03/03/05 Lamb stew

Welcome to Vine to Wine, I'm your host Linda Moran and today is food and wine pairing day. On this program we will be sharing a recipe for lamb stew that just happens to go well with both red and white wines. During the late winter, and early spring, we all seem to gravitate to savory dishes that are cooked in one big pot. Recently I went searching through my collection of cookbooks for a lamb stew recipe. Every book had a recipe that referenced the addition of cracked olives to the stew. I wasn't certain what a cracked olive was, but the more I read, the more it became clear to me that this was the perfect dish for my dinner party. I was certain that this recipe would go with many different types of wine appealing to our guests' vastly different tastes in wine. So off I went for cracked olives which, by the way, are olives that were slit before they were brined, in order for the brine to penetrate the meat of the olive. I served the stew atop jasmine rice, with three different wines, a red Zinfandel from California, a white Sauvignon Blanc from Washington state, and a rose' from France. I left them sitting on the table for everyone to pour what they liked. I was trying a splash of each and it soon became apparent that the dish worked well with all three of the wines. My guests caught on to me and soon began having a taste of each. We put it to a vote and, you guessed it, there was no clear winner. We agreed that lamb stew with cracked olives might be great with almost any wine. I ended up combining several recipes and you can get that recipe on our website vine to wine dot net. And thanks for joining me on today's Vine to Wine.