I was given a bottle of this prize winning wine and it is excellent. It is a typical Bordeax red and it has won prizes. It is for drinking now but you must drink it with good food.
I recommend it highly.
If you are in France and see it buy it.
http://www.vigneron-independant-aquitaine.com/vins-chateaux/?aoc=&search=iris+du+gayon
Sunday, 19 March 2017
Tuesday, 14 February 2017
Boxing Day dinner
For Boxing day 2106 we ate roast rib of beef. And I must say that I preferred this to the venison that I cooked the previous day for Christmas. Beef is my favourite meat.
I prepared the sauce for the beef in the same way as I prepared the sauce for the venison ( see my previous blog) but this time I added the leftover venison stock. The venison stock could just as easily be replaced by beef stock or chicken stock.
Sometimes we cook beef with just a large knob of butter on top of the joint after we have inserted slivers of garlic into the flesh. We add half an onion to the roasting dish and a good half a glass of white wine to the roasting meat about half way through. The meat can then be basted with the resulting stock. This is very much in the French style of cooking.
Generally we sear the outside of the beef before cooking, but then we don't time the roasting as we do it by feel and by checking that the juices are running rare.
If by chance you are cooking from frozen make sure that the whole of the rib has reached room temperature before attempting to cook. If you want the best beef buy it the day before you cook it and store it in a cool place.
It is best to leave the beef rest for 15 minutes to half an hour before serving; you can cover it with tin foil to retain some of the heat.
If you must then you can see the timings and a recipe below.
http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/videos/techniques/how-roast-and-carve-rib-beef
All beef is best eaten rare but rib of beef is very forgiving if you overcook it by trying to please your English and American friends.
My rib of beef tasted gorgeous we had bought it from a local butcher who knows how source and keep his beef properly.
What did we drink with this? Beef goes best with a full body Bordeaux or Rioja or a New World red or even a full body Italian red. A friend had given me a bottle of Beronia 2012 Red Rioja Reserva. This wine is superb; it is full of red fruits with a hint of vanilla and cloves coming from the oak maturation. The plentiful tannin refreshes the palate. It has well balanced acidity, tannin, dryness and body. It is concentrated and complex and you could taste it well after you swallowed it. Above all it is easily recognisable as Rioja. It is a wine of good character and it should keep for a few years longer. What more could you ask for to go with the perfectly cooked beef
I might repeat all this next Christmas with luck.
I prepared the sauce for the beef in the same way as I prepared the sauce for the venison ( see my previous blog) but this time I added the leftover venison stock. The venison stock could just as easily be replaced by beef stock or chicken stock.
Sometimes we cook beef with just a large knob of butter on top of the joint after we have inserted slivers of garlic into the flesh. We add half an onion to the roasting dish and a good half a glass of white wine to the roasting meat about half way through. The meat can then be basted with the resulting stock. This is very much in the French style of cooking.
Generally we sear the outside of the beef before cooking, but then we don't time the roasting as we do it by feel and by checking that the juices are running rare.
If by chance you are cooking from frozen make sure that the whole of the rib has reached room temperature before attempting to cook. If you want the best beef buy it the day before you cook it and store it in a cool place.
It is best to leave the beef rest for 15 minutes to half an hour before serving; you can cover it with tin foil to retain some of the heat.
If you must then you can see the timings and a recipe below.
http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/videos/techniques/how-roast-and-carve-rib-beef
All beef is best eaten rare but rib of beef is very forgiving if you overcook it by trying to please your English and American friends.
My rib of beef tasted gorgeous we had bought it from a local butcher who knows how source and keep his beef properly.
What did we drink with this? Beef goes best with a full body Bordeaux or Rioja or a New World red or even a full body Italian red. A friend had given me a bottle of Beronia 2012 Red Rioja Reserva. This wine is superb; it is full of red fruits with a hint of vanilla and cloves coming from the oak maturation. The plentiful tannin refreshes the palate. It has well balanced acidity, tannin, dryness and body. It is concentrated and complex and you could taste it well after you swallowed it. Above all it is easily recognisable as Rioja. It is a wine of good character and it should keep for a few years longer. What more could you ask for to go with the perfectly cooked beef
I might repeat all this next Christmas with luck.
Tuesday, 24 January 2017
Christmas Dinner Roast Venison and John Duval Eligo 2008
This year I cooked the Christmas Dinner. I did roast venison and it was mighty good. First I prepared a sauce in a large frying pan:
I chopped up an onion and a couple of cloves of garlic,
I fried the onions with some sunflower oil,
I added 200 ml of good port,
I added the garlic,
I added about 500 ml of water,
I added several blackberries,
A good dash of lemon juice,
I added some chicken stock,
A teaspoon of honey,
Some sea salt to taste,
I added a few juniper berries, some crushed cloves, pepper corns and a stick of cinnamon to taste.
I cooked the sauce whilst stirring it occasionally. I saved some of the juice to make a sauce later. I reduced the remaining sauce until it was thick.
I fried the joint of venison both sides until it was just becoming brown making sure that the juices of the sauce were well incorporated around the joint.
I warmed the oven to about 180 degrees C.
I greased an oven dish with some vegetable oil. I coated the venison joint with the onions, garlic and berries remaining from the sauce on both sides. I added the remaining liquid to the joint.
I cooked the joint until it was cooked on the outside but rare in the middle.
I left the joint to rest in its dish before serving but covered the baking dish with foil.
After removing the joint to carve it. I poured out the juices and made the sauce.
My joint weighed about 1 kg so I cooked it for about 45 minutes at 180 degrees. I basted the joint and checked that it was not overcooked by piercing the flesh to ensure that the juices were running rare.
The joint was cooked perfectly and was full of game flavour. The seasoning , port and berry flavour went perfectly.
I kept the remaining sauce for the next day.
You may be asking, what is the best wine to go with this? Well you need a top red wine which has a full flavour to match and which has a good structure with sufficient tannin to cleanse the palate between mouthfuls of succulent meat.
I choose a fabulous candidate: John Duval Eligo 2008 Shiraz from the Barossa Valley. This wine will cost you a few bob; mine was a present from some Australian friends. I am a lucky man. This wine was lovely. It had the perfect balance of tannin, acidity and dryness. It was of full body. It was concentrated and complex. It had a strong taste of red fruits with a hint of oak, vanilla and cloves. It had long length on the palate. It had all of the attributes of an excellent wine, so it was good value for money. At six years old ready for drinking but this wine could have been kept longer.
It holds its own well with the top red wines from France, Italy, Spain and the US and, certainly, other top wines from Australia. Of course, this is wine to be savoured with the best food and should not be sloshed down at a barbecue. It went down well with some strong French cheeses after the main course.
It made a memorable day, with me cooking the Christmas day meal, even more memorable. My French wife was duly impressed and the wine won her over too.
https://www.masterofmalt.com/wine/john-duval/john-duval-eligo-reserve-shiraz-2008-wine/
I chopped up an onion and a couple of cloves of garlic,
I fried the onions with some sunflower oil,
I added 200 ml of good port,
I added the garlic,
I added about 500 ml of water,
I added several blackberries,
A good dash of lemon juice,
I added some chicken stock,
A teaspoon of honey,
Some sea salt to taste,
I added a few juniper berries, some crushed cloves, pepper corns and a stick of cinnamon to taste.
I cooked the sauce whilst stirring it occasionally. I saved some of the juice to make a sauce later. I reduced the remaining sauce until it was thick.
I fried the joint of venison both sides until it was just becoming brown making sure that the juices of the sauce were well incorporated around the joint.
I warmed the oven to about 180 degrees C.
I greased an oven dish with some vegetable oil. I coated the venison joint with the onions, garlic and berries remaining from the sauce on both sides. I added the remaining liquid to the joint.
I cooked the joint until it was cooked on the outside but rare in the middle.
I left the joint to rest in its dish before serving but covered the baking dish with foil.
After removing the joint to carve it. I poured out the juices and made the sauce.
My joint weighed about 1 kg so I cooked it for about 45 minutes at 180 degrees. I basted the joint and checked that it was not overcooked by piercing the flesh to ensure that the juices were running rare.
The joint was cooked perfectly and was full of game flavour. The seasoning , port and berry flavour went perfectly.
I kept the remaining sauce for the next day.
You may be asking, what is the best wine to go with this? Well you need a top red wine which has a full flavour to match and which has a good structure with sufficient tannin to cleanse the palate between mouthfuls of succulent meat.
I choose a fabulous candidate: John Duval Eligo 2008 Shiraz from the Barossa Valley. This wine will cost you a few bob; mine was a present from some Australian friends. I am a lucky man. This wine was lovely. It had the perfect balance of tannin, acidity and dryness. It was of full body. It was concentrated and complex. It had a strong taste of red fruits with a hint of oak, vanilla and cloves. It had long length on the palate. It had all of the attributes of an excellent wine, so it was good value for money. At six years old ready for drinking but this wine could have been kept longer.
It holds its own well with the top red wines from France, Italy, Spain and the US and, certainly, other top wines from Australia. Of course, this is wine to be savoured with the best food and should not be sloshed down at a barbecue. It went down well with some strong French cheeses after the main course.
It made a memorable day, with me cooking the Christmas day meal, even more memorable. My French wife was duly impressed and the wine won her over too.
https://www.masterofmalt.com/wine/john-duval/john-duval-eligo-reserve-shiraz-2008-wine/
Friday, 13 January 2017
Osteria Da Fabrizio Christmas Eve 2016
We like to go out on Christmas eve, my wife and I, and why not saunter down to a regular and favourite restaurant? Once again we went to Osteria Da Fabrizio where regularly we both enjoy the food, the wine and the music. It is in Orpington in the London borough of Bromley and it's half an hour's brisk walk away- for us anyway.
The music is important to me when I am dining and Fabrizio always plays the best jazz and blues. Every year he resists the temptation to play "Jingle Bells" "White Christmas" and "Away in a Manger". This alone is good reason to dine there.
For some reason this year every body seemed to be happier, maybe no one had been caught up in traffic jams trying to enter and leave the huge and local shopping malls.
We met some great people. I thought I recognised the accent of the young people on the next table; they were from Bermondsey and my mum was born there too. We enjoyed a lovely conversation ranging from life in South London to the exploits of Millwall football club.
On another table some of Fabrizio's French relatives were visiting from Nice which is not far from the Italian border. My wife and I enjoyed a good conversation with them too.
We had very friendly if not familiar company.
For food we shared starters of "Grigliata di Mare" or octopus calamari with king prawns. And, "Tagliolini Alla Coda d'Aragosta Marinata" or pasta with marinated fresh lobster tail.
For main course we both ate "Orata Al Cartoccio" or steamed sea bream.
For dessert we both chose Chocolate fondant. We rarely chose the same menu but we could not resist the selection. All of this was delicious and served in an unpretentious and down to earth style.
The chocolate fondant was well cooked on the outside but runny in the middle; for me this is an indication of a chef that knows what he is doing.
So what wine did we drink? Well, we drank white wine of course. We washed the meal down with a bottle of 2010 Abruzzo Duca Thaulero Passerina Superiore DOP. This wine has the right balance of acidity, dryness, alcoholic strength, fruit flavour, concentration and complexity to complement both shell fish and sea bream etc. It is high quality wine at a reasonable price. The Abruzzo region is on the east coast of Italy in the central region. So it is no wonder that the wine goes well with fish - perfect. Apparently, the Passerina grape is named after the sparrow which loves to eat the small ripe fruits on the vine - dream on about viticultural paradise.
http://www.casalthaulero.it/en/vini/duca-thaulero/
I could not resist a glass of Cognac with my coffee but my wife did. We both sipped a glass of Limoncello afterwards. I was mixing it a bit but there were no side effects. I resisted the temptation to hear health warnings ringing in my ears on the walk home as I preferred to sing jazz to myself. It was Christmas, after all , and I did not want to spoil a perfect evening.
If ever you are nearby Orpington then try www.dafabrizio.co.uk/our-location/
The music is important to me when I am dining and Fabrizio always plays the best jazz and blues. Every year he resists the temptation to play "Jingle Bells" "White Christmas" and "Away in a Manger". This alone is good reason to dine there.
For some reason this year every body seemed to be happier, maybe no one had been caught up in traffic jams trying to enter and leave the huge and local shopping malls.
We met some great people. I thought I recognised the accent of the young people on the next table; they were from Bermondsey and my mum was born there too. We enjoyed a lovely conversation ranging from life in South London to the exploits of Millwall football club.
On another table some of Fabrizio's French relatives were visiting from Nice which is not far from the Italian border. My wife and I enjoyed a good conversation with them too.
We had very friendly if not familiar company.
For food we shared starters of "Grigliata di Mare" or octopus calamari with king prawns. And, "Tagliolini Alla Coda d'Aragosta Marinata" or pasta with marinated fresh lobster tail.
For main course we both ate "Orata Al Cartoccio" or steamed sea bream.
For dessert we both chose Chocolate fondant. We rarely chose the same menu but we could not resist the selection. All of this was delicious and served in an unpretentious and down to earth style.
The chocolate fondant was well cooked on the outside but runny in the middle; for me this is an indication of a chef that knows what he is doing.
So what wine did we drink? Well, we drank white wine of course. We washed the meal down with a bottle of 2010 Abruzzo Duca Thaulero Passerina Superiore DOP. This wine has the right balance of acidity, dryness, alcoholic strength, fruit flavour, concentration and complexity to complement both shell fish and sea bream etc. It is high quality wine at a reasonable price. The Abruzzo region is on the east coast of Italy in the central region. So it is no wonder that the wine goes well with fish - perfect. Apparently, the Passerina grape is named after the sparrow which loves to eat the small ripe fruits on the vine - dream on about viticultural paradise.
http://www.casalthaulero.it/en/vini/duca-thaulero/
I could not resist a glass of Cognac with my coffee but my wife did. We both sipped a glass of Limoncello afterwards. I was mixing it a bit but there were no side effects. I resisted the temptation to hear health warnings ringing in my ears on the walk home as I preferred to sing jazz to myself. It was Christmas, after all , and I did not want to spoil a perfect evening.
If ever you are nearby Orpington then try www.dafabrizio.co.uk/our-location/
Friday, 9 December 2016
Worth Keeping Your Wine - Domaine de L'Arjolle Paradoxe 2010 red
In a former blog on this site for September 2013 I wrote the following about Domaine de L'Arjolle Paradoxe 2010 red:
Well I didn't keep my own promise and drank the wine before 2015. I did, however, give away a bottle to a good friend who took my advice to keep the wine. We went to dinner at his place a couple of weeks ago and he opened his bottle. I couldn't see the label but recognised that this was superior wine and this was confirmed by my wife and our hosts.
The wine had indeed improved enormously in the bottle; it retained is full fruit flavour but the tannin had softened. The wine tasted superb and went down well with some beef. There is no doubt in my mind that this wine will probably improve more over the next year or so. At 16.5 Eur a bottle it represented tremendous value for money back in 2013: what more can I say. The quality of the wine reflected the love and dedication of the Domaine as applied in the vineyard and the wine making process.
So give three cheers for my wine tasting prowess.
Domaine D'Arjolle is based in Pouzolles in the Côtes-de-Thongue and not far from Péz
énas.
énas.
Thursday, 24 November 2016
Café de Paris Chez Boubier Geneva
Recently, we visited France to go to a party in Savoie not far from Mont Blanc. Our nearest airport was Geneva. We had some time to kill in Geneva and we arrived at lunchtime. Our timing could not have been better ; we arrived at the main station in Geneva and just a stone's throw from Rue Du Mont and one of my favourite restaurants - the Café de Paris Chez Boubier.
I have eaten is this restaurant tons of times when I did projects in Geneva and the atmosphere and quality of the food does not change; the place is expensive but excellent. My expense allowance did not allow me to eat there everyday, however, but just once a week or so.
Basically, there is only one main course and this is entrecôte steak served with the famous Beurre Café de Paris sauce and chips or french fries if you have pretension to being posh. If you order the steak rare then you will not be disappointed. The Café de Paris sauce was invented by Monsieur Boubier in 1930 at this very restaurant and it was an immediate success.
The recipe for the Beurre Café de Paris sauce is a closely guarded secret. It is mustard based and has a large number of ingredients. A chef friend of mine, who has worked in Geneva, has identified most of the ingredients from just tasting the sauce. It is only fair that it remains secret but from my friend's description we can certainly confirm what he told us.
So what is special about this restaurant? It is right in the heart of Geneva which in itself is special.
There is only one starter which is green salad with a rather lively and tangy vinaigrette sauce. The steak and sauce are wonderful and this main course is simply the best in the world for meat eaters. There is a range of traditional French style desserts. There is a limited range of wines but they all go well with the cuisine. The restaurant is in a traditional Parisian style.
For the two of us we selected a 50 cl bottle of Swiss wine - Merlot Réserve Germanier. This is not the best wine and we could have done better by ordering a bottle of French Bordeaux but we were in Switzerland and we were obliged to drink local wine.
Our meal cost about 150 CHF which is not cheap at about 118 quid, or 148 bucks. French workers in Geneva, of which there are many, would have to pay 140 EUR for two so not many of them will visit for lunch every day, if at all. Had we really hit the wine trail we could have spent an awful lot more.
For a visit on impulse this was rather a lot for us pay but we were on holiday and it was worth every penny and we could thank our lucky stars that we could still afford it even after a 15% drop in the pound.
Café de Paris style restaurants have spread across the world and another one of my favourites is the Relais de Venise in Port Maillot, Paris. I highly recommend them but only if you are feeling lucky or rich.
http://www.chezboubier.com/fr/
http://sauvage.savoie-mont-blanc.com/
http://www.savoie-mont-blanc.com/en
I have eaten is this restaurant tons of times when I did projects in Geneva and the atmosphere and quality of the food does not change; the place is expensive but excellent. My expense allowance did not allow me to eat there everyday, however, but just once a week or so.
Basically, there is only one main course and this is entrecôte steak served with the famous Beurre Café de Paris sauce and chips or french fries if you have pretension to being posh. If you order the steak rare then you will not be disappointed. The Café de Paris sauce was invented by Monsieur Boubier in 1930 at this very restaurant and it was an immediate success.
The recipe for the Beurre Café de Paris sauce is a closely guarded secret. It is mustard based and has a large number of ingredients. A chef friend of mine, who has worked in Geneva, has identified most of the ingredients from just tasting the sauce. It is only fair that it remains secret but from my friend's description we can certainly confirm what he told us.
So what is special about this restaurant? It is right in the heart of Geneva which in itself is special.
There is only one starter which is green salad with a rather lively and tangy vinaigrette sauce. The steak and sauce are wonderful and this main course is simply the best in the world for meat eaters. There is a range of traditional French style desserts. There is a limited range of wines but they all go well with the cuisine. The restaurant is in a traditional Parisian style.
For the two of us we selected a 50 cl bottle of Swiss wine - Merlot Réserve Germanier. This is not the best wine and we could have done better by ordering a bottle of French Bordeaux but we were in Switzerland and we were obliged to drink local wine.
Our meal cost about 150 CHF which is not cheap at about 118 quid, or 148 bucks. French workers in Geneva, of which there are many, would have to pay 140 EUR for two so not many of them will visit for lunch every day, if at all. Had we really hit the wine trail we could have spent an awful lot more.
For a visit on impulse this was rather a lot for us pay but we were on holiday and it was worth every penny and we could thank our lucky stars that we could still afford it even after a 15% drop in the pound.
Café de Paris style restaurants have spread across the world and another one of my favourites is the Relais de Venise in Port Maillot, Paris. I highly recommend them but only if you are feeling lucky or rich.
http://www.chezboubier.com/fr/
http://sauvage.savoie-mont-blanc.com/
http://www.savoie-mont-blanc.com/en
Wednesday, 26 October 2016
Fino and Manzanilla Sherry - they both go well with most types of food
On a recent trip to Andalucia, in Spain, my wife and I only drank one bottle of table wine. We fell in love again with Fino and Manzanilla sherries. Both wines are dry, white and fortified to between 14.5 and 16% alcohol. Fino is produced in Jerez and nearby Puerto on the coast. Fino is more famous than its Manzanilla cousin which is produced on the coast in Sanlúcar de Barrameda - not far from Jerez.
Both wines are produced by the same method from Palomino grapes. Manzanilla has a more salty taste. The saltiness is reputedly derived for the fact that the barrels, used to produce the wine, are more exposed to the salty air of the Atlantic than the Fino wine of Jerez which is further in land..
Both wines go very well with tapas. Whilst in Andulucia, we ate a wide range of foods ranging from shell fish to steak and sweet desserts. Fino and Manzanilla went well with all sorts of this food. I can think of only one other wine that I could drink throughout a meal and that is Champagne.
You have to drink the youngest wines available and drink them chilled; then, if possible, finish the bottle. A 750 ml bottle will easily keep 4 or 6 friends happy over a meal. These wines should only be drunk with good food. Although stronger than table wines Fino and Manzanilla are best sipped rather than slugged back. One copita of these wines can quite easily last a whole meal.
We brought a litre bottle back from our trip and drank about 125 ml each for four nights with fish, meat and dessert. I estimate that a 125 ml glass has about 2 units of alcohol so over four nights we only consumed about 8 units of alcohol- how very abstemious of us and the ministry of health would be very proud.
After the first serving we used a "vacu-vin" stopper to draw all the air out of the bottle and then kept the wine in the fridge; this way our litre bottle would have lasted a week if we could have resisted having a sip every evening.
Fino and Manzanilla have a nutty taste and they are tangy with a hint of fresh bread. They have lower levels of acidity but the higher levels of acetaldehyde as opposed to organic acids give them that typical sherry taste.
They are lovely wines and are almost always worthy of consideration when eating good food which is full of flavour. It is time to give both of these great wines a try.
http://www.sherrynotes.com/sherry-types/types-of-sherry-manzanilla/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flor
http://www.bbr.com/region-5401-fino?utm_source=bing&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=SD%20-%20Regions%20-%20Port&utm_term=fino%20sherry&utm_content=Fino
Both wines are produced by the same method from Palomino grapes. Manzanilla has a more salty taste. The saltiness is reputedly derived for the fact that the barrels, used to produce the wine, are more exposed to the salty air of the Atlantic than the Fino wine of Jerez which is further in land..
Both wines go very well with tapas. Whilst in Andulucia, we ate a wide range of foods ranging from shell fish to steak and sweet desserts. Fino and Manzanilla went well with all sorts of this food. I can think of only one other wine that I could drink throughout a meal and that is Champagne.
You have to drink the youngest wines available and drink them chilled; then, if possible, finish the bottle. A 750 ml bottle will easily keep 4 or 6 friends happy over a meal. These wines should only be drunk with good food. Although stronger than table wines Fino and Manzanilla are best sipped rather than slugged back. One copita of these wines can quite easily last a whole meal.
We brought a litre bottle back from our trip and drank about 125 ml each for four nights with fish, meat and dessert. I estimate that a 125 ml glass has about 2 units of alcohol so over four nights we only consumed about 8 units of alcohol- how very abstemious of us and the ministry of health would be very proud.
After the first serving we used a "vacu-vin" stopper to draw all the air out of the bottle and then kept the wine in the fridge; this way our litre bottle would have lasted a week if we could have resisted having a sip every evening.
Fino and Manzanilla have a nutty taste and they are tangy with a hint of fresh bread. They have lower levels of acidity but the higher levels of acetaldehyde as opposed to organic acids give them that typical sherry taste.
They are lovely wines and are almost always worthy of consideration when eating good food which is full of flavour. It is time to give both of these great wines a try.
http://www.sherrynotes.com/sherry-types/types-of-sherry-manzanilla/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flor
http://www.bbr.com/region-5401-fino?utm_source=bing&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=SD%20-%20Regions%20-%20Port&utm_term=fino%20sherry&utm_content=Fino
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