Saturday Kitchen
(by susie)
This week I’m off to Amersham on my SK wine hunt and I’ve got a couple of terrific dishes to match.
The recipes arrived from Andy (our highly organised director) last week, which gave me plenty of time to shop, cook, and try out several wine and food combos with Pete over the weekend. And the first thing to say is that these are not only delicious dishes, they’re also not too tricky to cook – so I urge everyone to give them a go!
So, what are they? Well, on Saturday 27th at 10am (while Pete and I are sitting in Winchester Theatre watching ‘The Gruffalo’ with a certain young lady) you have a treat in store, because Nick Nairn is going to be cooking Monkfish with Curried Lentils, and Australian chef, Donna Hay, will be rustling up Pancetta Baked Eggs with Minted Pea and Feta Salad.
Donna’s dish is actually deceptively difficult to match a wine to as the two elements of it have very different requirements. The salad is an obvious candidate for a good, punchy New World Sauvignon. The pancetta baked eggs (with basil, cream and parmesan) need something slightly broader and less racy.
The solution turned out to be a Western Australian Semillon / Sauvignon blend, though straight Semillon also worked relatively well. The problem with this style of wine is price (as is so often the case with SK) so I’ve had to make a slight compromise, but I’ve still found something lovely and all will be revealed on Saturday in the isles of Tesco Extra.
We initially thought that Nick’s dish would need something spice-friendly, such as a fruity Riesling or Gewürztraminer. But the lentils are a big feature of this dish and give it a really earthy flavour. The spice from the curry is extremely mild and there’s also some crème fraiche in there which adds a light, creamy texture. What we decided it needed was a fish-friendly, but not overtly fruity wine, and so I’ve gone for an Albariño from N/W Spain – a wine that is made for rustic fish and seafood dishes.
If you’d like to find out more and see Nick and Donna in action, tune in to BBC1 at 10am this Saturday morning.