AAA Matilda


Dedicated to the Enjoyment (In Moderation) of All Things Alcoholic and the Food It Accompanies


This page is going to be a labour of love. It will trace my enjoyment of wine and hopefully give you the reader the opportunity of buying and tasting the wines that I enjoy. Why would I do that you might ask? Well how about unbiased opinion, 20 years of wine drinking and study, and the desire to empower those who are just testing the waters, to know what they like and to be able to explain why they like it.

WINE

Wine has a history of about 8000 years. Debate still continues about whether wine or beer was the first brewed beverage. Whatever the outcome of that debate it is now clear that wine reigns supreme as the alcoholic drink which is most written about as well as most drunk today.

The first wine was likely to have been produced by a women, in what is now Kurdistan and Georgia. She probably left wild grapes in a clay pot then drank the resulting fermented liquid. The drink would not have much resembled our modern day wines, but its after effects created an immediate interest, and supply driven wine making began. As demand began to outstrip supply, wine began to become an article of trade, initially locally and then as civilsation became more organised, further afield. The spread of wine drinking was largely to the West. Countries such as Egypt, Greece and later the Roman Empire all became proficient makers of wine, which in those days was sweeter and lower in alcohol. It is said that the red "Recioto" and the white "Retsina" are modern day equivelents of wines drunk during the time of Jesus. (More to Come)

Barnes& Noble.com

My Journey With Wine

My journey with wine began in the sixties as I made my way across France and Spain as a young "traveller". The water was often risky to drink and most of us, in those heady days, drank the local wines, which were often rough and always very inexpensive. My diet for many weeks, if not months was apples, cheese and wine. I finally arrived in New Zealand in 1968 and found a country with a embryonic but exciting wine industry. My experience was still limited to "chateau cardboard", which is what we called cask wine, as well as a carbonated and very cheap sparkling wine. As my wine drinking developed I began to drink bottled white wine, Moselle (More to come)

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My Wine Log

Tuesday January 2 2001

Today I shared with my partner, Jocelyn, a bottle of 1997 Reserve Chambourcin by Cassegrain Vineyards. Chambourcin is a French/Amercian Hybrid recently introduced to Australia because of its resistance to mildew. It is being produced normally as a light summer red that can be chilled and drunk at the BBQ. However Cassegrain has chosen to produce a full bodied wine, deep red in colour, with an aroma intense in ripe plums, spices and the hint of oak. It has a full palate with a long finish. The wine was produced from bio-dynamically grown and hand picked fruit, but does contain sulphar as a preservative. We drank this wine with a meal of Pork Tikka MasalaIn my opinion this was a wine well worth experiencing and one I will return to. Talking of Tikka Masala I thought you might like some links to pages on Indian Cooking and Indian recipes. So here are some of my favourites, if you have others especially any with authentic indian recipes for Pork Tikka Masala, I would appreciate hearing about them.

No sooner had I spoken than the chef from Hot Dishes.Com had writeen to me with an authentic recipe for the dish. Here it is.

Pork Tikka Masala

Meat

Pork. 500grams of fillet or boneless pork, after cutting off excess fat.

Ingredients For Marinade:

ginger paste - 2 tsp

garlic paste - 2 tsp

tumeric powder - 1/4 tsp

chilli powder - 1 tsp

garam masala - 1 tsp

cumin powder - 1/2 tsp

dhaniya powder - 1 tsp

salt to taste

curd - 1/2 cup beaten well

To Marinate the pork

Take the beaten curd and mix all the above powders together and add salt. Cut the pork into medium size pieces and add it to the curd mixture, close the vessel with a lid, foil or cling wrap and let it to marinate for about an hour.

Ingredients For The Sauce

Onion - 1 chopped

Tomato puree - out of one small tomato

Ginger paste - 1 tsp

Garlic paste - 1 tsp

Tumeric powder - 1/4 tsp

Coriander powder - 2 tsp

Salt to taste

Oil - 8 tsp

Garam Masala powder - 2 tsp

Coriander leaves

Ground almond - 2 tsp (optional)

Fresh Cream is optional to garnish

Preparation of the Pork

After the pork pieces are marinated, take them and bake them well in a pan on a low heat or flame setting. Or you can put the pork on the grill and cook it until well done but still juicy.

Preparation of the Sauce:

Heat oil in a pan, fry onions till they turn golden brown. Add ginger & garlic paste and let them fry till the oil seperates. Add all the masala powders to the mixture, and then add the tomato puree. Add salt to taste and then add little warm water and the ground almond paste if you wishd and let the sauce to come to a boil. Then add the cooked pork pieces, and let the gravy come to a boil again. Remove the dish from the stove and add the coriander leaves , and the cream ( optional ) to garnish.

You can serve this hot with chappathi and roti

Tip:

Ground Almond just adds a little more flavour but its not required.

Fresh cream is also optional.

Another visitor comments that you can make Pork Tikka Masala in exactly the same way as the Chicken dish, but to remember that Pork takes longer to cook, so spend that little extra time (10 mins).

Now back to the Indian Cooking and Recipe Pages

Dont stop scrolling after the links there is more on the page