#GoodTimesAreNow With Andrew Peace Wines!

It’s a tough job but someone’s gotta do it when it comes to working with wine companies and so I’ve taken one for the team agreeing to a little collab with Andrew Peace Wines whereby I’ve got to sample their Shiraz and Chardonnay over the summer to report back my findings… Oh well what can I say? YUM!

Traditionally I’m not a red wine OR a Chardonnay kind of girl. My taste buds don’t do woody, nutty, dryness terribly well so I tend to stick to sweeter, whiter wine (prosecco if I’m honest) and figured by the age of 42 I like what I like and there’s no point in changing. However, I do occasionally find a dry white I like and this Chardonnay is one of them. It’s not harsh which I often find with a Chardonnay and is actually the perfect tipple for a sunny summer evening (not that we get many of those) as a nectar to the day of rushing around entertaining kiddos!

And the red? The Andrew Peace Wines Shiraz? Well… I’m so bad with red wine all I can tell you is if I don’t like it (most often) or, on a very rare occasion, if I do. This one is smooth and easy to drink, I couldn’t drink a whole bottle (I mean the fact I CAN drink a whole bottle of prosecco probably isn’t to be proud of) but I actually enjoyed this very much with dinner the other night, it didn’t make me feel leaden or tired and was just the perfect drink to accompany my supper which also had a rather large splash of the same in it. I don’t believe in cooking with ropey wine just because it’s cheaper. The flavour imparted to cooking is of the quality of the bottle you choose and for this dish you need something which can hold its own but not be too bitter. My Peri Peri chicken is a sweet but spicy one pot and it deserves a pour of the good stuff to get it going.

The one pot dish is a hit with even my fussy eaters who usually have different meals each and never entertain joining in with the proper food each day. Everyone devours this one however but the real secret is that there’s barely any clearing up so… To make my easy Peri Peri chicken:

Roast an oiled and seasoned large chicken in a dish for one hour at 180. While it’s roasting mix up the sauce in a bowl which is a thumb sized piece of grated ginger, 6 grated garlic cloves, 3 tbsp of olive oil, 2 tbsp of smoked paprika, 2 tbsp of Lee and Perrins, 2 tbsp of soy sauce, a splash of red wine vinegar, a shake of some mixed herbs, a tbsp of sugar, the zest and juice of a lime and as many red chillies as you dare cut finely with or without seeds depending on taste. Remove the chicken from the oven after one hour and spread half the sauce over it before returning to roast for another hour, this time with some onion wedges around it too.

At this point I also make wedges to season, oil and toss in grated garlic which go into the oven for the last hour with the chicken and just before serving I boil corn on the cob, assemble a salad and make coleslaw (or buy it for ease).

Once the chicken comes out of the oven it’s time to make the sauce so transfer the chook to a serving plate and leave the onions in the pan with the remaining sauce. I pop this on the hob and add 100 ml of water, a chicken stock cube and a BIG splash of the Andrew Peace Wines Shiraz and then bring it to the boil before simmering it as I serve up the rest of the dinner. Then I pour the sauce with the onions into a jug to pour all over it. Lovely! And the best secret to the dish isn’t even the wine would you believe? The deglazing of the plan like this totally cleans all the burned on bits and makes the pan wipe clean – bonus!

I love having a really good bottle of wine to cook with, I love even more to discover a wine I think I won’t enjoy drinking then discovering that I do. It’s summer, it’s to be enjoyed, life is for living and everything in moderation I say. #GoodTimesAreNow and I’m here to enjoy them!

Collaboration.