Oscietra caviar and Galvin at Windows’ White Snapper

Last week was (highly unusually) a big week for caviar - and caviar substitutes which I ate on two successive nights paired with everything from vodka to beer. Decadent or what?

But it was this original and delicious cocktail - an inventive twist on the classic Bloody Mary - by the bar team at Galvin at Windows ‘caviar in the sky’ event that really stood out for me.

Apparently it was made with Bulldog gin, various (unspecified) spices and clarified tomato juice which gave it a delicate but not overpowering tomato flavour - and, as you can see, was very prettily garnished with a dried slice of lime.

We tried a whole range of caviars with it (from King’s Fine Food who sell online if you’re minded to repeat the experiment) and it pretty well sailed through them all except the denser, saltier, pressed caviar. The oscietra was my favourite though.

Fred Sirieix at Galvin at Windows is planning a caviar dinner on the strength of the tasting. Some of the prepared caviar dishes we tried from head chef Joo Won which included scallop tartare with lime zest and juice, olive oil, lychee, orange, borage flower, coriander cress and oscietra and crispy quail egg, charred baby leeks, cep cream and ceps with Siberian caviar were amazing. I’ll be writing more about the other pairings in due course.

Langoustines and caviar with Faiveley’s Puligny Montrachet 1er cru La Garenne 2009

A celestial combination I enjoyed at a burgundy dinner at the Grand Hotel de Bordeaux last week. Burgundy in Bordeaux? Yup - I guess they want to ring the changes from time to time but it does seem heretical.

It also seems on the face of it an unlikely combination particularly with red burgundy but the way the chef Pascal Nibaudeau got round it was to incorporate caviar (Caviar d’Aquitaine from Sturia) into other burgundy-friendly dishes.

This dish, for instance, owed as much to the accompanying sweet, fat langoustine, risotto and creamy, delicately saffron-flavoured sauce as it did to the caviar although the caviar certainly accented the beautifully pure, crisp Puligny perfectly.

Incidentally I found this interesting description of the background to the wine from Haynes, Hanson Clark who sell it for £48.90 a bottle.

"This is only the second vintage since this vineyard was acquired by the Domaine. It covers less than one fifth of a hectare, producing just five barrels in 2009, the wine being vinified and aged in one third new barrels. La Garenne's situation high on the hillside has allowed admirable acidity and minerality to be retained, giving the wine outstanding balance and potential (for drinking 2012-2020+)".

A classic combination in the great tradition of French haute cuisine but none the worse for that.