Saturday Kitchen 4.1

(by susie)

After our Christmas antics on Saturday Kitchen, it was a swift return to action for me in the New Year, taking in the sights of Andover to find wines for the lovely Theo Randall and Jon Rotherham.

Wine for Theo Randall’s tagliarini with artichoke and truffles

• Finest Pecorino 2012 (£7.99, Tesco)

Susie’s comments: tough dish to match, this one – artichokes can react really badly with wine. A good Hunter Semillon worked well but this Pecorino was lovely, smooth and fresh enough to be a very fine accompaniment.

Wine for Jon Rotherham’s beef buns

• Taste the Difference Barbera d’Asti 2011 (£7.99, Sainsbury’s)

Susie’s comments: some real richness in this dish but you don’t want the wine to make it all too much. This Barbera has a lovely fruity/savoury twang so works to refresh the palate as well as match that lovely beefy flavour.

Recipes, links and details

Hugh Dennis was the pluck guest this week and my wines for his heaven and hell dishes, cooked by James Martin, were:

Workhorse Chenin Blanc 2012 (£7.99, M&S) – for slow-roasted shoulder of pork with sherry-roasted parsnips, mash and gravy

Hermit’s Hill Botrytis Semillon 2009 (£7.99, M&S) – for lemon curd meringue cake

Our thanks to James, Theo, Jon, Hugh and all the team at Cactus. Wine clips are as below (thanks Cactus/BBC1) but you can view the whole show via iplayer until 11.1.14, when Peter will be doing the wine bits from Coventry. Recipes can be found on the BBC Food site.

Thanks for watching, and popping in here. Finally, on a personal note, both Peter and I would like to salute our lovely Saturday Kitchen wine colleague Susy Atkins!