Every Friday, InterWined.com pairs one great wine that exceeds its normal £10 ($20) threshold with one great meal, prepared following the instructions of some the Internet’s best food blogs.

This week’s ‘Blow the Bank’ takes a slight departure from the norm and comes courtesy of a meal rather than a recipe.

As any chef will attest, cooking from a recipe and cooking from memory are not the same. It’s the difference between visiting a new place with a travel guide and street map and arriving in a town you visited once with the name of a café you vaguely remember and five quid for cab. You hope the fiver is enough to get you to the restaurant and that both it and the city are as good as your memory tell you they are.

Well, this week’s ‘Blow the Bank’ is the culinary equivalent of that cab ride down memory lane. On 4 August, InterWined wrote with relish of the discovery of Banana and Bacon Pizza. Since then, several readers have asked about this somewhat unorthodox combination in comments and e-mails and encouraged InterWined to grab a few bob and head down to memory café.

From memory, the Banana and Bacon Pizza was sauceless, sweet, and salty; and, as its name suggested, was topped with slices of banana and bacon.

The wine on the occasion, a Hungarian Pinto Grigio, was ordered more for curiosity’s sake than flavours, but paired incredibly well. It was mildly citric and subdued and cut the through the fat and saltiness (always tough to pair with wine) of the smoky bacon.

This week, InterWined chose a different wine with a different signature than that of the Pinot Grigio: a 2006 Quinta de Simaens Vinho Verde, for £4.17 from Waitrose.

Vinho Verde, or Green Wine, is a Portuguese table wine; but that’s not written as an insult. Rather, it’s indication of the wine’s purpose. The Vinho Verde isn’t made for cellaring; it’s made for today and enjoying with a meal tonight.

The 2006 Quinta de Simaens is ripe and tropical in colour and bouquet with slight acidity that mellows after the first sip. An excellent companion for the hot, soft banana and woody pancetta. Like most white table wines, the bottle says serve as an aperitif or with white fish; InterWined says be more adventurous and serve with Pancetta & Banana Pizza sprinkled with black pepper and ripped basil leaves.

For those unable to source the Quinta de Simaens, InterWined highly recommends the 2007 Gazela Vinho Verde, retailing for $4.99 from Astor Wines.com. The 2007 is lighter than the Quinta de Simaens with a slight sparkle and gentle acidity.

InterWined’s Recipe in Full

Pancetta & Banana Pizza

Ingredients:
1 large pre-cooked pizza base
Slices of pancetta
Buffalo mozzarella
2 Bananas
1 handful of basil leaves
Black pepper
1 teaspoon red chilli flakes

1. Pre-heat the oven the 200°c.

2. Cut the Buffalo mozzarella in slices and spread evenly across the pizza base. Sprinkle sparingly with chilli flakes

3. Take the slices of pancetta and cut them on a diagonal several times; layer on top of the mozzarella.

4. Place the pizza in the oven and cook for 6-8 minutes.

5. While the pizza is cooking slice the bananas and rip the basil leaves with your hands into pieces.

6. After 6-8 minutes remove the pizza from oven and layer with slices of banana and basil.

7. Return to the oven for 2-3 minutes.

8. Season with freshly ground pepper and serve.

Dough can sometimes prove temperamental, as it often does in InterWined’s kitchen, requiring considerable refining of measurements in order to produce good results. In the interest of time, consider asking your local, independent pizzeria if you can buy a large pre-cooked pizza base. InterWined did — ed.

Download & Print Recipe

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