Covid Sucks! I think that is something we can all agree on that. It took a collective crap on the Holiday season, changing everyone’s plans to some degree or another but that doesn’t mean that you have to let it ruin everything. Assuming you are stuck at home with just one other Wine drinker, we’ve offered up some wine and food pairings for a whole meal that will work for just a single bottle of wine. What’s that you say…who only drinks a single bottle for a meal? Well more power to you and if that is the case, check out our general guide to food and wine pairing.  If you are like Karen and me with the kids hours away and sitting in a Covid hotspot, it will be just the two of us in the house so we will plan on sticking to a single bottle with our meal. What happens as the night progresses is anyone’s guess though! We’ll be playing a virtual “Cards Against Humanity” game with friends later and knowing our group of friends, even virtually, all hell could break loose.

Without further ado, here is a couple of food and wine pairings for the entire meal. By the way…save the dessert until you are finished with the wine. Unless you really know what you are doing, dessert and wine are probably the hardest thing to pair, even for experts. As a rule of thumb, just don’t serve a food sweeter than the wine and in the case of American desserts, which tend to be quite sweet, finding a wine sweet enough to go with them that will also work with your meal is really tough.

If you are in the mood to celebrate 2020 returning to whatever hell from which it spawned and welcoming 2021, the first meal will pair pretty well with any dry sparkling wine. Other dry, crisp white wines will also work if sparkling wines aren’t your thing.

Appetizer: Gringo Ceviche (or traditional Ceviche)
  Main: Main – Pesto Pasta with Grilled Chicken (or just Pesto Pasta for vegetarians).
  Side: Spring Mix salad with Lemon Vinaigrette

Wine Suggestions – Sparkling Wine or Albarino (Rias Baixas is the region in Spain most well-known for Albarino. Rias Baixas can be found at any Total Wine, Bevmo or other large wine and liquor store), Pinot Grigio or even a dry Riesling will work.

Appetizer – “Gringo Ceviche”…our name for a dish I made up for Karen who doesn’t like regular ceviche.
Recipe for Gringo Ceviche (sorry…I am an intuitive cooks so I don’t measure anything but these are the approximate ratios that I would use but lots of people have followed these general rules with really good results). If you like real Ceviche, feel free to make it instead.

Equal parts of:
  White Corn (7 Oz can, drained. The can will give you the size for the other ingredients below).
  Avocado
  Cucumber
  Jicama
  Cooked Shrimp Meat.
  All of these ingredients should be diced to about the size of the corn kernels.
Dressing (you should end up with about enough dressing to fill the empty corn can)
  4 parts Orange Juice
  3 parts Green Salsa
  1 part Lime Juice
  Mix together and add about 1/3rd cup of diced Cilantro. Serve slightly warmer than Fridge Temperature but refrigerate any remaining immediately after serving.

Grilled Chicken with Pesto and Pasta
There are literally hundreds of recipes for grilled chicken and pesto pasta on the Internet so pick your favorite recipe and have at it.

Spring Salad with Vinaigrette (recipe provided by Tony of Tony Caters)
   Dijon mustard
   1 lemon
   Vinegar (rice vinegar is recommended)
   Extra virgin olive oil
   Fresh Basil and Oregano
   Kosher salt
   Black pepper
  Lettuce and salad toppings of your choice
  Neither Karen nor I are really fans of mustard so I substitute a little tomato paste instead to provide the necessary emulsification. This works particularly well with a balsamic vinaigrette.

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If you are looking for a little heavier meal and your idea of dinner involved lots of meat and red wine, this is the dinner for you.

Appetizer: Caprese with Salted, White Balsamic Whipped Cream (Regular Balsamic will work in a pinch)
Main: Main – Steak a la Plancha with Chimichurri
Side: Roasted Gold Potatoes
Vegetable – Zucchini and Mushrooms with Light Tomato Garlic Sauce

Wine Suggestions – Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Nebbiolo, Tannat or similar hardy red wine. Malbec is also a really good choice as long as it is one with a fair amount of body. There are some excellent ones from the Mendoza region of Argentina but unfortunately, there are a far greater number of lighter “fruit bombs” made for export. If you are going for Malbec, make sure it’s one that has a fair amount of tannin. If you want to know why a tannic wine is important, reference our blog post on the basic rules of food and wine pairing.

Caprese with Salted, White Balsamic Whipped Cream (Regular Balsamic will work in a pinch)
  1 Organic Tomato, thinly sliced (trust me the organic tomatoes have waaaay more flavor than the normal store bulk tomatoes and for this dish, that’s important)
  Extra Virgin Olive Oil
  Fresh Basil
  Fresh Parmesan Cheese (and please don’t use that plastic stuff that comes In a small package from the pizza place that’s been sitting in your cupboard for at least three years or the stuff from a green can that many of us Baby Boomer/Gen Xers grew up with). Use the real stuff…it’s worth it.
  10 Chopped Cashews, Pistachios or Almonds, sprinkled over the top for a lit texture.

The trick here is making the whip Cream which is pretty easy. Use about 8 ounces of whipping cream and add 2 ounces of the balsamic before whipping the cream. The acid in the balsamic will make the whip cream “tighten” so if you add it after you have already whipped it, your beautifully whipped cream while get really sticky and tight. You can fix it by adding more un-whipped cream if needed. Add several pinches of salt and lightly incorporate with a spoon to avoid over whipping the cream.

Steak al la Plancha with Chimichurri
At the risk of getting redundant, there are many recipes for Steak a la Plancha on the Internet so find one that sounds good and follow it. As far the Chimichurri, I strongly recommend using this recipe. I’ve tried lots and this is the best by far. We put it on any kind of meat and it’s amazing. Fair warning however…if you are planning a romantic New Year’s Eve, chimichurri has a lot of raw garlic in it so follow the “none or both rule”. Never heard of that rule? Well, that because I just made it up but it follows Karen’s and my long standing guidelines. If there is a dish on the menu with lots of garlic, both of us eat it or neither of us eats it. There are few things less appealing than leaning over for a kiss and getting a big old whiff of garlic-breath if you didn’t have any garlic.

Roasted Gold Potatoes (also good with Chimichurri)
The easiest part of the meal…buy the small gold potatoes or the larger ones and cut into 1 ½ inch cubes, rub with olive oil and salt or seasoned salt and roast at 450 until tender (usually about 20 minutes).

Vegetable – Zucchini and Mushrooms with Light Tomato Garlic Sauce
Slice zucchini and mushrooms to the same thickness and lightly sauté in extra virgin olive oil for 2 minutes and then add chopped garlic and sauté for another 1 minute. Add a couple of ounces of diced tomato and sauté for another minute.

There you have it…wine and food for two for a perfect end to 2020. Let’s put this year in the trunk, lock it up, throw away the key and never speak of it again.

Here’s to a great 2021 from Winery-Sage!

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