Wine Pairing: Seared Sole over Arugula with Rosemary Potatoes With Unionville Home Chardonnay
I stopped at my local market on my way home and cooked up an early dinner. I couldn't help myself, the recipe sounded too good. The baby arugula has a light spiciness, which balances the wine's creaminess. The rosemary adds an earthy element that pairs well with the citrus of both the wine and the fillet. The pairing of wine and food may be, as Sid Goldstein of The Wine Lover's Cookbook says, a complex and highly inexact science, but I've found much success breaking down why these pairings work and much satisfaction testing and tasting.
My fish market had very thin fillets. I opted to serve two per person. Depending on the thickness, adjust serving size and cooking time accordingly.
Seared Sole over Arugula with Rosemary Potatoes
ingredients
total time: 45 min yields: 2 servings
- 4 sole fillets
- 2 tablespoons of lemon zest - about two lemons
- 1 lemon quartered for serving
- 1 ½ cups of buttermilk
- 1 cup of white pepper panko breadcrumbs
- A handful of arugula to cover each plate
- 1-2 lbs of red skinned potatoes quartered
- 1 sprigs of rosemary chopped
- 2 tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil separated
- salt and pepper to taste
directions
- preheat oven to 400F
- place a covered sauce pot over high heat - salt generously
- while the water is coming to a boil, combine lemon zest, bread crumbs, salt and to taste - mix well
- dredge sole in buttermilk and set aside
- once the water is boiling, add potatoes and parboil for 5 minutes. When finished your fork will just barely break the outside of the potato but not go all the way through. Think al dente pasta.
- when the potatoes are finished drain and place in a bowl. add 1 tablespoon of olive oil, salt and pepper to taste, and chopped rosemary - toss to evenly coat potatoes
- place potatoes on a baking sheet and bake in the oven for about 20 minutes - about halfway through shake the pan
- remove the sole from the buttermilk and place in the bowl with the breadcrumbs - take care to cover the entire fillet.
- heat 1 tablespoon of olive oil in a saute pan over medium heat. once the pan is hot, place two fillets in the pan and cook on each side for about 2-3 minutes depending on the fillet’s thickness. flip and cook for another 2-3 minutes. cook fillets in batches of 2.
- serve the sole with a wedge of lemon over a bed of baby arugula and a side of roasted rosemary potatoes
- pour a glass of 2013 Unionville Home Chardonnay. cheers!
Leave a comment
Comments will be approved before showing up.
Also in Unionville Grapevine
Meet Rachael White, Unionville's New Vineyard Manager
My name is Rachael White, and I am the new vineyard manager at Unionville Vineyards. I am thrilled to be part of the team and produce exceptional grapes for exquisite wine. I’m eager to begin this role and I wanted to introduce myself to share a little of my background.
I became interested in grape production right out of high school while working at my local research and extension center with the viticulture team. Little did I know when I started that viticulture would become my passion and career going forward. I got to work with industry famous people like Dr. Tony Wolf and Dr. Cain Hickey and interact with growers that were more than happy to share their joys and dismays about farming grapes. I fell in love with the seasonality and the fact I could always be outside! With a newfound purpose, I attended my first semester at Virginia Tech in the fall of 2013 and immediately focused my degree on wine grape production. I took every wine and vineyard related course offered at the time and enjoyed other horticulture courses along the way. I studied
abroad in Cortona, Italy where I learned old world wine tradition and began refining my palate.
I finished my Bachelor of Science degree in December of 2016 and looked to gain more knowledge from elsewhere in the world. I decided to work a vintage in the southern hemisphere and set my eyes on New Zealand. In March of 2017, I started work at a contract winery in the Marlborough region that produced Sauvignon Blanc, but also small batches of Pinot Noir, Gewurztraminer, and Pinot Gris. I worked on the “Red Team," and processed mostly Pinot Noir
in small orders for clients.
2019: Once in a Lifetime Vintage
What a difference a year can make. August 2018 through July 2019 was the second rainiest 12 month stretch in the recorded history of New Jersey weather. These records stretch back into the late 19th century, which gives context just to how wet that is. It's not easy growing wine grapes when it rains every other day from August through the end of harvest. As we slogged through a wet May and June, we were making preparations to endure another difficult season. A torrential thunderstorm on July 11th dropped over three inches of rain on most of our vineyards. Todd Wuerker, winemaker at Hawk Haven Vineyard said to me on the phone "it has to stop, it always evens out" and I scoffed at that idea. The weather today doesn't know what happened the day, week, or month before.
Todd was right! An atmospheric switch flipped in mid-July, and high pressure dominated the mid-Atlantic for the rest of the season. There were isolated thunderstorms to dodge through the rest of summer, and Unionville fared particularly well in this stretch. Over the 10 weeks of harvest, less than three inches of rain fell across our vineyards. We went from a historically wet stretch to historically dry, and it came just in the nick of time.
© 2022 Unionville Vineyards.
