I decided to challenge myself this winesday by doing Indian food. Because of its bold, oftentimes spicy flavors, Indian food is notorious for being difficult to pair with wine. There are, however, a few general guidelines that you can follow when pairing wines with spicy foods. Most experts agree that wines with a bit of sweetness work well; sweeter wines are less likely to be overwhelmed by spicy food than wines with more subtle qualities. You should also avoid high-alcohol wines as the extra alcohol will only intensify the burn of spicy foods. Finally, it is best to go with a fruity wine (rather than an earthy or oaky wine.) Wines with tropical fruit flavors are usually a good bet with Indian food. Gewürztraminer, with its typically sweet, floral and spicy qualities, is the most common wine paired with Indian food, but,
using the guidelines above, you can find many other wines that work well too.

During the course of these winesdays, I feel that I have shamefully been neglecting wines from my home state. To remedy this, I decided to seek out a Washington State wine for this week’s winesday, specifically, a slightly sweet riesling. I chose Columbia Winery’s 2005 Cellarmaster’s Riesling mostly because the label said “serve with spicy food” (hey, why make it harder than it has to be, right?) Columbia winery is Washington’s first premium winery. Originally known as Associated Vintners, the winery was created in 1962 by ten friends, many of them professors at University of Washington. As with many great success stories, they first set up shop in their basements. Today, Columbia winery produces 170,000 cases of wine each year and many of their wines have won top awards.

For dinner, I chose to make Rechad Fish from Flavors of India by Madhur Jaffrey. This dish comes from Goa, a coastal state and former Portuguese colony in India. According to Jaffrey, nearly every household in Goa has a jar of Rechad Masala sitting on the shelf. Rechad Masala is a bright red paste made from chilies, spices, garlic, ginger and vinegar. It is most commonly used as a stuffing for fish (Rechad comes from the Portuguese “Recheado” which means “to stuff”.) In Jaffrey’s recipe, whole pomfret are stuffed with a small amount of the paste, seared in a skillet and then finished in the oven. A couple of squeezes of lemon or lime finishes the dish. I couldn’t find pomfret so I picked up a couple of small snappers at the fish market. I served boiled baby potatoes and a Goan cabbage salad on the side. The fish was spicy. Really spicy. But, it also had a very interesting flavor due to the inclusion of cardomom, cinnamon and clove in the paste. The wine was pretty heavy on the apricot; it was sweet but not cloyingly so. I thought it went very well with the food.

This is only my second time cooking whole fish. Last time, I got a little freaked out, especially when, during cooking, a row of teeth began to slowly emerge from the fish’s mouth. This time, when the fishmonger asked if I would like the heads removed, I quickly said yes. Then, I felt bad. I really don’t want to be one of those people that always buys their food pre-sliced and pre-packaged and has no idea where it actually comes from. I like buying beets covered in dirt with the tops still attached. I don’t mind having to wash my own spinach. But, when it comes to whole fish, I’m not as open minded as I would like to be. I guess that is kind of at odds with my desire to learn to fish one day! I’m going to keep trying, though. Baby steps. Next time, I’m leaving the head on and embracing the teeth for what they are. I’ll be alright…as long as I don’t look too hard at the clouded over eyeballs – gross!