Good food would choose Bordeaux. Or so the current marketing campaign for the region’s wines would have you believe. To help prove the link between Bordeaux and fine grub, Bordeaux Wines organised a masterchef style cooking competition for members of the trade and press.

The competition was hotly contested. Two heats of six teams were whittled down to six finalists. Bibendum’s very own Willie Lebus and Caroline Conner were among the finalists and all set to cook up a storm in search of the top prize. Then disaster struck. A combination of diary clashes and manflu meant neither was available for selection on the big day.

It was left to yours truly to step in as a late substitution, bullying my colleague Jenn to join me at the last minute.

The format was simple: choose your ingredients and then cook them over three hours in the sweltering heat of the kitchens at Westminster Kingsway College. The competition was fierce and contenders were taking it very seriously indeed. The teams worked in a hushed silence only perforated by the odd swear word.

Team Bibendum started with this:

Which over several hours (mainly spent sipping vin blanc and tinkering with a plum puree) we turned into this…

…and this…

Beautiful plates, I’m sure you’ll agree and they do say the first bite is with the eyes. Unfortunately for us, the second and third bites are not.

Despite pairing the cod, leeks and mussels with a beautifully fresh Semillon-based white from (I think) the Entre-Deux-Mers and matching a plump, fruity Merlot to the venison, come the final reckoning we lost marks for unimaginative use of ingredients, a watery beurre blanc, and a overly bolshy plum and blackberry sauce, amongst other culinary crimes.

Harsh words but then if you can’t stand the heat, you know what to do.

The winning team was Joe and Stefan from Restaurant Magazine who knocked up an awesome sea bass and mushrooms starter followed by some perfectly cooked wild duck. Clearly all that hanging out with the UK’s top chefs has rubbed off. Worthy champions.

Thanks to the CIVB and Summit SP for organising and for letting the Bibendum subs take part at such short notice. We had a ball and will definitely be back for more next year.

This rich, and slightly naughty Tex-Mex chilli explodes with fiery flavours and is the perfect remedy for warming body and soul.

As a one pot dish it’s simple and quick to put together, perfect for sharing on a night in with friends with a big dish of cheesy nachos!

Warning – Not for the faint hearted!

Serves 4
Prep: 5 minutes
Cooking: 40-45 minutes

Ingredients –

450g British lean Aberdeen Angus beef mince
Dreg of choice: d’Arenberg Stump Jump Shiraz/Grenache/Mourvedre
4 or 5 large squares of good quality dark chocolate – at least 70% cocoa solids
1 large red chilli (de-seeded!)
1½ tins of tinned tomatoes
1 tin of mixed beans
200g mushrooms
1 medium white onion
1 large red or orange pepper
2 cloves of garlic
Dessert spoon of wholegrain mustard
Allow 70g of long grain white rice per person
Sour cream
Salt and pepper to season, and personal preference of mixed herbs.

Method -

1)    Prepare vegetables by roughly chopping the onion, garlic, pepper and chilli and thinly slice the mushrooms.

2)    Heat a large swirl of olive oil over a medium heat in a deep pan, throw in the onion and garlic, coat with the oil and fry.

3)    The onion and garlic will begin to soften, as they do add the peppers and chilli and continue to fry for a further 5 minutes, then add in the mushrooms. If necessary, top up the oil as charcoal chilli is not what we’re going for.

4)    Next add the meat and continue frying for 5 minutes until the mince is browned all over. There shouldn’t be too much liquid from the meat if it’s top quality!

5)    Add the tins of tomatoes and a drained tin of beans. *Try to use the chunky tomato parts and avoid using all the juice otherwise the dish can become too watery*. It is now time for the key ingredients!

6)    Pour in a LARGE glug of leftover red wine into the simmering pot along with 4 squares of the chocolate – the fifth square is for a sneaky treat!

7)    Stir the mix to melt the chocolate and watch the pot turn a rich and vivid red. Add a large dessert spoon of mustard, any required seasoning, and simmer on a low heat for 25 minutes.

8)    Whilst the chilli is cooking boil some long grain white rice for 20 minutes until the grains are slightly firm.

Serve by creating a well in a mound of rice and fill with a hearty helping of chilli, to complete top with a lovely dollop of sour cream! I wish I’d had some buttery corn on the cob to go with this too!

How could this Tex-Mex treat not tantalise your taste buds?!

Follow the links below to see the two previous recipes from the Cooking with the wine dregs series –

Cooking with the wine dregs…Summer Pudding recipe

Cooking with the wine dregs…Sweet and Crunchy Risotto with Prosciutto

I am a sucker for food traditions and am always rather sad that in the UK, Easter has become a celebration of mainstream chocolate bars in ovoid form. Roast lamb is often touted as traditional but it hardly catches the imagination like a Christmas goose, and when was the last time you made a Simnel cake?

All of which makes me love Easter in Greece. The eggs come hard boiled, hand-painted red and are used to play an odd version of conkers. Tsoureki, a sort of brioche lightly flavoured with the ground pips of wild cherries, take centre stage on the breakfast table. The lenten fast (which last 40 days for the devout and since lunchtime for me) is ended at midnight on the Saturday: Christ rises, light is passed from candle to candle around the country, and we hurry home from the town square to eat Magritsa, aka Goat Offal and Dill Soup.

Don’t worry, the rest of the goat isn’t wasted. Come Sunday, the air is filled with the sound of clinking ouzo glasses and the smell of roasted flesh as the beasts are roasted whole.

The recipe is simple: fill cavity with rosemary and lemon slices, rubbing copious amounts of salt, pepper and olive oil over the skin. Thread on to the skewer and turn until done, lubricating yourself with regular top ups of ouzo.

We served Billy with horta (wilted greens), tzatziki (yoghurt, cucumber and garlic), skorthalia (garlic, olive oil and potato puree), tomato and feta salad, and my very own version of melitzanosalata (a sort of Baba Ganoush-style aubergine dip). The latter is far from traditional as an accompaniment to roast goat but I thought it would go well and the locals were polite enough to humour me.

Gareth’s Melitzanosalata Recipe

Barbecue half a dozen or so aubergines whole until the skin is black and the flesh is soft.

Leave to cool, peel and pull away the flesh into a bowl. Add a chopped ripe tomato or two, a crushed garlic clove, some chopped mint and parsley, a slug of olive oil and a squeeze of lemon.

It will be meltingly soft, gently smoky and creamy rather than oily. You will wish you made double the quantity.

The Wine

When in Rome, do as the Romans do.

In Greece, we buy our wine from the local butcher who has a dozen large barrels holding various wines under inert gas. You pick your wine, grab a plastic bottle and fill it from the tap. To my mind, the cheapest red and white are the best. But at around E2 per litre, one can afford to experiment.

The red is fab – not in a Chateau Latour-sort of way but in a chill it down (it is not much darker than rosé anyway) and quaff it back sort of way. It is simple, uncomplicated, light and fruity. It is a wine to be drunk from a jug with friends.

It may never win a gold medal at the IWC or receive 90pts from Parker but I couldn’t care less.

Altitude and cabin pressure does funny things to our taste buds, as Heston Blumenthal’s Mission Impossible programme on Channel 4 earlier this year showed when the chef devised a number of umami-heavy dishes for BA customers.

But what about wine? If our taste buds perceive food differently on the ground then surely the same goes for the wine? It does – a wine that shines in a Michelin-starred restaurant in the West End may taste tough and bitter at 30,000 feet.

Our Wine and Travel guru, Andy Sparrow, recently jetted off to New York with BA with a number of journalists to demonstrate the difficulties of picking wines that will taste good mid-way across the Atlantic at the roomy end of a Boeing 777…

BA will be showcasing more of their Height Cuisine programme at Taste of London between 16th and 19th June, with some of Heston’s new dishes on show and lots of food and wine matching masterclasses, featuring our very own Mr Sparrow.

In the words of  Tony Smith, BA’s head of customer service and hospitality, “Creating great food at 35,000 feet is a huge challenge. At Taste of London we hope to share some of the science behind food at altitude and offer visitors the chance to give us feedback on some of the innovative new ideas British Airways is exploring.”

Sounds good to us. Maybe we’ll see you there.

In an ideal world, I would celebrate tonight with a chilled beer or three and some seriously spicy food at the London fooderati’s Sichuan restaurant of choice: Chilli Cool. Cumin and chilli encrusted mini-lamb skewers? Yes please. Deep fried pigs’ intestines? Hell yeah. Sea-spicy aubergine? Never miss it.

However, owing to a change in recent circumstances, I’ll be at home and Chinese cooking at home can mean only thing: a Fuchsia Dunlop recipe.

Dunlop’s books on Sichuan and Hunanese cookery are old favourites on the kitchen bookshelf. They are informative, scholarly reads as much as sources of recipes, written by someone who has taken the time to immerse herself in another culture and get under the (pig’s) skin of its dishes.

If you have a crumbled book voucher left over from Christmas burning a hole in your pocket then you could do far worse than heading straight down to Waterstone’s to buy them.

One of my favourite recipes from Revolutionary Chinese Cooking is Chairman Mao’s Red Braised Pork Belly, named after the infamous dictator, cultural revolutionist and Warholian muse who apparently used to wolf down bowlfuls of the stuff whilst planning the next entry in his little red book.

The dish is as easy as it gets; a simple simmer of lardy pig, sugar, rice wine and aromatic spices, with plenty of red chilli for good measure. The result is sublime. Melting fat meets tender flesh in an embrace of spicy caramel, the whole shebang lifted by a hot, fragrant broth.

It is the sort of dish to pair with something fruity and floral but with some fat cutting acidity too. I’m thinking Knappstein Three 2009, a blend of Gewurztraminer, Riesling and Pinot Gris might be just the job.

Now, Gewurz and Chinese food might be one of the oldest food and wine clichés in the book, but there is something about the grape’s lychee and mango aromatics that work well with spicy food, especially when partnered in a blend with something racier and leaner such as Riesling.

If I am right, the fragrant jasmine and honeysuckle on the nose will match up perfectly with the anis and cinnamon in the broth and the ripe peach and pear fruit will act as a sounding board for the heat of the chillies. The big squeeze of citrus from the Riesling should cut through the melting fat of the meat.

It is all about balance. Yin and Yang.

If there is one thing that California’s diverse cultural mix is great for, it’s bringing a variety of cuisines from around the world to the fine people of California. Surely the local baseball team in San Francisco, the Giants, is named after the appetite of the local people.  Whilst on a recent trip to the state, seven hungry souls headed out to Napa in search of fine wine and fine food. We weren’t to be disappointed. From the moment we kicked off the trip with breakfast from the Bouchon French Patisserie in Yountville, we had  definite feeling of  “Who ate all the pies!”

Here is a quick stop guide of a few places you must try if you are in the Napa region.

Busters Southern BBQ, Calistoga

The breakfast at Bouchon French Patisserie gave us a slight idea of what was to come on our next stop for Lunch at Busters in Calistoga. A great name, and great for the carnivorous ones amongst us, but lacking in much of a vegetarian option. The people of Napa really do like their meat, with fine selections of steak, ribs and giant burgers. The evening followed in a similar vein with another superb barbeque at the Black Stallion winery.

The Wine and Roses, Lodi

The Lodi visitor centre is perfectly geared for people travelling to experience the delights of some of the best Zinfandel the world has to offer. If you ever find yourself there you must visit The Wine and Roses restaurant next door. I can thoroughly recommend the crab cakes for a starter.

Delicato, San Bernabe Vineyard

More of the traditional American diner style followed that evening in Monterey, down near Cannery Row, made famous by John Steinbeck. The following day I expected more of the same and I wasn’t disappointed with the most delightful lunch served up by Cheryl Indelicato of the Delicato winery.  The lunch was a pleasurable one served in the middle of their San Bernabe vineyards in the heart of the USA salad bowl.  The sausages were from a local butcher made with boar and pork, and finishing with a refreshing after dinner palate cleansing sorbet.

Pepper’s Mexicali Cafe, Monterey

We were all glad of a walk and a visit to the beach at Carmel followed by a small libation at Pebble Beach, preparing us for the evening’s meal. The United Kingdom is famous for the depth and quality of Indian cuisine. The same connection can be said in California with the Mexican food that is on offer. Not the most attractive food, but tasty. My only suggestion is not to have it two nights on the trot, and not with a gallon of neat tequila.

And to finish off the trip, you couldn’t walk past this shop window without indulging in a large piece of cake; just to round of a food lovers dream week.

If I had any issues to pick with the cuisine in California, it is not the best place to go if you are on a diet. But California and especially the Napa region is well worth a trip if only for its wide selection of delicious food and wine.

I made this last night. I am gagging to eat it again tonight!

Ingredients -

For 3/4 people

6 plump scallops
5 large squid tubes
350 grams fresh king prawn tails
4 large cloves of garlic
2 red chillies
1 green chilli
2 leeks
2 banana shallots
300 grams of young spinach leaves
300 grams asparagus (I know!)
200 grams trimmed French beans (I know)
Nam Pla
Palo Cortado Sherry
White wine
Hoisin sauce
Groundnut oil
Crushed roasted peanuts
Fresh lime juice

The Method –

Spend some time doing the prep in front of the telly. Chop all the vegetables into sensible sizes. Get the fish sorted similarly. Then get a large wok/saucepan. Heat some groundnut oil and add the garlic, leeks, shallots and chillies, and sweat gently. Add a good amount of Sherry, a dollop of Nam Pla, a couple of spoonfuls of Hoisin sauce and carry on cooking slowly.

Add the spinach leaves, beans and a glassful of white wine. Integrate carefully. Then switch to a higher heat and add the squid and the asparagus, followed 30 seconds later by the prawns and scallops. 60 seconds later, take it off the heat. Add a couple of handfuls of crushed salted peanuts and the juice of a lime. The only thing you mustn’t do is overcook the fish!

Let it cool for 2 or 3 minutes and serve with noodles, rice or by itself. You can vary the fish element, but it’s sensible to get a balance of textures. I drank a stunning bottle of Rolly Gassmann Riesling from Alsace, which was a great match. Good new world Pinot Noir would work equally well!

YUM!

Check out more of Willie’s great recipes on Bibendum Times -

Willie’s Twice Cooked Oxtail

Willie’s Crab Apple Jelly

Willie’s Heroic Lamb Curry

Willie’s Extra Hot Chilli Redcurrant Jelly

Bollito Misto is one of the great Italian dishes. An (almost) one pot dish, its name can be translated as “Mixed Boiled Dinner”. Luckily, it tastes better than it sounds. It is essentially a big pot of different meats – we used ox tongue, brisket, chicken and cotechino sausage – slowly poached with some vegetables until tender. The result is melting flesh and a deep, comforting, flavourful broth.

We served the broth with some homemade pasta stuffed with ricotta and spinach as a starter and the meat with an array of piquant accompaniments : fiery horseradish sauce, a caper-spiced salsa verde, lentils and the sweet-hot-fruity oddness that is Mostarda di Cremona.

We washed it all down with a bevy of Barberas including four of Piedmont’s very best producers: Giuseppe Mascarello, Roberto Voerzio, GD Vajra and Bruno Giacosa. For their pure, crisp fruit and impeccable balance, the Giacosa and Mascarello stole the show. The Voerzio was polished and ripe but slightly lacking in freshness and zest. The light but firm Vajra was still very good but overshadowed slightly by the illustrious company.

Barbera is a fantastic grape for this sort of rustic food offering plenty of tannins and acidity alongside crisp red fruit. It can taste a little tart and dry when tasted alone but add in a chunk of slow cooked brisket or some al dente ribbons of pasta and it will begin to sing. The Nebbiolo of Barolo and Barbaresco may be the star grape in Piemonte, but Barbera is the better value option.

A few photos of the feast…

That last photo is actually a cheese. A friend has asked the staff at La Fromagerie for an “interesting” cheese. “Interesting nice or interesting nasty?” was the reply. She plumped for the latter. It is called Boulette d’Avesnes and it is truly nasty. A beer-washed soft cheese flavoured with cloves and spicy paprika that looked and smelled like a rotten dismembered brain and which has the texture of pearl barley when you cut into it. Epoisses, it ain’t.

Autumn is every glutton’s favourite season. The cool days and dark nights have us reaching for the Le Creuset with thoughts of daubes, braises and stews. Early morning walks in the woods have the promise of wild mushroom Russian roulette. Game birds, trussed and wrapped in streaky, displace the usual hunk of beef in the butcher’s window. The urge to preserve returns too: crab apples, damsons, sloes.

A free Saturday last weekend gave me the opportunity to indulge my autumnal cravings with a menu that read wild mushrooms on toast, roast pheasant with Fergus Henderson’s prosaically-named Turnip Bake, and a Greengage and Almond Tart.

The wines – and this is supposed to be a wine website – were good too: a mouth-watering Donnhoff Dry Riesling which was as underpriced as it was delicious, and a perfumed, floral, peppery 2004 Cote Rotie from Jamet.

Jamet’s Cote Roties are fabulous. In a region that keeps an increasingly close eye on the tastes and points of one Robert Parker, they are wonderfully old fashioned. Jean-Paul and Jean-Luc’s cellar is a ramshackle labyrinth of old wood, outdated machinery and cobwebs. A hygiene-obsessed flying winemaker would have the place condemned.

When we visit to taste the new vintage – usually 12 months on from the harvest – we don’t taste the finished wine in a comfortably decorated tasting room overlooking the vines, we trawl from barrel to barrel examining different parcels of vines, destemmed grapes, non-destemmed grapes, older casks, younger casks. Our question about what the final blend will be like is met with a shrug. We’ll find out in time.

The 2004 I drank at the weekend was bought a few years back. The current vintage is the 2007, which stood out in the Rhonesque room at last week’s Harvest Festival. Like the 2004 there is a lots of bright red fruit on the nose and palate but it sits alongside the sort of wildness that comes from a laissez-faire approach to winemaking. The tannins are robust but fine, framing the peppery, floral berry notes but never intruding. There is weight, structure and freshness but also the impression that it is all a bit unpolished. There is no creamy, cappuccino new oak nor palate-caressing sweetness. It is a wine built to last – just ask Willie Lebus who drank a 1985 over the weekend.

This is Syrah at its finest.

BBQ opportunities on our beloved rain soaked island are few and far between, so if you’re going to do it, make every effort to do it properly!  Doing it properly can of course be affected by many factors, from meat, fish and veg selection, salads and accompaniments, pre BBQ beers, and importantly, wine selection.  However, what I discovered on a recent trip to Bordeaux is these variables are indeed important, and must be selected with care, but will come to very little unless you cook over the correct materials!

‘Materials’ however may be a bit of an ambiguous choice of words for something so important, and I guess the Bordelais would use nothing else for their al fresco cooking, the somewhat obvious choice to many from wine producing regions – Vines!  I’m sure they would read this with surprise at my excitement surrounding the ‘Vine BBQ’, to them this BBQ taste sensation must be quite mundane.  However for us, a pasty group of wine loving English, the ‘Vine BBQ’ was a revelation.

We were staying just outside the small town of Créon, set within the Entre-Deux-Mers region at a small English family run property, Chateau Bauduc.  The owners, Gavin and Angela Quinney, have a fantastic old farmhouse set within the vineyard which is available to rent.  A great place for a relaxing, wine based trip – thoroughly recommended.  Chateau Bauduc produces a selection of superb wines; brilliant examples of how Bordeaux can produce a delicious  everyday wine.

Check out Chateau Bauduc’s website for details on both their wines and the farmhouse.

Now, onto the BBQ.  Gavin had given us a recommendation of a local butcher who’s Cote de Boeuf was apparently ‘as good as it gets’.  With such a positive recommendation, we decided to do the BBQ right, and brought three stonking slabs of Bordeaux’s finest boeuf (I think the photo does the meat justice in showing its quality).  Next step we assumed would be the coals – ‘don’t need them’ we were told, as we were presented with a basket of gnarly old Merlot vines for use as fire wood.

As we began our now Vine BBQ, it became obvious how perfect these vines were as fire wood, catching immediately, and creating some serious heat – perfect for our awaiting slabs of Cow!  However the revelation was the taste these vines imparted on the meat, everybody was truly amazed at the unbelievable flavour.   The meat was fantastic, but the vines had left a smokey flavour which had sweetness to it, not unlike a hickory smoked BBQ sauce, but in a subtle and unique way.

No expert on food, I have however tried my fair share of steaks, and these were by far the best I have ever tasted – with unanimous agreement from the whole group.   This must be partly down to the quality meat, but the very subtle, sweet and smokey flavour from the Merlot vines, created the most unique taste, something everyone must try!

Washed down with two Bordeaux classics, Leoville Barton 2004 and Langoa Barton 2001 (affordable ones anyway!), and followed my many bottles of Chateau Bauduc Clos des Quinze 2005, this was indeed a BBQ done properly!  Plus, not forgetting being surrounded by rows and rows of leafy vines, this had to be up there on food and wine experiences.

Whether the Vine BBQ can be recreated easily back in the UK is up for question. Depending on whether vineyards have been grubbing up old vines, summer trips to English wineries may prove successful, failing that an extra piece of luggage on the next trip to Europe will do it!!  Either way, if possible, do make the effort to stock up on some old vines, believe me the unique taste it creates is something special!

After returning from France, I wondered whether it was the varietal of grape that may have given the vine that unique flavour.  Would the varietals most commonly grown in the UK, such as Bacchus, Pinot Blanc, Reichensteiner, Silvaner, Dornfelder and Pinot Noir impart that same smokey sweetness, or was this the characteristic of the old Merlot vines?