Martín Codax with Chicken yakitori
Martín Codax
Winery Martín Códax
www.martincodax.com
D.O.: Rías Baixas
Grapes: 100% Albariño
Ageing: No.
Price: 10 €
Excerpt from the book “Pairings of spanish wines with exotic cuisines”.
Click to see the preparation of these dishes, in Asian recipes.
From the terrace of this cellar, located a couple kilometres from Cambados, you can see all the Ría de Arousa, impressive, colossal, but also another sea, the one formed by the vineyards of the 270 partners who form Martín Códax, a winemaking power that is already exporting wine to more than forty countries all around the world, keeping a quality level that proves that quantity is not incompatible with good work.
Salnés Valley is in the heart of Rías Baixas, where the breeze from the Atlantic brings that salty point, casual and cheerful, that characterizes these wines.
This is a very aromatic wine, with hints of tangerine and white flowers like orange blossom. It is not too dry, that’s why it gets drier and more powerful with certain dishes such as this yakitori, which has sweet flavours.
Chicken yakitori
At this stage, nearly everybody knows “yakitoris”, those slightly caramelized Japanese snacks which can be made with a vegetable, generally leek, and any other ingredients such as fish –tuna, salmon, mackerel- or meat –pork, chicken, beef… What is less known is that there are restaurants where only this kind of food is served, called “izakaya”, westernized as Yakitori Bar.
There is an increasing proliferation of these restaurants in Europe, USA and Canada, because it is so enjoyable to see how your table gets covered with these snacks that you eat with your hands while drinking beer, sake and wine. This is especially relevant for our winemakers, since this is a new sector which is going to move millions of bottles.
Pairing
Japanese cuisine boasts of its balance in every dish, not only in tastes but even in nutritional concepts, and this informal way of eating respects those principles in every snack, making the dish delicious but not always easy to pair.
One of the virtues of this Albariño is that it is very versatile, as a result it combines with caramelized leek easily and is unbeatable with the blue fish quoted as well as with pork and of course chicken, one of the star products that go well with this wine.
Moreover, if you go to one of these restaurants you may be served many other snacks, even sushi or tempura, but you will not have to change wine, since this one will work perfectly.