SUMMER FOOD & WINE:Whether you're picnic-packing, entertaining in the garden, or plain old pigging out, we've got some tempting tastes of summer on a plate, and in a glass. Domini Kemp'srecipes are paired with wines selected by John Wilson
Pea, mint and roast garlic soup
Unless I'm in the heart of gazpacho territory in southern Spain, the idea of cold soups sends a shiver down my spine. I get the same feeling when I'm served a main course of fish with vegetable ice-cream as a garnish.
This chilled pea soup, however, is a delight. You can make it with frozen peas, which, along with frozen broad beans and soy beans, have to be one of the world's handiest frozen foods. You can, of course, use fresh peas, but I find them rather inconsistent and sometimes downright horrible when bought in a supermarket, as they're inevitably flown in from somewhere far away. I prefer fresh peas and beans to be Lolita-like in age, which may seem a tad ageist, but I'm not bothered.
Serve this up in glasses as a posh starter or just enjoy a bowl of it, undisturbed, with some nice bread on a sunny day.
2-3 tbsp olive oil
1 head of garlic
Few sprigs of thyme
Knob butter
1kg bag of frozen peas
1 litre of water
Handful of mint
Approx 200ml cream or crème fraiche
Salt and pepper
Heat the olive oil in a small saucepan and poach the garlic cloves, with the thyme and a little salt and pepper, for about five to 10 minutes on a very gentle heat, until just soft. Cooking the garlic this way makes it utterly addictive, but be sure to keep the heat very gentle and to cover the saucepan with a lid. If the garlic burns, it will taste bad, so keep the cooking slow and gentle. Allow the garlic to cool fully.
Heat the butter in a large saucepan, add the frozen peas and water. Cook until the peas have just thawed. Squeeze out the garlic flesh from the skins into the peas, and add the mint. Blitz with a hand-held blender, or in batches in your food processor, until it is as smooth as it can be.
Pour the soup into a bowl, add enough cream to taste and season well. Chill until ready to serve. It lasted a few days in my fridge and didn't lose its gorgeous Shrek-like green colour, but it will taste better if eaten within 24 hours.
TO DRINK
This soup packs a fair punch, with plenty of powerful flavours, and a touch of sweetness from the peas. I would suggest going for something light and zesty to add a bit of zip to the proceedings, or maybe try to match the richness with a textured Chardonnay.
Endrizzi Pinot Grigio 2007 Trentino, Italy, 12.5%, €14.50. A Pinot Grigio of some class, fresh and bracing, but with some rather classy green fruits to complement the zinginess. The Wicklow Wine Company, Wicklow town; The Big Wine Warehouse, Naas Road, Dublin 12; Haddington's, Ballsbridge; Partridge's, Gorey.
Viña Leyda Chardonnay Falaris Hill Vineyard 2006, Leyda Vally, Chile, 13.50%, €16.90 Viña Leyda is one of my favourite producers in Chile, producing some excellent Pinot Noir. This Chardonnay also hits all the buttons, with its delicious creamy pear and apple fruits, shot through with a refreshing lemon note. The Corkscrew, D2; Halpin's Fine Wines, Wicklow town; www.jnwine.com.
Lamb pitas with dill and mint yogurt
Ask your butcher for lamb that's lean and good for stir-frying for this recipe. We used neck-end fillet of lamb. Feel free to use chicken instead - it would work equally well. Allow about 100g of lamb per pita.
250ml yogurt
3 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed
Juice of 1 lime or lemon
About two tbsp chopped dill
About two tbsp chopped mint
1tsp caster sugar
Salt and pepper
Mix everything together and refrigerate until ready to serve.
½ kg lean lamb
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp coriander seeds
1 tsp fennel seeds
1 tbsp honey
2 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed
Few sprigs thyme
Salt and pepper
Trim the lamb of excess fat, slice it thinly and mix with the rest of the ingredients in a large bowl. Marinate for 10 minutes, an hour, or overnight.
Culinary purists could dry-roast the coriander and fennel seeds before crushing them in a pestle and mortar. I don't possess anything like that at home, so never bother doing anything swotty like crushing my own spices, and when dry-roasting spices, I usually burn the hell out of them because I've run to the phone. So don't fret about the fact that I'm telling you to chuck the spices in without too much care.
Before you stir-fry, take the lamb out of the fridge for about 15 minutes, so it's not too chilly when it hits the pan.
Heat up a chargrill pan or heavy-based frying pan until it is mega-hot. Chuck in a splash more olive oil and add the lamb. It will splutter, splatter, and smoke like hell if your pan is hot enough. Be brisk, and when the pieces stop sticking to the pan (give them a chance to detach) toss them around, keeping the heat up high.
You want colour for good flavour, and the lamb will cook quickly if it has been sliced thinly enough.
If it starts to "stew" rather than fry, put the lamb back in its bowl, heat up the empty frying pan again until it is much hotter again, or else cook the lamb in smaller batches.
When it's slightly charred, remove the lamb from the heat and allow it to cool a little. Fill pita bread or wraps with lamb, slices of tomato, cucumber, raw red onion and lots of the dill and mint yogurt.
TO DRINK
The powerful barbecue flavours of grilled lamb and those lovely pungent spices call for something red, and fairly assertive, too. You do not need to spend the earth - anything from a sunny wine region should do. The Rhône, the Languedoc, Spain or Australia are all possibilities. The wine needs a bit of power, plenty of ripe fruit, and no bully-boy tannins.
Château Pesqier, Les Terraces, Côtes de Ventoux 2005, 14%, €13.99. Lovely big jammy fruits with a sprinkling of spice, and a long supple finish. Drink with any red meats, but I find this has a special affinity with grilled or barbecued foods. From a lesser-known part of the Rhône valley, this offers excellent value for money. The Wicklow Arms; Drinks Store, Manor Street, Dublin 1; Jus de Vine, Pormarnock.
The Footbolt Shiraz 200 McLaren Vale 2004, 14.5%, €13.99. A lovely ripe, rounded Shiraz with bouncy plums and Christmas cake spice. Big, but never too alcoholic or jammy, this punches way above its weight. Perfect with all manner of barbecued foods. Stockists: Very widely available from independent wine shops, including Martin's, Fairview; Sweeney's, Harte's Corner; The Lord Mayor, Swords; Raheny Wine Cellar; Holland's, Bray; O'Brien's Off Licences; Next Door; Myles Creek, Kilkee; McCambridge's Galway; The Old Stand, Mullingar; Fahy's, Ballina, Dicey's Bottle Shop, Ballyshannon; Connoisseur Wine Shop, Dundalk; Slattery's, Carrick-on-Shannon; Ardkeen Food Store, Waterford; Boggan's Wexford; O'Donovan's, Cork; The Lakes, Blessington, and many more.
Pasta salad with sage, sweet potato and halloumi
I have an unhealthy obsession with hallomi cheese and spend too much time trying to get our chefs to use it, but they all think it's just one step away from tofu. Try frying it with lardons of bacon, adding handfuls of peas and crème fraiche, for a really tasty pasta sauce.
Pasta salads (along with cold soups) usually give me the willies. However, the flavours here are rich and fabulous and the big pasta shells are a welcome respite from the array of flavours the rest of the recipe brings. Serves four as a main dish.
4 sweet potatoes
Few tbsp olive oil
Salt and pepper
400g pasta shells
50g butter
Handful of sage leaves
1 pack halloumi (approx 250g in weight)
Pre-heat oven to 180 degrees Celsius/gas four. Peel the sweet potatoes and chop them up into rough chunks. Chuck them in a roasting tray, lash some olive oil onto them, season and roast for about 45 minutes until they're starting to caramelise. Toss them around about halfway through cooking, so that they brown evenly.
Cook the pasta in boiling water. Drain and rinse well under cold water, then pour a bit of olive oil on the shells and mix well. The oil will stop the pasta from sticking. Season lightly.
Heat the butter in a small saucepan till melted and hot. Have a plate with some paper-towel on it nearby. Fry the sage leaves (a few at a time) for about five to 10 seconds until crisp. Remove them carefully with a fork and drain on the paper-towel. If the butter gets too hot, it will brown and burn the sage leaves, so heat gently.
Chop up the halloumi into small chunks and fry it in a non-stick frying pan in a tablespoon of olive oil. This only takes a minute or two and the halloumi should turn a golden colour. It is very hardy and won't melt or go gooey.
When the sweet potatoes are cooked, cool them slightly and then toss with the pasta and halloumi. Season with more olive oil, if necessary, and plenty of black pepper. The halloumi is fairly salty so go easy on the salt. Put the sage leaves on top and serve warm.
TO DRINK
The sweetness of the potato and the briney grilled halloumi need something with plenty of ripe fruit to stand up to all that flavour. A Viognier would be perfect, with its combination of richness and freshness. A rosé would also go down well, provided it is not too wimpy.
Yalumba Y Series Viognier 2007, South Australia, 13.5%, €12.99 A lovely rounded wine with very moreish soft pear and ripe peach fruits, and just enough lime zest to keep it really interesting. Widely available including selected Tesco stores; Superquinn; The Corkscrew, Chatham St; O'Donovan's, Cork; Clada Wines, Galway; O'Brien's; Nolan's, Clontarf.
Niepoort Redoma Rosé, Douro 2005, 13%, €13.95. Niepoort is one of the best addresses in the Douro Valley, the region where Port comes from. I love the funky richness of fruit, and the dry refreshing finish on this wine. Don't worry about the vintage; the wine is in no way elderly. This would work very nicely with the richness of the sweet potato and cheese. : The Corkscrew, Chatham Street, D2; Redmond's off-licence, Ranelagh; Red Island Wines, Skerries.
Stuffed red peppers
Stuffed anything is considered super-naff in certain culinary circles, but these are fab and, despite being vegetarian, were most popular with my carnivores.
We found those long pointy peppers to fill, but I'm sure it would work just as well with regular bell peppers. Normally, I cannot
stand the skin on red peppers, but you don't notice it too much here as bits of it are usually shed by the time they're fully cooked. This recipe fills four big ones, or six to eight smaller ones.
4 big pointy red peppers
2 regular red peppers (for the stuffing)
50ml olive oil
1 red onion, peeled and diced
splash balsamic vinegar
2 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed
200g feta
100g breadcrumbs
2 tbsp chopped herbs: some mint, flat-leaf parsley, coriander . . . whatever you have
Pre-heat your oven to 200 degrees Celsius/Gas six. Cut the tops off the pointy peppers, about two centimetres down, to make little "hats" for them. Remove the seeds from inside the pointy peppers. Heat the olive oil and sauté the onion while you remove the seeds from the regular red peppers and dice them into small pieces. Add to the onion and sauté for about five minutes until they are soft. Add the balsamic vinegar and crushed garlic. Transfer to a bowl and add the remaining ingredients. Mix well and adjust the seasoning.
Spoon the stuffing into the peppers, really stuffing the heck out of them, and then squish the hats back on to seal them up.
Put the stuffed peppers in a roasting tray, season, and drizzle with some olive oil (you could use the oil left over from poaching the garlic for the peas soup on page 24). Roast for about 30 minutes until they are starting to char. Serve warm. They also reheat very well.
TO DRINK
The salty feta cheese and sweetish red peppers would probably be best with either a rounded new world Sauvignon, or a lightly fruity red wine. Both of these wines are fairly versatile, and would be great with a variety of picnic dishes. The Fleurie could be served lightly chilled, if you have the means to do it.
Viña Mar Reserva Sauvignon 2007 Casablanca, Chile, 13%, €9.99. Lovely ripe rounded pears with just enough grapefruit zest to keep it really fresh. Perfect summer drinking on its own, or with dishes such as the peppers above. Superquinn.
Fleurie Domaine Vissoux 2007, 13%, €19.40. The wines of Beaujolais are wonderfully versatile. Light and fresh with silky ripe cherry fruits, and a really supple finish. What could be better with a picnic or any light al fresco meal? Stockists: On The Grapevine, Dalkey and Booterstown; Interior Living, Cork; Next Door Off-Licence, nationwide; Mill Wine Cellar, Maynooth; Fallon & Byrne, Exchequer Street, D2; Claudio's Wines, George's Street Arcade, D2; Harvey Nichols, Dundrum; Nuts About Wine, Tralee; The Cheese Pantry, Drumcondra; deVine Wines, Letterkenny; Mac's Off Licence, Limerick.