Drinks advice

Fried calamares with Fonseca White Port

On the plate lie rings of squid fresh from the oil, crisp and well salted, with lime to squeeze over. Opposite that, the port is a chilled glass with residual sugar, which smooths the salt and takes the frying fat off the tongue.

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Deep-fried calamari with aioli — Photo: pointnshoot, CC BY 2.0

From the shelf

The bottle

Fonseca is a port house in Vila Nova de Gaia with vineyards in the Douro. The White Port is the white port of the standard range, made from classic white Douro grapes. The house lets these wines rest for a relatively short time in oak vats, so that the freshness is preserved, and serves them itself as an aperitif or as the base for a cocktail, with olives or roasted almonds alongside. This bottle is at 20 percent alcohol and comes in 75 centilitres. The Instituto dos Vinhos do Douro e do Porto sets a serving temperature of 6 to 10 degrees for white port.

Fonseca White Port

The combination

Why this works together

Deep-fried squid is salty, and fat comes out of the pan with it. Sweet and salty are not equal parties in the mouth: in the 2010 study by Green and colleagues, sucrose proved to be the strongest suppressor of the other basic tastes, and salt perception in a mixture was well over eighty percent lower. The residual sugar of this white port does the same in practice, so that the salt of the calamares arrives less sharply. In addition the port is cold, and a cold sip takes the frying fat off the tongue, so that the next ring feels crisp again rather than greasy. The lime in the dish and the fruit acidity in the glass run along with that: both keep things awake after a bite from the oil.

At the table

The dish

For 4 people
Ready in 25 minutes
Type starter

What you need

400 g cleaned squid, in rings of 1 cm
50 ml milk
50 g flour
50 g cornflour
sunflower oil for deep-frying
flaky sea salt
2 red chillies, deseeded and cut into thin rings
3 spring onions, finely sliced
half a bunch of coriander, finely chopped
2 limes, cut into wedges

How to make it

Pour the milk into a wide bowl. In a second bowl, mix the flour and cornstarch with salt and pepper. Fill a pan one third with oil and heat it to 180 degrees; a cube of bread should turn brown in 30 seconds.
Dip the rings in portions first in the milk and then in the flour mixture. Deep-fry them carefully for 1 to 2 minutes, until really crisp and light gold.
Drain the rings on kitchen paper and sprinkle them with sea salt straight away. Finish the whole quantity this way.
Toss the baby squid with the red chilli, the spring onion and the coriander, and serve with the lime wedges.

In the glass

Serving

Serve this white port at 6 to 10 degrees and keep the bottle in the fridge or in a bucket of water and ice while you fry. Use a tulip-shaped glass and fill it no more than a third. Decanting is not necessary. According to the institute, an opened bottle of white port in the modern style keeps for eight to ten days; with the traditional style, fifteen to twenty days. Put the bottle back in the fridge with the cork in.

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