Each week, InterWined.com pairs one great wine with one great meal and publishes the results along with the recipe in a little feature it likes to call ‘Blow the Bank’.

This week, ‘Blow the Bank’ brings you a simple Chicken Liver Salad to see us through the summer.

Like other forms of offal, chicken livers languish on supermarket shelves largely ignored by soccer moms and dads doing the weekly shop and chosen only by the frugal pensioner and the odd foodie. (After all, we can’t eat at St. John’s every night or drag ourselves to Smithfield’s each morning.)

It’s a shame too, really; because far more than most any other offal, chicken livers are both delectable and versatile. Consider this: in the past four years, I’ve managed to have chicken livers on lemongrass skewers in a restaurant on the Kowloon peninsula of Hong Kong, in pasta at a little Italian eatery hidden on the first floor of a rather non-descript Melbourne side street, as chopped liver served al fresco at a kosher trattoria in the Jewish quarter of Rome, and with salad in a Spanish tapas bar in London’s Piccadilly Circus.

While my favourite method of preparation would most certainly fresh from the pan with a touch of salt and gently fried in olive oil, they are remarkably good served with a slice of orange or Mandarin and few choice leaves of salad, making them perfect for a light summer luncheon.

Most often, people will recommend pairing liver with a big tannic red wine, the tannins serving as a safe partner for the savour flavour of the offal; however, an occasionally considered alternative — especially in the case of foie gras — is Sauternes, a sweet and acidic French dessert wine made of botrytised white wine grapes.

As with the French Sauternes, the Hungarian Tokaji Aszú is another well known wine made of botrytised wine grapes occasionally matched with foie gras to excellent affect. Given Hungary’s culinary acuity when it comes to all things liver (many consider the country’s foie gras among the best in the world — even France imports it), I decided to pair the Simple Chicken Liver Summer Salad with its dry Tokaji Furmint cousin, hoping that the drier wine would better suit the flavours chicken livers and salad.

Although, not quite the perfect match that I had hoped, but still a very good one all the same, the 2004 Oremus Tokaji Mandolas Dry Furmint (13%), £13.50 from Planet of the Grapes, is honeyed and buttery with an strong citric edge and a bit too much of an oak-y aftertaste that clashes slightly with the strongly textured flavour of the liver. This is a very impressive wine, nonetheless, and a rarity to find most places outside of Hungary to boot. Those seeking a white wine outside the realm of the overfamiliar Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc could do a lot worse than this. It would pair nicely with soft, flakey fish and seafood or make an excellent wine to enjoy on its own. It also maintains its form once openned, its oak-y aftertaste only marginally increasing over a few days.

Now, because InterWined is sometimes asked to ascribe numerical value to the wines it tries like judges at a sporting competition, let’s give this one some sort of score that suggests an excellent near miss, close the bullseye — something like 8.whatever.

(For more on InterWined’s complex ratings system, be sure to visit the Ratings page.)

InterWined’s Own Recipe in Full

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InterWined set itself a challenge: go into the wine section of a market and grab the first bottle that grabs you. Did so at a North London market named Woody’s…and thought we nabbed a red wine from Italy. In fact, we swore the wine was red right up to the point we poured it into […]

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Each Friday, InterWined.com pairs one great wine with one great meal and publishes the results along with the recipe in a little feature it likes to call ‘Blow the Bank’.

Just because UK food prices are their highest in more than a decade doesn’t mean that we can’t eat well. In fact, in some ways, it might mean just the opposite.

Here’s how: we all know that necessity is the mother of something, be it outright invention or the simply act of taking chances, as a quick search of Google will assure Mark Twain once apparently said; and when it comes to the kitchen that something is prized as culinary inspiration.

For most, if not all, of the world’s great culinary achievements – those techniques that transform ingredients into dishes that speak to our hearts as much as to our stomachs – were born of a necessary kind of culinary inspiration. From salting to smoking to pickling to stewing and offal to sausages to bean curd to…you get the picture…necessity has given us some of our most popular dishes and culinary techniques to help us see out the lean weeks and wait for the happy return of opulence and excess and imported non-seasonal fruits and vegetables.

So, in the spirit of the credit crunch, put down the ready-meal, unplug the microwave, and learn to re-embrace one-pot dinners and the hasty return of leftovers, as ‘Blow the Bank’ brings you its Slow-cooked Pork Tacos à la Olla Podrida.

And, sure it might cost more than a fiver (No offense Jamie; I’m sure shopping for spaghetti with you is very rewarding.), but it’ll definitely last a couple of meals.

Pork is a staple of the Spanish and Latin American diet, which dates back at least to the reconquista of Al-Andalus in 1492 — the year ol’ Cristóbal Colón went sailing to India and landed on the island of Hispaniola (the island divided by the nations of Haiti and the Dominican Republic).

The history of this dish isn’t that old, but it’s close. In Spanish, the words Olla Podrida literally refer to a rotten pot of meat. But names can be deceiving — especially when it comes to foodstuffs — because this dish is anything but rotten.

Cooked in a large earthenware pot, the loin of pork is slow-cooked for a couple of hours in a mix of water, roughly chopped onions, cut bulbs of garlic, and a touch of salt and pepper. Later, the pork is removed and the remaining water and ingredients discarded. In the same pot, mustard seeds, paprika, and cumin are heated in olive oil with onion. The pork loin is shredded and returned to the pot, along with a simple vegetable or wine stock, followed by red kidney beans, cannellini beans, and calasparra rice. Once the stock has evaporated, the pot is removed from the heat, re-seasoned and served on warm corn tortillas to become Slow-cooked Pork Tacos à la Olla Podrida.

A bottle of the 2006 Val do Sosego Albariño (12.5%), from Rias Baixas in Spain, available at Oddbins for £8.49, makes a wondrous pairing to this white-meat stew, its mix of apples and pears complimenting the pork as well as the corn tortilla. Pork and apples, like apples and maize are excellent pairing partners; and although there is a tad more of a floral sense on the nose and woodiness in the mouth than I would have liked, it remains light and well-balanced with a crispness that helps further perpetuate the sense of apple. That gives it a score of 8.3, based on the complicated but 100%-accurate ratings system outlined on InterWined.com’s Ratings page. Thing is, it was so close to 8.6.

(As most readers will know, InterWined’s rating system is somewhat arbitrary and largely tongue-in-cheek.)

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Today marks the first and, hopefully, last day I eat Hungarian Goulash.
Now, in a completely unrelated matter, two wine reviews for one Spanish producer. Actually the second wine would pair nicely with Goulash, I suspect. But I’ll never know (see first line of entry).
Family-run wine producer Albet i Noya has been around for awhile and […]

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InterWined loves children’s birthday parties in London. At such an event last weekend, a terribly talented performer named ‘Betty Boo’ (no, not that Betty Boo) entertained the children…while we adults were provide with some liquid refreshment.
There was the Champagne, and there was some beer…but the most enjoyable moment came from sipping on the delicious and […]

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InterWined is not a huge fan of white wines that are not dry at all.
There is something unsettling about drinking white wine without a bit of pucker.
Torrontes is a white wine grape that is considered 100% Argentinean. It is widely grown in the Calchaquies Valleys, as is the 2007 La Esperanza new to Marks & […]

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Each Friday, InterWined.com pairs one great wine with one great meal and publishes the results along with the recipe in a little feature it likes to call ‘Blow the Bank’.

This week, ‘Blow the Bank’ ends its month-long celebration of some of American cuisine’s greatest dishes from classic comfort foods to the unsung greats of American soulfood, with a decidedly European-take on a well-recognised transatlantic treat.

One word describes the 2003 Château de Fesles Bonnezeaux (12.5%) from the Loire Valley and available from Oddbins in the UK and Wine Chateau.com in the US (with numerous vintages available in Canada, New Zealand, and mainland Europe): smooth.

Made from 100% botrytis Chenin Blanc grapes, the Bonnezeaux screams smooth operator…not unlike the way Sade used to do on the radio. It has a fine golden colour with a rich, slightly creamy fresh fruit flavour with a hint of vanilla or nutmeg thrown in for good measure and makes for a stunningly attractive match to the smooth and silky mix of cream and fruit found in InterWined’s Own Pomegranate & Blueberry Cheesecake.

Like the hamburger and countless other “American” foods, the American cheesecake is rooted across the Atlantic in the kitchens and dinning rooms of a host of different European traditions. So what makes a cheesecake American? New Yorkers and Chicagoans might tell you it’s the baking.

But it’s not.

It’s the cream cheese. Cream cheese is a wholly American invention. Not until William Lawrence invented his now famous Philadelphia cream cheese in 1872 on his farm in New York State and its eventual owners, Kraft Foods, managed to manufacture a pasteurised version in 1912, did any cheesecakes resemble the stuff of today, whether or it was cooked as the New Yorkers and Chicagoans would recommend, or uncooked as the British and many others prefer. Before then, all cheesecakes were made the European way with a filling made of ricotta, mascarpone, quark, or Neufchatel cheeses.

Of course, that doesn’t mean that the American preference for baking doesn’t continue. Indeed, outside of perhaps only a handful of US restaurants and cities, the cooked cheesecake remains the more time-consuming norm. And while InterWined hates to pick sides in this most delicious debate (both are great!), for the sake of time and convenience, why not throw American preferences to one side and enjoy the speed and ease of a simple, smooth uncooked cheesecake, such as InterWined’s Own Pomegranate & Blueberry Cheesecake.

InterWined’s Own Recipe in Full

Pomegranate & Blueberry Cheesecake

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Ever ordered a dish off a menu at a restaurant or café and found yourself thinking, “I could make that”?

Well, InterWined did last weekend, while sitting outside Carluccio’s, the popular Italian café chain, and trying to make the most of the sporadic sunshine that fell along Market Square near London’s Oxford Street. The dish was a simple Emilia-Romagna-inspired serving of parmesan cheese with balsamic vinegar.

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Did you try Friday’s buffalo wing recipe? Well, I did, but without the benefit of the suggested wine. Simply put, InterWined’s recipe inspired me to experiment.
In this case, the gamble was with the widespread 2006 Jacob’s Creek ‘Three Vines’ white, £7 from Costcutter. The Three Vines offerings by Jacob’s Creek are nothing short of the […]

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At a recent lunch with colleagues in London’s financial fun zone, Canary Wharf, InterWined.com decided to put a single varietal bottle of Bonarda to the test. The way we saw it, Argentina’s popular wine should pair well with a sampling of Argentina’s popular steaks.
So we settled in to a table at Gaucho Grill, an Argentina-themed […]

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Each Friday and sometimes Saturday, InterWined.com pairs one great wine with one great meal and publishes the results along with the recipe in a little feature it likes to call ‘Blow the Bank’.

This week, ‘Blow the Bank’ continues InterWined’s All American, a month-long celebration of some of American cuisine’s greatest dishes from classic comfort foods to the unsung greats of American soulfood, with InterWined’s Own New Orleans King Prawn Po Boy.

The Po Boy is something of a culinary institution in the city of New Orleans. And whether you believe its name comes from the Franglish quip “pour le boy” or a bunch of striking streetcar drivers, two things are clear. You will find it on the chalkboards and menus of corner stores and cafes, bistros and banqueting halls, across the city of New Orleans and the southern United States, and it is definitely not a submarine sandwich, hoagie, grinder, or Hero/gyro.

Leaving New Orleans for London in 1997, there are few things that leave me with greater nostalgia than the simple pleasure of a naked Shrimp Po Boy with hot sauce. My favourite Po Boys, from which InterWined’s Own recipe derives, came from a small corner grocery on Magazine Street, where the Vietnamese shop owner served them naked, or dressed on French bread stuffed with a choice of shrimp, oyster, or roast beef and covered in sauce or debris. For those unfamiliar with the lingo of New Orleans, dressed means with salad, naked without, and debris is a kind of hot gravy for roast beef akin to that found on a drip beef sandwich. (For those unfamiliar with drip beef, we’ll leave that description for another day.)

The 2003 Ronco del Gnemiz Sauvignon from Friuli-Venezia Giulia in Eastern Italy, available through Cadman Fine Wines and reviewed here and here is the perfect companion, ably managing to match the heat of the chilli pepper, paprika, and hot sauce with its “kick-ass hint of jalapeño pepper” as well as subtly of the king prawns.

InterWined’s Own Recipe in Full

New Orleans King Prawn Po Boy

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Each Friday, InterWined.com pairs one great wine with one great meal and publishes the results along with the recipe in a little feature it likes to call ‘Blow the Bank’.

This week, ‘Blow the Bank’ brings you InterWined’s Own Pear Pithivier.

With so much religious observation last week, InterWined thought it was time for a little secular celebration and decided on the seemingly areligious little French pithivier. At least, that was the intention, until InterWined remembered its other name — la Galette des Roisor cake of the kings.

In other words, the exotic — indeed urbane and cosmopolitan sounding — pithivier is in fact good old, provincial, Catholic king cake made to commemorate three kings’ day and the epiphany.

And, while it might not look like the multi-coloured king cake of New Orleans’ Mardi Gras fame, the two are essentially one and the same.

So, so much for that idea…

The good news is, religious or not, InterWined’s Own Pear Pithivier is a great way to end the week, especially one marked by rain, cloud, wine, snow, hail, and a hint of sunshine. Who says it only rains in England?

Matching the weather and the pithivier is the 2005 Maculan Torcolato, made from 85% Vespaiola, 10% Garganega, and 5% Tocai, (13.5%), £16.99 from Oddbins. A mix of honey, fruit, sugar, acid and wood (thanks to French oak barrel aging), the wine is one of the prides of the Maculan winery, having won numerous awards since the 1970s. Like the best dessert wines, the Toroclato avoids any cloying or sickly sweetness. Exhibiting an excellent balance it’s simple, clean, and unassuming.

According to the Oddbins Web site, the Maculan Toroclato is perfect with almonds — and InterWined agrees. So, sit back and enjoy a glass of a great Italian dessert wine with a pear and almond pudding fit for a king.

Click on the post to view and download the recipe

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Each Friday, InterWined.com pairs one great wine with one great meal and publishes the results along with the recipe in a little feature it likes to call ‘Blow the Bank’.

This week, ‘Blow the Bank’ brings you InterWined’s Own Seared Tuna Sweet Potatoes Anna.

For myriad reasons left unexplored here, potatoes Anna has something of a reputation for being a complicated dish. Yet, sometimes the most complicated seeming dishes are actually the most straight-forward to prepare. That’s certainly the case with InterWined’s Own recipe for Sweet Potatoes Anna.

Paired with InterWined’s Own Seared Tuna Sweet Potatoes Anna, the recently reviewed 2003 Ronco del Gnemiz Tocai Friuliano. While the wine received the poorest review of the Ronco del Gnemiz wines featured in January on InterWined.com, it proves a strong pairing partner to the seared tuna and sweet potatoes Anna. With its taste of honey, it makes a great partner for the sweet potatoes, while the flinty finish goes quite well with tuna too.

Click on the post to view and download the recipe

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Each Friday, InterWined.com pairs one great wine with one great meal and publishes the results along with the recipe in a little feature it likes to call ‘Blow the Bank’.

This week, ‘Blow the Bank’ brings you InterWined’s Own Black Cherry Chocolate Palmiers.

The great European palmier might be the most simple little snack imaginable — given what little effort and time they require. They might also be one of the most versatile. They can easily accommodate most sweet and savoury fillings from jams and preserves to cheeses and thinly-sliced cuts of meat.

Many traditionalists consider palmiers simple coffee candy, something meant to help you kick start the day on this long-run February. Yet, why limit it to pairing with a simple morning cup of java? Why not let it help end your day, or month, too? In this case, with a brilliant wine.

A truly delectable match for the cherry, chocolate flavours found within the folds of puff pastry that make up InterWined’s Own Black Cherry Chocolate Palmiers is the 2007 Torrontes Tardio from Familia Zuccardi in the Medoza Valley of Argentina.

This late harvest dessert wine (85% Torrontes/15% Viognier) available for £6.99 from Oddbins and in California via Mission Liquor & Wines (as Santa Julia Torrontes) is oft-proclaimed to be pure nectar. And, it’s an apt description. There’s a honeyed-fruit sweetness that starts on the nose and lingers on the palate that ably matches the cherry-fruit and chocolate palmier filling.

A winner: 9 pts. or something equally ridiculous.

Click on the post to view and download the recipe

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Each Friday, InterWined.com pairs one great wine with one great meal and publishes the results along with the recipe in a little feature it likes to call ‘Blow the Bank’.

This week, ‘Blow the Bank’ brings you InterWined’s Own Monkfish Mexican Rice (Arroz con Rape).

For those whose experience of Mexican rice is limited to Old El Paso and Taco Bell, InterWined’s Own dish might seem more accurately described as Spanish paella. After all, when was the last time that you saw monkfish on the menu at a Mexican restaurant in the United States? Even Wahoo’s Fish Tacos — regardless of its name might suggest ‐ serve relatively little fish.

But, fish is an integral part of much Mexican cuisine — how could it not be with nearly six thousand miles of coastline. And, while that figure might only be half that of the United States, it’s a pretty big number when one considers that the United States is nearly five times the size of Mexico.

What makes this rice dish Mexican rather than Spanish is the same thing that makes a Pinot Noir from Burgundy a Côte de Nuits or Côte de Beaune and not an Italian, New Zealand, or Oregon Pinot Noir. They share the same ingredients but result — sometimes subtly, sometimes dramatically ‐ in different things.

The central difference between InterWined’s Own Mexican rice and Spanish paella is that paella is most often made with calasparro rice, rarely found in the UK or US outside of specially shops. (InterWined used a simple long grain.) A further one comes in the use of the main ingredients. Whereas paella begins with the meat, fish, and broth, InterWined’s Own Mexican rice dish begins with the rice and the spice.

Paired with the Monkfish Mexican Rice is the Catalan 2002 Xavier Clua Vindemia (13.5%) from Terra Alta in Spain, currently on sale at Cadman Fine Wines for £13.99 (original price £18.99). Made from Chardonnay (15%), Sauvignon Blanc (10%), and Garnacha Blanca (75%), the Vindemia smells like candied apples and caramel, making it seem like it might be better suited as an aperitif. However, once it reaches the tongue, the wine reveals as an intriguing blend of high-acid and oaky complexity reminiscent of the Sherries found in Jerez. This is a very good wine for food, with both the acid and oak sit well with the monkfish, prawns, squid, and cubed pancetta found in the Monkfish Mexican Rice.

InterWined’s Own Recipe in Full

Monkfish Mexican Rice

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