Rioja and game at The Gun

Winter's on its way, so an invitation to a dinner featuring Rioja and game was hard to resist. Warming, mellow Rioja seems like an obvious partner to game, beautifully demonstrated by this event at The Gun on the Thames in London's Docklands. Our party was in an elegant private room with a spectacular view across to The Dome.

We started with the only white of the evening, Vinas de Gain Blanco 2008 from Bodegas Artadi with roe deer carpaccio, foie gras, pickled carrot, glazed walnuts and truffle. With its fragrant vanilla aromas and fresh structure, the wine coped well with this deeply flavoured, complex dish which included a contrasting range of flavours and textures.

Next was the vibrantly fruity Graciano 2008 from Bodegas Tobia with Yorkshire hen pheasant, sweetbread and spinach vol au vent, morel cream sauce. The wine was fresh, lively and supple alongside this rich dish, but we found the Blanco worked well, too, with its creamy texture.

The following wine was the more traditional Tempranillo-based Bodegas Ondarre Reserva 2005 with roast breast of red grouse, confit leg and chestnut 'Wellington', bread sauce, game chips, braised red cabbage and game jus. This was a wonderfully wintery combination. The mellowing, slightly farmyardy, yet still ripely fruity wine really complimented the flavours of the dish (especially the mid-season grouse and red cabbage). The silky tannins and fresh acidity provided just the right refreshing structure.

Bodegas Lan Reserva 2007 came next with the cheese course, Lancashire Black Bomb, raisin toast and truffled honey. The wine was fresh and firm with the creamy cheese, although the truffled honey was too overwhelming.

As this was a purely Rioja themed meal and the region does not, as yet, produce any sweet wines, dessert was a bit of a challenge. A complex, mellow Gran Reserva – Bodegas Urbina 1994 – was served with dark and milk chocolate terrine with orange and praline cream. Separately they were good, but I felt that something much simpler and less sweet, such as pear poached in red wine and spices would have been a more appropriate choice for a dry red. Otherwise, it was an impressive menu and Luis Silva, from The Gun's parent group ETM, was a charming and informative host.

For details of other upcoming events at The Gun, please consult their website.

We attended as guests of The Gun/ETM Group and Wines of Rioja.

Chocolate brownies and Lustau Moscatel Emilín

The picture says it all really: chocolate brownies and luscious sweet sherry. I've often sipped treacly sweet PX with chocolate which works well, but can be too much of a good thing (and dangerously calorific). Lustau's Moscatel Emilín is a little less sweet with 195g sugar per litre (Pedro Ximénez contains as much as 500g per litre) and worked fabulously with the brownies. The wine's complex caramelised orange and dried fig aromas, rich, yet fresh and tangy, melded seamlessly with the brownies with their bitter dark chocolate and touch of salt. They truly flattered and enhanced each other. You don't need much – just a few mouthfuls to round off your evening. A decadent little treat.

Available from Berry Bros and Rudd for £9.75 (37.5cl) and Slurp for £16.35 (75cl).

Calçots and romesco sauce: perfect for the barbecue

Recently we had a spell of barbecue weather, so, of course, we made the most of it. I'd been lucky and had come by some calçots from the father of one of my daughter's school friends who's a fruit and vegetable wholesaler in Druid Street, Bermondsey (one of several who used to be based in Borough Market). He likes pickles, so I gave him some of my spiced apple chutney as a little 'thank you'. (I also had some wild mushrooms from him last autumn. Generous man.)

Calçots are like a cross between spring onions and leeks and are a Catalan speciality. I first encountered them on a visit to Torres (who are based near Barcelona) whose public relations I used to handle. Calçots have a short season late winter/early spring and the Catalans get very enthusiastic about them, grilling them over charcoal until the outer leaves are almost black and serving them with peppery, nutty romesco sauce. It's a messy, but delicious process, peeling off the burnt bits and dunking the hot, juicy calçots into the sauce. Well worth getting enthusiastic about.

Initially I was expecting to keep things simple and buy some romesco, but Spanish specialists Brindisa didn't stock it, but were able to sell me some piquillo peppers and fabulous blanched marcona almonds. I slightly adapted the Moro recipe which was pretty straightforward (I didn't have quite the right combination of peppers, but I don't think it matters that much as you make it as hot or mild as you like). The big surprise, though, was how well it also went with the chicken we were barbecuing as well. It just seemed brilliantly suited to grilled food.

Note: the romesco started off as a full-on garlicky Mediterranean mouthful, but mellowed and was quite mild when we finished it off a week later. Either way, our five-year-old also really enjoyed it. Once the weather improves, we'll definitely be making more.

Wine
The romesco was great with both white and red wine: Torres' crisp, refreshing and incredibly versatile Viña Sol (particularly good with the calçots) and a big, spicy Jumilla. (We played safe and stayed with Spain on both occasions, although southern French wines, especially from just across the border in Roussillon, would also work well.)

Romeso sauce
Serves 4
100g whole blanched almonds
50g shelled hazelnuts
*4 small dried red chillis (see below)
3 garlic cloves, peeled
6 tablespoons olive oil (more might be necessary)
50g stale white bread, cut into 1.5cm cubes
100g piquillo peppers or 1 large red bell pepper, roasted peeled and seeded
1-1.5 tablespoons red wine or sherry vinegar (or mixture of the two)
1 teaspoon tomato purée
40 strands saffron, infused in 8 tablespoons boiling water
half teaspoon sweet smoked Spanish paprika (or more to taste)
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

* The original recipe suggests 4 dried ñoras peppers (small and round) and half a dried guindilla pepper (spiky in shape and like a large red chilli). Sweet and/or hot paprika can be used instead, although the result will obviously be a bit different.

Preheat the oven to 180°C/Gas Mark 4. Place the nuts on a tray and dry roast in the oven until light golden brown. This will take 10 minutes or so. Remove and cool. Rub the skins off the hazelnuts.

Meanwhile break open the dried peppers and remove the seeds; crumble peppers a little further. Place in a small bowl and cover with boiling water.

Fry two of the garlic cloves whole in the olive oil until coloured. Remove them with a slotted spoon and reserve. Use this oil to fry the cubes of bread until light brown. Keep the oil for later.

You can use a pestle and mortar to make the sauce (the traditional method), but a food processor is the easier option. Start by pounding/processing the bread, nuts, garlic and peppers (soaked and roasted). Keep the pepper water handy for later.

Tip this mixture (by now a course paste) into a large mixing bowl and stir in the olive oil, half the pepper water, vinegar, the remaining garlic clove (crushed), tomato purée, saffron and paprika. Check seasoning. If the sauce still looks too dry and thick add more oil and/or water. The sauce should have the consistency of a sloppy hummous.

Serve generously. (And, as mentioned earlier, the fierce flavours will mellow after a day or so.)

Bar Pepito: a taste of Andalucía in the heart of King's Cross

Firstly, I must declare my unreserved love of Spanish food and wine. The Spanish really know how to enjoy themselves and do so with an infectious energy. I think this has a powerful effect on how they view food and wine. Why have a slow and static meal of two or three courses when you can have a whole series of contrasting little dishes, keeping your tastebuds and mind alert and receptive, moving from bar to bar? Here in the UK we have cottoned on to this and how it is so much more fun, relaxing and perfect for busy modern life.

Maybe with this in mind, Bar Pepito in King's Cross has opened. It's an offshoot of the already popular Spanish restaurant, Camino, but even more hardcore. I use the word 'hardcore' as Bar Pepito is all about sherry. Sadly, we Brits still tend to view sherry as something to politely sip with older female relatives at Christmas from bottles that have gathered dust since the previous year, not as an invigorating pick-me-up after a hard day at work.

Step into Bar Pepito and this all changes – it's as though you've suddenly been transported to Seville or Granada. With a glass of tangy, salty Fino or Manzanilla (from £3.50 for 100ml) and nibbling some sublime hand-sliced pata negra ham (£15.50) or large juicy 'Gordal' olives (£2.25), sherry suddenly seems quite different. There are 15 sherries available by the glass and a tempting range of stylishly served tapas. There's even a little dish of chocolate coated figs (£4.75) – perfect for treacly Pedro Ximenez (one of the few wines that can truly stand up to chocolate). The sherry and food menus work in nicely complimentary ways, with plenty of suggested partnerships.

A feature of Bar Pepito is that it offers themed flights of three 50ml measures (£7.25–12.50). It also has eight sherries available from an Enomatic dispensing machine, starting at less than £1.00. On a recent visit, these were a little too warm (particularly an issue for the drier styles), but that's a minor criticism of such a fun, unique and quality-driven place (although another criticism is the limited opening hours). Bar Pepito is a tiny gem of a place, thankfully with a large outdoor courtyard and you will almost certainly have to stand.

Open: Wednesday to Saturday 5pm until midnight.
Varnishers Yard, The Regent Quarter, King's Cross, London N1 9NL
http://www.camino.uk.com

Sobrasada: a spicy delight for meat lovers

When my in-laws first came to visit from Menorca, among other local goodies, they brought a sobrasada sausage. I'm a fan of all things meaty and it was my first experience of this Balearic delicacy: a versatile cured pork sausage with a good kick of paprika. I hadn't tasted anything quite like it before and really loved it. The picture below shows the picant version, with its red string, whereas the regular dolç version has a white string (see above).

Recently I finally got to visit Menorca and we enjoyed sobrasada with my in-laws who served it sliced with drinks. We also had it spread on small bocadillo rolls as a lunchtime snack – this is particularly tasty as some of the peppery oil leeches into the spongy white bread.

I was also keen to bring some back to London to try out in a recipe I'd noticed in Rick Stein's Mediterranean Escapes where sobrasada appears melted into a tomatoey sauce. The results were great: tasty chicken and vegetables with a spicy, well textured sauce. Lots of fresh, lively flavours. As in the recipe, we used chicken breasts, but next time I will use thighs instead and cook them for longer. (I'm not convinced about the breasts as they always seem dry and lacking in flavour.)

Chicken with sobrasada, courgettes and butter beans

100g dried butter beans, soaked overnight (or 225g butter beans from a tin or jar, drained and rinsed)
300ml tomato sauce (see below)
4 free-range chicken breasts
2 tablespoons olive oil
a good pinch of crushed dried chillies
75g sobrasada, sliced
350g courgettes, trimmed and sliced diagonally
a small handful of flat-leaf parsley, chopped
salt and freshly ground black pepper

For the tomato sauce
6 tablespoons olive oil
2 large cloves of garlic, thinly sliced
2 x 400g tins chopped tomatoes (or 1kg fresh ripe tomatoes)
salt and freshly ground black pepper

Serves 4

If using soaked, dried beans, drain and tip them into a pan. Cover with fresh cold water, bring to the boil and simmer gently for 25 minutes, until almost tender. Add half a teaspoon of salt and continue cooking for another 5 minutes or so until tender. Drain and set aside.

Make the tomato sauce. Gently heat the olive oil, add the garlic and cook until just colouring. Tip in the chopped tomatoes and simmer for 20 to 30 minutes until thickened. Season with salt and pepper. Set aside. Left-over tomato sauce can be frozen and is ideal served with pasta, grated parmesan and a few torn basil leaves.

Season the chicken breasts on both sides with salt and pepper. Heat the olive oil in a large sauté pan. Add the chicken, skin side down, and cook for 5 minutes over a medium heat until golden brown. Turn over and cook for another 5 minutes. Move the chicken to the side of the pan and add the chilli flakes and sobrasada, and allow the sobrasada to melt into the oil.

Turn the chicken over in the now spicy oil until well coated, then reduce the heat, scatter over the courgettes, cover and leave to simmer gently for 15 minutes.

Uncover the pan, add the butter beans and tomato sauce, re-cover and simmer for a further 5 minutes until the beans are heated through.

Scatter with chopped parsley and serve. (We had ours with some plain boiled rice.)

Wine recommendation

This dish is absolutely perfect for showing off a decent Rioja. I was amazed how well paprika goes with this type of wine – it melds beautifully with Rioja's sweet, smoky oak. Try this for yourself by nibbling some spicy chorizo while sipping a glass of even quite straightforward Rioja such as Crianza or a young Reserva. Wonderful.

Menorca: low season eating, drinking, exploring and relaxing

At long last we've had some sunshine here in London, but it's still feeling much too cold. But at least our little family recently had a very enjoyable change of scene. We (husband Nathan, three-year-old daughter Alice and I) uprooted for half-term and spent a week in Menorca. We were visiting family on the island and rented an apartment in Mahon (Maó) and were well prepared for cold, winter weather as snow had fallen a few days earlier. 

Just to set the scene, Menorca is the least developed Balearic island, despite having more beaches than Ibiza and Mallorca put together, and in February had a relaxed, out of season atmosphere. It was cold and sometimes wet but, as you can see from the pictures, some days were bright and clear. We sensed a calm continuation of normal, day to day life. Driving from one end of the island to the other takes about an hour and Mahon (see pics above) was an ideal base for exploring Menorca (although you definitely need to hire a car at this time of year). This elegant town, in the east of the island, is dominated by its spectacular harbour (the second deepest natural harbour in the world). It became the island's capital during British rule and was a key naval base during the 18th century, whereas the historic capital is Ciutadella on the western side. It's another port and it retains a somewhat haunting air of faded grandeur (see below).

Menorca has several layers of history in addition to having been a British colonial base. There is tantalising evidence of early civilisations as standing stones or 'taulas' are dotted around the countryside. Furthermore, the island was important to the Romans and later the Moors. Returning to the present day, in common with other Balearic islands, Catalan influence is strong and Spanish (Castellano) is often only spoken as a second language after Menorquí (a variant of Catalan). The British influence also continues as it remains a popular holiday destination and many Britons are resident on the island. Interestingly, as an ongoing legacy of British colonialism, gin is still produced here and is drunk widely by Menorquins (and will be covered more fully in a separate post).

As usual, I was keen to go food shopping and try out local ingredients and specialities and, luckily for us, Mahon's main markets in the Plaça d'Espanya were just moments from our apartment.

Bright eyed, super-fresh fish and seafood was displayed on granite counters in the horseshoe-shaped fish market and a wide range of local produce was available at the main market in an attractive building that was formerly church cloisters. Great buys include squid, Mahon cheese, membrillo (quince paste to accompany cheese), chorizo, sobrasada sausage and local patisserie (especially the distinctive spiral ensaimada – great with strong coffee).

Lemons were very much in season during our stay (but ours came from my mother-in-law's garden and were the best I've ever tasted). On the lower floor there's a supermarket open from 10am from 10pm with a comprehensive range (including something I'd never seen before – loose frozen seafood). Here we stocked up on basic items and drinks, including good value staples from Torres, Faustino Rioja, Codorníu Cava, Estrella beer, local Xoriguer gin and a bargain bottle of Pedro Ximenez from 1927 that cost us just less than 10 Euros. We enjoyed this poured over vanilla ice cream, as well as sipping it on its own at the end of the evening. Some wines are produced locally and what we tasted was quite typical of Catalan reds (similar grapes are planted here), but prices appeared high at nearly 20 Euros a bottle (perhaps aimed at the tourist market?).

Around town there were some notable shops, my favourite being a rather chic patisserie, Moll Dolç in the Carrer de l'Angel, and it turns out that some bars double as off-licences and offer food to take out. We discovered this just after arriving in Mahon, quite late on a Friday night, when my husband popped out for some provisions and returned with some melt-in-the-mouth hand sliced Iberico ham and a smart Catalan red. A memorable start to an unexpectedly satisfying week.

As a sort of post script, I shouldn't forget mayonnaise or 'salsa mahonesa'. The story goes that the recipe was taken back to France after the 3ieme Duc de Richelieu defeated the British at Mahon. Of course, we couldn't resist tasting it in situ, and here is Alice tucking into some alioli with salt cod croquetas and a sobrasada bocadillo in the El Muelle tapas bar by the port (Moll de Llevant).