Drinks advice

Mild chicken curry with Domecq Medium Dry

In the pan is chicken in a mild curry of coconut milk, ginger and cardamom, with basmati rice alongside. The medium dry sherry sets against it a wine with just enough residual sweetness to catch the spices without muting them.

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Mild chicken curry
Photo: avlxyz, CC BY-SA 2.0

From the shelf

The bottle

Domecq Medium Dry comes from the sherry region in Spain and is a medium: according to the Consejo Regulador a blend of dry generoso wine with naturally sweet wine or concentrated must. For medium dry the Consejo uses 5 to 45 grams of residual sugar per litre, the driest band within this style, at 15 to 22 percent alcohol. Our own bottle page describes an intense, balanced sherry with aromas of herbs and hazelnut for this bottle. The bottle is at 15 percent alcohol and comes in 75 centilitres.

Domecq Medium Dry

The combination

Why this works together

A curry is a difficult plate for wine: the spices are aromatically intense, the coconut milk brings fat and the ginger lays a sharp, warm layer over the whole. Dry white wine disappears behind it and a heavy sweet wine flattens the plate; a medium dry sits in the narrow middle between them. The small amount of residual sugar, at most forty-five grams per litre, settles over the heat of ginger and curry and takes the edge off it, without the plate becoming sweet. The oxidative part of the blend brings a nutty tone that suits the roasted spices and the cardamom; our bottle page also mentions that hazelnut tone. And the alcohol level carries the coconut milk away. The Consejo Regulador expressly mentions spicy dishes such as curried rice and Indian and Thai cuisine with medium.

At the table

The dish

  • For 4 people
  • Ready in 1 hour
  • Type main course

What you need

  • 2 chicken breasts, diced
  • 4 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
  • 2 onions, finely chopped
  • half a red pepper, finely chopped
  • 30 g fresh ginger, grated
  • 3 teaspoons mild curry powder
  • 40 g clarified butter
  • 200 g basmati rice
  • 10 cardamom seeds
  • 1 star anise
  • 350 ml chicken stock
  • 600 ml coconut milk
  • 400 ml water
  • salt

How to make it

  1. Finely chop the garlic, the onion and the pepper and cut the chicken fillet into bite-sized cubes.
  2. Sprinkle the chicken with salt and briefly brown it all over in a wide pan with the clarified butter over high heat. Scoop it out of the pan and set it aside.
  3. Turn the heat low and sauté the garlic, onion, pepper and grated ginger for about twenty minutes, until they take on colour.
  4. Add the curry powder, stir it in and fry it along for two minutes.
  5. Add the coconut milk and the chicken stock and let it simmer gently and reduce.
  6. Meanwhile, in a second pan, cook the basmati rice with the cardamom, star anise, salt and the water for eighteen minutes over medium heat, until the water has evaporated.
  7. Return the chicken to the thickened sauce, check the salt and let everything cook for another five minutes.
  8. Serve the curry hot with the rice alongside.

In the glass

Serving

Pour this medium dry at 12 to 14 degrees into a white wine glass, filled to about a third. Too cold and the residual sweetness that does the work here disappears; too warm and the alcohol comes forward. An opened medium keeps well for a long time: the Consejo reckons about two months for blended and oxidatively aged sherry with the bottle closed and stored cool. So you can spread the same bottle over several evenings.

All about Domecq Medium DryBack to Drinks advice from ’t Bockje

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