Goat cheese and chive ravioli, tomato and basil vinaigrette
A classic flavour combo that just works so well. The “vinaigrette” is more like a light tomato based sauce with sharp acidity.

Goat cheese and chive ravioli, tomato and basil vinaigrette

Celeriac soup, beetroot and red wine emulsion
Rob Feenie’s combo concept-wise. It works pretty well.

Celeriac soup, beetroot and red wine emulsion

Lemon sole, Australian mountain pepper spice, carrot, parsley butter, garlic chips
Halibut, quatre épices rub, poached figs
Essentially two dishes in one, because I just love packing the flavour combos in.
Lemon sole remains a popular N. European fish, particularly in the UK. It’s a delicate fish with a great flavour, and it’s also cheaper than Dover Sole. It doesn’t (or “shouldn’t”) require much treatment, so here I served it with carrot in a parsley butter (coz carrot and parsley work well together, and parsley and butter work well with sole). The garlic crisp and mountain pepper were small touches to just provide some fun (the pepper is a native pepper berry from Tasmania that has quite a hot peppery flavour).
Halibut is amongst my favourite fish, quite unlike many fish due to its firm, almost meaty texture. This fish is great fried, and can take a bit of spice. The figs were essentially poached in port. These components worked surprisingly well together.

The above dishes were served with Bonneau du Martray‘s Corton-Charlemagne 2001. I not think this worked particularly well, but I am not a fan of BdM’s CC (the flavours just aren’t what I look for in white Burgundy) and I may also have been a little tired of it at the time too, since a friend had coincidentally served me blind a different vintage of the same wine a day or two prior. Perhaps I was biased because of this, though really I wouldn’t expect this wine to work with the above dishes particularly well anyway (this wine was opened for what it was, not for the match it might provide).

Lemon sole, Aussie mountain pepper spice, carrot, parsley butter, garlic chips; Halibut, quatre épices rub, poached figs

“Pepper, pita, feta”: stuffed peppers, feta sorbet, spiced fried pita
A wanted to play around with stuffed peppers. I tend to pack them with rice, herbs, tomato sauce and onion. I find they can work fantastically well with red wine if the acidity is kept high (add plenty of vinegar) and they contain Greek quantities of olive oil.

Paired with Château Lagrange St Julien 2003, with which it worked pretty well.

“Pepper, pita, feta”: stuffed peppers, feta sorbet, spiced fried pita

Roquefort cheese, poached pear, spiced toasted walnuts, sweet-wine-poaching reduction
I feel I’ve refined this composed cheese course dish pretty much to the point of perfection. The flavours just work so well together. The pear is poached in a syrup containing white wine and lemon juice, and the nuts are roasted with a little salt, cardamom, cinnamon (perhaps some black pepper or cumin).

I feel this dish pairs very well with a sweet Loire Chenin Blanc. In this case, IIRC, it was Baumard’s 1992 Quarts de Chaumes.

Roquefort cheese, poached pear, spiced toasted walnuts, sweet-wine-poaching reduction

Chocolate dèlice, salted caramel, peanut icecream
Evidently, presentation went a bit wayward.. the diners even joined me in the kitchen at the dish composition phase for some pretty funny cuts and constructions (not shown)… but it tasted pretty good if I do say so myself. Certainly a rich dessert.

Chocolate dèlice, salted caramel, peanut icecream

Knowing a game-themed food and wine matching dinner was upcoming, but would have a vegetarian attendee, I set about trying to create something a little different for that guest. I set a challenge for myself: not just to create a novel ovo-lacto vege dish, but a novel vegan dish where, in true haute cuisine tradition, the focal point of the dish (it was a main) had to be protein.

I think soy protein, when prepared and executed well, is fantastic (e.g., deep fried tofu in a Thai curry). I started off using moulded soy protein (as in the pic) but moved on to tofu in the end because it offered better presentation options. The tofu/soy protein was dehyrated (to draw out the relatively flavourless liquid) before being infused (to replace to with a flavoursome liquid) in a soy/rice wine/Chinese 5 spice marinade. This was then seared.

For accompaniments I took a fusion approach. Red capsicum (bell peppers) were grilled, skins removed, and blended with a light miso. The humous comprised roast cashews, olive oil and a little garlic. The spätzle were made in the traditional way, but with hoisin sauce added, and then roasted to give a crisp texture (a bit like a Soy King crisp).

Pan seared spiced soy protein, red pepper miso, roast cashew ‘humous’, hoisin spätzle