Moroccan Stew and Argentine Malbec

I love experimenting with unfamiliar ingredients. So when I saw a jar of preserved lemons at my grocery store, I just had to get it. Of course I had no idea what I would do with it. But as luck would have it, I own plenty of cookbooks with recipes from around the Mediterranean. Joanne Weir's recipe for a Lamb Tagine with Artichokes seemed just about perfect to me. While I do not own a tagine, which is the traditional vessel to cook this dish in, my beloved enameled cast iron pot did just fine.

Besides the preserved lemons, the recipe included two of my favorite ingredients, artichokes and olives. As one would expect from a dish containing lemons, the sauce came out a little tart, which made me decide to add some extra cinnamon spice, to round out the flavors. This final touch made it just about perfect. I served the stew over some plain couscous.

I decided to pair this dish with the 2009 Las Perdices Malbec from the Mendoza region in Argentina. This Malbec is a nice medium-bodied wine with aromas of sour cherry and vanilla. I purchased this bottle because I had been very pleased with the Viognier by the same producer, but I found this Malbec to be justaverage when it comes to the world of Argentine Malbecs.

 Nonetheless, it was a good match with my Moroccan stew. The citrusy tartness from the lemons in the dish and the sour cherry tartness in the wine seemed to mellow each other out. Also the interplay of the cinnamon in the sauce and the vanilla notes from the oak-aging of the wine were rather intriguing. I think the food and wine pairing really uplifted the sensory experience of this special dinner.

Chicken Paillards and Artichokes with Sauvignon Blanc

Sometimes I am too lazy to think of a good wine pairing myself, and that is the time when cookbooks come in handy, where each recipe comes ready with a pairing suggestion. One such book is 100 Perfect Pairings: Main Dishes to Enjoy with Wines You Love by Jill Silverman Hough.

Its chapters are divided by wine varietal, six chapters with recipes to match white wines, and six for reds. So here I was with a bottle of 2008 Kellerei Cantina Tramin Sauvignon Blanc from the Alto Adige (Südtirol) region in Italy. I usually like to drink my white wines rather young, and here I had found a bottle in my basement, ahem... cellar, that was still from the 2008 vintage. All I had to do was go through the Sauvignon Blanc chapter and pick a recipe that I was in the mood for.

I still had some chicken breast in the freezer, so I finally settled on the recipe for Chicken Paillards with Baby Artichokes, Garlic and Lemon. Hm, what is a paillard? It’s a French word, and I guess in an Italian dish it would be called scaloppini, and all you have to do to get one, is pound a chicken breast with a meat mallet until it is evenly thin.

Then there were the artichokes. Love ‘em, but I have to admit that I have never worked with fresh ones before. They look a little intimidating, and the main challenge is to know which parts have to be peeled off. Well, in my opinion, a picture is worth a thousand words, and the illustrations at the bottom of this article really helped me.

And let me tell you, fresh artichokes are so much better than the canned ones. It was worth the effort. But definitely have plenty of lemon juice on hand to avoid oxidation, i.e. the artichokes turning brown. This happens literally within seconds, not gradually, like you may have seen it with avocados or bananas. The dish came out great, and I loved the lemony flavor. I served it over some bowtie pasta.

The Tramin Sauvignon Blanc was a perfect complement to the dish. It had citrus aromas and crisp flavors of lemon, with a long and complex finish. Wow, citrus for days… I had not known what kind of style to expect from a Sauvignon Blanc from this region in Northern Italy, and I was pleasantly surprised. None of the green and grassy notes you often find in New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc, or the tropical fruit sometimes present in California wines of this varietal, or the mineral and stony notes from the French version…

Now don’t get me wrong, I love all of these styles, Sauvignon Blanc is one of my go-to varietals, where I feel I can never really go wrong, and I haven’t… But for this dish, the prominent citrus notes where just perfect. And the complexity was just significant enough to match the white meat of the chicken. Final verdict: an amazing combination.