Riesling food matches wanted

A lot of Asian-inflected cooking goes well, so how about Thai fish cakes or chinese-style BBQ ribs, a traditional gambas al ajillo, ebi shu mai, cha siu bao
No idea what a gamba is - or those other foreign language suggestions.

I'm not Mark, but gambas al ajillo are shrimp in garlic, classic tapas. Ebi shumai are shrimp dumplings. Cha siu is Chinese BBQ Pork, I assume bao are the filled buns.

Dale's not me -- he's my alter ago. So, naturally, he's 100% right. Sorry for using foodie-speak, but I'm reading Anthony Bourdain's "Nasty Bits" right now, so I'm in full foodie-mode. To elaborate, gambas al ajillo are shrimp cooked in olive oil with plenty of garlic and chili pepper flakes. It's fast to make and usually a big hit. If you have a Chinese bakery in your area, you can usually find red pork buns (cha siu bao in Cantonese dialect and old-style transliteration) which make for nice finger food.

Have fun!
Mark Lipton

Might be too messy, but these are very good, and I bet they'd work well with a Riesling--I've always done it with the drummettes, but you could use boneless pieces of other parts of the chicken and cut them into bite-sized pieces, then perhaps stick toothpicks in them:

a couple dozen chicken wing drummettes
½ cup honey
½ cup dijon mustard
2 tablespoons hot curry powder (for this recipe, I don't bother mixing my own)
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 teaspoon minced garlic

Mix all ingredients except chicken wings. Put wings in roasting pan lined with aluminum foil (important: use the foil!). Slather sauce onto chicken and bake in a 350° oven for a thirty minutes. Turn occasionally, adding sauce as desired. Sticky as heck, but great, particularly as an appetizer.

Sausages - especially the spicy ones [spicy Kielbasa, spicy Bratwurst, spicy Italian] could be used to make finger foods.

You could cut them up in little beanie-weanie-sized lengths and serve them on toothpicks.

Or you could pair them up with some grilled fruits [granny apple slices, or pear slices, or, as you indicated earlier, pineapple cubes] and serve them as "Sausage-Kebobs".

As far as chicken is concerned, with Teriyaki sauce being pretty much universally available these days, "Teriyaki Chicken Kebobs" would be pretty easy to make.

If you could do an orange glaze, then "Orange Glaze Chicken Kebobs" [with some big slices of green & red peppers] would be really fun, but a glaze might require a lot of work on your part.

Riesling also goes great with Quiches - if you knew anyone who could make those little cupcake-sized mini-quiches, then they could be served as finger foods. [Mini-quiches would probably be pretty easy - or at least straightforward - for most professional caterers, but I imagine that they would be a lot of work for the amateur.]

We used to eat something called "sausage cheese biscuits" - you grind the sausage up into little pieces and cook it in a pan [essentially the same thing as prepping ground beef for use in a spaghetti sauce], and you shred a bunch of cheese [maybe a sharp orange cheddar], and you mix it all up in the biscuit dough and then spoon little pieces of the dough mixture out on a pan and bake them almost like you would chocolate chip cookies [except that instead of flattening like cookies, they might rise just a little].

Of course, that requires making the dough by hand, which is probably a lot more work than most people are willing to undertake these days [although I suppose that Bisquick could produce a dough pretty quickly if you were in a hurry].

You know, the more I think about it, a spicy Italian sausage & grilled pear kabob could be really interesting.

Can you get fresh white asparagus? Probably not.

You got it in one. I've never seen white asparagus. Asparagus season is almost upon us, just a few more weeks.

Sue,

What age and types (as in trocken, spatlese etc.) of Riesling are we talking about here?

I've got some ideas to offer but if you can give some "specifics", I'll happily chime in with some finger food that, hopefully, will suit.

Do you serve the hot smoked salmon on a cracker, or what? The one Alsace Riesling I am putting in the tasting is fairly dry. But I'm guessing the oiliness of the salmon and the oiliness of Alsace Rieslings is what works here?

I was just trying to respond in more detail - trawling through my memory. Then I realised I probably had taken notes from the dinner. I had, and it was Bradan Rost - hot smoked salmon fillet - with Rolly Gassmann, Pinot Gris, 2002 (the dinner was July 2005). Sorry about that . The salmon was more-or-less just sitting there on a plate. IIRC (and I am beginning to doubt my own sanity) neither the salmon nor the wine was particulary oily, but the very slight sweetness in the PG complemented the smokiness of the salmon very well.

I'm not looking for finger food but there are a few ideas here which may help me to make inroads into my inventory of mostly off-dry to sweet (Kabinett through Auslese) German and also some Alsatian Riesling.

I see that most of the suggestions seem to be in the sweet and sour and sometimes spicy mode often with a fusion influence. If I can get Germaine to depart from her excellent Franco-Belgian and occasionally Italian modes of cooking, say, twice per month, then we can start using our excellent stocks. I must confess, however, to remaining nervous about the association of Riesling with Thai flavours; I will first try one of my less prized bottles with these.

In Germany the off-dry style seems to be increasingly out of fashion with food. I have noticed that these as well as the frankly sweet are sometimes served there before or after dinner alone or with the discreetest of nibbles; and this can be quite delicious. The problem with this for us is that we always have a bottle of wine with our main meal and the accumulation risks being just too much.

Tim, I would be interested to know which Alsace Rieslings you have?? PM maybe.
Some great food ideas here, I am taking note!!!

[Mini-quiches would probably be pretty easy - or at least straightforward - for most professional caterers, but I imagine that they would be a lot of work for the amateur.]

A quick easy way to make mini quiches, especially for something like this where they are not the star attraction, is to use pre-made store-bought refrigerated pie crust. Cut it into rounds using a biscuit cutter, or a clean opened tin can, and lay them into a muffin/cupcake tin. Then fill with your quiche mixture. The mini muffin size works best for finger foods, and cutting the crust with a 6oz size tomato paste can is just about right.

[David M. Bueker]

Wow...I was just talking about this on the Shoe.

Here's a personal favorite salad that matches VERY WELL with Riesling Auslese:

Baby spinach
olive oil
balsamic vinegar (do not use regular vinegar...citrus juice might also work)
salt & pepper
candied pecans (or walnuts)
crumbled blue cheese

I've had this with auslese & it's stunning.

Wow...I was just talking about this on the Shoe.

Here's a personal favorite salad that matches VERY WELL with Riesling Auslese:

Baby spinach
olive oil
balsamic vinegar (do not use regular vinegar...citrus juice might also work)
salt & pepper
candied pecans (or walnuts)
crumbled blue cheese

I've had this with auslese & it's stunning.

David,

When I was a wine salesman trying to sell Finger Lakes Riesling, I would tell restaurateurs about its affinity with balsamic vinegar and most would invariably escort me to the door...

The few who allowed me to host a dinner to introduce NY wines were turned around by the Riesling and food pairings, especially the balsamic.

Sue,

What age and types (as in trocken, spatlese etc.) of Riesling are we talking about here?

I've got some ideas to offer but if you can give some "specifics", I'll happily chime in with some finger food that, hopefully, will suit.

Hi David. The two sweetest wines are spatlese style both 2005 vintage - one from Mosel, one from Central Otago.
Driest wine is a Clare Valley (watervale) 04.

Cheers,
Sue

[David M. Bueker]

Given the sweetness in many 2005 spatlesen I would make a try at my salad.

Given the sweetness in many 2005 spatlesen I would make a try at my salad.

Thanks David - sounds good. But might be a little fiddly for this tasting as I don't want utensils. But definitely a goer as a side dish in a more relaxed, meal setting. Sounds a little like a pear, blue cheese and walnut salad that I sometimes make (nice with pinot gris too).

An alternative could be to smear a baby spinach leaf with a creamy blue cheese, wrap this around a candied nut and secure with a toothpick. Then have a little dipping liquid from the olive oil, balsamic and salt and pepper.
What are your ratios of olive oil to balsamic?

Cheers, Sue

[David M. Bueker]

I have no idea of the ratio. I pour a little olive oil over the greens and toss to very lightly coat. I then drizzle the balsamic & add the salt & pepper, again tossing to get the effect.

If I had to guess it would be 3-4 parts olive oil to 1 part balsamic.