What Not to Pair

I’ve been tilling the soil in my vegetable garden! The lettuce and kale have been great so far. I decided to make a salad with some of the kale and a couple things I had to hand. Purty, ain’t it?

I had some leftover smoked salmon, a can of chickpeas, and a lemon. I used the juice to whip up a little vinaigrette.

So citrus, a little bitterness from the kale. What would go with this?

Let’s give the white Bordeaux blend from last week a go.

This sauvignon blanc-semillon blend has great acidity, but it actually ended up being too much for this dish. The sharpness from the kale and vinaigrette clashed with the wine.

Maybe with a sweeter or creamier dressing, this would have been a better match. Or something mayo-based like chicken salad instead. For a wine for this salad, a warm-weather chardonnay from California or Australia might be better, or of course that low-hanging fruit of food pairing, a slightly off-dry riesling.

Both still very delicious, just not great together. Oh well, hey, I’m not perfect. Live and learn, folks. If you have any food pairings that worked great, or not so great, please drop them in the comments so we can all learn together!