This event was held on the evening of Thursday 24th June. Whilst, due to the unfortunate and ongoing restrictions, there was no ‘venue’ as such, we were treated to views into the homes of some of our fellow members. Tariq Mirza from SampleNinja, our cookery specialist for the evening, had clearly gone ahead and arranged a less virtual get together and we were clearly all invited, at least via the medium of Zoom.
The first part of the evening consisted of Tariq providing a cookery demonstration for three delicious Indian side dishes, Chaat Potato, Masala Scrambled Eggs, and Pakora, with Mike Brown of Green Bird Consultants providing wine recommendations to pair with each dish.
We learned from Tariq that there is considerably greater diversity of cuisine from India than we tend to be exposed to in the UK (apparently most Indian restaurants only offer Bengal dishes). Mike confessed to once having invested in a £1,000 bottle of Petrus, which he subsequently sold at a profit and resisted the temptation to drink.
Once suitably lubricated, we moved on to the food and wine quiz devised for us by Deanne and Marc Gold from iPoint Research. It was perhaps inevitable that on several occasions there was some debate as to the correct answer for some questions.
Quizmaster: The term for a wine with higher alcohol content is ‘robust’…
Mike Brown: No, that’s not right, robust means something quite different to a sommelier
Quizmaster: But Google says….
Which specific valleys in Italy do Pecorino and Parmesan originate from? Google was up against some high class research brains who were well fuelled and unwilling to cede territory to some upstart algorithm.
Regardless, full marks should be given to all those who gave up their time and energy to contribute content. I for one look forward to meeting some of my newly discovered ICG colleagues in person, once the madness ends.
If you missed the event, or want to make the dishes/sample the wine again, here are the recipes and acccompanying wine demos:
RECIPE 1: CHAAT POTATO
There is no video demonstration here as the recipe extremely simple to follow.
Recommended wine: German White Wine – Gewurztraminer Spatlese (Lidl)
RECIPE 2: MASALA SCRAMBLED EGGS
Recipe 2 – Masala Scrambled Eggs
Spanish Rose Wine – Tempranillo/Garnacha (Tesco)
RECIPE 3: PAKORAS
German White Wine – Riesling/Scheurebe (Lidl)
Here’s a quick video intro about the wines we’ve recommended as well.
Trailer for wine pairing – ICG Summer Party 2021
