Chicken Tikka Masala & Southampton Altbier

A British dish, influenced by India, paired with an American beer, influenced by Germany. It's like a complicated wedding right on the table.

Like anyone else that's been to an Indian restaurant in the United States or Great Britain, I've enjoyed the big plate of chicken tikka masala from time to time. It's pretty well known by now that this is not an authentic Indian recipe; although its precise origins are unclear, it was developed in the UK as an attempt to adapt Indian food for the British palate.

I looked at several dozen recipes online, and none of them matched up. I'm not talking about a difference of a certain spice or cut of chicken. The only consistent part of any chicken tikka masala recipe is... chicken. For instance, the red color can come from food coloring or tomatoes. (And it doesn't have to be red; varieties from yellow to deep crimson exist.) For the tomatoes, the quantity required for a recipe serving four varied from a tablespoon of tomato paste to a 28 oz. can of crushed tomatoes. Adding a creamy texture? Optional, but cream, milk, yogurt, or coconut milk are used, all of which behave differently when cooked.

I decided to ditch the recipes and just freestyle it. Half a stick of butter, an onion, a bell pepper, all sautéed. Add in some garam masala and a healthy dose of cayenne pepper. Throw in a big can of crushed tomatoes. Blend, allow to simmer. Add yogurt. Mix in leftover chicken and let simmer for a while.

The result wasn't perfect, but it was definitely edible. Not quite like what I've had in restaurants, but it worked OK. I made some basmati rice and picked up some naan from the grocery store. (Yes, it is easy enough to make naan, but I was using up leftovers and trying to keep things simple.)

When it comes to Indian food, I prefer beer to wine, though you could probably crack open a Gewürtztraminer. I picked up a sixer of a beer I'd never seen before, the Southampton Publick House Altbier brewed on Long Island in New York. It pours a dark amber color with a head that disappears quickly. It's lightly hopped and has a bittersweet quality to it--well balanced. Slight roasted quality, but what I love most about this beer is that it's got a great malt flavor, something I haven't had in a beer in a while. In fact, this Düsseldorf-style beer is similar to the Germantown Alt I cut my teeth on at the dearly departed Bosco's in Saddle Creek. Don't get me wrong, I love the beers at the Midtown location, but I miss having a brewpub on this side of town.

Советское Шампанское and Other Delights

While in Cleveland on my most recent trip, I vowed to try wines from beyond the mainstream wine-making regions, bottles from places not represented in Memphis wine shops. I've got two reputations to uphold: 1) being willing to try any grape at least once; and 2) being willing to review the oddballs that will never appear on the cover of Wine Spectator. If the title isn't showing up properly, just go to the top of your browser window and hit View --> Encoding --> Unicode (UTF-8).

My first selection was from the Republic of Belarus, sometimes known as White Russia and the only part of the former Soviet Union that's moving back to its authoritarian Communist past. It is now my dubious pleasure to introduce the non-vintage Советское Шампанское, pronounced "Sovetskoye Shampanskoye" and translated as "Soviet Champagne". $12, 11.5% abv. I guess it's a kind of blanc de blancs made from Aligoté and Chardonnay, but there's no telling what strange varietals were used. Nothing inspires confidence like "PRODUCT OF THE MINSK SPARKLING WINE FACTORY" on the label.

Slightly sour tone on the nose, with a touch of yeast. The aroma is somewhere between beer and sourdough. Not what I'm wanting in a wine. It actually tastes better than it smells. Sweet, with a little apple cider flavor. While I tried it on its own, I followed the dessert theme and enjoyed it with a piece of tiramisù and some fresh fruit. The cake and fruit were better than the wine.

Final verdict: Well, if you lived under the iron fist of Communism and this was the only sparkling wine that you ever got to drink then it's not a bad bubbly and I've definitely had worse. On the other hand, any domestic sparkler equal to or greater than Korbel is going to be a far superior experience, and anyone wishing to save money by serving this at a wedding is going to get a lot of nasty looks.

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Continuing with the Eastern European theme, I couldn't pass up the 2005 Jidvei Fetească Regală from Romania. $10, 12% abv.

Fetească Regală is the grape varietal and means "Royal Maiden". Jidvei is a part of the Târnava wine region in... TRANSYLVANIA! Somebody better get a creepy label for this and start marketing it to college-age goth kids. Include a tube of black lipstick free with every bottle.

It's got an unpleasant aroma, a sour tone that reminds me of the stuff from Belarus. At least it's dry, but the dominant flavor is a sharp tangyness. Before tossing it out I tried it over ice, where the harsher notes were subdued and it developed a decent peach flavor.

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We complete our voyage in South Asia: the 2007 Sula Vineyards Chenin Blanc is from the Nashik region of western India. $11, 12.5% abv. It's got an earthy and floral aroma. Kind of like magnolia blossoms or jasmine. It's dry with a round fruit flavor of pears, and a short clean finish. I find myself wanting a bit more acidity, but perhaps that balance would come with proper food matching. I tried it with pita, hummus, and some marinated seafood salad from Whole Foods that included squid, octopus, shrimp, and other denizens of the deep.

I'm guessing it would pair pretty well with Indian food, but that's like saying it would work well with American food: there's a lot of diverse regions and culinary traditions in a country with over a billion people. I'll be on the lookout for Sula wines in Indian restaurants and try them with something like a spicy lamb curry.