Looking for a quick summer meal this evening, I turned to my favorite food website for inspiration–Epicurious.com. I settled on two grilled vegetable recipes:Grilled Sweet Potatoes with Lime Cilantro Vinaigrette and Grilled Portobello Parmesan Mushrooms. Both recipes can be prepped in about 30 minutes and take only 5-8 minutes on the grill. The result is a tremendously tasty meal that is perfect for a hot summer evening. I served the two veggies with a chicken caesar salad and paired with an Alsatian Gewürztraminer. More on that in a bit.
The Portobello Parmesan Mushrooms are the star of this meal. They would taste delicious just grilled with the olive oil, balsamic vinaigrette, and garlic glaze. After adding the ricotta and parmesan cheese, tomato, and smoked Gouda (I changed the recipe a bit), these mushrooms really explode with flavor–savory, mouthwatering flavor. I am salivating as I write this.
The Sweet Potatoes are a nice compliment to the Mushrooms because they add some sweetness, and the Lime Cilantro Vinagrette adds a nice tangyness. Very different from the Mushrooms, but the Sweet Potatoes round out the meal nicely.
For the wine pairing, I chose an Alsatian Gewürztraminer from Julian Meyer in France. This semi-sweet wine is a very good example of Gewürztraminers from this region. It has flavors of pears and apricots, and has a good backbone for pairing with food. This wine paired best with the Sweet Potatoes, where the sweetness merged well with the tangy lime sauce. Surprisingly, it also did well with the Mushrooms, proving that Gewürztraminers can be very versatile wines.
One interesting things about this wine that I must point out is the “cork”. Well, it wasn’t actually a cork or anything resembling a cork. It was a glass stopper with a rubber ring to seal the bottle (see picture). The glass stopper can be snapped in and out of the bottle, and it appears to seal the bottle quite well. This was the first time I have ever encountered this–and I was especially surprised to see something so progressive from a French producer.
Overall, I would give the food and wine a big thumbs up. Perfect for a light summer dinner or lunch. I am sure I will pull out this combo again when entertaining guests.
