The Good Mood Food Blog

The last couple of months have given us “nice weather for ducks”, so let’s get our own back and roast one of the little blighters using the Duck Noodle Salad recipe from Donal at The Good Mood Food blog.

The duck would go really well with a nice Shiraz. The Salena Estate Shiraz (available from Dennison Fine Wines, Waterford) I had recently would be a fantastic match, even more so if you were to add a bit of plum sauce to the mix.

Bibliocook.com

I picked up some gorgeous chorizo fresco (raw, for cooking) from Yosoy and have been looking for something different to cook it with. I knew I was onto a winner when I spotted the warm potato and chorizo salad with poached eggs recipe over at Bibliocook.

What wine to put with chorizo and eggs?

It’s a tough one with eggs, the real challenge here being I’ve never had a wine with eggs. Probably because eggs are normally something I have for breakfast. Wine is not.

Eggs are also meant to be quite difficult to match wine with, particularly tannic reds.

So, why not something fizzy, perhaps a Cava rosé, perhaps the Oriol Rossell Brut Rosé from enowine (€18)?

Cake creations

The chocolate cake recipe over at the Cake Creations blog throws up another wine challenge. Chocolate generally coats the mouth, dulling the taste of wine.

For this recipe, Port will stand up to the sweetness of the chocolate cream filling really well. Port is widely available and can be pretty cheap too, so you can’t ask for more than that.

Conor’s Bandon Blog

While not a food blog per se, there’s still plenty to whet the appetite with Conor’s love of good food coming across clearly. I’m picking out some food from his Fun Food in Arthurstown post. To match with the “Fish en paupilotte“, I’d go for a Beaujolais Villages, made from the Gamay grape – strawberry fruits, with little or no tannins (which, if present, could taste really metallic with fish).

Messy-Chef

I found Messy-Chef via a head’s up from Conor’s blog, so it’s only right that it follows on from the above. Meat to please you with BBQ Season. If there’s a chink of sunshine before winter, I’ll be popping open a nice rich Cahors – something with enough gritty tannins to cope with the nicely charred BBQ meat.