Matching Food & Wine

1 week ago | matchingfoodandwine.com | Fiona Beckett

Smoked trout and char with horseradish and Gemischter SatzPosted by Fiona Beckett (Google+) on May 26 2025 at 12:58Last week I was in Berlin though the city seems to be more in love with Austrian than German wines these days. This combination was one I tried at a winemakers evening at the Austrian wine bar Freundschaft which showcased wines from Weininger and Hajszan Neumann.

2 weeks ago | matchingfoodandwine.com | Fiona Beckett

Courgettes with Georgian Spices and WalnutsPosted by Fiona Beckett (Google+) on May 24 2025 at 13:40I’m a huge fan of Caroline Eden’s writing and this is a recipe from her latest book Green Mountains, the final part of a trilogy on her travels through the Balkans and Central Asia. This volume is based on the Caucasus, specifically Armenia and Georgia, a country I visited a few years back and absolutely loved, myself.

2 weeks ago | matchingfoodandwine.com | Fiona Beckett

Using ‘bridge’ ingredients to create a perfect matchPosted by Fiona Beckett (Google+) on May 21 2025 at 13:07One of the most useful tricks to master, especially when you’re dealing with a tricky-to-match ingredient, is to introduce a ‘bridge’ ingredient - in other words an element in the dish that makes it easier to pair with the wine you want to drink. It can be something as simple as cream or mashed potato or something rather more specific that picks out a flavour in the wine you’re serving.

2 weeks ago | matchingfoodandwine.com | Fiona Beckett

Milk chocolate delice with miso caramel ice cream and a 1987 Georgian dessert wine Posted by Fiona Beckett (Google+) on May 21 2025 at 15:30 I was torn between highlighting one of the many good matches with orange wine at a wine dinner at the Japanese restaurant Niju last week and this show stopping pairing of a 1987 dessert wine with a dessert of chocolate “delice’ (basically a moulded mousse) with miso caramel ice cream Although the dinner underlined how well Georgian wine, particularly...

1 month ago | matchingfoodandwine.com | Fiona Beckett

Hake with white asparagus, smoked caviar and gamay Posted by Fiona Beckett (Google+) on April 21 2025 at 12:21You might instinctively reach for a glass of white wine with hake but red wine can work equally well. And not only when it has a red wine sauce. This dish at The Blue Pelican in Deal which, despite the name, is an excellent Japanese restaurant, came with white asparagus, smoked Petrossian caviar and a sauce which I’m guessing included miso and mirin.