Pairing wine with food: Should you care?

Do you pair your food to your wine? Or do you pair your wine to your food? Do you think food and wine needs to be paired at all?

This can be an interesting discussion. In the last two weeks, as part of a consulting project, I have been talking to select respondents about wine. While some like to pair their foods with wine, others dont care at all! Some choose their wine based on what they are eating that night and others just choose the wine they like, irrespective of what they eat.

But, should you care? Well, you dont have to. Some of us get headaches with particular wines – some of us are creatures of habit and want to stick to just one type of wine that we are familiar with and we like. Most connoisseurs however, like to pair food and wine together, so this article is for those aspiring connoisseurs who do care and who may be interested in learning a little bit more about pairings.

There are so many websites now that talk about wine and food pairings. Some like the Food and Wine Pairing website make it so easy to pair – You choose the food (beef, chicken, lamb, fish, pork etc) and the website tells you what wines to choose. Similarly, if you want to choose a wine instead, it describes the wine (grape, texture, flavors), what to pair it with and what to avoid. Brilliant, isn’t it?

Lisa Shea’s wine blog is also a fun read, where she talks about cheese as well as food pairings with wine. Stores such as Pairings in Winchester, MA focus on both food and wine, and a lot of their in-store wine tasting sessions offer wine with food pairings – Are there any places in the NYC-NJ area that do that? I would love to know!

UK food and drink writer, Fiona Beckett who is a wine columnist for The Guardian and author of 22 books on wine and food, organizes special workshops on pairing. Musings on the Vine discusses the ‘sense of taste’ (graphics et al, check their webpage) and rules for matching wine and food. Last Friday’s Wall Street Journal article, ‘Uncorking the City’ by Letti Teague mentioned two NYC spots – La Pizza Fresca that pairs Gaya Barbararesco with pizza; and Gramercy Tavern that  matches wine with Chef Anthony’s food pairings – as two hot blocks for wine drinkers.

As expected, Food and Wine magazine is also a great resource for food and wine pairings. Author Ray Isle gives some easy-to-read and simple-to-follow information on pairings. Most times, for a quick glance-through, the information you see below is all we are looking for, so I just copy-pasted the most relevant information from the article. But, for the readers who really want to explore – ….and truly, drinking and appreciating wine is a journey by itself – ….click on his name to get to the actual posting on the Food and Wine website.

Whites

• CHAMPAGNE IS PERFECT WITH ANYTHING SALTY
• SAUVIGNON BLANC GOES WITH TART DRESSINGS AND SAUCES
• GRÜNER VELTLINER – WHEN A DISH HAS LOTS OF FRESH HERBS
• PINOT GRIGIO PAIRS WITH LIGHT FISH DISHES
• CHARDONNAY FOR FATTY FISH OR FISH IN A RICH SAUCE
• OFF-DRY RIESLING PAIRS WITH SWEET & SPICY DISHES
• MOSCATO D’ASTI LOVES FRUIT DESSERTS

Rosé Wines

• ROSÉ CHAMPAGNE IS GREAT WITH DINNER, NOT JUST HORS D’OEUVRES
• DRY ROSÉ IS FOR RICH, CHEESY DISHES

Reds

• PINOT NOIR IS GREAT FOR DISHES WITH EARTHY FLAVORS
• OLD WORLD WINES AND OLD WORLD DISHES ARE INTRINSICALLY GOOD TOGETHER
• MALBEC WON’T BE OVERSHADOWED BY SWEET-SPICY BARBECUE SAUCES
• ZINFANDEL FOR PÂTÉS, MOUSSES AND TERRINES
• CABERNET SAUVIGNON IS FABULOUS WITH JUICY RED MEAT
• SYRAH MATCHES WITH HIGHLY SPICED DISHES

Finally, this chart from Savory.tv seems like a good, clean, classification for reference:

Once upon a time, there was a sauce called Sofrito

Last night, I met a few of my girlfriends for drinks where we just happened to talk about beans.

More than one person at the table last night lamented they have no idea how to cook beans. One person said ; “I open a can, heat it up and serve it!”.

And while she is narrating her little stories around beans, I am thinking  – OMG! Really? That bad, huh? I would find that so totally unappealing.  So – girlfriends (you know who ya’ll are!) – this post is dedicated to you.

Now,  being a vegetarian and growing up in India means knowing how to cook beans. Indians are generally comfortable around pressure cookers and whistles that often scare Americans! (well, admittedly, some Indians too!)

I know most people have little or no time, and probably little or no patience to sort through recipes – I get that: That’s why I started Cook Aunty.  But sometimes, you dont want a chef in the home – it also gets expensive calling one frequently – and not everyone has the spare money.

So, if you want some partially-home-cooked food but want a hassle-free experience, go to the store and buy some pastes and sauces. And although I am a big fan of dry beans cooked in a slow cooker or in a pressure cooker, feel free to use cans.

Here are different things you can do with cooked beans:

1. Cut and saute some fresh tomatoes, onions and garlic in olive oil  – Once you’ve sauteed them for 3-5 minutes, throw in the cooked beans (strain them and throw the water out if they are canned), put some salt, pepper and chili flakes and garnish with fresh cilantro

2. Give your beans a Spanish touch – buy Goya’s Sofrito sauce which has everything, (except salt ) that you need to spice up some beans (no, I don’t mean chilli powder!)  It has tomato, onions, peppers and garlic so it saves a lot of time in the kitchen! And, trust me, it is delish. Or use Goya’s Recaito which is a cilantro-based sauce

3. Play around with coconut milk – Throw in some cooked noodles, and strained beans and some spices (I do recommend Indian spices because I am partial to them, but a Thai or a Malaysian satay paste would work as well) – I make a mean Burmese dish where I put tomato (small can) sauce in the coconut milk with some sauteed veggies and cooked beans

4. Indian cooking curry sauces (especially the red ones that go well with chicken such as Tikka Paste or Cilantro-Tomato-Ginger pastes) can be used with all sauteed veggies and I would encourage you to experiment using them with cooked, strained beans – particularly chick peas or red-kidney beans. (try them canned, if you are trying them for the very first time!) Add a dollop of fresh whipped cream and it just gets yummier!

So, go ahead girlfriends – spice up your food and your lives – and ping me if you need help figuring something out 🙂