Tag: Pairing
I Love Italian Regional Cuisine – Pairing Campania Cuisine With Red Wine
Posted onCampania is the shin of the Italian boot. Its capital is Naples and if you don’t want to “See Naples and Die” you can always visit upscale Sorrento and Pompeii, frozen in time with the eruption of Mount Vesuvius some two thousand years ago. Campania claims to be the home of pasta and pizza. We do some pasta below.
I’m a real fan of Parmigiana di Melanzane (Eggplant Parmigiana) and Campania has some great recipes. In spite of the dish’s name, tradition calls for more Mozzarella than Parmesan cheese. Suggested wine pairings include the local Aglianico del Taburno DOC, Monica di Sardegna DOC from Sardinia, and Rosso Barletta DOC from Apulia. If you can’t get any of these I would suggest trying a Chianti DOCG or Chianti Classico DOCG from Tuscany.
Another eggplant dish is Pasta ‘Ncasciata (Baked Rigatoni with Eggplant) which also includes some veal, chicken livers, and Mozzarella cheese. The full list of ingredients is fairly long as is the preparation. Purists use grated Pecorino cheese instead of grated Parmesan cheese. Wine pairings include Latium’s first DOCG Cesane del Piglio, Chianti DOCG or Chianti Classico DOCG, and Rosso di Montepulciano DOC also from Tuscany.
Braciole di Maile alla Napoletana (Pork Loin with Garlic) is one of those recipes that requires string or toothpicks to roll up the meat and the fixings. I would be tempted to forget the raisins but I’d keep the pine nuts, garlic, and capers. What about the wines? Suggestions include the local Pollino DOC, the Rosso Canosa DOC from Apulia, also known by the ancient Latin name Canusium, and the local Savuto DOC. The latter is probably the easiest one to find.
Time for some beef, such as round steak. Carne alla Pizzaiola (Beef Pizzaiola) includes fresh tomatoes, oregano, olive oil, garlic, and chopped parsley. Some people including me would add chopped olives and anchovies. Recommended wine pairings include Cerasuolo di Vittoria DOCG from Sicily, Rosso Piceno DOC from The Marches, and Sangiovese di Romagna DOC from Emila-Romagna.
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I Love Italian Regional Cuisine – Pairing Basilicata Cuisine With Red Wine
Posted onBasilicata is the instep of the Italian boot. This hilly and mountainous region is located in the southwest corner of Italy. Like so many other parts of Italy this region has known a series of conquerors, each of whom has left a cultural and culinary trace. The region is known for caves that have been occupied for thousands of years and have now become trendy tourist attractions, complete with upscale restaurants.
Start your meal with some delicious vegetables. One great dish is Piatto di Erbe alla Lucana (Dish of Herbs Lucana Style) consisting of eggplants, onions, yellow peppers, tomatoes, garlic, olive oil, and a few other ingredients. Start by salting the eggplants to remove their bitter juices. Fry and then simmer the veggies and their accompaniments. This isn’t a quick dish, but you’ll enjoy it whether you are a vegetarian or not. The suggested wine pairing is an Italian Syrah.
Lamb is really popular in Basilicata. Make sure to try Cutturiddi o Agnello in Casseruola (Cutturiddi or Lamb Casserole) which is made from a combination of lamb breast and shoulder with pearl onions, chili peppers, ripe tomatoes, and a few other ingredients. The classic wine pairing is the local Aglianico del Vulture DOC named for the extinct Mount Vulture volcano that gives the wine its special taste.
Maybe you like your lamb baked. Try Agnello e Funghi al Forno (Baked Lamb with mushrooms), ideally made with cardoncelli mushrooms that tend to grow under thistle bushes. The other ingredients include chili peppers and olive oil. Suggested wine pairings include Italian Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah, and Pinot Nero. I have a sneaking suspicion that Aglianico del Vulture would also work very well.
Nobody will blame us for yet another popular but different local lamb specialty, this time based on leg of lamb. Agnello Venosino (Lamb Venosino style). Other ingredients include asparagus, onions, grated Pecorino cheese, eggs, and olive oil. This delicious dish calls for an Italian Cabernet Sauvignon, or those Piedmont prizes, Barbaresco DOCG and Barolo DOCG.
Let’s not forget chicken. One local dish is Pollo alla Potentina (Chicken Potenza Style), chicken braised in white wine with onions, tomatoes, sweet peppers, and some other ingredients. Recommended wine pairings include an Italian Pinot Nero and a Barbera from Piedmont.
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I Love Italian Regional Cuisine – Pairing Calabria Cuisine With White Wine
Posted onCalabria is the toe of the Italian boot. It is located in the southwest corner of Italy, with 500 miles of coastline on the Gulf of Taranto and Ionian and Tyrrhenian Seas. Its total population is about 2 million. The countryside is mountainous, and prone to earthquakes. Over the centuries the peasants learned how to extract the maximum from the poor soil. The red onions from Tropea are as good as they get. Some people eat them raw. Does anybody out there have a wine pairing for raw onions?
An excellent starter or side vegetable dish is Carciofi Ammollicati (Artichokes with Breadcrumbs) that also includes grated Pecorino cheese, lemons, and olive oil. Some say that artichokes are difficult to pair with wine. They haven’t tried this dish with a Vermentino di Sardegna DOC, a Vermentino di Gallura DOCG from Sardinia, or an Italian Gewurztraminer, Pinot Grigio, or Sauvignon Blanc.
Another first dish is Bucatini con la Mollica (Bucatini Pasta with Breadcrumbs) that includes salted anchovies, olive oil, salt, and pepper. Use whole-wheat breadcrumbs. This dish is traditionally served without cheese and works best with Bucatini, large hollow spaghetti. Enjoy with an Italian Sauvignon Blanc or Pinot Grigio.
An alternative local pasta dish is Spaghetti al Ragù di Totano (Spaghetti with Squid and Tomato Sauce). Of course the hardest part of preparing this dish is cleaning the squid. Other ingredients include onion, garlic, and basil. If you are up to it, save some of the squid rings for your second course. Wine pairings for the pasta dish (often made with angel hair spaghetti) include Italian Pinot Grigio and Verdicchio dei Castelli di Jesi DOC or Verdicchio di Matelica DOC from The Marches.
Pesce Stocco alla Calabrese (Salted Cod Calabrian style) is made with tomato sauce, black olives, onion, potatoes, and some herbs and spices. The real thing is cooked in a terracotta dish. If you like salt cod, you’ll enjoy this meal with an Italian Chardonnay or Sauvignon Blanc.
I’ve saved the best for last; namely Pesce Spada alla Bagnarese (Swordfish Bagnara style). Bagnara is a fishing and now tourist village that is also known for Torrone, a delicious almond-nougat candy. The swordfish is roasted with capers, chopped parsley, lemon, and olive oil. Suggested wine pairings include Vernaccia di San Gimignano DOCG from Tuscany but you have to get a good one, an Italian Chardonnay or Pinot Grigio.
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Wines – Pairing Wine And Pizza
Posted onTill now, beer was seen and considered one of the only options to accompany the popular Italian dish pizzas. But, the pattern has changed now. More and more people liking to combine the Italian treat pizza with classy wines now-a-days. There are various kinds of wines that may be paired with different sorts of pizza toppings. Not all wines can be combined along with all pizzas. There has to have a blend of flavors because pizza has a massive number of flavors ranging from simple onion-garlic pizza to beef and chili pizza.
Considered one of the biggest myths of wine and pizza coupling is that red wine must only be served with pizza owning dark meat toppings. You may pair any appropriate wine together with any meat pizzas, be it dark meat or light meat. Yet, you have to pay extra attention while you’re not following this rule. A gloomy flavored red wine is valued more when paired with seafood pizzas. And among the weirdest combos could be coupling white wine with chili beef or jalapeno flavored pizzas. Along at the end of the day, you need to make use of your own personal judgment and taste buds while coupling any sort of foods and drinks.
All kinds of pizzas might be paired with at the least two nice red and two white wine varieties. All you might want to be careful about is to always select the average wine kinds. Dont go for too bizarre or too strong or excessive sweet. All extreme wine tastes are extremely hard to join up. So, be very simple and usual in your wine selection.
Many of the pizzas are made up of this very acidic tomato sauce, which sometimes retort with wine which makes it a very weak and full-bodied. To attenuate this unenthusiastic result, you possibly can go together with medium-bodied wine choices like Cabernet Sauvignon, California Zinfandel, or Shiraz. You can actually even make it an entire Italian meal by pairing the pizza with Italian Chianti. Additionally, it is better to dish up white pizzas along with earthy Sauvignon Blanc or Pinot Grigio.
To match the taste and savor of a pizza sauce and topping, it is always highly recommended that you choose more acidic wines. One of the best wine option for any crusty pizza would be a little strong and flavorful. This may mechanically lessen the crust effect of the pizza in the tasty way. Always, confirm the sauce, base, topping and main ingredient for the pizza prior to a pick any complementary wine to match.
Food and Wine Pairing
Posted onFood and wine pairing, as a conscious act, is something relatively new in society. Food and wine pairing refers to the effort, and in fact the refined skill, in matching foods and wines and wine brands in a way that results in a pleasurable dining experience.
The whole idea of food and wine pairing is somewhat amusing if you
remember that wine was at one time was not considered something special like it is today. In older, classic societies wine was just what people drank. Nobody knows how it would compare to today’s wines. Certainly some of it was better than others.
But still……. It’s what people drank before there were such commercial beverages as Coke, iced-tea, energy drinks and homogenized milk.
The pairing of wine with food probably is something new because people in these older cultures didn’t have the variety of diet that many people have today. They didn’t have the luxury or option of choosing one wine or one food over another.
But we do so………. Here we are.
Today’s idea of wine and food pairing focuses on one particular aspect of foods and wines….. The ‘weight’. This ‘weight’ factor is further divided into ‘texture’ and ‘flavor’. Certain foods and certain wines are considered to be either light or heavy in weight. There’s a ‘medium’ in there somewhere too.
‘Matching’ prescribes that light wines go with light foods and heavy wines go with heavy foods. Pretty simple really. However the reality of the matter is that there’s a substantial degree of subjectivity involved in one’s preference for one wine brand over other wine brands.
What might be considered ‘a perfect match’ by one taster might not be considered so by another. But at least it makes jobs for some people in very fancy restaurants.
Here are some examples of these food and wine characteristics as commonly accepted:
Cabernet Sauvignon is generally considered to be a heavy or robust wine. As such, one would generally not take it with something like quiche which is generally considered a ‘light’ food. Similarly a food dish as heavy and robust as stew could not be properly served with a light bodied wine like Pinot Grigio.
Connoisseurs of this subject also like to discuss such things as the acid, alcohol, tannin and sugar concentrations in wine and how they relate enhance, or not, certain types of foods.
One of the most common occasions when people get together to practice their wine pairing and wine tasting skills is in cheese and wine tastings. And sometimes they’ll just forget the cheese and go for the wine tasting. Cheese is for mice anyway, right? 🙂
It’s an interesting subject if you’ve got the time and money. But the bottom line as always is personal preference. There are actually wine paring clubs where people get together for wine tastings and to discuss the finer points of their preferences and opinions.
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