It’s not often I find the perfect food & wine pairing but last night I did.
Started with a Glen Carlou Quartz Stone Chardonnay 2020 to get the palette in the mood while I was in the kitchen preparing Singapore Chicken for a party of 12 – lot of hard work, and the secret is in just about every element, but my holy it was yummy. That was okay with the Chardonnay until I switched to red and opened a bottle of Saronsberg Cellar Shiraz 2019. Bang!!
The spicy notes of the Shiraz complimented the zinginess (it’s a word, okay) of the Singapore chicken with just the right amount of the Togarashi dressing. New all time perfect pairing.
If you’re really bored and you want the whole story, I was introduced to Singapore Chicken by Brad Lipner (can’t tag you for some reason) and I thought it was the best thing I’d ever eaten. At that stage I was still living in Jo’burg and half way between semigrating to the place I love to call home now so we didn’t get to eat that again for a long while.
Anyway, some time later, and now a resident of the Mother City, I picked up a recipe book called Tapas by Liam Tomlin in my early days of chef-worship, and months and months after buying the book and letting it sit in the recipe cupboard gathering dust, I made my first bold attempt at cooking a dish from the book that looked amazing, and turned out to be the very same Singapore Chicken that Brad had made us months before. The family went crazy over it and it became their no 1 favorite dish. It was requested again and again, and it soon became my thing, probably because it takes a lot of prep and nobody else wanted to spend that long in the kitchen. I’ve made it for guests who raved about it, went back to Jo’burg, brought their families and they raved about it. Last night’s dinner was for Hanna’s birthday because she loves this dish, so it was lovingly prepared for our Friday night Shabbat dinner in honour of her birthday. Also, I think Hanna’s mom thinks it’s the only thing I ever cook because she’s been to our house 3 times and she’s been given Singapore Chicken 3 times.
If you clamor loud enough I’ll do a post dedicated to Singapore Chicken. Meanwhile shoutout to Saronsberg for the wine that goes with the dish that made me famous and Liam Tomlin for the recipe.
