Our little brother, Curious Davide, is back with another whopping recipe. I’m sharing an apartment with him now in Cork City, so whilst I have to put up with his smelly feet, he’s a dab hand in the kitchen, which more than makes up for it. This is another one of my picks from his repertoire. Please don’t confuse this with school dinner mac & cheese, or that from a tin.

Curious Davide’s Mac & Cheese (serves 6)

Ingredients
500g macaroni or rigatoni pasta
1 pint of cheese sauce (I’ll be using Delia’s recipe again for this)
1 large onion, roughly chopped
5-6 bacon rashers, sliced
two good handfuls of mature cheddar cheese, grated
handful of breadcrumbs
small amount of finely chopped rosemary
side salad to serve

Method
Mix the chopped rosemary into the breadcrumbs and set aside. Turn the oven to 190 degrees C. Bring a saucepan of water to the boil, season generously with salt and add the pasta. Get started immediately on the cheese sauce and fry the bacon in a separate pan. When it starts to crisp, add the onions and fry for two minutes.

Drain the pasta and then pour as much cheese sauce as you like over the pasta. You’ll most likely use less than the full pint. Remove from the heat and add the bacon and onions. Put everything into an ovenproof dish and cover the top with the breadcrumb mixture. Bang into the oven until the top is golden and crisp. Bring to the table and enjoy with salad.

The wine match

For me this dish is wine heaven. I found myself craving a glass of wine as soon as I got started, but I only had red open from the night before and no white wine chilling (I know, very bad form for a wine merchant). Fortunately, the open red wine was a sample of a new Barbera we are bringing in shortly. It was actually a really beautiful match. Barbera has good acidity and is not too weighty, so it didn’t smother the dish. The Bricco dei Guazzi Barbera del Monferrato would also do a superb job.

I suppose the natural white wine match would be Italian Pinot Grigio. Our new PG from Borgo Magredo fits that bill perfectly. It’s got enough body and richness to carry the cheese sauce. The Goccia Pinot Grigio would be another good choice, but you could also go with a Chardonnay, my preference being one with restrained oak, or that is unwooded. The Spring Seed Chardonnay is unoaked, yet it retains body and a creamy texture from malolactic fermentation, a process winemakers use to help soften acidity and bring an extra richness to the wine.

For those who aren’t in the know, I introduced Curious Davide, aka ‘the incredible sleeping man’, here. This is what he has to say about his second Curious Food post: “This is my own Stroganoff recipe, thrown together while I was watching Neighbours instead of going to Uni one day – it could be responsible for my 2.2, but it was worth it, cause it’s the nuts…”

Beef Stroganoff (Serves 4)

450g sirloin or rump steak, cut into strips
1 tbsp plain flour, seasoned
1 tbsp paprika
olive oil, for frying
2 onions, sliced
1 garlic clove, crushed
250g closed cup mushrooms, quartered
1 tbsp brandy
2 tsp tomato purée
1 tsp Dijon mustard
300ml sour cream
2 tsp finely grated lemon zest, or to taste
salt & freshly ground black pepper
3 tbsp flat-leaf parsley, chopped
Buttered tagliatelle noodles or plain boiled rice, to serve

-  Toss the beef strips with the flour and paprika until evenly coated.
-  Heat the oil to high and fry the onions, garlic and mushrooms for 3 minutes.
-  Add the dusted beef strips and sauté until browned and nearly cooked through.
-  Add the brandy, light the pan and shake until the flames subside.
-  Turn down the heat a little and add the tomato purée, mustard and sour cream.
-  Heat through gently, check that the beef is cooked through and remove from the heat.
-  Stir in the lemon zest and season to taste.  Stir in 2 tablespoons of the parsley and scatter the rest on top.
-  Serve with tagliatelle or rice.

Tip – this can be done with pork fillet or chicken breast rather than beef if you prefer.

The wine match

Lager lout, Davide, used to enjoy nursing a cold beer while scoffing his Beef Straganoff in front of Dr. Karl Kennedy and co. Now, however, he is a reformed man (stag weekends apart), enjoying a glass of red or white with his evening meal.

I think Côtes du Rhône is a lovely suit for this type of food. They generally wouldn’t be too strong for something like this and most of the time they are well made, well balanced reds with pleasant red and black fruit flavours, sometimes even with a touch spice, complimenting this dish perfectly.

Our Darriaud Réserve Côtes du Rhône Villages is a lovely choice, and one of the wines included in our deluxe case of the month. Another Côtes du Rhône is from a man held in very high regard by Robert Parker. Patrick Lesec is one of the greats in Rhône winemaking. His Cuvée Richette is just a taste of what he can do at the higher end.

If you really want to treat yourself, move to Crozes-Hermitage AC and you’re in with the big boys. The Roland Betton Crozes-Hermitage 2005 is magnificent with or without food, but it’s not going to last forever as stocks are slowly dwindling.

David, also known as Curious Davide (from his time living in Italy) is the youngest member of our family and is famed for his ability to sleep 16 hours a day. He is unknowingly filling the slot for this weekend’s recipe, but fear not as he is a bit of a master-chef in his own right. I hope to make him more of a regular for Curious Food if he is still friends with me after seeing this post.

His journey in the world of cookery started during his three years spent at Liverpool University, where after a month of takeaway pizzas and doner kebabs he felt a need to learn the ropes of cookery in the home.

His true speciality in my opinion is Indian curry, although his range of skills and knowledge only grew further with 6 months spent in southern Italy where he quickly picked up the language and a taste for Nero d’Avola, as well as learning the cuisine inside and out, and importantly, the value of fresh local produce.

With all the sleeping, he had plenty of time to dream up chicken in lager. Neither Italian nor Indian, it is nonetheless fantastically warm and comforting. The kind of food that’s easy to cook on mass and you can just let people dive in.

Chicken in Lager (serves 4)

3 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp fennel seeds
2 onions, sliced
3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 tbsp tomato purée
1 large chicken, separated into portions (or 6-8 portions, thighs, drumsticks etc.)
1 tbsp plain flour
2 tsp ground cumin
300ml lager
200ml chicken stock (from a cube is fine)
2 bay leaves
Worcestershire sauce
Tabasco sauce
large handful frozen peas (optional)
2 tbsp fresh parsley, finely chopped
sea salt & freshly cracked black pepper, to season
plain boiled rice & sour cream (optional), to serve

How to cook it (preferably when you’re awake)

Heat the olive oil over a medium-heat in a large pan. Put in the fennel seeds and stir around for 1 minute. Add the onions and garlic and cook for 3 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the tomato purée and the chicken thighs, continue to cook for another 5 minutes until the chicken starts to brown.  Make sure to add a little extra olive oil if the mixture is too dry. Add the flour and cumin and cook for a further 1 minute, stirring constantly to avoid catching. Pour in the beer and chicken stock along with the bay leaves & a few good shakes (to taste) of worcestershire & tabasco and stir thoroughly.

Bring the pan to a gentle simmer and cook for 25-30 minutes until the chicken is completely cooked through, adding the peas (if using) 5 minutes from the end. If the sauce isn’t of desired consistency, you can set the chicken aside from the pan in a clean bowl and boil the sauce rapidly if it’s too thin, or add a little more lager and/or stock if it’s too thick. Then return the chicken to the pan and make sure it’s heated through. Mix the parsley into the pan and season generously with salt & pepper (remembering to adjust the seasoning accordingly if a stock cube was used).

Serve with plain boiled rice & a big dollop of sour cream per portion if you fancy.

The wine match

If you’re like David or myself, you’ll have cracked into the beer during the cooking, so what should we be drinking with the meal itself? Whatever you want, although having made this myself I would go with a New World Chardonnay. There’s nothing massively prominent. It’s not a hot dish, but it’s got plenty of body and texture that our lightly-oaked Waipara Springs Chardonnay will handle beautifully.

And there’s 20% off until the end of August as part of our New Zealand wine sale (indicated prices discounted at checkout).