Recommendations

Berenjenas con miel with P. Rodriquez e Hijos Manzanilla

On the plate are strips of aubergine, crisply fried after half an hour in sparkling water, with a stream of honey over them. The manzanilla sets against it a pale, salty wine that takes away the frying fat and keeps the honey in its place.

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From the shelf

The bottle

P. Rodriquez e Hijos Manzanilla comes from Sanlucar de Barrameda, the only place where the Consejo Regulador allows the name manzanilla. Our own bottle page reports that this wine is made by the criaderas and soleras method and matures for three years under flor yeast. That flor is a living layer of yeast on the surface of the wine that seals the wine from the air and keeps it pale; it converts alcohol into acetaldehyde and in doing so consumes glycerol, sugar and acids, so that the wine becomes drier and sharper. The humid sea wind at the mouth of the Guadalquivir keeps that layer thick all year round. The bottle is 15 percent alcohol and holds one litre.

P. Rodriquez e Hijos Manzanilla

The combination

Why this works together

Berenjenas con miel is a dish of three extremes: aubergine that is slightly bitter by nature, a crust from the deep-fryer and a stream of honey over the top. In that field of tension the manzanilla takes the side of the savoury. Its acidity and 15 percent alcohol cut through the frying fat, so the strips still feel crisp rather than heavy. At the same time the salty, bone-dry wine keeps the honey in check: without a counterpart that sweetness spreads across the plate, and because the wine itself brings no residual sweetness, a boundary remains between sweet and salty. Taste research also shows that bitterness lowers the threshold for perceiving salt by thirty-three percent, and that is the interplay between the slight bitterness of the aubergine and the salt that was in the water before frying. For manzanilla, the Consejo mentions salads and dressings with sweet-and-sour accents.

At the table

The dish

  • For 4 people
  • Ready in 1 hour
  • Type starter

What you need

  • 4 aubergines
  • 500 ml sparkling water
  • 100 g wheat flour
  • 160 ml honey
  • olive oil for frying, plenty
  • salt

How to make it

  1. Wash the aubergines and cut them into finger-sized strips.
  2. First put the strips in salted water for a few minutes so the bitterness is drawn out.
  3. Then leave them in the sparkling water for thirty to forty minutes; that is the step that makes the crust crisp.
  4. Let the strips drain well, pat them dry and dredge them through the flour. Shake off the excess so that a thin coating remains.
  5. Heat plenty of olive oil until it is very hot and deep-fry the aubergine in small portions, so the temperature of the oil does not drop.
  6. Let the strips drain briefly on kitchen paper and sprinkle them with a little salt.
  7. Serve them immediately with the honey over them, or with the honey in a small bowl alongside.

In the glass

Serving

Serve this manzanilla very cold: 6 to 8 degrees according to the Consejo's style page and 5 to 7 degrees according to its own instructions, preferably from a bucket of ice and water. Use a catavinos or white wine glass of about 200 millilitres, filled by a third. An opened manzanilla stays good only briefly, about a week in the fridge with the bottle closed; after that the light, salty freshness that this dish calls for is gone.

All about P. Rodriquez e Hijos ManzanillaBack to Recommendations from ’t Bockje

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