Recommendations
Comté and caramelised pecans with Offley Port Rich Tawny
On the board lie thick pieces of Comté next to still-warm pecans that have been caramelised in the oven with icing sugar, salt and cayenne. Set against them, the port is a tawny that, after years in wood, itself smells of nuts and caramel.
From the shelf
The bottle
Offley is a port house that began in 1737 in Porto and now has lodges in Vila Nova de Gaia. This is the Rich Tawny from the range: a tawny that matures in oak casks in the lodges, where the wine gets oxygen through repeated racking and turns from red to amber. The name Rich points to the sweeter side of the style. The bottle is 19 percent alcohol and holds 75 centilitres. According to Wines of Portugal, a tawny without an age statement has an average age of about three years; the Instituto dos Vinhos do Douro e do Porto recommends a serving temperature of 10 to 14 degrees for tawny.
The combination
Why this works together
A tawny and a caramelised pecan end up in the same place, by two different routes. In the oven the icing sugar melts around the nut and browns, so that a layer of caramel forms on top of the nut fat. In the cask something different happens but with the same result: years of slow oxidation convert the fresh fruit of the port into nut, toffee and caramel. To that comes the Comte, a hard cow's cheese that matures for a long time and is therefore savoury and slightly salty, with a nutty note of its own. Sweet dampens salt more strongly than the reverse, as Green and colleagues demonstrated, and the residual sugar of the Rich Tawny smooths the salt of the cheese. The cayenne on the nuts is not decoration: that small prickle keeps the whole thing awake, because cheese, nut and sweet port are all three full and round.
At the table
The dish
- For 4 people
- Ready in 20 minutes
- Type cheese course
What you need
- 300 g Comte
- 200 g pecan halves
- 60 g icing sugar
- three-quarters of a teaspoon coarse salt
- half a teaspoon of cayenne pepper
- 4 teaspoons water
How to make it
- Preheat the oven to 175 degrees and place the rack in the middle. Line a baking tray with baking paper.
- Whisk the icing sugar, the salt, the cayenne pepper and the water together in a bowl.
- Add the pecans and toss until evenly coated.
- Spread the nuts in a single layer on the baking tray, without clumps, and scrape the rest of the mixture over them.
- Bake the nuts for 10 to 12 minutes, until caramelised and the caramel on the tray is deep brown, but does not burn.
- Slide the baking paper straight from the hot tray onto the worktop so the cooking stops, and let the nuts cool completely.
- Break up the clusters and serve the nuts with the Comte on a board. Take the cheese out of the fridge half an hour before serving.
In the glass
Serving
Serve this tawny at 10 to 14 degrees; half an hour in the fridge usually brings a bottle at room temperature there. Use a tulip-shaped glass and fill it no more than a third, so the nutty aroma stays in the glass. Decanting is not necessary. According to the institute, an opened bottle of tawny keeps well for three to four weeks, so you can comfortably spread this bottle over a few evenings; store it upright in a cool place.
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