From the land of Paprika to the Caribbean

From the land of Paprika to the Caribbean

Those who reads my blog probably knows by now, I am from Hungary and I am always on the move, usually in and out or residing in the beautiful island of Trinidad in the Caribbean. This is my 4th return to the island of Steel Pan, Calypso, Carnival, and Papa Bois; heat, sweat and crazy drivers. 

I always bring some special items from home with me, usually the fruity but fiery Palinka brandies - this time I got some home made 63% strong in alcohol: strawberry, quence apple, and gypsy cherry palinkas. These drinks are not flavoured like those "absolutely" fancy bottled vodkas you can buy, these drinks are made of 100% fruits, hand picked, by my family or friends 100% organic gear, 100%bio. 

Also important for me to have a few  bottles of fine vino on me, to introduce and show my hometown's World famous whites, have a sip on the flavourful reds of Eger, wash down the dinner with the powerful complex wines of Villany. These three wine regions are the closest to my heart  from the 22 Hungarian wine regions. Such small country with such big wine culture. 

Yes, we Hungarians love our wines, accompanying our meals, used as the refreshing Froccs ( spritzer) sitting outside the veranda or the bench by  the fence of our houses; we love our wines, and we are proud of our wine culture. There is an obvious reason for that but do not even try to get there this time. 

Hungary is called the land of Paprika, our sweet and hot capsicums are World famous especially because our flavourful spicy traditional cuisine based upon the use of the different varieties we grow back home. 

Capsicum probably travelled with my ancestors through the great steppes when we were heading to the Carpathians on our horses and met and mixed with all sort of different folks.

Every family in the countryside grows and makes their own paprika sauces, powders to be used in their meals, seasoning up our home made sausages,etc, Sometimes you can see houses covered in hanged paprika branches, to dry in the windy hot air. 

To me and every Hungarians anything without paprika is just not correct, or normal; without our Hungarian sausages -kolbasz - and salamis for breakfast or dinner will uprise. Yes there is more in Europe than Spanish Chorizos and Italian Pepperonis, we Hungarian also do our own sausages salamis, hams,etc. We usually use pork, beef and horse meat, smoke it and let it mature in an old shed for a while. We also do black, red and white puddings or hurka as we call it, and yes the peppers or paprika used in the seasoning is the one being responsible for the colour and name,too. 

I brought some very small amount of home made kolbasz with me to Trinidad; if i can organize a little tasting show with the local food bloggers I will let them have a slice. It was made last year and the THING about it is that we poured a great big bottle of sweet Tokaji Szamorodni on the meat to be marinated in it, before seasoning up for the sausage.

I fried up freshly and the wine's aromas frankly hit my nose from the pan; when it got smoked and matured for months in our shed this vino hint got lost its intense character, but still has a bit of exotic hints from the Szamorodni. On the back of my palate i can clearly recall the botrytis strong dominating fungal impressions.

Today we did not cook anything for lunch so I fixed up some bits and bites for myself:

 

I have a little bit of "golden red" paprika sauce in our fridge, it is a mix of different Hungarian paprikas, and a very tasty sauce, I always add a teaspoon amount to my goulash as well and even use it to make my scrambled eggs tastier; or as my Trini fiancee stated to make it look like bloody pieces of brain. The sauce itself available in sweet and hot; i like to use the sweet version as i am kinda allergic for the over spicy and ultra hot gear. It has a very delicate flavour coming from the different mix of paprikas, its sweetness takes off the smokiness of the kolbasz. I used some local Trini cheddar cheese, not because this is the cheese i wanted to use, but I was lazy to get off my arse and go buy some. We Hungarians are love our paprikas, sausages, and wines, but let me confirm this: we love onions, garlic and all as bad as the above mentioned stuff, too.  So i picked some garlic and sliced them up to use it on top of my kolbasz  slices and add some extras to this mid day home made delight. If I would not be that lazy as I was this additional garlic would have been pickled ones. 

..and that is when the wine offer would have been different compare to those I have on my mind right now:

 I was fortunate to spend a bit of time with the island's wine man, Mr Joseph E Fernandes and be his apprentice, helping out in his West Mall based fine wine and spirit shop. He has an outstanding collection of wines from all over the World and I admire the man's knowledge on the subject. So I have picked this "super" Portuguese blend from Fernandes Fine Wine collection;           MEIA PIPA PRIVATE COLLECTION 2000 and 2006. Yes, we are talking about the same wine, but from different vintages and blends. Both wines are under TTD150 and I would suggest to fellow wine lovers to buy both bottles and sample them. The 2000 is a two grape blend; Castelao is a local variety, also known as Periquita, and sometimes used in Port making,too but mostly planted in the Terras do Sado regions DOC Peninsula de Setubal subregion.  Castelao in its youth gives heavily tannic wines, with the additional Cabernet Sauvignon it is better to let it sit for a while in the cellar. Great ageing potential these two grape varieties both have. The 13 years old Luzitan beauty needed the rest to show its great potential. Two heavy weight champion were blended in here. I am sure the vintage 2006 can also surprise its samplers. As I was not able to taste the wines yet, I have looked upon others tasting notes. It made me curious about these wines. Most of the tasting notes are stating intensive red fruit aromas and spicy peppery notes, mint and round, soften tannin. Also I saw that the blend varies but as i am experiencing some electronic cracking down on my devices to be able to write this post took me half a day, used a laptop, and two PCs and still far away from finishing up. So the blend changes and the wine makers bought another Portugal variety, Aragonez and the Syrah grape into the Meia Pipa Private Collection. Fellow Trini food and wine lovers, let's get together and do a Portugal vino night.

The second wine came to my mind chewing on my Hungarian kolbasz was the Chilean Errazuriz winery' Syrah Max Reserva 2010. I tasted and had a tasting event based on this wine one weekend in England at my previous job. This is when we step upon higher levels, not the usual  cork screw top, cheap bottle of new world wines jammy easy drinking medium bodied reds...it has beef inside...if not, pour on some while you cooking it!Errazuriz available in Trinidad through Hadco. They have some super Chilean reds as well but I did not wanted to go over the top, I was only eating some backyard sausage and cheap cheese. This Syrah is my favourite from the medium level and medium priced Max Reserva collection. The present of subtle oak and gentle tannin holds the wine together from the background, this heavy bodied Syrah bangs through your palate with its spicy robust black berry aromas, the intensive fruit notes  are dominating with plenty of pepper on top. Long finish, fantastic wine, would destroy the weak cheddar's flavours but luckily I had something different in my glass today.

As I said earlier, I always bring some Hungarian wines with myself, so did this time. I have brought very special bottles of wines with me this time. One of them, the only red actually is Lajos Hagymasi oenologist's unfiltered Kadarka from Eger Historical Wine Region. I still have a bottle left to sample with you Trini food and lovers. Eger was founded about 1004 by  monks, who were sent by  our first Christian king, I. ( Saint ) Istvan. The king ordered them to found a monastery in the town of Eger, to found the North Eastern Episcopate, with the monks arrival the wine making arrived to the area,too.

Kadarka is a Hungarian grape variety, perfect to accompany our paprika based  local cuisine. The grape arrived to my country with the Serbs who fled the Hungarian Kingdom running from the Ottoman Empire in the early 1400s. Its grape and juice itself very dark in colour, gives medium to full bodied wines with dark colour, black cherry and black berries as primary fruit aromas with recognizable sweet and spicy notes.  Its character immediately recognizable via its deep rich aromas.Once it was the main grape variety in our iconic blend, the Egri Bikaver or Bull's Blood. Please do not think about  Torres' Sangre Del Torro just because in Spanish it means the same, nothing to compare in it to our Bull's Blood. This 2011 Kadarka is a fantastic red to pair with heavy spicy meaty dishes, it s got a Gold award from the Hungarian Wine judges and not for its label design. As soon as you pour the wine into your glass the typical Kadarka characters slap you in the face, really dark cherry colour, and playful aromas with a bunch of spices, this wine is on fire! Its cheerful acidity gives a great spine to the body to hold the rich fruit notes on the palate, 13.5% alcohol quite warming but the wine is in balance nothing stands out, all in great order! This wine will take anybody for a Csardas! Unfortunately none of my Hungarian wines available in Trinidad, I am still looking for a partner or local distributor to come into business with me. You can order Hungarian wines from the Puerto Rican based Hungaricum LLC or from the England based Hungarian Wine House or contact me if you would like to sample some of my private collection here in Trinidad. Until that we have the Hungarian wines available here we have plenty of good vinos to taste from Fernandes, Vintage Imports, Hadco, Naughty Grape, and Amco...see ya at the tastings!