Food and wine pairing: Oysters, red snapper, and mushroom risotto

Continuing our recent trend of food and wine pairing parties, we looked to the sea this time for inspiration, driven by the fresh red snapper found earlier that day at a local farmer’s market. For this wine and food pairing party, we decided to serve:

• Malpaque and Gulf oysters on the half-shell with cocktail sauce
• Sopressa salami
• Dates stuffed with Stilton cheese and wrapped in Serrano ham
• Baby arugula salad
• Red snapper with Provencal sauce
• Quiche with caramelized onion
• Quiche with tomatoes
• Mushroom risotto made with mushroom stock

The oysters were from Central Market on Lamar. The salami and date dishes both came primarily from Phoenicia on Burnet. Both the quiches, as well as the red snapper, were bought that day from the Austin farmer’s market downtown at Republic Square. The arugula came from Neil’s own garden.

The red snapper was served grilled, with Neil’s recipe as follows, using these ingredients: (1) One 2.5 to 3 lbs. red snapper: gutted, scaled, gills and fins removed; (2) Olive oil; (3) Salt and pepper; (4) Herbs from the garden. Rinse and dry the fish. Make two cuts on each side of the fish almost to the bone. Space the cuts evenly over the length of the fish. Sprinkle the inside of the fish with salt and pepper. Stuff the herbs into the cavity. Rub the fish with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Put the fish on the grill, in a fish “basket” sprayed with a non-stick spray. Grill over a medium-high fire for about 10 minutes per side.

The Provencal sauce for the grilled fish came from The Way to Cook by Julia Childs. The Way to Cook is Julia’s updated approach to her ground breaking book, Mastering The Art of French Cooking. The risotto was made with mushroom stock, and that recipe came from The Greens Cookbook: Extraordinary Vegetarian Cuisine From The Celebrated Restaurant by Deborah Madison. Finally, the recipe for the mushroom risotto itself came from the The Williams-Sonoma Collection: Risotto.

The wines we selected for this food and wine pairing party were:

• Loredan Gasparini Prosecco ($15)
• Laurenz Singing Gruner Veltliner 2006 ($12)
• Las Brisas 2007 ($10)
• Can Feixes Penedes Blanc Seleccio 2006 ($13)
• Lynmar Russian River Chardonnay 2005 ($30)
• Faiveley Mercurey Domaine de la Croix Jacquelet 2002 ($23)
• Valtellina Superiore Prestigio Triacca 2001 ($50)

The food and wine pairings

First up were the oysters, the Sopressa salami, and the dates. Somewhat surprisingly, the Laurenz Singing Gruner Veltliner paired well with various aspects of all three. It had a light-medium body and was very nice with the oysters if eaten without cocktail sauce, since both were delicate and didn’t overpower each other. With the salami, the rich flavor was enhanced by the wine. The creamy Stilton cheese in the dates paired very well with the weight of the medium bodied Gruner Veltliner.

However, if the oysters were eaten with the cocktail sauce with horseradish, the Prosecco was the clear winner over the Gruner Veltliner, because it balanced the sauce’s spiciness with its plentiful acid and bubbles.

The Can Fiexes Pendes Blanc Seleccio was a wonderful wine at a great value, and it paired well with the snapper and salad. It emphasized the actual fish in the red snapper dish, overlooking the creamy Provencal sauce. With the arugula, the bite of the lettuce was matched by the acid and so-subtle spritziness of the wine. With the Provencal sauce that was on the red snapper, the Lynmar Chardonnay was best, followed closely by (you guessed it) the Gruner Veltliner. The Lynmar Chardonnay was also just fantastic with the quiche made with caramelized onion, which was one of my favorite pairings of the night.

As you can see, the night was dominated by white wines, but we did have two reds to end the meal. The Faiveley Mercurey was excellent with the mushroom risotto, and the earthiness of each wrapped around each other nicely. The Valtellina Superiore was simply fantastic. It was earthy and rustic, especially after an hour or two of decanting on the table. It paired the best with the tomato quiche, but fared quite well with the risotto, though it overpowered it just a bit. The Valtellina Superiore drank very well on its own, and we finished the meal by just contemplating our glasses.

Check out these related posts:

1. Food and wine pairing: oysters with Champagne, Prosecco, and Cava
2. Our food and wine pairing party on New Year’s Eve
3. Wine, food & friends – better than Valentine’s day
4. Half-price oysters and sparkling wine at Parkside
5. Food and wine pairing: 2007 Clean Slate Riesling & 2005 Les Bois Menestrel Vacqueyras