been trying to do in the current crisis is to support local producers and importers who are obviously affected by the closing down of restaurants and pubs.

Young red rioja and menestra (Spanish vegetable stew)

Young red rioja and menestra (Spanish vegetable stew)

Of all the great food and wine pairings I experienced in Rioja last week this was the most unexpected.

Les-Baux-de-Provence and civet de sanglier (wild boar stew)

Les-Baux-de-Provence and civet de sanglier (wild boar stew)

I went to a great little bistro the other day in St-Rémy-de-Provence called - appropriately enough - Bistro Découverte. It’s run by a very talented young sommelier I used to know in London called Claude Douard who worked for Marco Pierre White and Joel Rebuchon.

Fish stew and an oaked Valencian white wine

Fish stew and an oaked Valencian white wine

As those of you who follow me on instagram will know I’ve been in Valencia for the past two weeks, trying to improve my Spanish which hasn’t left a great deal of time for considered food and wine pairing but this was a great match at a restaurant called Rausell in the city centre.

Beef stew and oloroso sherry

Beef stew and oloroso sherry

Last week I was at the Copa Jerez, an international wine and food competition where teams pair a 3 course menu with sherry.

 Vinsobres with wild boar stew and chestnut polenta

Vinsobres with wild boar stew and chestnut polenta

You’d expect a Southern Rhône red to go with wild boar but in fact it was the chestnut polenta that made the match with this former Côtes du Rhône ‘cru’ so successful

Zarzuela

Zarzuela

A robust Spanish fish stew from Stevie Parle's fabulous new Dock Kitchen Cookbook. Stevie is one of the best -travelled and most original chefs in London with a well-honed magpie tendency of picking up ingredients and techniques from every country he visits. He also writes a weekly column in the Daily Telegraph.

Navarin of lamb

Navarin of lamb

I made this simple, classic French one-pot meal down in the Languedoc in April last year - proof that a stew hits the spot at what can still be a chilly time of year.

Moqueca and Caiprinhas

Moqueca and Caiprinhas

Last week our local tapas bar, Ocean, held a Brazilian evening with a talented local Bristol singer Frances Butt who is really into Latin music. (So much so that she has issued an album called The Girl from Wolverhampton - where she grew up though obviously not where her soul lies . . .)

Menestra

Menestra

I first had this wonderful vegetable stew - a northern Spanish equivalent of a spring vegetable minestrone - in a restaurant in Pamplona and dreamed about it for several years before managing to recreate it.

Which wines to drink on St Patrick's Day

Which wines to drink on St Patrick's Day

It’s hard to avoid the obvious on St Paddy’s Day. Guinness, Bailey’s and Irish whiskey are the usual suspects but if none of these appeals here are the sort of wines that will work with classic Irish fare.

Rabbit stifado

Rabbit stifado

A robust, winey stew from Rebecca Seal's mouthwatering new book, The Islands of Greece which immediately makes you want to jump on a plane and fly off there. Top tip about cooking rabbit too.

Matching fish soup

Matching fish soup

I’m a huge fan of Nigel Slater’s. I buy the Observer every week just to read his recipes. Yes, I know I could read them online (as you can here) but you don’t get the luscious Jonathan Lovekin photographs. Not that you need them. Slater’s prose is so evocative you can taste the recipe as you read.

Haggis and Westmalle Dubbel

Haggis and Westmalle Dubbel

If you’re going to or hosting a Burns’ Night dinner tonight and want to create a bit of a stir, crack open a bottle of Westmalle Dubbel, a classic Belgian Trappist ale that is still made by monks at the monastery of Westmalle. You could of course drink a Scottish beer - there are plenty of good ones - but haggis to my mind needs a bit of roundness, sweetness and strength, qualities you find more often in Belgian than British beers.

Cecina, potato and kale soup and Chateau Montus Madiran

Cecina, potato and kale soup and Chateau Montus Madiran

The idea of matching a soup with a full-bodied south-western French red wine might seem bizarre but it proved a surprisingly good pairing.

Navarin of lamb and 2002 Chateau des Estanilles Faugères

Navarin of lamb and 2002 Chateau des Estanilles Faugères

Last week we were down at our house in Languedoc mainly cooking from home* and raiding the cellar for wines we thought needed drinking up - at least that was our excuse!

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