Think and cook like a goddess with Riesling
Being a Brit herself, a plethora of my wife’s go-to-favourite recipes are from U.K. celebrity chef Nigella Lawson. Lawson rose to fame when her second cookbook, How to Be a Domestic Goddess, won her author of the year at the British Book Awards.
The latest Lawson-inspired dish to hit our family dinner table is coq au Riesling, a result of my wife, Kerry, channelling her inner domestic goddess.
It’s a riff on the traditional coq au vin recipe, which originated in France’s Burgundy wine region.
Being a rustic dish, the standard coq au vin tended to use a tough bird, such as an old rooster, braised in Burgundy’s most famous red wine, Pinot Noir, to make it tender.
The blood of the bird, some bacon, leek and mushrooms tended to round out the dish.
Apparently, the recipe goes as far back as 2,100 years ago when Emperor Julius Caesar enjoyed coq au vin when France was occupied by Rome.
Coq au Riesling is a regional modification attributed to France’s Alsace, the cool-climate regional near Germany where crisp-and-dry Riesling is king and the called-for wine in the dish.
Lawson’s additional variations skips the rooster blood and instead calls for a touch of cream.
The recipe also suggests chunked, boneless and skinless chicken breasts andor thighs, so the meat will be guaranteed tender.
Additional flavours come from bacon strips, garlic-infused olive oil, sliced leek, bay leaves, oyster mushrooms and a whole bottle of Riesling. Yes, a whole bottle of Riesling. I know a lot of people will balk at that and either skimp on the wine or opt for a cheap Riesling or other white wine.
But the golden rule when cooking with wine is to use a full measure of the same quality of wine you’ll drink with the finished meal.
As such, my wife poured the Harper’s Trail Pioneer Block Riesling ($18.30) liberally, both in preparation and at the dinner table.
Harper’s Trail is Kamloops’ first winery named after the cattle-drive route of pioneer rancher Thaddeus Harper.
Its Riesling is textbook cool climate with crisp acidity, citrus aroma and flavours and a long mineral finish, perfect in the chicken dish and perfect in the glass.
You can follow the full coq au Riesling recipe at Nigella.com.
Another chicken dish calls for another stunning B.C. white wine.
The recipe for chicken parmesan doesn’t have wine in it, but we enjoyed it at home on a cozy Friday night with a bottle of 2016 Pinot Gris ($18) from Okanagan Falls’ Wild Goose Winery.
The Italian-inspired breaded chicken cutlet smothered in tomato sauce and melted mozzarella and provolone cheeses was the ideal foil for the Pinot Gris’ melon and honey nose and flavours.
The Gris has additional pedigree as the triple-threat winner from this year’s Cascadia Wine Competition in Oregon, where it picked up best in class, best white wine and best in show honours.
Volatile phenols
This UBC Okanagan research project is timely with the summer of forest fires and smoke we just experienced.
Assistant professor of chemistry Wesley Zandberg and his team have devised a new analytical test to quickly and precisely measure the amount of volatile phenols compounds absorbed by grapes exposed to smoke.
Volatile phenols, naturally, can give wine a smoky aroma and taste of wine.
The good news is the smoke this summer wasn’t severe enough to affect grapes.
In fact, some wines are aged in smoked oak barrels containing volatile phenols, so a bit of them isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
The university-developed test detects the exact amount of volatile phenols with a simple procedure that produces results in a matter of hours.
The only way previously to determine if grapes and wine had too many volatile phenols was to ferment a small sample over 10 days and then smell and taste the wine.
Zandberg and PhD student Matthew Noestheden used the test in several local vineyards this fall in conjunction with Kelowna-based analytical company Supra Research and Development.
The study was published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.
Wine gifts
If you have some discerning wine lovers on your Christmas list, CheckMate and Black Hills wineries may have the high-end gift sets for you.
Oliver’s CheckMate has four collections of wrapped and boxed bottles – the $305 Winemaker’s Set of three Chardonnays, the $340 Tournament Set of four 2014 Merlots, the $410 Single Vineyard Set of four Chardonnays and the $605 GrandMaster Set of all six of the winery’s Chardonnays, which all have chess-inspired names: Queen Taken, Attack, Little Pawn, Capture, Knight’s Challenge and Fool’s Mate. Check out CheckMateWinery.com. Meanwhile, at Oliver’s Black Hills, four gifts sets are on offer in either two, four or six bottle formats ranging from $119 to $329.
Each set includes at least one bottle of the winery’s flagship 2015 Nota Bene red blend and other bottles, including Alias (white blend), Syrah, Viognier and Chardonnay.Call 250-498-0666.
Beer fest
Apparently, it’s never too early to start craving beer.
As such, the Great Okanagan Beer Festival has announced it will be back in Kelowna for a fourth annual foray, May 10-12. And it’s selling early-bird tickets now. The $35 standard ticket gets you into the Saturday noon to 5 p.m. main event in Waterfront Park with 3,000 others, a tasting mug and three beer samples from the 60 breweries on site.
The $70 all-access pass includes express entry, 10 beer samples, lunch, fest swag, gift cards and vouchers.
On the Thursday and Friday there will be brewery socials, music-and-beer events and tap takeovers at pubs and restaurants.
Steve MacNaull is The Okanagan Weekend’s business and wine reporter and columnist. Reach him at steve.macnaull@ok.bc.ca.