Does this Thai go with my Chablis?

Thai takeaway prawns with garlic and pepper – a great match for Chablis

A couple of weeks ago, I received an invitation to take part in a blogger challenge to match Chablis wine with takeaway food, an opportunity I was excited to accept despite living in a takeaway desert in the wilds of North Dorset. Two bottles of wine duly arrived from the competition organisers – a Petit Chablis on sale at Marks & Spencer and a Chablis from the Wine Society, both from the 2011 vintage (another good year for Chablis) – and it was time to decide on my preferred takeaway style.

I must admit right here to having enjoyed more than a few glasses of Chablis in recent years and the wines are commonly thought to pair well with seafood, elegant fish dishes, white meats and local Burgundian favourites such as snails in garlic butter and gougères, the delicious little cheese puffs often served as canapés in the area. Anne Willan, describing the wines of Chablis in her book ‘A Kitchen in Burgundy’, tells us “No visit to Chablis is complete without a glass at the café….. If I’m lucky there’ll be a basket of gougères on the counter, the perfect accompaniment”. And Michel Roux Jr’s book ‘Matching Food and Wine’ suggests matching a young Chablis with a lovely dish of tartare of sea bass with dill, a combination I can certainly vouch for.

The wines of Chablis are made in and around the town of the same name which is situated in the northern part of Burgundy some 120 miles south-east of Paris. I am a fan of the fresh, minerally and elegant style of the wines from this area despite never having visited Chablis itself. Depending on the site of the vineyards where the grapes were grown, the wines are labelled according to the rules of four separate appellations – Petit Chablis, Chablis, Chablis Premier Cru and Chablis Grand Cru. The wines gain added complexity, weight and ageing potential as you move up through these four levels and the specific exposure and rich subsoil of the Grand Cru sites are the most prized. Chablis wines are made exclusively from the Chardonnay grape and their steely acidity and mineral qualities make Chablis one of the great white wines of the world.

Grand Cru Chablis vines

So, Chablis with takeaway? A little research seemed to suggest that Chablis can stand up well to foods with a hint of chilli, garlic and perhaps a creamy, lightly spiced sauce. Armed with this information I headed off down the Indian takeaway route initially but, after hearing recent comments from friends about a local Thai place, we got hold of their menu and made our selections.

I wanted to avoid ordering anything too chilli-hot and the menu was helpfully labelled to indicate the styles of the dishes from mild through to spicy. Hefty doses of chilli in a dish can kill the flavours of the wine and you would be better advised to go for a beer instead. We chose four dishes and then settled down to try them with the wines.

The Petit Chablis 2011 from Jean-Marc Brocard (Domaine Sainte Claire) is a fresh, unoaked Chablis with flinty, citrus flavours and a palate-cleansing and long, limey finish. The retail price of £7.50 represents excellent value for money. It could serve as a refreshing aperitif but it also worked extremely well with two of our Thai dishes. Tod Mun Pla, or Thai style fishcakes, were subtly spiced and the fresh, chilli, peanut and coriander dip added an extra dimension – the citrus flavours of the wine complimented the fish and its steely crispness was not at all overwhelmed by the chilli dip. The Petit Chablis was a good match for Massaman Gai, a lightly spiced chicken curry with a coconut sauce. Again the wine was not fazed by the hint of chilli and its personality held up alongside this traditional Thai curry.

Perhaps the surprise of the evening was how perfectly the Chablis 2011 from Louis Michel & Fils (£16 a bottle) paired with chicken satay and peanut sauce. This Chablis was heavier and more complex than the Petit Chablis with ripe stone fruit flavours but the same fresh, minerally style. With the satay dish, it was a triumph, seeming to be perfectly at home with the delicate spiciness of the peanut sauce. We went on to agree it was the better of the two wines alongside Goong Krathiem (fried tiger prawns in garlic and pepper) and confirmed my earlier research that young, cool-climate Chardonnay is a delicious match for garlic-based dishes.

Chicken satay and peanut sauce – the best match of the evening

I am happy to report that our Chablis and takeaway matching evening was a great success and a lot of fun. My husband reckons we should try a fish and chip takeout tonight with the rest of the wine. The crisp style of Chablis would certainly work well with the fish and cut through the oiliness of the dish admirably but perhaps that’s an experiment to bear in mind for another day…

I received two bottles of wine from the Bureau Interprofessional des Vins de Bourgogne free of charge in order to take part in this Chablis Blogger Challenge and I would like to thank them for inviting me to be involved.

The five AOP cheeses of the Auvergne

The five AOP cheeses of Auvergne

We recently spent a week in the Auvergne ski station of Super-Besse where the sun shone, the slopes glistened and a glass of vin chaud was a welcome pick-me-up after long and exilharating days on the mountain.  I had done a little cheese research prior to visiting the area and whilst I already knew some of the local cheeses well, there were others that I was looking forward to trying in situ.

An amazing selection of local cheeses in one of the food shops in Super-Besse.

Bleu d’Auvergne, Fourme d’Ambert and the pasteurised version of St Nectaire are widely available in the UK but Cantal, Salers and the unpasteurised St Nectaire were new to me so on Day One I found the Fromagerie in the main street, and went in to check out the selection.  I was not to be disappointed as the cheese counter was packed with each of these five cheeses to the detriment of some of the more commonly seen French varieties like Comté or Camembert.  The inhabitants of the Auvergne are clearly very proud of their local cheeses.

Three days into our stay, whilst standing at the bottom of the bubble lift, I was interested to see an array of tents being put up advertising these five AOP (Appellation d’Origine Protegée) cheeses of the Auvergne region.  By lunchtime a mini-festival was in full swing with tastings of all five cheeses and recipe demonstrations incorporating each one.  I worked my way down the tasting table, savouring each cheese and finding out more about them which was made easy as there were several experts on hand to answer questions and a terrific selection of free information leaflets.

Mini Auvergne cheese festival on the slopes

Of the five cheeses, my favourites were Cantal and Salers.  Cantal, a cow’s milk cheese is released at three different stages of maturity.  The young ‘Cantal Jeune’ is sweet, milky and mild and is matured for one to two months.  The ‘Cantal Entre-Deux’, a stronger, cheddar-like cheese is our favourite and is sold when it has aged for three to seven months.  Accompanied by a glass of white Burgundy or the local Côtes d’Auvergne white (both from Chardonnay), Cantal Entre-Deux makes a tasty, simple lunch with a hunk of crusty bread.  The mature ‘Cantal Vieux’ is aged for eight months or more making it a very strong cheese which by this stage has a red and white-mold stained crust.

Cantal Jeune and Cantal Entre-Deux

We also loved Salers which is similar to Cantal but can only be made from unpasteurised milk – Cantal can be made from raw or pasteurised milk.  Another important difference is that Salers can only be made from the milk of cows that graze on mountain pastures in the summer, whereas Cantal producers can use the milk of any season.  The sweet, nutty flavour of a Salers that has been matured for ten months or so is quite addictive and I shall be on the lookout for some here in the UK as the large slab we brought home has long since disappeared.  A bottle of another Auvergne white wine, Saint Pourçain, is in the wine rack awaiting this discovery.

Salers

The Knackered Mother’s Wine Club – The Book – by Helen McGinn

As I chat to my friends and wine tasting event clients, I hear time and again that people are keen to know just that bit more about how to choose wine.   Nothing too high-brow or time-consuming, but useful tips and suggestions for making sense of the wall of wines on offer in supermarkets and on the restaurant wine list would be very welcome.

My holiday reading whilst in the Auvergne last week was ‘The Knackered Mother’s Wine Club’ by Helen McGinn (who also writes a blog by the same name www.knackeredmotherswineclub.com) and this book ticks all the above boxes.

I first came across Helen’s blog a year or so ago when I spotted her tweeting @knackeredmutha.  A former wine buyer for Tesco, she started her own wine business after having children and would regularly email her wine-bemused friends who sought her advice while struggling with the myriad of choices the wine world presents to us.  She subsequently developed these emails into a regular weekly blog post where she suggested one white wine – “fridge-door whites” and one red – “in-the-rack reds”.

The book was published earlier this month.  It provides a comprehensive and very-easy-to-follow guide to stepping out of the comfort zone of Pinot Grigio and Shiraz, with well-reasoned and helpful suggestions for all manner of situations that require a glass of wine.  There are useful tables to explain how a wine from particular grape variety tastes, which region does it best and which foods match well with it.  Some of the recommended wines to try perhaps wouldn’t be my choice but tastes are different and what Helen does provide is good advice for moving on from those wines you might have become too familiar with and drink all the time.

There is no wine snobbery in this book and no previous knowledge of wine is required by the reader.  It is down-to-earth and very funny.  If you are a knackered mother yourself, you will relate to Helen’s frantic life and you will soon be looking forward to sitting down of an evening, children tucked up in bed, to a glass of something delicious at the end of a tiring day.  After all, as Helen points out, “Life’s too short to drink bad wine”.

Swiss cheeses to French fromages: make a fabulous fondue

With the recent cold snap and our pending trip to the Auvergne mountains, what better time to enjoy a week or two of hearty, cheese-based suppers here at Food Wine Central?

Cheese fondue

The Cheese
Tartiflette made its annual appearance; a baked dish originating from the Haute Savoie region of the French Alps. This simple but delicious meal has just 4 ingredients: potatoes, lardons, cream and Reblochon cheese (see recipe here).  And when you think of warming cheese dishes, there has to be a fondue somewhere on the menu; that iconic dish of Switzerland that I first encountered in a mountain restaurant in the Vaud canton during the late 1980s (remember when the table-top fondue set was a ‘must-have’ in every trendy household).

The traditional Swiss fondue was made with cheese leftovers melted in a pot that hung over the open fire, then hunks of bread would be dipped into the deliciously warm Swiss dish. Later versions added white wine and sometimes kirsch to give it an extra kick!  To make life easier for the busy Swiss, they can now buy packs of ready-grated fondue cheese with not an open fire in sight!

Gruyère cheese is the ‘single malt’ choice in the Vaud but elsewhere in Switzerland they blend Gruyère with Emmental and other cantons combine Vacherin & Appenzeller to give a fusion of flavour.

Wine Choice
As an accompaniment, the local white Chasselas wine is an ideal match for all these cheese combinations.

The French Fromage
In the French Alps, fondue savoyarde, is a classic well known dish; but what does it take to make the authentic version?  Like their Swiss counterpart, the Savoie cook will often use Gruyère & Emmental, but it is the addition of Beaufort that will give it that extra Alpine smoothness. This mountain cheese is made from the milk of the Abondance and Tarine cows that graze in the Alpine meadows during the summer. The tranquillity of these lush pastures is transformed into the highly popular and exciting ski runs of the Savoie during the winter ski season!

In the Jura département of France, the local Comté cheese is used for their fondue Jurassienne (this cheese is also occasionally added to the fondue savoyarde).  My favourite mélange is Comté, Gruyère and Emmental in equal proportions with assorted sizes of bread chunks for dipping.

Wine Choice
The ideal accompaniment is a glass of crisp, white Savoie wine that complements it perfectly. My preferred choice from Yapp Brothers of Mere in Wiltshire can be found here – Savoie l’Orangerie.

The Italian Job
Across the border you can enjoy the Italian version called fonduta; made in the Aosta Valley using the local Fontina cheese. Eggs, milk, butter, wine and kirsch are added to the French and Swiss recipes, giving it a far denser consistency.

Wine Choice
According to Patricia Michelson in her book “The Cheese Room”, fonduta calls for a heavier wine such as a white from the Piedmont e.g. Arneis or even a red could work well here e.g. Gamay, Pinot Noir or perhaps a vin chaud (mulled wine).

Fontina for Fonduta

The French Fast Cheese
If you’re looking for a quick, molten cheese-fix without the cheese-grating and potato-slicing, go for a Vacherin Mont d’Or cheese from the Jura region. It comes in box a bit like camembert: wrap it in foil and bake in the oven on a medium heat for 20 minutes; then open it up, cut a circle in the top and dip some crusty bread into the warm melted oozing deliciousness.

Wine Choice
Matched with a glass of Touraine Sauvignon or Bourgogne Aligoté, you will have a simple yet decadent supper.

Vacherin Mont d’or

We shall be taking our fondue equipment to the Auvergne so we can enjoy a traditional warming French fondue as it was intended – after a day of enjoying the cool crisp fresh mountain air.  In the meantime we’ve tucked into ‘truffade auvergnate’, another cheese, potato and bacon combo, the key ingredient of which is the local Cantal cheese. The recipe is below and my preferred pairing is a glass of Gamay either from the Auvergne or Beaujolais.

Then there’s Aligot, another Auvergne speciality, but that’s probably enough cooked cheese talk for one day….

Truffade Auvergnate

Truffade Auvergnate

Typically this dish is made with young Cantal Laguiole cheese from the Auvergne but if you can’t get Cantal, try using a young Wensleydale cheese instead.

For four people, take 1kg of potatoes and slice them into 5mm rounds. Wash them to remove the starch, drain and dry on kitchen towel. Take a large, heavy frying pan and heat a large knob of butter and 2tbsps olive oil over a medium heat. Add the potato slices to the pan, turning regularly. If the potatoes are sticking to the pan, add a little more butter or oil. When the potatoes are softened and starting to brown, add four crushed garlic cloves and 250g lardons or auvergne sausage. Once the lardons are browned and crispy, spread the slices of cheese on the top of the pan and leave the dish to cook for another 5-10 minutes until the cheese has melted.

In Auvergne they serve this dish straight from the pan with charcuterie, salad and bread to mop up the cheese sauce.

Seville orange tart and a wine to match

Seville orange tart with a sweet almond pastry

On Sunday I made a sweet tart.  Now this is something I don’t often do, not having much of a sweet tooth but with the fruit shelves of my local supermarket brimming over with Seville oranges and a wine match to work out for an orange tart, I took the plunge.

I have always been distressed by the fact that my husband is better at making pastry than me and having enjoyed using Richard Bertinet’s two bread cookbooks, “Dough” and “Crust”, I asked for his latest book “Pastry” for Christmas.  So there was no excuse really and I made Richard’s sweet almond pastry base which seemed to go mostly according to plan. For the Seville orange curd filling, I consulted the Moro cookbook.

My wine match for the tart

The tart was sweet but fresh and tangy at the same time.  My wine match is an unusual one from Limari in northern Chile.  Vistamar’s late-harvest Moscatel has the same fresh zestiness as the orange tart and it’s bursting with full-on intense tropical fruit.  The grapes are harvested late and left to dry partially on straw mats which gives concentrated flavours in the resulting wine.

You perhaps don’t want more than a slice and a glass of this combination at once but they both keep in the fridge for a few days so it’s been lovely to return a couple of times to make the most of this heady mix.

The wine is available at Majestic in half-bottles, currently for £6.24 or £4.99 if you buy two online.  Majestic also suggest matching this moscatel with sticky toffee pudding, sweet cheesecakes or rich blue cheeses.

Wines for partying with this Christmas

Less than two weeks to go until the big day and we’ve got plenty of partying to cram in before then.  It can often be more difficult to choose wines for Christmas parties than for the Christmas and New Year meals themselves.  What are you going to drink with all manner of assorted canapés and how can you buy suitably gluggable wines to satisfy the crowd without breaking the bank?

At Food Wine Central, we’ve chosen three versatile favourites for the festive season that will solve both problems. And if you happen to have any spare bottles after all the parties, we’ve some ideas on how to enjoy the leftovers with more substantial seasonal dishes.

Perle de Vigne Crémant de Bourgogne NV Louis Bouillot
This well-priced alternative to Champagne with an easy-drinking yet fresh style is a perfect party fizz.  It will stand up to smoked fish, cheese-based canapés and even spicy thai nibbles.  Take care – your friends will lap it up.  It slips down very easily.  If there is any left, enjoy it with a cold fish starter on Christmas Day. Majestic £11.99 or £9.99 when you buy two bottles.

Falanghina Beneventano IGT 2011
Fancy a change from the good old Pinot Grigio?  Then why not try this crisp Italian white from near Naples.  Lots of ripe pear fruit and a slight nuttiness make it great with spicy fish or chicken bites, olives and salted almonds.  Afterwards, you could pair it with smoked salmon or turkey leftovers.  Superb value.  Marks & Spencer £5.99

Saumur Rouge Les Nivières 2011
A light-medium bodied, juicy red from the Loire which is ideal for Christmas parties as it works with a whole host of canapés particularly those involving soft cheese, mushrooms or charcuterie.  Sausage rolls have met their match with this one.  It will benefit from being served ever-so-slightly chilled just like your guests will be by the end of the evening!  After the party, try this very versatile red with the Boxing Day ham, pâté or even roast pheasant. Waitrose £7.99

Cheers and let us know how you get on!

Sturminster Newton Cheese Festival – in pictures

Just back from an amble round Dorset’s Sturminster Newton Cheese Festival which once again has been blessed with superb weather.  The festival is on again tomorrow, Sunday 9th September, and here are a few pics from our favourite bits.

Cheeses from Leicestershire Handmade Cheese Company whose ‘Sparkenhoe’ Red Leicester is made from an old recipe using unpasteurised milk. We particularly like the Vintage Sparkenhoe which is aged for 18 months.

From the New Forest, Lyburn’s Stoney Cross which is a bit like a Tomme de Savoie and the stronger Old Winchester, which they compare with an Old Amsterdam.

With some 30 real ales on offer, the beer tent was popular. We sampled two bitters – Hopback’s Summer Lightning and Hobden Wessex Brewery’s Merrie Mink.

A delicious selection of goat and cow cheeses from Dorset-based Woolsery Cheese.

We always make a beeline for Somerset’s Westcombe Dairy to try their mature cheddar and Duckett’s Caerphilly.

We all tucked into samples of From Dorset With Love’s chutneys and jams and we were pleased to secure the last jar of Chilli Jam.

Goat’s cheeses made in Devon by Norsworthy. The soft, creamy cheese of the same name was our favourite.

So, tonight’s cheeseboard features Sparkenhoe Vintage, Woolsery’s Snowdrop soft goat’s cheese. We picked The Dorset Blue Cheese Company’s spicy tomato chutney to accompany the cheese selection and their Dorset Blue Vinny cheese shouldn’t be missed.