#NWTW Week 24: Food Pairing With Assyrtiko

June 21, 2014

Usually at this point in the week I get an idea in my head about the kind of stuff I think might go well with the wine. I then scour the internet looking for recipe ideas and, if I’m honest, the pictures that go with them. All these recipe websites have amazing food pictures on them and it helps to stick at the top of the post to get you fine people reading what’s below. Well this week I’ve found what I think is going to be absolute belter!

Think about what are the main things about Assyrtiko as a wine. It’s got lots of acidity, it’s fairly full bodied for a white wine, it’s got mineral tastes due to the volcanic areas it grows on, and the has a citrus base going through it all. So let’s try and match them up.

High acid white wine, with plenty of mineral texture, you automatically think about fish. Oily and steely fish at that. So something like sardines or mackerel. I love mackerel, so that’s what I wanted to pick.

You’ve got a citrus taste in the wine. So again you can look to pair that up either by cooking the mackerel whole with some citrus wedges inside, or by a side dish to go with it. So with that in mind, off we trot to the internet searches…

I found this belter form the BBC Good Food website. It does absolutely everything I need it to. One thing I’m a bit nervous about is the chilli in there. Assyrtiko is usually a slightly higher alcohol white wine than others, and usually that’s not a good thing to pair with chilli heat. But it’s only a bit, so we’ll see.

Just as a tip too, if you’re going to try filleting the mackerel and grilling it that way, make sure you check out the guys at Passionate About Fish on YouTube. They’ll sort you out on any fish you’re having a go at.

Or failing that, go get yourselves a kebab. (Ant paid me to write that bit!)

Cheers

Other Posts in NWTW Week 24:

#NWTW Week 24: Assyrtiko From Greece (Part One)