Saturday Kitchen 19.2.11

(by susie)

This week I was in Croydon, home of the first-purpose built international air terminal, choosing wines for BBC1’s Saturday Kitchen.

Jun Tanaka was rustling up red mullet with hazelnut crust, leek and potato ‘risotto’ and red wine jus. To go with this, I chose the refreshing Rio del Bio Bio Pinot Noir (£5, Tesco).

It went down very well in studio. Jun said, ‘I love Pinot Noir, and it’s nice and light so doesn’t overpower the fish.’

James Martin said it worked ‘fantastically well’, while ‘amazing, gorgeous’ was the opinion of studio guest and fashionista Gok Wan.

A quite delicious tandoori chicken with lentil salad was the featured dish of wonder-chef Atul Kochhar (he of Benares and the excellent Vatika, just down the road from us).

For this, I wanted to go for something different than the usual Riesling/Gewürztraminer option, so headed instead to the Loire Valley for the Domaine de la Pouvraie Vouvray (£7.99, Marks & Spencer).

Atul described it as, ‘A great combination, a little bit on the sweeter side but it goes really well’. James termed it a ‘great bargain’.

As ever, you can catch the show for the next week on BBC iplayer – wine bits at 17:25 and 57:20.