Venison cottage pie and a ‘lunchtime claret’

This week’s match is a blast from the past - a visit to the historic Rules restaurant in London’s Covent Garden where we tucked into the kind of food you’d have eaten 50 years ago - if not 100.

I hadn’t been for a long while but was inspired to book by a review in the Guardian by my colleague Marina O’Loughlin.

I was going to have steak and kidney pudding but saw this venison cottage pie being borne to another table adorned with an extravagant Elizabethan-style ruff and couldn’t resist it. It was richer than the usual beef version with shredded rather than minced meat and a wonderful golden topping that must have owed a good deal to butter and egg yolk.

The prices on the wine list are somewhat eye-watering (£15.95 for a glass of Joseph Perrier champagne!) so we made the wise decision to go with a carafe of Château le Pey cru bourgeois Médoc which they served in a rather splendid jug.

Coming from the excellent 2010 Bordeaux vintage it was deliciously ripe but still light and fragrant enough to be the perfect foil for the very rich pie - exactly the sort of wine that used to be referred to in the trade as a ‘lunchtime claret’.

The buffers at our next door table looked on approvingly (though were even more impressed by the Gin & It and White Lady we ordered to kick off our meal). Cocktails and claret are the way to go at Rules.

Oh, and Barsac which I can strongly recommend with a steamed syrup sponge. Yes, it was THAT kind of lunch . . .

Bacon, egg and claret

You might think the idea of eating bacon and egg with good claret is sacrilege but bear with me.

When you've got a great bottle of Bordeaux you don't necessarily want anything too fancy to drink with it. I was put onto this combination by a friend who once worked for a tycoon who used to regularly crack open a bottle of Lafite or Latour for breakfast.

Now I'm sure the health police will ge me for saying this but it's a great combination. Maybe not before 11am but as a late breakfast or brunch. Rather less grand than the rib of beef with truffle jus you will find suggested on the Lafite website, but considerably more congenial, if I may say so, than the 'soft centred' chocolate cake with vanilla ice cream also recommended on the site.

You want a wine in which Cabernet makes up at least half of the blend, I suggest - not too young but not too venerable either.

Maybe a 'lunchtime claret' if funds won't stretch to first growths . . .

Go on, give it a try!

Cru classé Bordeaux and rack of lamb

Just as last week’s match of the week was a classic - so is this week’s: the main course we had at Oliver Peyton’s National Gallery Café at a dinner to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Circle of Wine Writers.

The wines were provided by the Union des Grands Crus de Bordeaux and included Lynch Bages Pauillac '96, Branaire-Ducru St-Julien ‘98 and Canon La Gaffelière St-Emilion 2001 all of which provided fascinatingly different pairings for the dish which was served medium-rare with broad bean and Jersey Royal crushed potatoes and a tomato and rosemary jus.

I personally thought the beautifully mellow, complex Lynch Bages was the best match with the relatively delicate flavours of the dish though the brighter, sweeter fruit of the La Gaffelière made an interesting counterpoint. Both it and the the Branaire-Ducru would probably have benefited from a dish with slightly more powerful seasoning though the herby note of the rosemary keyed into all three wines.

Of the other two courses I thought a dish of slightly oily hot-smoked sea trout failed to do justice to a sumptuous bottle of Chateau Latour Martillac Pessac-Léognan 2007 (a Riesling would have worked better, in my view but obviously this was a Bordeaux dinner) but the pairing of the 2002 Chateau Guiraud 2002 Sauternes with a lightly caramelised apple tarte tatin and honey clotted cream was spot on.

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La Réserve de Léoville Barton with roast lamb and salsa verde

We had a celebration dinner with old friends the other night at my favourite local restaurant Culinaria so cracked open a bottle of La Réserve de Léoville Barton 2004*, a St Julien and the second wine of Léoville Barton. It really was quite lovely - rich, plummy, velvety - at its peak but with a few more years to go. It was everything you want from red Bordeaux (unless you have bottomless pockets)

For once I let the wine dictate my food choice, opting for a classic dish of roast lamb with salsa verde instead of the wild Irish sea trout with hake, langoustine and saffron cream sauce I actually fancied. I guess it would probably have rubbed by but the wine would undoubtedly have overwhelmed the delicacy of the dish. I was a little concerned about the salsa verde too but I needn’t have worried. It worked perfectly adding a herbal note that picked up perfectly on the claret. - much better, I remember thinking at the time, than that British abomination mint sauce.

I think it would probably have been a decent cheese wine if we had stuck to sympathetic cheeses such as not-over-matured cheddar, young washed-rind cheeses and sheeps’ cheese but we couldn’t resist pudding (pannacotta with Yorkshire rhubarb and blood orange)

Stephen Markwick of Culinaria, I can't resist mentioning, is the chef with whom I wrote a book last year: ‘A Very Honest Cook’ which you can buy from the restaurant for the incredibly modest price of £10 + p & p!

*You can buy the 2004 from Vineyards Direct at £22.95 a bottle if you buy by the case - about £5 less a bottle than I paid locally.