Who ever said Turkey was just for Christmas? I tried this recipe out at the start of the week but I couldn’t get my hands on Turkey breast so I used chicken instead. It turned out really well, but there is definitely a distinctive difference in taste between the two, so I’d be eager to try out the old Christmas bird for something a little different - even if it is only the start of Spring.

You’ll probably agree this is quite a versatile dish in terms of wine matching. There are no really big flavours there that will stick out like a sore thumb, so my advice would be to pick a wine that doesn’t stand out like a sore thumb either. A delicate white or a light red.

The Ortonese Malvasia is an ideal partner to poultry and mild cheese. Pinot Noir would be my red choice. Domaine Chateau d’Eau Pinot Noir is a lovely food partner, but lets not forget the amazing quality coming out of New Zealand as well. The Waipara Springs Pinot Noir 2008 is in that more youthful, lighter style that I’m after for this dish, and will more than hold its own when it comes to that rich tomato sauce, as well as everything else.

Video courtesy of Look and Taste.

Forget soup in a tin or out of a packet. Make it like a chef. This is the perfect starter to any meal and one of the most simple soups you could possibly make.

As no stock is used here, the soft, blue veined Cashel Blue cheese adds a rich, creamy texture with all the body and depth of flavour you’ll need. It’s the classic ingredient, which is also super by itself, paired with a nice glass of chilled white wine.

So long as you’re not too heavy handed with the cheese, a light red will match beautifully with this soup, particularly the main ingredient - broccoli. Try the Gamay grape from Beaujolais. It’s a lovely wine to start the night on in any case. There are six villages to choose from, my current favourite being Moillard’s Brouilly.

If you prefer white wine, I would reach for a Sauvignon Blanc. Ginestet’s Bordeaux Classique Blanc springs to mind as a really good, food-friendly, everyday drinking wine.

Capers are used a lot in Italian cuisine. You’ll often see them on pizzas, pasta salads and added to tomato based sauces. It’s also one of the main ingredients in tartar sauce. No matter how or where they are used, they always give a nice distinctive, pickley flavour.

In this pasta dish, they combine well with the fresh parsley to make for a very fragrant, healthy meal - which of course, I’ve thought of a wine match for.

Sauvignon Blanc will handle this recipe beautifully. Pretty much any Sauvignon would do, but if you want to be fussy, go for Loire Valley for that drier, more herbaceous style. The Domaine de Pre Baron Sauvignon Blanc is a very affordable wine that ticks all the right boxes. Despite being from the Languedoc, Domaine de Vedilhan Sauvignon Blanc is quite Pouilly Fumé in style, so that would also be ideal.

If you can’t look beyond New Zealand, check out Fairhall Cliffs and Mount Cass for wines that would be more in the mould of a Sancerre or a Pouilly Fumé Sauvignon.

Video courtesy of Look and Taste.

Originating in Mexico, papaya is now grown pretty much wherever the climate allows. I started to like it when I was in Thailand, where I was fortunate to enjoy the sweetest, most beautifully ripe fruit. It’s got quite a unique flavour. Another memorable fruit in South East Asia was mango. Mango and sweet rice is a Thai speciality and I’ll post the recipe for it in the coming weeks.

Like tomatoes, Papaya has a touch of the super-food thing going on, as it contains lycopene, which is thought to help prevent cancer cells from forming. So you don’t have to feel so bad when you’re wolfing down the parma ham and mozzarella in this fancy starter.

There are loads of white wines that would work very well with this salad, provided they’re food friendly (of good quality) and not too prominent or robust in terms of flavour and sweetness. The highly versatile Mirabello Pinot Grigio, or for a little step-up, the delicate and floral Tabali Viognier are great matches.

A light red may strike the right cord for some. If so, I think a young Beaujolais might just be the ticket. OK, so we need to re-shoot the bottle on this one, but the Domaine de la Roche looks perfect in real life and tastes even better when you get stuck in.

Video courtesy of Look and Taste.

Better than any burger from the chippy or the frozen food aisle of a supermarket, the ultimate burger is the perfect home made treat for the weekend. Sure, it’s not the most healthy thing you could eat, but it’s not the worst by far, and much more wholesome than anything from a fast food restaurant.

I get my hands on the freshest burger buns possible (there’s a lot of horrible ones on the supermarket shelves) and add some crisp lettuce leaves, gherkins and a spread of Dijon Mustard. But then that’s just me.

It has to be red, doesn’t it? A big bold Barossan red, such as the Heartland Shiraz, is just the ticket here for the complete and truly satisfying food and drink experience.

Video courtesy of Look and Taste.

The way to my heart is through my stomach. My girlfriend became aware of this very early in our relationship, and over five years later we’re still together.

OK, so it’s more than just food you need to make a relationship work, but if your partner is ‘good food’ on the brain, then Niall’s fancy cheese selection and a nice bottle of wine or sparkling wine will surely be enough to seduce.

Ginette Mathiot (I Know How To Cook) suggests:

Red wine is usually served with cheese. But the wine should be chosen to suit the cheese. So, for example, Gruyere and Brie require a less full-bodied wine than Roquefort. Goats milk cheese goes well with a dry white wine such as Sancerre.

Many wines are matched with the locally produced cheeses of that region, but you don’t have to be that fussy. Why not treat your loved one to a Ruby Port with cheddar, a Late Harvest Riesling with Brie or a Bordeaux Pomerol with Camembert? You can look up the I Love Cheese website for more inspiration.

Video courtesy of Look and Taste.

Curious Matt: In my search for a gorgeous Spanish dish to tie in with our silly February sale on Spanish wine, I asked Dublin based food supremo Daily Spud for a truly delicious recipe that she could post on the Curious Wine Blog. We never doubted her for a minute. Over to you Spud!

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Daily Spud: When Matt asked me whether I had anything Spanish up my sleeve, I wondered what he could possibly mean. Did he think that I had I been shopping in Zara, perhaps, or that I was concealing a mini-matador about my person? Clearly these boys are curious by name and curious by nature.

But it turns out that the key word missing, but implied, in the original question was recipes. Did I have any Spanish recipes up my sleeve. Different matter entirely… (and sighs of relief all ’round, I can tell you!)

As it happens, I most certainly do keep at least one Spanish recipe with me at all times - the ultimate Spanish potato recipe, in fact - that all-time classic, the Spanish omelette. It’s one of those dishes that really is a perfect coming together of simple, good ingredients. Just eggs, onions, potatoes, salt and olive oil. You need no more than that. Except perhaps a glass or two of Spanish wine to accompany the finished product, that is.

This should feed about 4-5 people for lunch, along with salads and a glass of vino, or slice into cubes for serving tapas-style.

You’ll need:
•    About 500g potato (3 small to medium-sized spuds)
•    About 200g onion (2 small-ish onions)
•    6 large eggs
•    1 tsp salt
•    olive oil for frying

The Pan and Plate:
•    Size (of pan) is important – I use a 24cm pan for this size of tortilla
•    You’ll also need a flat plate a little wider than the pan, so that you can turn the pan (with the tortilla in it) onto the plate

The Steps:
•    Peel the potatoes and slice very thinly. Place the sliced potatoes in water until you’re ready to use them.
•    Slice the onions thinly.
•    Heat some olive oil in a pan.
•    Add the onions, stir and fry over a medium heat for about 5 minutes until they start to soften.
•    Drain the potatoes, pat them dry and add to the onions.
•    Lower the heat, then stir and fry for 20-25 minutes or until the potatoes are tender, adding some more olive oil if the mixture is sticking. Once the potatoes begin to soften a little (after about 10 minutes), you can start to break up the slices as you stir.
•    In a large bowl, whisk the eggs. Add the salt and the cooked onion and potato mixture to the bowl. Stir to mix. The heat of the cooked mixture will start to cook the eggs.
•    Now put some more olive oil into the pan and pour in the egg mixture.
•    Cook over a medium heat for about 7 minutes or until the tortilla appears fairly solid right through and there is little or no liquid egg on the surface of the tortilla.
•    At this point, if you’re feeling confident, you can cook the other side of the tortilla by placing the plate on top of the pan, turning the plate and pan over, and then sliding the tortilla gently back into the pan for 3-4 minutes. Alternatively, you can place the pan under the grill for 5-6 minutes to finish cooking the top that way and then turn it onto the plate when ready.

Curious Matt: Sticking to the white with this one, Spud - the award-winning Mocen Verdejo.

Sincere thanks to Daily Spud (winner of Irish Web Awards Best Food & Drink Blog 2009)

I’ve been getting terribly bored of lunch recently. It’s difficult to be inventive all the time, especially when you’re preparing food to bring to work, so I tried out Niall’s carrot and leek soup last week (I used real chicken stock for my attempt), not only because I wanted something a bit different, or because I can hardly feel my face these days it’s so cold, but I hadn’t made an authentic home-made soup before so I was keen to give it a go.

Me mammy always made the best soup, so I was perhaps somewhat lazy in the past. Unfortunately, I’m about 250 miles from where she is, so I have to make my own now. Although I must say, it turned out really well, so good job again, Niall

There’s no harm in opening a bottle of wine if this is part of your evening meal. With the sweetness of the carrots, I’m looking at a medium-dry German Riesling. Please don’t be put off by the Blue Nuns of this world. Germany is arguably the world’s best white wine producing nation, and that includes Rieslings in the ‘not so sickly sweet’ bracket.

I love the Lingenfelder Bird Label Riesling from Pfalz. It’s heightened acidity makes it very versatile with an array of foods, including this lovely carrot and leek soup.

Video courtesy of Look and Taste.

In my experience, one of the best and most comprehensive series of cook books available are the “Cookery Bibles” published by Phaidon Press. Once you have these, you may never need another cook book again. I would highly recommend them for anyone who is a foodie at heart.

There are four books that I’m aware of, covering four European countries:

France: I Know How to Cook (Ginette Mathiot)

Italy: Silver Spoon (Various contributors)

Spain: 1080 Recipes (Simone Ortega)

Greece: Vefa’s Kitchen (Vefa Alexiadou)

Each have been massive sellers in their native countries, for their incredible collection of old, authentic cuisine, as well as being beautifully presented and easy to follow. Essentially, each book contains hundreds of recipes - starters, main courses, desserts and drinks - with contributions from top chef’s of the relevant countries at the end of each book.

There’s a nice section in the French book dedicated to wine, which shows how important wine is to the French dining experience. Naturally, the recommended wines are from France, but it’s interesting to note how certain dishes will partner well with wines of different appellations.

Some tips from ‘I Know How to Cook’

Oysters and Crustaceans: Dry white wine: Muscadet, white Burgundy and Traminer.

Roast Meat and Game: Red wines for roast meat must be high quality and should be full-bodied for red meat and lighter bodied for white meat. Bordeaux - Pomoral, Margaux, St. Emilion. Red Burgundy - Gevrey-Chambertin, Nuits-Saint-Georges, Pommard.

Foie Gras: In general, slightly sweet white wines or wines from regions of foie gras production are recommended. Try Sauternes, Monbazillac, Montrachet, Jurancon and Gewurztraminer.

Cheese: Red wine is usually served with cheese. But the wine should be chosen to suit the cheese. So, for example, Gruyere and Brie require a less full-bodied wine than Roquefort. Goats milk cheese goes well with a dry white wine such as Sancerre.

Did you know that the oldest living animal ever discovered was a clam? So claim researchers of Bangor University. The clam, nicknamed Ming, was caught off the coast of Iceland in 2007 and was believed to be over 400 years old. Mind you, they maybe should have left it where they found it, as it died not long afterwards.

So that’s your random trivia for the day, and here’s our favourite, seafood-mad chef, Niall, to give us the low-down on how to get the best out of clams in the kitchen.

When matching wine and shell fish, I tend to keep it as simple as possible, using an elegant wine that won’t overpower. Personally for me, the Erbeldinger Burgunder Pinot Blanc is perfect. With no oak contact, there’s real purity in this wine, with very delicate fruit flavours on show and a touch of minerality.

If you prefer your clams raw, Chenin Blanc works well, or my favourite match for oysters will also work a charm - Les Grands Presbyteres Muscadet.

Video courtesy of Look and Taste.