08/21/08 Sun Dried Tomatoes

Welcome to Vine to Wine this is your host Linda Moran and today is food & wine pairing day. On today's program I am going to share what I call a "bridge flavor" it is an ingredient that can turn a dish into either a red wine or a white wine food match. Ahhh &here we are in the summer and of course the age old question of how do I make my vegetables go really well, not just acceptably well, but really well with red wine. One of my favorite ingredients to add the character and depth that I enjoy with red and white wines is sundried tomato. I call this "bridge flavor". It changes the character and depth of the dish to make it work well with varying levels of acidity, full on tannins or total lack of tannin, fruity flavors or earthy flavors. The dish doesn't taste the same with both beverages. It just tastes different in a very pleasing way. For example vegetable cuisine, as I mentioned, can sometimes be tough to match with red wine as vegetables very often lend themselves to white wine. When you bake them, or sauce them with something that contains re-hydrated sundried tomatoes that all changes. I have also used smoked sundried tomatoes for an even richer deeper flavor. Just be careful not to go overboard with those tomatoes or the smoked flavor will overpower everything, and thanks for joining me on today's Vine to Wine.