Roast turbot with wild mushrooms and white Minervois

I spent last week in the Languedoc where we visit quite regularly so there weren’t many new food and wine discoveries to be made but I think the most thought-provoking match was a main course dish of roast turbot with girolles and a bottle of Château Cabezac 'Alice' 2008 from the Minervois I had at a restaurant in Agde called Le Bistrot d’Hervé.

Turbot is a fine fish and this was by no means a major wine but it was in the right register. It was an unoaked blend of Grenache Blanc, Muscat and Bourboulenc - earthy rather than fruity - which suited the slightly meaty texture of the fish and richness of the accompanying mushrooms. A better match would have been a fine white Rhône such as a Hermitage or Châteauneuf-du-Pâpe, a white burgundy (or similar cool climate Chardonnay), a traditional oak-aged white Rioja or a bottle of Champagne which, by coincidence, was what the table next door were drinking with their turbot (Pol Roger, to be precise).

I bet they paid a fair bit for it. I like the food at this restaurant but the mark-ups are excessive, even allowing for the exchange rate. The Cabezac ‘Alice’ sells at €5.50 from the domaine and they’re selling it for 21€, almost four times as much.

Starters are pricey too for a bistro - between 12€ and 16€ and there’s no set menu on a weekend evening. It seems that bistrots, spelt with a ‘t’ are as little related to bistros as gastropubs are to pubs these days. Even in a small town in France.

Steak tartare and Côteaux du Languedoc

You might be surprised to know that red wine isn’t the first pairing I think of with steak tartare, which for those of you who haven’t tried it is chopped raw beef flavoured with punchy seasonings such as capers, parsley and hot pepper sauce. I actually think it pairs really well with sparkling wine, especially Champagne but last week I was down in the Languedoc and that didn’t really seem appropriate.

My husband had ordered a dish called hachis parmentier which is a French version of shepherds' pie so we compromised on a medium bodied red in the form of the 2006 vintage of Château de la Negly’s basic wine ‘La Côte’. A blend of Carignan, Grenache and Syrah, it comes from the La Clape part of the Coteaux de Languedoc (see this more detailed description from K & L wine merchants)

It’s one of those easy-going reds that should be in everyone’s cellar, refreshing, quaffable but in no way simple or jammy. It was a great companion for both dishes, especially the steak tartare (and chips, I must confess). Almost as good as Champagne ;-)

In the UK H & H Bancroft carry the Château de la Negly range. The restaurant where we were eating is called Larcen in Agde, one of our current favourites in the area.

Chicken with peanut sauce and Faugères rosé

We liked Larcen, the restaurant that was the inspiration for two of the Clever Food Ideas last week, so much that we managed to fit in another visit before we left France. I had the plat du jour (dish of the day) - a brilliant combination of chicken in a rich peanut sauce and a 2007 Faugères rosé from H Bouchard called Abbaye Sylva Plana.

The dish was spicy without being hot. I suspect the sauce contained the Moroccan spice blend ras el hanout, which would have been a totally inauthentic addition but accounted for its fragrance and any heat was cooled by the addition of coconut milk. It made the strawberry flavours of the Faugères simply leap out of the glass. Quite lovely!