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This week's Wine Utopia Wine Club pick is (or was!) a Cuvee Jean Paul Rouge 2019 from Vaucluse. Full of soft fruits and incredibly drinkable, it's available as part of the wine club case, or in store at £8.95 (don't forget the 10% discount code -WinchesterEatsWineClub10) and makes a perfect enjoying a summer evening outside in the garden kind of wine (she says as the thunder clouds roll in), it's another one of those "add it to your dangerous wines list" bottles...
The suggested pairing for this from Wine Utopia was cheese, grilled meats or Pizza. It didn't take us long to decide on pizza.
I think as presents for my other half (that I benefit from) go, the Ooni pizza oven I bought him for Christmas is definitely one of the best ideas I have ever had. I also think it's up there in his personal best ever kitchen gadget collection (and reader, there are quite a few of those!) but this even beats the rice cooker!
It took a few attempts to get the hang of it (I bought him the wood fired version with the idea that if it was too much of a faff we could invest in the gas converter). Cooking with wood is great fun, and gives you that authentic Wood Fired Pizza experience, but if you want to cook quite a few for larger groups of people it can be a little stressful to keep the temperature super high (although an infrared thermometer helped - another favourite kitchen gadget!!)... We were able to get our hands on an Ooni Gas Converter after a bit of a wait and let me tell you there's a lot less swearing going on from all involved in the Winchester Eats pizza cooking process...
Various people have asked what size Ooni they should get. We have the Karu which cooks a 12inch pizza in around 90 seconds, I didn't choose the larger size as handling the dough can be fiddly and you don't need to make life difficult for yourself... Speaking of dough, having trialled around 50 million recipes, the one that Mr Winchester Eats comes back to time and again is the original Ooni recipe which comes with the cookbook (which you should also add to your shopping basket, it is actually worth it). The only other thing I think he would say you need is a decent size peel, and a pizza making helper if you plan on making a fair few in quick succession. This job usually falls to our fourteen year old who has it down to a fine art. Whilst one pizza is cooking, he's shaping the dough for the next...
Most of the pizza's we make have a tomato sauce as base (again the Ooni sauce is good, but we are not adverse to using Mutti's Pizza Sauce when time is tighter) and we enjoy coming up with new flavour combinations such as Butternut, Mozarella and Nduja as well as the more traditional (margarita for the smallest fussiest family member - with Herta frankfurters if he's feeling adventurous!). The one topping combination that's turning into a bit of a favourite (and went particularly well with the Cuvee Jean Paul) is a pizza with a marscapone and parmesan base, topped with slices of potato (just about cooked through beforehand), rosemary and Tallegio. It works so so well.
Do feel free to get in touch if you want to know more about the Wine Utopia Wine Club or the Ooni if you are thinking of investing in either/or... We can recommend both.
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