Category: Wine pairings

A great way to end a meal or delay the need for one, a cheese course is one of my favorite courses and also a quite versitile one. Manchego (a somewhat dry, usually aged at least 4 months but often for a year or more, sheepsmilk cheese from Spain with some air bubbles) with membrillo paste (smooth quince jam without too much sugar) is a traditional Spanish tapas pairing for dessert or for appetizer, though personally I discourage utilizing much cheese as an appetizer at least when you plan on serving a meal–it’s too filling, and too strong in flavor (if you’re doing it right).

So two cheeses I often keep in my fridge are some kind of brie or camembert (delices de bougogne and le chatelain are my top picks), and some pecorino (sheepsmilk cheese without air bubbles from Italy, semi-firm, sometimes with a slightly sweet flavor but also available as hard and dry as asiago–I prefer the younger versions).

With these two and other things sitting around you can present some interesting combinations.

Camembert with pear or apple is a classic pairing, it is also good with spicy orange marmelade. Actually, most things you can pair with camembert go equally well with an aged English cheddar (less creamy than the common Canadian counter part, Wednesleydale or another bandaged English cheddar are good ones to try).

For the pecorino, my favorite pairing is that of honey. Drizzled on top, or in a chunk including some honeycomb it compliments the pecorino well and brings out the ‘tang. Chestnut honey–which, unlike the trend of specialty honeys, does actually taste different from others, is a common Italian pairing usually served in small quantities in the afternoon with a glass of Vermintino or Vernaccia white wine. You can also serve the cheese with preserved or fresh roasted and skin removed pepperoncinos.

On a budget of $120 for four people, a good friend and “astro-twin” who claims herself as a vegetarian but eats seafood and strangely, bacon, asked me to make a belated birthday dinner for her friend (my acquaintance). Because of the graces the bay area allows us in grocery shopping, and with many thanks to cheap, beautiful produce at Tokyo Fish Market in Albany, CA (plus some gorgeous seafood), and the amazingness that is Masse’s Pastries here in my neighborhood, we made a lovely dinner materialize complete with wine right here in the kitchen.

Monster Fresh Bay Scallop on Vanilla-Orange Risotto with Mint (Failed to take a picture of this, but we ate it up with Gloria Ferrer sparkling wine from Northern California, very reasonable ~ $14)

Start the risotto with half a medium shallot, diced, olive oil, and the pulp of one vanilla bean. Add the vanilla bean shell to your vegetable or fish stock–in this case I used a watered down vegetable stock so that the risotto did not take on too strong a flavor to avoid overpowering the scallop. Once the shallot begins to gain color, add the risotto rice, and a touch of salt & pepper. Once the rice is toasted, begin adding liquid, keeping the quantity such that the rice does not boil, and does not fry. This will take 25-40 minutes depending on the quantity of rice, in order to cook through. In the final minutes of cooking, when the rice is near tender, add the zest of one orange. Once tender, keep cooking until liquid has reduced a bit more, turn off heat. Add 1.5 T of butter, and one mineola segmented & cut in cubes. Add julienned mint at the end.

The scallop should sit in milk for about 1 hour before cooking. Heat a skillet to very high heat with olive oil, and sear the scallop, turning once golden or brown on the edges and achieving the same on the other side, keeping the inside rare. Serve on top of the risotto.

Sesame Seared Maguro on Yuzu Mixed Greens

This dish depends completely on the quality of the fish. Blocked tuna works best, in this case I used tuna from two different parts of the fish–thus the difference in color between each slice. Simply pat the fish dry and roll it in sesame seeds. In a hot skillet add olive oil and while holding the fish with your hands or tongs sear it on each side about 20 seconds, let it rest off the heat for 30 seconds and then slice and serve. The greens were dressed with a mixture of yuzu juice, olive oil, shallot, salt & pepper.

Spinach Salad with Bacon, Fried Chevre, Grapefruit

Ahead of time, slice the chevre into medallions, coat in egg and then bread crumbs and set back in refrigerator to firm (makes them fry more easily). I like to use Capricho Di Cabra goat cheese from Spain, but any fresh chevre will work, the moister the texture the better.

Cut 7 or so slices of bacon into smaller pieces and add to a hot, dry skillet, let fry until crispy, drain on paper towels and add 1-2 T of bacon fat to a bowl to make salad dressing.

For the greens, add to the bacon fat 1-2 T of olive oil, juice of 1/2 lemon, salt, pepper, and a small amount of minced shallot or garlic. Dress the spinach and portion the salad out.

Segment one grapefruit by cutting the top and bottom off, then using a large knife remove the pith and skin from around, then follow the interior membranes to segment the grapefruit, leaving the membrane as waste.

In a hot non-stick skillet, add olive oil to high heat. Be careful not to pass the smoking point, as olive oil burns very close to its frying heat. Add the cold, breaded cheve medallions to the oil, letting them color on each side, serving hot on top of the spinach along with some of the bacon and several segments of grapefruit.

We ate the 2nd & 3rd courses with a Rhone red and a lighter Rioja, both in the $10-15 range.

We had some Australian port with the miniature cakes ($4/each–an incredible bargain saiting 2 people per cake) from Masse’s pastries–we had chocolate-rapsberry, bloodorange-chocolate, and mango. They were out of the amazing caramel mousse with poached pear! :( Even still, delicious.

A friend boyfriend of mine kindly not once but on two different occasions recently provided my cocktail-sipping self with much needed pizza delivered to my hand inside a bar (it was from the “outside”), and to thank him for not only 1. going to get it but 2. paying for it, I offered to cook him dinner. We drank a Sicilian white wine with the first two courses and a cabernet franc from Carmody McKnight in Paso Robles for the duck. There were also some bottles of cabernet sauvignon, but let’s not talk about that.

Beet Salad  – I used baby bitter greens (in this case, baby kale and arugula) and tossed it in my garlic-lemon-olive oil-salt-pepper dressing, roasted three small red beets in the oven (inside foil, with olive oil, salt, pepper for 1 hr at 400 degrees), peeled them and sliced them in wedges, and served it all up with a slice of the wonderful french goat cheese ($34.50/lb) Tomme Affinee Grandmere.  The beets were still warm, but feel free to roast them in advance.

Pasta with Roast Tomato Sauce, Fried Eggplant & Mussels – I made fresh pasta, cut the noodles quite thin, dressed them in a food-processor sauce of two roasted heirloom tomatoes, roasted shallots, garlic, fresh thyme, fresh rosemary, salt, and pepper, and added several cloves of fresh garlic at the end, then topped it off with two slices of eggplant fried in olive oil (very thin) and two mussels for each serving.

Pan-seared Duck Breast with Rum Pears & Almond-shallot Risotto – I scored the duck breast in a diamond pattern, seared it fat side down on very high heat, flipped it over, threw the whole pan in the oven at 350 for a few minutes, took the duck out of the pan to rest, threw the pan back on the burner, tossed in sliced pears and let them brown,  poured some rum in and let it reduce. Meanwhile, I made risotto with home made chicken stock, shallot, and onion, and at the end I mixed in some hazelnut oil, and toasted marcona and sliced almonds, along with some rum & amaratto soaked raisins.

We ate it right up.