This follows on from part 1.
Jeremy and Joy were the chefs, first up was Joy’s blanched chard and rhubarb toast, with olive oil and agraz dressing, along with the tarragon and radicchio salad with the most amazing olive oil, agraz and shallots dressing.
The beauty of the agraz in dressings is that unlike lemon juice and vinegar it brings a very refreshing balance without overpowering the flavours of the food itself, it seems to highlight and accentuate just how fresh and tasty the olive oil, lettuce, chard and rhubarb are. The TINTE wine also goes perfectly with this, which makes sense because it’s made from exactly the same vines, just the grapes are now fully ripe and full of sugar – the two flavours are in sync with each other.
For our main course Jeremy made a mushroom porridge, with chanterelles and black trumpets hidden under a charred red cabbage leaf. Plus little purple carrots with a milky white herb dip.
For the porridge, the spelt was toasted for a few minutes in olive oil and then cooked in water and the short grain brown rice soaked over night in water to soften it up. Both the wine and agraz were added to the rice and spelt as they were cooked to highlight and deepen the flavours.
The agraz was also used in the beurre blanc which made the porridge ‘creamy’ – unbelievably delicious! We served another Chilean natural wine with this course because we prefer TINTE 2014 before or after dinner.
Finally for dessert we has almond cake with almond milk jelly, TINTE jelly and a cashew butterscotch sauce. Thanks to The Pressery girls for giving us 1L of their raw almond milk which Jeremy jellyfied with gelatine . The TINTE jelly was a real hit, the rich flavours worked perfectly in a more solid format.
