Pairings | Sake
What’s the best wine pairing for tuna?
Tuna is a meaty fish which adapts just as well to a red wine as to a white. So which to choose?
The secret of sake and food pairing
Our new contributor, former sommelier Donald Edwards, reports back from a sake and food tasting at Novikov and reveals why the art of sake appreciation has a lot to teach wine-lovers.
8 foods you might be surprised to find pair brilliantly with sake
If you drink sake already you probably have your favourite pairings - sashimi, sushi, and yakitori among them -but it goes with more than just Japanese food albeit dishes that may be prepared with Japanese techniques or seasonings
Sake and food pairing: Chilean seabass hobayaki with warm daiginjo sake
I was always taught the best sakes were served chilled but the other evening at London's Sake no Hana I got to taste a super-premium daiginjo sake at room temperature with a dish of grilled Chilean seabass and it matched perfectly.
The best wine pairings for seabass
Seabass is one of the most popular fish on restaurant menus these days - usually treated quite simply and rarely sauced. But what wine should you pair with it?
Some exciting drink pairings for cheese that aren’t wine
We automatically think of matching wine and cheese or beer and cheese but there are many drinks that work just as well and can give a real ‘wow factor’ to your cheeseboard.
Eight great drink pairings for sushi
You might think sushi would be tricky to pair with wine but surprisingly that’s not the case. And there are other drinks that work too.
Six of the best drink pairings for kale
Although there's not quite the feverish frenzy there was about kale a couple of years ago there's still a lot of kale lurve around.
What wine (and other drinks) to pair with poke
If you haven’t heard of poke - the Hawaiian dish of cubed raw fish usually with rice and/or vegetables - you soon will. It’s everywhere (and pronounced, by the way, pokay not poke).
Pairing oysters with sake and other seafood
Shirley Booth explains the different grades of sake and why it goes so well with oysters and other seafood.
A beginner's guide to sake
A newbie's guide to sake from wine writer Natasha Hughes.
Velvet Haiku, a delicious sake cocktail from Sake no Hana
This is, without a doubt, the most refreshing cocktail I've tasted so far this summer - an incredibly thirstquenching mix of sake, jasmine tea, cucumber and prosecco - perfect for this hot, steamy weather we've been having.
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Steak and sake
As with most ingredients the best pairing for steak is going to depend on the way it’s cooked. For the most part you're probably going to reach for a red wine but we were in Japan and so the automatic go to was sake.
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Sake and truffle fries
As I discovered when I visited Akashi Tai in Japan last autumn* sake is coming out of its shell, no longer a niche product to drink in Japanese restaurants but a versatile beverage to pair with food.
Junmai sake with cheung fun, asparagus and shiitake mushrooms
It’s partly because not enough restaurants offer the option but I don’t drink sake often enough in Asian restaurants. (And yes, I know Asian is an imprecise term but that’s how many describe the food they offer)
Root vegetables in dashi with junmai sake
A terrific pairing which was part of a fascinating tasting I went to last week of sakes from the Tohoku region of Japan, the area most affected by last year's earthquake and tsumani. It was organised jointly by the British Sake Association and events company Tengu Sake (@tengusake on Twitter) and took place at Tombo, a Japanese cafe in South Kensington which laid on some particularly delicious food.
Dassai 50% unfiltered sake with lamb cutlets with Korean spices
I imagine you all know how well sake works with sashimi but it came as quite a surprise to me - wagyu aside - how well it could handle red meat and spice
Panko-fried yellowtail with truffle honey and sparkling sake
I honestly didn't know which dish to pick out of this extraordinary pop-up at The Dead Doll’s House Islington last week, hosted by wine importer Bibendum PLB who now also bring in a wide range of sakes. So I’m going for this one because it was the first and one of the simplest.
Soft shell crab tempura maki and ‘Misty Mountain’ sake
I don’t that often order sake in a restaurant but when I do I wonder why I don’t drink it more often.
My top drops in September
September always sees the start of the wine tasting season so it’s harder than ever to pick out the wines - and other drinks - that have made the biggest impression on me. But here’s a selection that I think is worth your attention - for different reasons (though some are definitely for special occasions).
Is Koshu the best match for Japanese food?
I suspect you’ll be hearing a lot about Koshu this year. No, it’s not some unfamiliar aspect of Japanese cuisine but a white wine made from a grape of the same name. A campaign to promote it in the UK was launched at a lunch in London yesterday by a VIP line-up of Japanese goverment officials from the Yamanashi prefecture where most of the winemakers are based.
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Oysters and sake
A surprise match from the RAW wine fair last week: some extraordinarily good wild rock oysters and a range of unpasteurised, unfiltered sakes from Yoigokochi Sake.
Drink of the week: Sawanotsuru sake
Always on the ball Aldi announced this week that it had added a sake to its drinks range. Not quite the bargain it first appears when you discover the bottle is £3.99 for just 300ml but that’s enough for two and interesting nonetheless.
Wagyu beef tataki and ginjo sake
We get so used to thinking of red wine as the only pairing for beef that it’s good to be reminded there are other options. Especially when it comes to Japan’s fabled Wagyu beef which is all about subtle tastes and textures.
Japanese ginger and garlic chicken with smashed cucumber
A simple but spectacular Japanese-style dish from Diana Henry's marvellous new book A Change of Appetite which I've also reviewed on the site here.
The best wine matches for turbot
Turbot is a luxurious fish you might well be serving over the holiday period, most probably roast or seared. But what sort of wine should you pair with it?
8 great wine matches for brussels sprouts
The idea of doing a post on wine matches with brussels sprouts might strike you as a tad over the top - after all who eats sprouts on their own? (Answer: me. Whenever I get the chance.)
Cold sesame noodles and weissbier
Thanks to my friend Signe Johansen of Scandilicious I finally got to Koya in Frith Street the other day - London’s food bloggers most popular noodle haunt and the winner of last year’s Observer Food Monthly’s Best Cheap Eats award.
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