Re: Food matching - Wild salmon

immediately?)

I wouldn't worry about the salt melting (mp. about 800°C/1300°F) and there's not enough moisture extracted from a salmon filet to dissolve it. This is a pretty good way to cook salmon: "saumon a l'unilateral ", I believe. The only problem is that the salt should be quite hot and the method tends to produce a lot of smoke. I hope you have a good kitchen fan or will cook outdoors! Roasting on a bed of salt in a 300°C/500°F oven for 10 minutes also works.

Sorry I guess dissolve would have been a better word than melt. So salt doesn't dissolve in the oil? I've never tried this method, though I've done the roast on bed of salt method. Dale

Dale Williams Drop "damnspam" to reply

Salut/Hi simobap,

le/on 19 Jul 2003 03:54:52 -0700, tu disais/you said:-

Cor, you don't give much time for people to answer you!!!

As Dale suggests, this is quite a hard match - also quite late in the season - my personal preference for green alsaragus, is to serve it hot and match it with mellted butter. Your call, however. As for wines, - IF you serve balsmac, then it's pretty wine friendly. I'd go for a very good Gruner Veltliner (judging by those I've tasted), or an Alsatian Pinot Gris/Blanc if it's bone dry.

Again beware of salas - the vinegar in them tend to be hard on wines. My personal preference for top class salmon is a top class Savennières with good bottle age. A 10-15 year old sry chenin is wonderful. If I were getting a wine from MY cellar I'd choose Clos de la Coulée de Serrant '83.

You're not likely to have this or access to it. So a youngish Pinot Noir - not too big, is a choice of many on this group. NOT mine. I don't like PN with salmon very much (sorry Tom). I'd maybe serve a characterful Rosé. A Tavel might go well, or else Tour des Gendres Bergerac Rosé. Although the wine would be badly outclassed by the fish.

Don't know the dish, but I'm always dubious about wine with chocolate. Accepted wisdom calls for Banyuls or Maury, and they're OK, without being outstanding as a marriage. Tokaji Aszu especially the older examples - does stand up well although that's all it is. No wine I've ever drunk _improves_ a choccy dessert. An interesting play on contrasts might be to go for a Disznoko 1993 6 putts, where the maramaladey character might well go well with the chocolate. Another possibility, since you look as if you may live in the UK would be the Royal Tokay Wine Company's Nyulászo named wine. That has chocolatey overtones, though it's a horrible price. Can you get hold of a Malaga? That would be a marriage of chocolate and raisins, and might please.

'Fry' was in quotes wasn't it? My recipe for the method comes from Gourmet Magazine, I think, and does not suggest adding oil. The fish is cooked skin side down, the oil from it forms smoke at the cooking temperature and salt is not soluble in oil anyway. It's a great recipe for good salmon especially, IMHO, Copper River salmon.

Bon Appetit!

Jim.

I certainly agree with your suggestions, Ian, but I'll also suggest that either a good Chablis or a top quality Riesling Kabinett would be a fine choice with the OP's salmon. My feeling is that, with a fish as rich, oily and flavorful as salmon, you want a big, dry white wine with plenty of acidity. One thing that comes through in all our recommendations is the unspoken belief that such a fine fish deserves a truly top class wine! ;-)

Mark Lipton

Mark, Ian, Dale

I think the asparagus with butter or oil would be great with one of the newfangled roses from Provence or Languedoc, I have a 100% mourvedre in mind that would not go over as aperitif at all, but would probably do a good job with the asparageese and even with the salmon if cooked with salt. Anyh other cooking method and I tend to agree with Ian, a good dry chenin, and if you twist my arm, a northern Bugundy white of very good lineage.

Cheers

Mike

Arthur

what is "standard French authority" ?

W.r.t. food wine pairing, there are absolutely no rules, and if there are authorities proclaiming them, the fun is breaking them.

In recent experiments, we have managed to show that vinegar and wine are not such bad enemies after all. Artichokes, tomatoes, eggs, vinegar, asparagus, all can be matched. You have to use your head and be free from prejudice...

Mike

Thanks everyone for your replies.

I realise know I should have given location as that might have helped

- (London, UK).

A few things.

First, what wine did I go with-->

I went a local wine merchant, who in my opinion, has the best informed staff in the area.

An interesting discussion unfolded and in the end I decided to go with two wines from Mt. Difficulty from the Central Otogo Valley in New Zealand

I was curious to try these wines for a variety of reason, including that they were both screw tops.

For the desert - they didn't have Tokayi - and so I went with a Yalumba Museum Muscat.

Second, how was the matching-->

Unfortunately for the correct reasons, I didn't take notes. But I can say - both of the Mt. Difficulty wines were excellent and I would recommend them. The SB being the best example of the NZ style I've tried so far (not had Cloudy Bay yet) and the PN being a fine example of the varietal. (Has anyone else tried these, if so what's your thoughts)

On the desert - wine just didn't work - but I knew going in that would be the case.

Finally, how was the meal-->

Asparagus - just steamed them and served with melted better. As mentioned, is a bit late in the UK season and so they were a bit woody. The SB made up for this and so success

Salmon - dry frying pan, bed of rock salt, skin down - worked very well and cooked the salmon perfectly. Hard to describe - but let's just say my comment was - "What the heck have I been eating before as salmon!" - the PN worked wonderfully and was a very good compliment

Chocolate bombs - were wonderful as ever - if you like chocolate, you need to try these.

Again, thanks for your help...

/simobap

For asparagus/artichokes with sauce hollandaise (that's the way I love them and have them 99% of the time): Full-throttle pinot blanc with no or very little wood, something like 13 to 14% alcohol (natural, of course, but that's no question anyway here in Austria) and at least three, better five years old, from a good producer (Austria or Germany); Neuburger, Zierfandler, Rotgipfler, Chardonnay or blends of similar stature would also be very good, as would be dry pinot gris from Alsace.

When it comes to vinagrette, my best experiences have been with (unoaked) sauvignon blanc and grüner veltliner. This latter proves really versatile when it comes to "problematic" food.

M.

Thanks Michael! great tips. One last quick question, do these wines enhance the meal flavours or do they just cruise through without adding anything or taking anything away...

enough talking about it I will go and try it

thanks

It's kind of 2 ends of a sausage: Asparagus, hollandaise & pinot blanc with bottle age are a beautiful combination (so the wine really enhances the food), while artichokes & vinaigrette are the most problematic, at least to my palate, but I still prefer wine to any other beverage when it comes to food, with one possible exception: Spicy blue cheese goes marvellously well with the type of sweetish dark beer we have here in Austria.

M.

would a good dissert or fortified wine be good? I forgot about dissert matching, especially chocolate... I need to go read my sources and just in case i'm faced with that same pairing problem. My dissert of choice is cheesecake and while it's hard to match something that sweet, I usually just go with a port most of the time (tawny, as ruby is SO sweet it conflicts).