Kicking off a regular new feature, seasonal recipes from some of the country’s most talented chefs, here’s a winter soup to make you feel all warm inside.

Kate Lawlor is owner and head chef at Fenn’s Quay, Cork, specialising in seasonal dishes with locally sourced ingredients. This butternut squash soup will feature in Fenn’s Quay’s Christmas menu for December. See www.facebook.com/fennsquay for more.

Ingredients

1 butternut squash, peeled and chopped
1 carrot, peeled and chopped
1 onion, diced
1 clove garlic, crushed
1 large leek, chopped
3 potatoes, peeled and chopped
1.5 litres/2.5 pints chicken stock
Salt and pepper
50g/2oz butter & a dash of dash of olive oil

Method

In a large saucepan, place the butter and olive oil over a gentle heat. When the butter has melted, add the onion, leek and garlic, and leave to sweat until soft (5-10 minutes), stirring occasionally. Then add your potato, butternut squash and carrot, and continue to stir. After a further 5 minutes, add your chicken stock and leave on a medium to low heat for roughly 30-45 minutes, or until all the vegetables are soft.

Take your pan off the heat and blend your soup in a liquidiser. Then taste, and add salt and pepper to your liking.

When serving, a dollop of creme fraiche with chive or basil through it goes nicely, or you could simply pour in some cream.

Chef’s tip

To enhance the taste of your soup, you can add seasonings such as ground cumin or coriander, curry powder or chilli at the stage you add your butternut squash, but be careful not to add too much as they can drown out the other flavours of your soup.

The wine

The key to the choice here is in the title – ‘creamy’. Immediately it takes us to oaked Chardonnays or blends from the south of France, but equally you could go with a creamy, oaky red from the likes of Rioja.

Our choice is the Domaine de Pellehaut Ampelomeryx, a white blend from the Côtes de Gascogne in France. Rich and creamy, with ripe autumn fruit and dried stone-fruit, and layers of savoury spice that would accentuate the subtle, earthy flavours of the soup.

They say that smell is the most powerful of the five senses in terms of evoking memory and emotion, and there’s simply nothing beats the heady aromas of mulled wine to remind everyone that Christmas has officially started.

This is our tried and tested recipe at home. For the wine, we’ve suggested our house red, the Cuvée Jean-Paul Rouge, but any red wine that’s medium-bodied, fruity and preferably unoaked will do the job just fine.

Ingredients

1 cinnamon stick
1 star anise
3 whole cloves
1 bay leaf
good pinch grated nutmeg
1 orange, halved and thickly sliced
30g/1oz demerara sugar
1 bottle Cuvée Jean-Paul Rouge
1 shot (30ml/1oz) Brandy

Throw all the dry ingredients into a large saucepan with just a splash of the wine and heat until the sugar is dissolved, add the remaining wine and the shot of brandy and heat until simmering.

Don’t boil and don’t leave on the heat too long, and add a taste more sugar if desired, but that’s it. Oh, some Irish coffee glasses to serve so you don’t burn your hands while cupping it to your nose and breathing in. Ahhh…

In continuing our food and wine matching success with Ireland’s top food bloggers, Daily Spud has come back to give us another challenge. After the success of part one, we were delighted to get on board again, and with Spud’s curiosity over Italian potato dumplings, we decided to revert to the homeland of Gnocchi for our wine choices.

It’s hard to knock Italian wine when it comes to food matching, so we sent a bottle each of Dievole’s white Malvasia and red Sangiovese. Here’s what Spud had to say about them:

The white, Dievole Dievolino Bianco Malvasia, was a very pleasant little number, smooth and with a little citrusy tang, which went down a treat with the gnocchi and made for a very happy first date. The red, Dievole Dievolino Rosso Sangiovese, with its healthy tannin hit, was a cracker which warmed up beautifully and for which all present declared immediate and undying love. It was, however, a little bit much for the delicate gnocchi in their creamy cradle and they were not quite ready for what was a more robust relationship. Still, no shame in that. Someday, the gnocchi will move on to meatier sauces and, when that happens, that lovely red will be ready and waiting.

And here’s the original post, with the original recipe below.

First Timer’s Gnocchi

* You need to keep the mash as dry as possible and, for that reason, floury spuds are preferred. I’ve seen Russet potatoes recommended and, here in Ireland, where floury spuds are the norm, the ubiquitous Rooster variety is probably a good choice.
* Using some egg in the mix makes things easier to bind and is recommended for beginner gnocchi-makers.
* A light touch is needed when handling the dough to avoid any gumminess.
* It takes practice, practice, practice…

You’ll need:
* 500g potato, preferably floury
* 125g plain flour (you may need slightly more or less than this amount)
* 1 egg, beaten
* salt and freshly ground black pepper

The Steps:
* Scrub the potatoes and boil or steam them in their skins until tender. Depending on the size of the individual spuds, that could take anywhere from 20 to 40 minutes.
* Drain the potatoes, then place a cloth or tea towel over the pot and allow to sit for about 10 minutes.
* Peel the potatoes and either put them through a potato ricer, if you’ve got one, or mash gently in a large bowl using a fork or masher.
* Drizzle the beaten egg over the mash, add about 100g of the flour and season with some salt and pepper. Mix and bring together as a dough using a wooden spoon or spatula, adding more flour if the mixture is too damp – you want a dough that’s soft and pliable but not sticky.
* Knead the dough briefly on a lightly floured surface.
* Break off pieces of the dough and roll into logs around the thickness of your thumb. Then cut the logs into pieces around 2cm long and (using plenty of flour so that the pieces don’t stick) press each piece against the inside of a fork, so that it forms little ridges on one side.
* Set the pieces aside on a floured plate or board until ready to cook.
* To cook, bring a large saucepan of salted water to the boil. Cook the gnocchi in batches of around 20 or so. For each batch, drop the pieces into the boiling water and wait until shortly after they float back up to the top of the pot (this should only take a couple of minutes). Then remove with a slotted spoon and transfer to a bowl.
* Dress your gnocchi with garlic cream sauce (below) or with whatever other sauce takes your fancy.

The Variations:
* You can, of course, add other flavourings to the basic gnocchi mixture to suit whatever kind of sauce you’re planning on serving it with. You could also incorporate a little grated parmesan if you felt so inclined.

The Results:
* This makes around 4 dinner portions of gnocchi.

Garlic Cream Sauce

This really isn’t too much more than a simple white sauce with cream substituted for some of the milk and with some added garlic, parmesan and sage.

For the sauce:
* 2 cloves garlic, minced
* 2 tblsp butter
* 1 tblsp plain flour
* 100ml milk
* 250ml cream
* 2-3 tblsp grated parmesan
* 1 tblsp lemon juice
* salt and freshly ground black pepper

For the sage garnish:
* 1 tblsp butter
* 15-20 fresh sage leaves (or more, if your sage leaves are very small)

The Steps:
* To prepare the sage leaves, place a small frying pan over a medium heat. When heated, add 1 tblsp butter, allowing it to melt. Add the sage leaves and stir and fry for 3-4 minutes, until they start to go brown and crispy. Remove the leaves from the pan onto a piece of kitchen paper to soak up the excess butter, then crumble the fried leaves into a small bowl and set aside.
* To start the sauce, place a large pan over a medium heat. When heated, add 2 tblsp butter, allowing it to melt.
* Add the garlic and stir and fry for about a minute.
* Add the flour to form a paste (roux). Stir continuously and cook for about 2 minutes.
* Very gradually, start adding the milk, stirring continuously and making sure it’s well combined.
* Once the milk is incorporated, continue by gradually adding in the cream, still stirring.
* Allow the mixture to come to a boil, reduce the heat to low and simmer for about 5 minutes.
* Add the parmesan and stir to combine. Check and add salt to taste (I added about 0.5 tsp) plus a couple of twists of freshly ground black pepper.
* Add the lemon juice and stir to mix.
* The sauce is fairly thick, thin to your desired consistency by adding water if you like.
* Pour over gnocchi or other pasta and sprinkle with the fried sage leaves.

The Variations:
* Add extra parmesan or some cheddar if you feel like having a cheesier sauce.

The Results:
* Sauce for about 4 portions of gnocchi or other pasta.

Recipe originally posted by Daily Spud on thedailyspud.com on August 2nd.

With people having to tighten their belt and watch their spending these days due to the dreaded “R” word there is no better way to save a few Euros than by cooking at home instead of eating in fancy restaurants.

So out goes the fancy fish and chips in the city centre bistro at 20 euros and in comes the home cooked version with this super simple recipe. The fish and chips are both cooked twice in piping hot oil which leaves them lovely and moist in the middle and delicious and crispy on the outside, and with a little delicious home made tartar sauce on the side you are laughin’

The best part about the whole thing is that the money you have saved can be spent on a tasty little bottle of white which the lovely lads over at Curious will help you choose……

Mike’s wine match:

The first thing I consider when wine-matching is the strength of flavour of the food and, the tartare sauce aside, fish and chips are all about protein, starch and deliciously guilty grease. The strongest flavour from the tartare sauce will be the vinegar from the gherkin and capers, and the lemon juice, so a wine with a nice bite and acidity will be your safest bet and help you cut through the oil on the fish and chips at the same time.

Our house white Cuvee Jean-Paul Sec is just made for this dish. It’s a Colombard Ugni Blanc blend but possesses distinct Sauvignon qualities – fresh, zingy and aromatic with a lovely acidic bite making it perfect for cutting through the grease of the chips whilst bringing out the flavour of the fish.

Best thing about it too – at €7.99, it’s as cheap as chips!

Niall Harbison is Co-Founder and Master Chef at Look and Taste.

As Niall Harbison is so quick to test out on us every Thursday, we love a good challenge, so in chatting recently with the Daily Spud, the web’s most authoritative and creative chef and blogger on all things potato, we were delighted to accept the task of matching wine with spuds.

What started out as a ‘where do we start’ conversation quickly moved to agreement on the worldwide centre of excellence for both potato dishes and wine – France. All that was left was for the Spud to come up with a Curious Spud concoction and we’d match it with our choice of red and white for the occasion. So was born the Curious Potato Quiche.

The Spud’s recipe is re-published below, with the original post and deluge of enthusiastic comments here.

What was particularly interesting from the comments was the debate of white versus red. We chose two Burgundies, a Bourgogne AC Chardonnay for it’s punchy fruit, elegance and spice, and a half Gamay, half Pinot Noir Macon Superieur for that trademark Burgundy richness, without overpowering body, fruit or tannins that might compete with the delicate flavours in the Quiche.

When I was first coming up with recipes for Lookandtaste, this Frittata video was one of the first to be included as it is a recipe that I actually cook for myself when I have no idea what to make for dinner, am short of time and only have a handful of veggies and some eggs in the fridge. It is one of those classics that you just need to have in your repertoire and is a meal that will fill you up with very little work involved.

When myself and Pieter (the other chef in Lookandtaste) were on the set cooking this recipe, we argued long and hard as to where Frittata was from. In the end we agreed to disagree but I am sure that I was right when I said Spain and he was way of the mark with Italy.

I would imagine that pairing a wine with eggs is quick tricky but that is exactly the reason I choose this recipe as I would hate to think that the boys over at Curious Wines were getting an easy ride on the pairing front…….

Mike’s wine match:

Ha, this is an easy one! And bad news Niall, Pieter was right – a quick check on Wikipedia confirms Frittata is very much of Italian origin!

The dish is another of those classic left-over dishes, where whatever vegetables or meats you’ve got to hand can be thrown into the mix, the staples being the egg, potato, herbs and maybe some cheese. So you could justifiably choose different wines depending on what’s in there, but I’m going to recommend a couple of great all-rounders, perfect with not only Italian food but anything with a bit of richness or variety in flavour.

My preference would be red for frittata, and I’m going to plump for a Bardolino from Verona, up in the north-east corner of Italy. Bardolino’s typically light and easy-drinking but with that trademark Italian ‘bite’ that’s great for food.

If your preference was white, you could do a lot worse than staying close to Verona with a lovely Soave, again typically fresh and easy-drinking, and there shouldn’t be anything in the frittata that will overpower the delicious flavours in the wine.

Check out our own Bardolino and Soave from the 100 year old Farina winery from Verona, and ‘buon appetito’ Niall

Niall Harbison is Co-Founder and Master Chef at Look and Taste.

People often eat out when on holiday in Spain and love Paella but would be horrified about the thought of trying to re-create it when they get home but this simple video shows you that it is actually a great dish that can actually be put together in one pan and requires minimum washing up which is always a winner. What I also love about a dish like this is that it encourages the family or your group of friends to come together as you plonk (nice wine pun for good measure) the dish into the center of the table and everybody just gets stuck in and helps themselves. So all the great dish really needs is a lovely bottle of wine to compliment it and you will be able to transport yourself mentally back to that holiday in Spain…..

Mike’s wine match:

Well this has topped it for me, Niall’s most enticing dish so far on the Curious Blog!

To be honest, there’s any number of white wines would go beautifully with this dish, all you want to avoid is something too strong that could overpower the delicate flavours in the shellfish. So, you want something crisp and dry, preferably with a bit of acidic bite to it, and maybe a nice touch of fruit.

Anyone following this series, or other wine-with-food posts I’ve written, will know that my first rule of wine-matching is to take the country and preferably region of origin of the food, and start with wines from there. Now paella originates from the Valencia region of south-east Spain, and whilst white wine production does exceed red, there’s not that many make the export market. So, I’m going to stay Spanish but move up to Rueda in the north-west of the country, partly because it was the subject of my article for Look and Taste last week but mainly because I think their whites are outstanding and perfectly suited to paella.

In the Curious stable, try this Sauvignon from Castello de Medina – prominent confectioned apple with nettle and gooseberry, and great fruit/acidity balance – or this classy Verdejo/Sauvignon blend from Mantel Blanco, with ripe peach/passion fruit and silky texture.

Now Niall, next week I want you to put on a Rafa Benitez goatee and say “pae-eya” for us again

This week I have a recipe that has a little heat and some unusual flavours in there to try and confuse the boys as they have just been getting the matches spot on. In fairness I have been going easy on them with classics such as beef wellington and some simple steamed salmon so time to up the ante and see if they have the palate to match something up to this little beef in black bean sauce recipe. The recipe isn’t really that madly spicy but there are some strong flavours in there with the beans and garlic standing out so I would imagine it would take something pretty robust to stand up to this. Over to you boys…..

Mike’s wine match:

Thanks Niall, we love a challenge! Chinese food can often be quite tricky, not least because, unlike European cuisine, recipes didn’t evolve alongside local wine-making. Nevertheless, underlying food matching principles can point us in the right direction.

The strength of flavours in this dish, and the fact that it’s beef, would point us firmly towards a full-bodied red wine. There is an argument that a strongly aromatic white wine, like a New Zealand Sauvignon, could be the perfect anti-dote for all that richness and flavour, but I think red’s a safer bet for a synergistic match in this case.

The dish is quite spicy, so I wouldn’t match it with a spicy wine, I think you’d have too much going on. For that reason, and needing something full-bodied, I’d go for a good Argentinian Malbec or a Chilean Carmenere. This Santa Alicia is incredibly smooth and packed with depth and strength of flavour, so will stand up to the rich black bean sauce without blowing your head off with spice.

If you want to try the anti-dote option, go for something with tons of flavour and character (beware of cheap imitations of good New Zealand Sauvi!). This Waipara Springs is one of my favourites from the up-and-coming Waipara region and I reckon could cope well with the rich flavours of Niall’s dish.

All you need now are the chopsticks!

Niall Harbison is Co-Founder and Master Chef at Look and Taste.

This salmon dish is about as healthy as it gets as it is steamed along with the vegetables and served with a super simple soy dipping sauce.

This is the sort of dish you would eat if you were on a healthy diet which got me to wondering if there was such a thing as a healthy wine, or at least a wine that was more healthy than another? Perhaps not and it could be wishful thinking on my part but I am pretty sure that there would at least be a “lighter” wine of some sort that will compliment the delicate and simple natural flavours of the salmon.

As I am no expert on wines I’ll hand it over to the lads to match something nice up…..

Mike’s wine match:

‘Light’ could mean one of a number of things in wine terms, but mostly relate to body and/or alcohol. In relation to body, whites are obviously generally lighter than reds, although there are some lovely light-bodied reds that go very well with fish, such as Beaujolais.

I think I’d stick with white on this one, (a) because we’re specifically looking for a ‘light’ wine, and (b) because the saltiness of the soy dipping sauce is more easily complemented.

So, two delicious but quite different options:

1. Dr Wagner Saar Riesling – medium-dry and deliciously fruity, with that trademark stony minerality of quality Mosel Riesling, and at only 9% alcohol light in every sense (so, healthier in per glass terms, or you can drink more of it for the same number of units of a higher alcohol wine!).
2. Lugana Tenuta Maiolo DOC – higher in alcohol (12.5%) but still a light wine. What makes the Lugana a particularly great match for this dish is the very slight salty, sappy flavour from the calcareous clay used to grow the Trebbiano grapes – perfect with the salty soy and salmon.

Enjoy!

Niall Harbison is Co-Founder and Master Chef at Look and Taste.

Posted by Niall

This is one of the recipes I have designed for busy professionals for when they get home and just want to throw something together super fast. It is made with the one complaint that I hear from people all the time in mind: “I don’t have enough time to cook”.

Ideally I would love it if the boys here at Curious Wines could pair it up with a cheap bottle of wine for the middle of the week, that you could share with a friend and enjoy over this simple meal, and basically replicate what you would normally get in a restaurant while saving yourself a fortune.

Wine match by Mike:

Niall does love giving us a challenge! On it’s own, you could match blue cheese with anything from a powerful and acidic Italian red, like an Amarone, to a Vintage Port or a Sauternes. What makes this a little more challenging is the cream in the recipe, although the basic attributes of the creamy, fattiness of both ingredients would point us towards a high acidic, high fruit white wine.

I immediately think Riesling, (a) because I’m unapologetically obsessed by it, but (b) because you can go off-dry or even medium-dry and get away with it because of the acidity we’re looking for. But likewise, I think a nice, sharp Sauvignon Blanc could go fabulously well with this dish, and that means lots of choice and good value in today’s market. New Zealand would be my first choice for both wines, as the quality is more consistent than any other country, and there’s great value to be had in quality vs price terms.

Niall’s demanding cheap, middle-of-the-week drinking wine (I prefer the term inexpensive or good value myself!), so I’m recommending two specific wines from Curious that we’ve on special for March and April (more to follow separately on Curious Picks).

For the Sauvignon, this Tussock from Nelson is terrific value at the normal €12.99, but we have it at €10.99 when you buy 2 or more. For the Riesling, I’d really recommend you try this Lingenfelder from Pfalz in Germany – it’s off-dry to medium-dry, tons of fruit and great balance, and we’re doing the same as the Tussock on price – €10.99 when you buy 2 or more (normally €12.99 also).

Now I’m off to get some spinach and cream for tonight to test my own recommendations!

Niall Harbison is Co-Founder and Master Chef at Look and Taste.