Red quinoa with roasted butternut squash and toasted pecans

I can pass for meat-centric based on my previous "dinner" posts. And indeed, just like my compatriot Gerard Depardieu, I have a big nose and I love meat. Sometimes, however, I need a good go-to recipe when a vegetarian friend comes over. Something easy on the eye and on the palate. Something that both the vegetarian and the carnivore can salivate over.

I decided on this particular recipe, not to please a vegetarian friend but a bottle of wine instead. I very often choose a dish because I want it to complement the wine I want to drink. Not the other way around. Because I am wine-centric above all.

So: a word about the wine before talking grub. This wine is beautiful, addictive, oh-so charming and thank-goodness very affordable. Joe Dressner imports it (a sign of quality in my book). It is French of course, made of Chardonnay grapes grown in the central part of the Burgundy wine region between the Cote d'Or and the Beaujolais: le Maconnais. The young and talented winemaker named Gauthier Thevenet doesn't use any herbicides or fertilizers and harvests his grapes manually. He uses stainless steel tanks and bottles his wines after 15 to 16 months in vats (instead of a more traditional 11 months). 

The 2008 vintage has a bit of botrytis on it. I understand that 2008 was challenging in Burgundy with fungus attacks of different sorts including botrytis - which can give interesting aromatics in white wines but is not wanted on red grapes. Botrytis usually appears on grapes when mornings are damp and afternoons are dry. Botrytis is key to the making of Sauternes in particular. It boosts sugar level (since the fungus sucks up the water in the grapes) and concentrates the flavors and acids in the fruit. The mould also imparts new, unique and interesting flavors to the wine - something like dried apricot, ryebread, orange marmalade, pineapple, and mushroom. All good stuff. I'll get back to it.

This recipe based on red quinoa as many layers of flavors: nutty, buttery, spicy, vegetal, herb flavors. It calls for a rich white wine with something to say, such as a chenin blanc, or this particular Chardonnay on steroids.

Red Quinoa with Roasted Butternut Squash and Toasted Pecans:

(Quinoa rouge a la Courge et aux Noix de Pecans)

About 4 servings

1/2 oz red quinoa

1 big butternut squash, peeled and cut in small cubes

1 fat yellow onion

4 to 5 cloves of garlic, crushed, peeled and minced

1 cup pecans, crushed in small pieces

fresh parsley, chopped

1 tbsp curry

1tbsp cumin

1 tbsp ginger

Pre-heat your oven - 400F

Spread the butternut squash cubes on a large oven tray. Cut the fat onion in 2 and wrap it in oiled aluminum foil. Do the same with the head of garlic.

Roast these vegetables in the oven for a solid 30 minutes, or until the butternut squash cubes are tender and browning.

In the meantime, toast the pecan bits and the spices in an iron skillet on medium-high heat, keeping a close eye on them as they can quickly burn. Set aside.

Prepare the red quinoa according to the instruction on the package. Fluff it.

Chop the roasted onion and add it to the cooked quinoa, along with the butternut squash. 

Press on the roasted garlic to extract the roasted pulp into the quinoa as well. Add in salt, pepper and parsley.

Re-warm if you need to, and serve immediately.

Roasting vegetables

Roasted fat onion

Toasting pecans and spices

Combining it all

 A little bit of Comte cheese on the side please!

Easy on the eye

The instigator

Tasting notes: 

Pale gold fading to a watery rim. 

The aromas are youthful and of medium plus intensity. I get yellow apples, acacia and mimosa flowers, pears, wet stones, honey, candied lemon peels, lemon zest, candied apricots, hint of ginger & nutmeg. 

This wine is dry and has medium acidity, medium alcohol and medium plus intensity of flavors. It is medium-bodied. Its flavor profile: yellow apples, pears, dried apples, dried apricots, lemon zest, ginger & nutmeg, acacia flowers and strong minerality. Toasted straw on the finish and medium plus length. 

I love this wine's balance of acidity & alcohol, its great concentration and variety of flavors and its rather long length. Great quality for a mere $25.