Saturday Kitchen alert!

(by susie)

Today I’ve been filming just down the road from me in Eastleigh for this week’s Saturday Kitchen.

We had almost every type of weather imaginable from bright sunshine to snow and an icy wind.  I’m now thankfully back in the warmth of my centrally-heated home and just beginning to thaw out, so here’s a brief run-down of what to expect.

This week’s show features two very different recipes:  a classic from Ken Hom of Chinese-style chicken on a bed of crispy noodles, and then a really innovative take on wood pigeon from the up and coming Will Holland of La Bécasse in Ludlow.

We kicked off in Sainsburys where I matched the latest vintage of a consistently delicious Australian Riesling to Ken’s chicken dish.  Now, I realise this isn’t ground-breaking in terms of wine and food matching, but there’s no getting away from it: some partnerships just work.

Although the centrepiece of Will’s dish is breast of wood pigeon, it’s surrounded by all sorts of exotic flavours; mango, lime, wasabi, chilli, coriander, sesame, red wine, dried orange peel and more.  (As you can probably imagine it’s not at all easy to make but don’t be put off, it is worth every second of effort and an absolute dream to eat. We had a great time doing just that – check out the story here.)

Peter and I had tried several wines with it at home, but the variety and style which stood out was undoubtedly New World Pinot Noir.  Again not a huge surprise but who cares when the wine and the food taste so good together?  This time we were filming in Waitrose and luckily they have a superb offer on a particular New Zealand Pinot (see our wine of the week for more details).

The show is at 10am this Saturday (13.2.10) on BBC1, so tune in to see Ken and Will in action – and let’s hope they like the wines as much as we did!