There's a lady I know, Fiona, who's written books on matching food and wine. She's really good at it. I mean really good. Wine and truffles? She's on it. Wine and Japanese food? Got it covered. Check out her newly launched site for food and wine matches for almost everything you can think of. I say everything. Turns out she hadn't covered leftovers, and as they make up a large part of my staple diet (I use the term diet very loosely) I asked her if she'd be so kind. She was, and is. Here's her guest post:
Fishfinger butties One of my best ever matches was when I was holed up working on a book and the family were away. I staggered down to the kitchen mid-evening to find practically nothing in the fridge except a half-opened pack of fish fingers, some frozen spinach, and a half bottle of Krug (I was writing for the Daily Mail at the time) Five star combination. You don’t, of course, need Krug - cava or prosecco will do fine. Fizz and fried crispy things (including fish and chips) are fantastic together. Spaghetti bolognese Leftover spag bol can get a bit claggy so you need a robust Italian red to liven it up. Something like a Montepulciano d’Abruzzo. Merlot isn’t bad either. That of course applies to other pasta shapes with bolognese. It’s the sauce you need to focus on not the pasta (as you can see here). Half eaten bits of pizza with discarded veggies (most commonly green peppers and mushrooms in my experience) Similar solution to the above. Which is useful as that’s probably the bottle you’ve got open. Tuna sarnies May not be in your regular repertoire - tuna is a bit un-PC these days - but it was my daughter Kate’s favourite. (Flaked tuna, a tablespoon or so of finely chopped onion and sweet-sour pickled cucumber, a dollop of mayo and a squeeze of lemon). On the rare occasion she left any I used to wash it down with a glass of rosé. Perfect. (Try it with salade niçoise too). Ice cream Here we’re not talking about leftovers (as if ... ) so much as fridge raids. Even bog standard vanilla can be enormously improved by a glass of dark sweet sticky oloroso sherry, one of the wine world’s most underrated bargains. Supermarket own brands are fine. Even better with Ben & Jerry’s Cookie Dough ice cream.
Visit www.matchingfoodandwine.com for considerably more sophisticated matches than these ones. And if you get over there sharpish, there's a competition to win a case of Louis Roederer Premier Brut Champagne.