Pastrami And Wine: Do They Pair Up? - catered or self-cooked food for an event? (2024)

FAQs

What wine pairs well with pastrami? ›

Pastrami Sandwich – Cabernet Sauvignon

The bold flavors of a pastrami sandwich call for a wine that can stand up to it. Cabernet Sauvignon is an excellent choice with its full-bodied and robust flavor profile. The tannins in the wine pair well with the peppery and smoky flavors of the pastrami.

Wine and food matching is the process of pairing food dishes with wine to enhance the dining experience. In many cultures, wine has had a long history of being a staple at the dinner table and in some ways both the winemaking and culinary traditions of a region will have evolved together over the years.

Match Weight

Matching a food's weight with a wine's weight is the most fundamental part of pairing food and wine. The idea is that a heavy food will overshadow a light wine, and vice versa. In general, one side of the pairing should not completely dominate the other. That is what most people tend to prefer.

Food pairing (or flavor pairing or food combination) is a method of identifying which foods go well together from a flavor standpoint, often based on individual tastes, popularity, availability of ingredients, and traditional cultural practices.

Yes, Dr. Brown's is the classic pastrami pairing, and you will never hear me say one bad word about Cel-Ray, but Chilean Carménère is a wine that's built to match with America's most famous pastrami. Carménère is the forgotten grape of Bordeaux.

You probably know the golden rule of thumb about wine pairings: Red wines pair best with bold flavored proteins (red meat) and white wines pair best with light-intensity proteins (chicken or fish). Of course, there's more to making successful wine-and-food pairings.

The general rule of thumb is to serve a wine at least as sweet or sweeter than the food being served. Sweet foods make dry wines seem over-acidic and tart. Sweet wines with a good level of acidity, such as Sauternes, are a perfect match for rich foods like pâté.

The wine should have the same flavor intensity as the food. Red wines pair best with bold flavored meats (e.g. red meat). White wines pair best with light-intensity meats (e.g. fish or chicken). Bitter wines (e.g. red wines) are best balanced with fat.

Understand the Wine's Characteristics

The first rule in pairing food and wine is to understand the characteristics of the wine you're serving. These include: Acidity – Choose wines with higher acidity, like Sauvignon Blanc for acidic dishes, and low acidity wines, like Chardonnay for creamy and buttery foods.

What is one strategy of food pairing with wine? ›

Principle: Match the intensity of the wine with the intensity of the dish. Application: Pair robust and full-bodied wines with rich, hearty dishes, and lighter wines with more delicate fare. Example: Pairing a bold Cabernet Sauvignon with a juicy steak or a light Pinot Grigio with a fresh seafood salad.

The aroma and taste of the wine should be as intense and powerful as the food. Red wines are better combined with fatty aromatic meats (for example, red meat). White wines are better combined with low-fat and dietary varieties of meat (for example, fish or chicken). Sweet wines are best with less sweet desserts.

Provides Balance to Your Meal

Another benefit of food and wine pairing is that it balances your meal. The right wine can complement your food, providing a perfect balance of flavours that's neither overpowering nor subtle, creating a pleasant dining experience that's both satisfying and memorable.

Examples of Pairing

Johnny loves to eat goldfish crackers and has them for his snack every day. To pair with reinforcement, his clinician/parent gives him just a small amount in his bowl for snack, then sits next to him and periodically gives him a few more goldfish crackers without placing any other demands.

In addition to flavor, note how heavy or light your food is. The weight (body), of your drink should match the weight of your dish. A common rule is to pair light dishes with lighter wines, heavy dishes with heavier wines. You don't want a heavy dish to overpower a light wine, or vice versa.

The best side dishes to serve with pastrami sandwiches are pickles, caramelized onion, cheese dip, tater tots, corn on the cob, potato salad, French fries, coleslaw, sweet potato fries, garden salad, onion rings, and macaroni salad.

The prosciutto, meanwhile, has a saltier flavor that adds more flavor and richness to the Reuben. Both of these cuts of meat work well with an off-dry Riesling or Gewurztraminer wine. They make one of the best sandwich and wine pairings.

A glass of semi-dry riesling is the ideal companion to the robustness of a Reuben, particularly the umami-heavy saltiness of its corned beef. The Colorado-based oenophile points out that the riesling's inherent floral traits provide the perfect counterbalance to the savory, tangy intensity of the grilled sandwich.

If you're not making your own, pick up some store bought pastrami. You'll also need rye bread, swiss cheese coleslaw, Marinated Onions, pickles, and yellow mustard. On one piece of rye bread, spread some yellow mustard, add two pieces of cheese, top with coleslaw and pickles.