Today’s pairing is a wine pairing.
Dinner was Bow-tie pasta tossed with fresh tomatoes, olives, caramelized onions, mozzarella, prosciutto, and tomato basil feta. Along with Sour Dough Bread.
It was paired with a 2009 Melon de Bourgogne by Roots. Melon de Bourgogne another name for a Muscedet, a white wine originally from the Loire region of France. Although the wine we drank was from Oregon. The wine has a little bit of sweetness with some honey, peach flavors along with a nice tartness, bright acidity and a hint of brininess.
I did not follo
w a recipe with this dish but will give you an idea of what I did. The pasta, bread and mozzarella were all homemade.
First I diced the tomatoes and macerated them in olive oil, salt and pepper, for about 30 minutes.
Then I started sautéing the onions over low heat in a little bit of butter until they were just caramelized and then added the prosciutto which I had cut into strips. After about 5 minutes I added the olives, feta and tomatoes. I tossed in the pasta, which I had already cooked, along with some cubed mozzarella and mixed until the pasta was coated. After it was on the plates I topped with a bit more mozzarella and feta.
I would had added fresh basil if I had had any.
I was careful to not add any extra salt to the dish because many of the ingredients already had salty flavors (olives, feta and prosciutto) and did not want it to become overpowering with the light briny flavor the wine had.
I think they paired quite nicely together. The wine was bright and crisp which help refresh the palate from the slight creamy and salty aspects of the dish. The dish in turn brought out some more of the sweet and tart flavors from the wine and mellowed the briny aspect.
We had strawberry shortcake for a tasty dessert afterwards.
This blog looks incredibly professional. I especially like the inclusion of the photos! god it looked delicious. Were you a chef at some point or a professional sommelier? the look and the feel of this whole page just seems so "real" (like, not a passing interest but something that you have pursued and know a lot about)
ReplyDeleteDrew- Thanks for the positive comments! I have never been a chef just a passionate home cook. Nor a sommelier but am taking classes at South Seattle's Northwest Wine Academy. Food and Wine pairing is what I am planning to study. At home I am passionate about finding pairings for food and beer and perhaps someday spirits.
ReplyDeleteI have contemplated creating a blog for a long time and this was the push I needed. So I am working really hard to make it something great. Something I will continue on.
I agree with Drew entirely. Your blog is really becoming quite nice and I want to encourage you to continue it even after classes done. And the pictures, oh my God, I'm on a diet can you give me a break Rebecca. Seriously, that looks like something has to go through. I was curious about the wine and the cost of it–was it expensive wine or an economical brand?
ReplyDeleteJust for suggestion for your posts, see if there's some how you can link to either the vineyard that the wine comes from, or something along those lines. At some point you could start to recommend, for example, the brands of food that you use. For example what type of mozzarella did you use here? Just something to think about. Thank you, I have to leave now before I want to eat lots of food. LOL :)
Oh, one more thing. There should be a setting in blogger that allows your readers to subscribe to your blog by e-mail. What this means is this, every time you post a blog entry, people on your e-mail list will be automatically sent a link and a quick summary of the blog entry that you posted. So, you'll want to include that to help garnish an audience.
ReplyDeleteRebecca- I was thinking about including brands and prices and might in future posts. The wine I used for this dish was a gift so I do not know the price, but I think it is in the middle range of price.
ReplyDeleteFor this dish the mozzarella was homemade. We typically make our mozzarella fresh. Which is other topics I have considered blogging about. A special blog about how to make some of the food items.
I will look for this setting and try to get it set up.
Can I just say, that your blog made me want to go out and buy fresh strawberries and heavy whipping cream! I also want to reiterate what everyone else is saying: your blog looks GOOD! It's very professional and I would encourage you to continue it, but also get some amazon links in - I could see this blog becoming popular. Nice work!
ReplyDeletewow, you made your own mozzarella? wow
ReplyDelete