Match of the week

Poached salt pollock and cauliflower with Julien Meyer's 'Nature' Sylvaner/Pinot Gris

Posted by Fiona Beckett (Google+) on January 12 2015 at 09:15

Like half the world it seems at the moment I’m a bit obsessed with cauliflower so was drawn to this dish at Birch in Bristol on Friday like a moth to a flame

It was a brilliant assembly of different tastes and textures - very lightly salted, flaky fish (who knew pollock could taste so good?), some deeply savoury sautéed cauliflower - and a few finely sliced florets - the crunch of slender shavings of radish and the richness of almond butter - so perfect with the cauliflower. It was satisfying at so many levels.

With it - and most of the rest of the meal - we drank a bottle of biodynamic producer Julien Meyer’s 2012 Nature from Alsace, an unusual and fragrant blend of pinot gris and sylvaner - and only 11.8% incidentally. I love sylvaner - it’s so fresh and fragrant - and actually applied a lovely lift to the whole dish.

You could have drunk any number of wines with it: almost any crisp not overly flavourful white such as a verdicchio or grüner veltliner would have worked well too but this was spot on.

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