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Butternut Squash Soup

1 medium butternut squash.

1 small can orange concentrate            1cup apricot brandy

1 tsp. orange peel                                ½ tsp. salt

Dash Tabasco                                     ½ tsp pepper

Cut and steam squash.   Peel and blend with 3 cups warm water.

Mix all ingredients well.  Serve cold.

Serves 4-6

Orange Glazed Chicken

1 cup orange juice                               1 tbsp. grated orange peel

1 cup brown sugar                               2 tbsp. melted butter

1 ½ tsp. dry mustard                            ½ tsp. allspice

1 orange, sliced                                    4-6 pieces chicken

Place chicken pieces in baking dish. Combine all ingredients, except orange slices. Pour glaze over chicken and place orange slices on top of chicken. Bake at 375 degrees, basting frequently, until well browned.

Comment:

I always have doubts when I first try to match a wine with a new dish.  This time was no exception.  Karen took pity and showed me this recipe early, so I had plenty of time to think.  Not only that, she prepared it for me a week ahead of time, so I actually knew what it would taste like before I wrote this.

After a little head-scratching, I decided to leave the soup unmatched. I have a bottle of apricot brandy I have been slowly working through for the last 20 years, given to me by a former boss.  Any guest who wants to try to match wine with a cold soup that has apricot brandy and orange juice as major ingredients has my admiration.

Moving on to the Orange Glazed Chicken, I discovered my problem was thinking too much.  I kept saying to myself this would be very sweet with the orange juice and brown sugar in the glaze.  The truth was that it was on the sweet side, but not overwhelmingly so.

Dishes like this are pure death for those big, buttery, toasted-oak California Chardonnays and those powerful Cabernets.  Don't try them, or you'll be disappointed.

What is required is a little acidity to cut through the strong flavors and a little fruitiness to compliment the glaze.  To me that means a medium dry Riesling or a fruity Sauvignon Blanc.  This is not a meal for that wine you've been carefully cellaring through the years, either.  A youthful wine with zest instead of layered complexity is more likely to work.

Down under the staircase, we had a few choices.  One was a bottle of "Two Buck Chuck" ($2.99 here in New Jersey) Charles F. Shaw Sauvignon Blanc.  I tried that, curious to see how California's answer to the wine glut would hold up.  The answer is that it was okay, but not more than that.  I didn't think I'd want to serve that to company unless they just showed up out of the blue, and was pretty sure I could do better, so here are a few suggestions:

Riesling: In American wines, this usually means you should think the Columbia Valley of Washington and the Finger Lakes of New York.  In the Finger Lakes, Glenora has several Rieslings to choose from, we always like the Salmon Run Johannisberg Riesling of Dr. Konstantin Frank's, and we had good luck at Atwater Estates last time we were on Seneca Lake.

Sauvignon Blanc: In America, the West Coast springs to mind.  One very nice everyday wine we have had is Sauvignon Blanc Columbia Valley 2001 from Chateau Ste. Michelle, Washington State.

In all of the above, you are not looking for bone-dry wine.  An off-dry Riesling or Sauvignon that you might see or hear described with words like citrus and fruity would be best.

If you are looking for simple advice on how to match food and wine, you won't find a better starting point than the article Natalie MacLean wrote, online at Nat Decants!

 Last modified: August 07, 2007