Bisol Food & Wine Matching: The Cook Off

By Bibendumtimes

Despite some of the contenders enjoying various degrees of recovery (it was the night after our annual tasting, after all), it was with great pleasure that Bibendum Times hosted the final of the Bisol Food and Wine matching competition.

Niamh Shields  (Eat like a Girl) discovered Bisol’s Prosecco while serving it at the Covent Garden Real Food Market. After mixing and matching it to her home cooked food, Niamh discovered that Prosecco can be much more than just the drink before the meal. So she decided to challenge her fellow bloggers and a competition was launched. Trinity, London one of the blogger’s favourite restaurants joined in and offered a gorgeous meal for two at the chef’s table to the winner.

Simply Splendiferous (Ailbhe Phelan), Essex Eating (Dan Vaux-Nobles)  and Food Urchin (Danny Kingston) made it to the final by posting their recipe ideas on Niamh’s blog. They were then invited to our own office kitchen to prove that not only can they write about food but can also cook it. There was a bit of chatting and some hazy memories of the night before to break the ice but before long the knives and chopping boards were out and serious faces on.

Each dish had to go through a panel of 3 judges: Roberto Cremonese (Bisol’s Export Manager), Rupert Taylor  (Sommelier at Trinity restaurant) and Gal Zohar (Bibendum).  The judges mainly concentrated on how well the dish matched with the Prosecco but also took note of the quality of the food.

First in the line of fire was Food Urchin with his Warm Winter Salad with Pheasant, Pear, Pomegranate and Walnut. Great flavour combination and a perfect winter starter.

Second came Simply Splendiferous with her sea trout fillets with a fresh rocket, spinach and watercress salad and a tartare based sauce. Beautiful crisp from the skin and the fish was cooked to perfection.

Last came Essex Eating and his Pork Chop with prosecco and tarragon cream sauce, goats cheese and olive crushed potatoes, parsnip puree. This was the richest dish of the night and was meticulously made with a very complex sauce.

And the winner? Well all three dishes were cooked to a very high standard and also had a restaurant look and feel to them. So it was a though choice but in the end Food Urchin’s winter salad won on points. The zesty and fruity flavours of the salad were the perfect partner to Bisol’s Prosecco.

A very enjoyable night that was also a fantastic dinner.

Tags: bisol, Bloggers, Competition, food and wine

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 28th, 2010 at 1:56 pm and is filed under Food & Wine, Food & Wine. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.