wine and food pairings

Before I launch into a yummy post, I wanted to give you a raffle update. As you may know I am holding a raffle for my Boston Marathon charity, The ALLY Foundation, and I need all the help I can get! Raffle tickets are $10 each and can be purchased by visiting my fundraising site:

http://firstgiving.com/meghanmalloyteamally

I am currently requesting donations for the prizes, and so far I have:

$100 Williams Sonoma gift card

A custom me & goji mix

A one month membership to ALL of Healthworks’ fitness centers

Spread the word!

This year’s Superbowl Sunday was greatly enhanced by a lovely shipment of wine that I received from Jacob’s Creek, along with the challenge to create delicious wine and food pairings. Well, as you may know, I am a big fan of wine and food pairings, and I was excited to try more Jacob’s Creek wine. You may remember I received a bottle of Jacob’s Creek Cabernet Sauvignon to review back in December and used a Jacob’s Creek recipe on New Year’s Eve. Before this, I had only tried Jacob’s Creek Chardonnay, and while it was good, Chardonnay is not my favorite wine so I had very little to go by. I have been pleasantly surprised by the fact that Jacob’s Creek is MUCH more than Chardonnay.

In this football themed promotion, I received a 2008 Pinot Grigio, a 2005 Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon, a 2008 Reserve Riesling, and a Reserve Pinot Noir.

My task, to make a dish that paired with the wines. Since I was a little pressed for time, I decided to choose two wines and to make Superbowl dishes that ended up pairing magically with them.

My menu:

Jacob’s Creek Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon with marinated steak tips topped with Cabernet “Caramel” Sauce

Jacob’s Creek Reserve Riesling with Spicy Thai Fish Cakes

The ingredients:

Free range, grass fed steak tips

1 cup Jacob’s Creek Cabernet Sauvignon

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

Juice of one whole lemon

4 cloves garlic, minced

pinch of rosemary

liberal sprinkle of freshly ground black pepper

1/4 cup brown sugar

This recipe is easy and is better the longer you let it sit..

I started out by microwaving the lemon for 20 seconds to get the juices flowing, then squeezed the juice over the steak tips, making sure coat each side of the meat. I let this sit for a few minutes, then added the red wine, garlic, rosemary, and black pepper. I let it sit in the marinade from about 8:00 on Saturday night until 6:00 on Sunday, right before we were leaving for our Superbowl party.

After taking the meat out of the refrigerator and letting it rest at room temperature for about 10 minutes, I thoroughly drained the marinade off. You want the meat to be as dry as possible to get a good sear. I used a dry, very hot pan, and just laid the strips in it, flipping to make sure that each side got browned evenly.

In the meantime, I poured the marinade into a sauce pan and brought it up to a rolling boil. To make sure it was cooked through, I allowed it to boil for a couple of minutes, then brought it down to a slow simmer and stirred in the brown sugar. I let this sauce simmer for a good 10 minutes so that it thickened into a lovely caramel like substance. When the steak tips were cooked through, I plated them, and then poured the sauce on.

The funny thing about this recipe is that I don’t eat beef. But I have reliable sources and was asked for the recipe from a number of party guests, including the Johnson & Wales trained culinary goddess hostess. How did the wine pair?

Well, to start, the meat was marinated in the Cabernet Sauvignon along with the other ingredients, so the flavor profiles were tied together by that. I did enjoy the wine, and as the tasting notes suggest, noted its dense fruit and long persistent finish. According to my husband, the deep, dark fruit in the wine paired well with the slight sweetness of the brown sugar and made a good contrast to the richness of the meat.

Part II of this post will cover the fish cakes which were so good they never made it to the party 🙂 and the Riesling which I absolutely loved! Check in tomorrow for that recipe and wine review.

What did you cook/eat for Superbowl? Did you watch, chat with friends, or skip the event altogether?