Two weeks ago saw two wine reviews on InterWined.com from Spanish producer Albet i Noya.
This week, a glass of NV Catalan Cava from the same producer was enjoyed at the Kensington Whole Foods market in London, with a few fresh, raw rock oysters from the waters of Britain and France. Perfect.
The store has a decent […]

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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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It would be irresponsible for InterWined to say that Spanish wines have not come a long way. The advent of the so-called ‘high expression’ wine styles – more fruity aggression, less oak — in the early 2000s modernised the way we view, and drink, Spanish wines.
But now the country, or at least the consumers of […]

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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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Each Friday Most Fridays and some others given the circumstances, 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 it’s InterWined’s Own Chunky Tomato Soup — just the sort of dish to enjoy with loads of freshly baked bread and good bottle of wine on a late autumn evening when you and the sun in the sky have decided to call it a day by four in the afternoon.

For many people, wine is in an ingredient and never an accompaniment to well-prepared soup. After all, what’s the point of pairing a liquid with a liquid? But it needn’t be so galling.

In fact, it’s quite traditional to serve a sherry or fortified wine with a consommé or bisque. The flavours of the two balancing each other to great affect. What’s perhaps slightly less traditional is serving a fuller white or red wine with soup. But, given the features of InterWined’s Own Chunky Tomato Soup a fuller wine should work wonders, and does do in the form of a 2006 Txomin Etxaniz Getariako Txakolina, just outside of San Sebastian in the Basque Country of northern Spain, and bought from Planet of the Grapes for around £11.

In the wine world, there are few better partners to the tomato that the simple green wines of the Iberian Peninsula. And while, most wine lovers are well-versed in the Portuguese Vihno Verde, fewer are familiar with its Basque cousin, Txakoli, made from the grapes Hondarribi Zuri and Hondarrabi Beltza, or its most famous representative the humble Txomin Etxaniz.

For those not blessed with a knack for the Basque tongue, Euskara, Txomin Etxaniz looks virtually unpronounceable. And, as a wine, one assumes is more often ordered with an index finger placed on a menu than a tongue pressed against the soft palate of the mouth. In actual fact, it’s quite an easy name to say: It’s Shomin Eshaniz or Shomin Eshanith. But, for simplicity’s sake, we’ll call him Dominic or Domy for short.

And the 2006 Domy is a perfect partner for Chunky Tomato Soup. At 11% alcohol, it’s both light and nimble. Its green-y acidity and fresh zip give a nice kick to the tomatoes and make the entire experience utterly morish: 9.6. This is another superb example of a simple, low yield, table wine that beats the big boys in terms of sheer drinking pleasure again and again.

InterWined’s Own Recipe In Full

Chunky Tomato Soup

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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 another slight departure from the norm and comes courtesy of its own recipe for Cumberland Pie.

As mentioned previously, traditional British foods have a universally poor reputation — especially when compared to the traditional foods of their European neighbours to the South, such as France and Italy. The only fly in the ointment, however, tends to be that so few of the people doing the comparisons have ever had many of the traditional British foods that they deride.

Perhaps it’s their names: To people born outside of the Commonwealth, names like Fish Pie, Cumberland Pie, Cottage Pie, Shepherd’s Pie, Toad in the Hole, Bangers & Mash, Bubble & Squeak conjure up images of Monty Python sketches far more than they do desirable cuisine. And to be fair, who wouldn’t rather eat something exotic sounding like Coq au Vin over Steak & Kidney Pie, which to the American ear — at least — must sound like the worst dessert ever.

Yet, pies in particular are an essential and complicated part of British cooking and cuisine. There are pies that have crusts and pies that don’t. To complicate things further, there are vast differences of opinion on the most appropriate method of preparation. Does one steam a steak pie or cook it? If a Shepherd’s Pie is prepared with beef, doesn’t it become a Cottage pie? Should a Cottage or Cumberland Pie always have minced meat?

And while InterWined has its own opinions on each of the above, any debate would, in part, miss the point: Traditional British pies, like French cassoulet and Italian osso buco are comfort foods, hearty dishes made for eating on rainy days and after arduous work, that people love to eat because they taste good rather than simply sound tasty.

The Spanish 2004 Sangre de Torro from Miguel Torres might not ‘Blow the Bank’ with its £5.49 price tag (available at supermarkets everywhere) and slight air of ubiquity (again, available at supermarkets everywhere), but don’t hold those things against it.

Made of Garnacha and Cariñena, the Sangre de Torro or Bull’s Blood is commonly hailed as a great Catlan table wine; and, as with the Vinho Verde served in the previous ‘Blow the Bank’, that’s not intended as an insult. This is a wine for serving with roasts and casseroles and all matter of traditional comfort foods.

Its rich mix of blackberry, current, and pepper gives added flavour to the sweated onions and meaty vegetables such as the mushrooms featured in this week’s pie, during their preparation. And, once in the oven, it serves as an excellent blanket in which to wrap the meat under a heavy lid of mashed potatoes and grated cheese, ensuring that meat is tender, juicy, and slightly sweet. A comfort wine for comfort foods: 8.7.

So rather than argue the details of whether InterWined prepared a fully authentic Cumberland Pie, let’s simply agree it’s a comforting and hearty meal and one of the Worst Desserts Ever!

InterWined’s Own Dish in Full

Cumberland Pie

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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’ comes courtesy of Danielle of Habeas Brûlée and the intriguingly titled Crypto-Jewish Brazilian Yellow Stew, the inspiration for which she explains in her post came from the book A Drizzle of Honey: The Life and Recipes of Spain’s Secret Jews, by David M. Gitlitz and Linda Kay Davidson.

At first thought, cooking meats with fruit might seem rather unorthodox in the English-speaking world — like fusion cuisine. Yet, it is a long-standing tradition across most of Asia, the South Pacific, Africa, Latin America, and large parts of continental Europe. After all, who hasn’t heard of such classic fruit and meat pairings as melon and prosciutto or Duck l’Orange?

In contrast to those familiar staples Danielle’s Brazilian Yellow stew is simultaneously classic and modern, steeped as it is in the history of Iberia, the Spanish Inquisition, the Jewish Diaspora and the popular tropical fruits of South America.

And it’s the marriage of old and new that makes the dish so refreshingly light and flavourful. This isn’t the heavy winter stews of InterWined’s youth.

Paired with Danielle’s Crypto-Jewish Brazilian Yellow Stew was the 2005 Pazo Señorans Albariño from Philglas & Swiggot at £11.99 and widely available in the US for around $20. (At Philglas & Swiggot, the 2001 Pazo retails for £26.99.)

Like Danielle’s stew, Albariño is an old wine made new again by the popularity of its dry, sometimes Riesling-like, flavour and crisp fruity nose. While the precise history of the grape seems hard to confirm, its production has reputedly increased five-fold since the 1990s with winemakers exporting the grape for the first time to California, where a handful of winemakers such as Cambiata now produce American Albariño.

With a light straw colour, the 2005 Pazo Señorans smells of stone-fruit, maybe even faint watermelon, and grass. Its slightly acidic flavour instantly highlights the ripeness of the stew’s mango. A treat.

Danielle’s Recipe in Full

Crypto-Jewish Brazilian Yellow Stew

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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’ comes courtesy of Lynette at Lex Culinaria and a tantalizing Pistachio-crusted Elk Roast with Wasabi Mash.

Alongside the recipe at Lex Culinaria is a post on a story that appeared in The Age, an Australian, Melbourne-based Newspaper, concerning fraud in the food industry and recipe theft in particular. In 2006, a Melbourne restaurateur, it seems, had begun copying other restaurants’ recipes and serving them in his restaurant. Given the shapelessness of the Web, Lynette pondered what, if any, lessons the article imparted to the food blogger. Her conclusion? The same as InterWined’s: few ideas and few recipes are truly original; and, whether copying or adapting, always give credit where credit’s due.

Bearing this sage advice in mind, InterWined decided to adapt Lynette’s excellent Pistachio-crusted Elk Roast with Wasabi Mash recipe, rather than copy it. And, instead, prepared a quicker ‘Blow the Bank’-friendly Pistachio-crusted Venison Steak with Wasabi Mash. (For those disinclined toward elk or venison, Lynette assures that beef works too.)

To accompany InterWined’s Lex Culinaira-inspired Pistachio-crusted Venison Steak, the 2005 Espelt Sauló, from Emporado along the Costa Brava in Catalonia, Spain, £12 from Philglas & Swiggot and widely available online in North America.

Sauló is Catalan for sand gravel and, oddly, an almost fitting description of the wine and the soil in which the grapes (Garnacha & Cariñena) were grown. There’s a dirt quality to the wine, but it’s also low in tannins, soft, and has a nice fruitiness. The wine’ earthiness makes it durable and helps it stand up against the Asian, sugary flavours of the dishes glaze, while the soft fruit pairs very nicely with the meat.

Lynette’s Recipe in Full

Pistachio-crusted Elk Roast with Wasabi Mash

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First up: the 2006 Burgáns Albariño from Rias Baixas in Galicia, bought for under $12. (It currently sells from Oddbins in the UK for £8.99.)

A native and little-planted grape in Galicia, it was not until the Spanish government awarded it with its own D.O. or Denominación de Origen in 1986 (a classification similar to the French appellation) that production began to rapidly increase along with name recognition. Now, it has emerged as the grape of 2007, earning coverage in most wine-related media outlets for its crisp taste and seemingly endless versatility, as InterWined highlighted in two recent posts and as its readers and contributors have mentioned in the comments.

While the 2006 Burgáns isn’t the best Albariño that InterWined has ever tasted (that honour probably goes to the bottle served at Back to Basics in London), it’s a very good wine. Yellow in colour and apple in flavour, it was Appletiser with the bubbles (meant as compliment, by the way). For those unfamiliar with the UK Sparkling Fruit Drink, don’t think cider, but rather the crisp, sometimes slightly syrupy flavour one gets when biting into a really ripe apple from a farmer’s market. Think summer; think sun; think serve with almost anything: 8.2.

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