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Wine Blog By Jack Scott
Tue, 15 May 2012
NEWS FLASH – Jascots short listed for ON-TRADE SUPPLIER OF THE YEAR The Drinks Business awards 2012
Jascots short listed for ON-TRADE SUPPLIER OF THE YEAR – The Drinks Business awards 2012 Judges took into account the recommendation and...
Mon, 14 May 2012
Blog readers will recall the great occasion last autumn when we staged a completely blind tasting of Grandes Marques Champagnes against our Palmer...
Sunday 1st January 2012
This month's food match is Chinese Orange Beef with Shiitake Mushrooms, paired perfectly with a couple of bottles of Bolfan Primus Riesling, Croatia 2008.
by Deborah Wallen
Introduction
Sure, we've all just had Christmas (at time of writing, we may even have recovered from it!) so we all had a need for something light, fresh and healthy yet with amazing flavour.
Fortunately, and coinciding with Chinese New Year too, Debbie's fabulous Orange Beef recipe saved us from prolonging the Christmas bloat.
But it has oranges in. Fruit. Sweet, tangy fruit. Sure, wine's made from fruit... pairing this should be easy. Maybe.
We did have the answer, honest, and had fun working with a series of wines on our way to identifying the best match. Try seeing how flavours change alongside other flavours, at home with two very different bottles of wine and a great dish.
Anyway, on to Debbie's recipe. My food & wine tips, and the wine we chose to serve with this, come at the end.
Ingredients
Serves 2
This spicy beef recipe is low in calories but full of flavour. If you're feeling hungry. I would suggest an aromatic rice such as Jasmine or an aromatic Thai rice.
For the beef
1 tbsp Shaoxing rice wine or dry sherry
(That includes the Tapas-loving Fino and Manzanilla styles, in case this is helpful!)
2 tbsp light soy sauce
2 tbsp clear honey
4 tbsp orange juice
Pinch ground white pepper
Pinch chilli flakes
Pinch 5 spice powder
½ tsp Ginger juice (Optional) fresh ginger pound and squeezed
2 beef fillet steaks
1 tbsp groundnut oil
100g/3½oz fresh shiitake mushrooms, sliced
To serve
Mixed salad leaves
1 orange, peeled and segmented
1 spring onion, finely sliced
Method
1. For the marinade, place the rice wine, soy sauce, honey, orange
juice, chilli flakes, 5 spice powder, ginger juice if using and ground white pepper into a large bowl and whisk well to combine. Add the beef steaks, cover the bowl with cling film and leave to marinate for 10-15 minutes in the fridge.
2. Heat a wok or frying pan until smoking and add the groundnut oil, then add the steaks, reserving the marinade. Fry for 1-2 minutes on each side for rare, 2-3 minutes for medium, or longer for well-done. Transfer the steaks onto two serving plates, cover with foil and leave to rest for five minutes
3. Pour the reserved marinade into the wok and cook over a high heat for 30 seconds, or until the sauce is sticky.
4. Add the shiitake mushrooms to the wok and cook for 3-4 minutes, or until the mushrooms are softened. Add a splash of water to help create some steam to cook the mushrooms.
5. To serve, remove the foil from the plates and spoon the mushrooms alongside the steaks. Garnish with the orange segments and spring onion, if using, and serve with mixed salad leaves.
Wine Match
by James MacLellan
Bolfan Primus Riesling, Croatia 2008
As usual, we pitched up three wines to this pairing session. Feeling pairing a white (despite the beef) would always be easier because of the strong fruit component, we picked two (to help us classify what style of white wine's required).
Choosing one red was a sad failure - great on its own but sadly not surviving 'contact with the enemy'! It just became a shade too dry and light-seeming. In retrospect, it's greater ripeness that we needed, perhaps going as off-piste as a smart red Lambrusco for the pairing. Give a young, not too heavily oaked Malbec with really soft tannins a try, too.
So fell Esk Valley's Syrah at the first hurdle and we turned to our two whites.
Both of these were Riesling but in very different styles: Von Buhl's amazing, pert, fresh, crisp, super-delicious 2009 in a really dry, grown up style. This was countered by a darling of the Jascots-in-the-press mentions over the last couple of months: Tomislav Bolfan's richer 'Primus' Riesling 2008 from Croatia.
Von Buhl, again demonstrating that we needed a touch of sweetness for this match, seemed to become more light-weight when tasted with the food, more cleansing and refreshing, falling behind the dish in the flavour-intensity stakes as though it suddenly lost weight before the finish line.
Our Bolfan, however, possessing a warmer, more ripe-tasting style which was slightly more honeyed, with a fraction more residual sugar (not so much that this is a sweet wine, by any stretch) really, really shone.
Giving a pronounced orange character when brought in contact with the dish, this clearly balanced the sweetness yet allowed the beef to be delicious, warming and deeply, deeply comforting.
Please click here to purchase this amazing wine for £11.10 per bottle or £9.95 each as part of a case of 12.
Download this recipe here:
Recipe of the Month