Tag: Champagne

We poured this champagne into a carafe, that's why – Italian Cuisine

How to serve Veuve Clicquot Demi-Sec champagne paying homage to Madame Clicquot and that passion for dessert that never goes out of style

What to combine the dove that we have prepared with traditional dough and candied pear?
One champagne full of aromas of candied tropical fruits with hints of toast and brioche like Veuve Clicquot Demi-Sec. One of the Maison's most historic and most historic Cuvées that pays homage to the taste for the 19th century dessert. 50 different crus that make it perfect to be paired with pear tarts, apricot charlotte, Suzette crêpes and … our dove. Below we explain how to do it. In the next paragraph, why serve it with champagne in a carafe!

How to make a dove with candied pear at home

The ingredients: 350 g Manitoba flour, 130 g butter, 2 eggs, 15 g fresh brewer's yeast, 90 g fresh milk, 120 g sugar, a lemon zest, an orange zest, 1 vanilla bean, 120 g of candied pear, 5 g salt

For the glaze: 30 g of egg whites, 50 g of brown sugar, 80 g of almonds plus a handful, 20 g of corn flour

Procedure: Dissolve the yeast in 30 g of warm milk and add it to 50 g of Manitoba flour. Knead and leaven the dough covered with a sheet of foil in a hot oven at 100 ° and then turned off, for an hour, until it is doubled in volume. Put another 250 g of flour in the bowl of the mixer with the leaf hook mounted, add the zest of lemon and orange, the seeds of the vanilla bean, the sugar, an egg, half the butter cut into small pieces and start to knead. Change the leaf with the hook and also add the remaining milk. Knead and then leave the dough wrapped in plastic to rise for two hours. After this time, put the dough back into the mixer, add the remaining flour, salt, butter and egg. Knead and then add the candied pear. Remove the pasta from the planetary mixer, place it on a floured surface and then divide it into two parts. Divide one of the two loaves further into two and arrange everything in a mold for doves: the larger will be the body, the two smaller, the wings. Leave to rise again for two hours, until the dough has reached the edge of the mold. Now prepare the icing. Mix the sugar with the egg whites in the mixer. Combine the 80 g of previously chopped almonds and the cornmeal, spread the glaze over the leavened dove, using a spatula. Complete by decorating with whole almonds and bake at 160 ° in a static oven for 50-55 minutes. Once out of the oven, allow the dove to dry over a grate until it has cooled down.

The combination with Veuve Clicquot Demi-Sec in the carafe

Now that we have found the perfect champagne for our dove with candied pears, you just have to serve it well cooled with a fresh Veuve Clicquot Demi-Sec, better if brought to the ideal temperature of 8 ° C. The carafe that we kept in the refrigerator for a few hours was also cold, while the dove was still in the oven. But why the carafe? The vintage spirit of this champagne is in its sweet essence given by Meunier, balanced by the structure of Pinot Noir and the freshness of Chardonnay. A sweetness loved at the time of Madame Clicquot in which it was used to pour champagne in a carafe, previously chilled, a few minutes before serving it to allow the wine to reveal the roundness of its aroma and the splendor of its golden reflections.

When ravioli and tagliatelle are pizza (and marry with Champagne) – Italian Cuisine

At the pizzeria La Piedigrotta Varese the master pizza chef Antonello Cioffi presents his very original creations, to be enjoyed in combination with the bubbles of the Maison Krug

Between twenty-two Krug Ambassade Italians – the selection of prestigious Italian restaurants chosen as spokespersons for the famous Maison di Champagne – there is also one pizzeria. Strange? Absolutely no. A little because the combination of pizza and bubbles has now been widely cleared through customs, with the queen of the Italian table who over the last few years has often been able to reinvent herself in a gourmet key, going well beyond the traditional combinations with beer or Coca-Cola. And partly because the pizzeria in question is actually La Piedigrotta of Varese, guided by an absolute master of creativity in the kitchen – and in the oven – how Antonello Cioffi.

When the bubbles meet the pizza

At the table there is nothing more fascinating than a successful encounter between a popular tradition and a product usually considered luxury. You can guess it by tasting the increasingly popular ones gourmet truffle pizzasof course, but it is perfectly understood even when one finds the courage to break the patterns of custom and uncork a good bottle of sparkling wine to accompany one's own Margherita. Or a Quattro Formaggi, or a Capricciosa if you prefer. As well as Tania Mauri and Luciana Squadrilli explain in their book "Pizza and bubbles", made in collaboration with Alfonso Isinelli, ordering a Champagne in a pizzeria can be absolutely right. But above all very, very funny. "The bubbles help to degrease the palate, and therefore they are potentially ideal even with the dear old pizza", emphasizes Tania Mauri. "Whether it's a Prosecco, a Lambrusco or a Classic Method, the important thing is not to have prejudices. A Champagne, for example, is sublime with a red pizza with anchovies .

La Piedigrotta, the thousand faces of pizza

Then it happens that the pizza temporarily undresses the clothes of popular food and wears those of a muse, a luscious source of inspiration. Behind the canvas, in this case, we find an artist of the caliber of Antonello Cioffi, patron of the pizzeria La Piedigrotta in Varese. From his love for farina & co, but also from his effervescent creative madness and from the meticulous attention to leavening, proposals such as the broken pizzas, with a glass of stracciatella di Andria separately; but also the puttanesca pizza tagliatelle, where the traditional pasta is replaced by strips of dough; or even the Mantuan pizza raviolo (obviously stuffed with pumpkin and macaroons), the pizza cornice hot dog, the fake egg to bull's eye with trartuelle lamellas and a mushroom-like pizza always, with a tasteful cover Negroni. A real amusement park made menu, which is associated with a rich wine list with over 20 sparkling wine proposals. Including, of course, the bottles of the Maison Krug. "I like to consider pizza as an all-round dish, sometimes even as an ingredient, without limiting its possible variations," he says. "This is why the combination with a unique Champagne like Krug can really be perfect".

A toast with Krug Vintage 2006

Thus the proposals of Antonello Cioffi become a wonderful opportunity to enter the lively world of Champagne. And in that of the Maison Krug, in particular, which in view of the holidays proposes his Krug 2006. A Classic Method composed of 45% of Pinot Noir, 35% of Chardonnay and the remaining 20% of Meuniers, the son of a particularly warm vintage, but with a slightly capricious climate as the harvest approaches: the result , after 12 years of rest in the cellars of the Maison, it is a generous Champagne, with an intense golden color, with aromas of yellow fruit, toasted almonds, hazelnuts, maple syrup, meringue and mandarin liqueur. On the palate, on the other hand, it is generous and pleasantly fresh, with notes of nougat and a finish of pink grapefruit peel. A prestigious product, particularly recommended for a truly special dinner. Like the whole-pizza one by La Piedigrotta, for example.

Taormina meets champagne. It is an absolute pleasure – Italian Cuisine

During a dinner at the Otto Geleng restaurant in Taormina we met Alice Tétienne, Krug winemaker, to find out more about the champagne of the famous production company

Sicily has always been an island where the cultures Yes meet and yes crossing. It's a perfect place to hear stories we've never heard before. It may seem strange, but a Taormina we met Champagne, intended first as a region of France and then, of course, as a sparkling wine.

We met him toasting (over and over) with Alice Tétienne, Krug winemaker, original and always passionate about the Champagne-Ardenne region.

The historic champagne production company chose Sicily to tell its story, also through meetings with different gastronomic traditions. On the occasion of a dinner at the exclusive restaurant Otto Geleng of the Belmond Grand Hotel Timeo (only eight tables), we exchanged a few words with Alice, especially intrigued by the story that is hidden in Krug Grande Cuvée.
To make a bottle (every year a new edition) are needed 20 years: the latest edition, the 167, is an assembly of 191 wines from 13 different vintages, ranging from 1995 to the 2011.

Krug is special: how would you tell even the less experienced of champagne?

«It is special because it is the dream of a man, of our founder, Joseph Krug (1800). For him, champagne was absolute pleasure and wanted to make sure that it was always available, regardless of the climate, which influences and varies the quality of vintage in vintage: for this it created the Gran Cuvée, an assembly of several vintages and reserve wines. We have one incredible diversity in our territory and this allows us to produce precisely the champagne we want, regardless of the weather conditions that change over time and in different villages. All this offers one richness of aromas difficult to achieve with wines of a single vintage .

What is your role in Krug?

«In total we are six people in the enology team and everyone has a specialty: mine is being responsible for relations with the vineyards. In Champagne the vineyards are owned by the winemakers and the maisons buy the grapes. The work is carried out like this: there is no recipe, we usually do five months of tasting, let's try so many assemblages, each year in a different way, to recreate the same emotion.

What do you like most about this job?

«I love mine territory and stay in the vineyards. I want my region to shine in time: to make it so, we must Respect the enviroment more and more, readjust vitivinicultural practices to face climate change and always make a quality product. This is why I am always in contact with the winemakers. There is confidence we all know each other in Champagne. "

Speaking of this, Alice refrains from stopping one more day among the beaches of Taormina, despite being her first time in Sicily. He must return to Champagne to meet the wine growers: there he created a collective, to help them obtain a new European certification that guarantees the unique quality of the grapes.

Champagne for the whole meal: how would you drink it?

"Champagne can match all dishes. In the Grande Cuvée, in particular, we can find a world of different emotions, which can be easily combined with all the kitchens. My favorite pairings were with the sushi and with the Thai cuisine.

We tried it in conjunction with the chef's gourmet menu Roberto Toro at the Otto Geleng restaurant.

As it happens, even the Grand Hotel Timeo, which houses the restaurant, was born after meetings details: named after the German painter Otto Geleng, who in 1863 had stayed with Don Francesco La Floresta in Taormina to devote himself to painting.
The spectacular landscapes immortalized in his watercolors caused a sensation in Berlin and Paris, since nobody believed that such beautiful places could exist for real. To show that it was not all his imagination, Geleng returned to Taormina with the skeptical artists who had criticized him. Soon, Floresta turned into an elegant luxury hotel and, during the Grand Tour, became a place of passage for the rich European nobility who came to Taormina to discover its culture.

In gallery below, some samples of our trip to Taormina.

Browse the gallery