Recommendations · Wine and food

Gambas al ajillo with Benito Santos Albaño

Prawns sizzling in a pan with garlic, olive oil and chilli, with bread to soak up the oil. Albariño is the white wine of the Spanish Atlantic coast and goes with shellfish like nothing else.

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Bottle of Benito Santos Albariño, wine

From the shelf

The bottle

Benito Santos Albariño comes from Spain and is made from albariño. The wine is at 13 percent by volume and the bottle contains 75 centilitres. The colour is straw yellow, the nose intense and aromatic with ripe white fruit and floral notes. In the mouth it is dry and fresh, with structure and a pleasant roundness from six months of ageing on the fine lees. The finish is pure and mineral.

Benito Santos Albariño

The combination

Why this works together

This dish is essentially warm olive oil with garlic. That fat calls for acidity, and albariño has plenty of it: it cuts through the oil so the prawn itself can be tasted again. The mineral finish matches the light iodine of the gambas. At the same time, thanks to ageing on the lees, this wine is a little rounder than a razor-straight white, and that roundness picks up the sweet side of cooked shellfish. Watch the chilli: 13% ABV is still calm, but do not go above one pepper, because alcohol amplifies heat.

At the table

The dish

  • Before 4 people
  • Ready in 20 minutes
  • Type starter

What you need

  • 600 grams raw peeled prawns
  • 8 cloves of garlic
  • 1 dried red chilli
  • 150 millilitres olive oil
  • 1 teaspoon smoked paprika powder
  • 2 tablespoons dry sherry
  • 20 grams flat-leaf parsley
  • 1 lemon
  • 8 slices of baguette
  • coarse sea salt

How to make it

  1. Pat the gambas dry with kitchen paper and lightly sprinkle them with salt. Wet meat does not fry, it steams.
  2. Cut the garlic into thin slices and crumble the dried chilli.
  3. Heat the olive oil in a wide frying pan or earthenware dish over medium heat. Let the garlic with the pepper release its aroma for three minutes until the slices are light gold; do not let them brown.
  4. Turn the heat to high and place the prawns in a single layer in the pan.
  5. Fry them for a minute and a half, turn them over and fry them for another minute. As soon as they turn from translucent to white they are done.
  6. Sprinkle the paprika powder over it, pour in the sherry and let it sizzle along for fifteen seconds.
  7. Take the pan off the heat, roughly chop the parsley and stir it through. Squeeze half a lemon over it.
  8. Toast the bread and put the pan of prawns on the table straight away, so the oil stays warm.

In the glass

Serving

Serve the wine at 9 to 11 degrees in a white wine glass with a slightly wider bowl. Too cold and the aroma disappears; at 11 degrees it is released without the wine losing its freshness. It does not need to breathe.

All about Benito Santos AlbariñoBack to Recommendations from ’t Bockje

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