This is a guest post from Jo, a wine enthusiast and a keen attender of wine tastings. She is particularly interested in Burgundy and has been on several trips to the area. She recently passed the Wine and Spirits Educational Trust intermediate exam on wine and spirits.

Wine can be a rather daunting subject and until recently, associated with a particular type of masculine snobbishness – all that talk about vintage charts and Chateau Latour seemed designed to exclude anyone who hadn’t been to Eton. But it doesn’t have to be like that at all. Since the 1980s, wine has become much more democratic, wine making has improved in leaps and bounds, and great wines from all over the globe can now be found on the supermarket shelf at reasonable prices.

So how do you go about choosing a wine? Factors worth considering are:

• * What are you eating with it? In general red wine goes better with red meat, and white wine better with fish, while either is fine with chicken or pork. If you’re cooking a recipe from a particular country or region, it might be worth looking for a wine from the same area. Many Italian reds, for example, have high levels of acidity which complement the tomato-based food typical of the area. Generally, if you’re eating rich, strong-flavoured food, you probably want a powerful wine to stand up to it, whereas if you’re eating something delicate like scallops you would want something light and elegant.

• * Are you looking for something with bold flavours or something more restrained? Caitlin will probably kill me for saying this, but as a very broad generalisation, wines from the Old World (France, Spain, Italy, Germany) tend to be more subtle, and arguably more complex, than their New World (Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, USA, Chile, Argentina) counterparts, which have more upfront, easy-drinking appeal. But Old World labels can be baffling to the novice. French wines are classified by region, and within each region there are strict rules about what is allowed – for example, white burgundy has to be 100% chardonnay, but you won’t see the word chardonnay on the label of a bottle of white burgundy. New World labels are more consumer-oriented, easier to read and helpfully tell you what the grape is.

• * Alcohol level. Many wines these days come in at 14% alcohol or even 14.5% or 15%. One small glass contains almost two units of alcohol. I’ve drunk some like this and could feel the hangover kicking in while I was still drinking it. For lighter styles, look to the Old World – champagne is usually just 12.5%. You can drink it and feel fine the next day!

• * Price. Generally you get what you pay for. A bottle of wine has quite high fixed costs, so to take a fictitious example, in a bottle of wine that costs £4 you may be paying £2 for duty, the cost of the bottle etc and £2 for the wine. In a bottle that costs £8 you’d still be paying £2 for duty, bottle etc and £6 for the actual wine – although it costs twice as much, the value of the wine is three times as much, so hopefully the quality should be considerably better.

If you want to extend your knowledge, it’s a good idea to keep a record of what you have drunk, whether you liked it, and whether you considered it good value for money. Describing wine can be difficult but try to think of just a couple of adjectives. Just taking a minute to think about the wine rather than guzzling it without noticing it will improve your knowledge and over time will help you to identify what sort of wines you tend to like and which you don’t.

If you have some like-minded friends, it’s educational and fun to compare some different wines. You could pick a pair which are similar in some respect – for example, same grape variety but from different countries, or two from the same region but at different price levels. The key thing to bear in mind is that there are no right or wrong answers. People are awfully suggestible, so if you say that the wine smells of peaches, then the chances are everyone will agree with you. At one wine-tasting a friend of mine identified the whiff of the Bakerloo Line, and we all immediately detected it too.

Above all, wine should be fun to drink and comes in so many styles that there really is something for everyone. Cheers!

Nilmandra is an ethnic-Chinese Singaporean currently living in the UK. She runs a food blog called Soy and Pepper which documents her thoughts and experiments on cooking and bento. Her love of food and cooking developed from recreating food from home that she misses.

I was excited at the prospect of taking part and showcasing something special from Singapore. Then I had the problem of deciding what to submit as a breakfast entry to represent Singapore. As a multi-ethnic country, there is a huge variety of breakfast items that Singaporeans have for breakfast, ranging from dim sum and fried bee hoon to nasi lemak and roti prata.

I eventually settled on kaya toast for my entry. I like kaya toast for the blend of taste and influence that is is a fusion of western style toast with Southeast Asian taste. The toast is often served with one or two soft boiled eggs in a saucer, with dark soy sauce and white pepper added to taste. The toast is then dipped into the egg mixture and eaten, rather like boiled eggs and soldiers. Given that soy sauce and pepper are the namesakes of my website, how could I not go for this breakfast? And finally, I recently came back from from Singapore with a jar of the famed Ya Kun Kaya so I might as well dig in!

A typical Singaporean kaya toast breakfast consists of kaya toast, soft-boiled egg and a cup of tea - I like mine with fresh milk and a little sugar. It doesn’t look particularly impressive, especially compared with the other entries, but I think its origins, the specific way that it is cooked and put together and its nostalgic significance to many Singaporeans render it a worthy contender.

Kaya is an essential ingredient in this breakfast. It is a jam made from eggs, coconut milk, pandan (screwpine) leaves and sugar. Yup, I did mention that it is fusion. It tastes like a sweet egg custard. You can find a recipe for making kaya here.

Instead of the denser brown bread, white bread without crust is used for the toast in order to get that light crispy texture. Each thick slice is placed on a grill until slightly browned and crisp, and then sliced thinly in half horizontally. That takes skill (and a sharp knife), which was why I destroyed a couple of slices in the process! The toasted slices are then spread with kaya and then sandwiched with little pats of butter within. This is no diet food. The sweetness of the kaya and savoury butter go together surprisingly well. The toasted white bread complements the rich taste with a light and crunchy texture.

The soft boiled egg is also quite specific. Unlike the ones served in egg cups, the egg is only just set. Undercooked, according to my husband, who likes his soft boiled eggs overcooked (in my opinion). Add a few drops of dark or light soy sauce and a dash of white pepper, break up the golden yolk and mix it around a bit, and dip a piece of your sweet and savoury toast into the eggy goodness. Enjoy with a hot cup of tea or coffee.

Our champion for the United States in the Global Breakfast Tournament is the lovely Pixie from the You Say Tomahto, I Say Tomayto blog. Pixie, who also has a sweet blog at A SweeTart, has been a guest blogger for The Gooseberry Fool once before, when she road-tested Nigella Lawson’s recipe for rhubarb tart. For this contest, Pixie actually went to the trouble of making bagels from scratch - needless to say, I’m very impressed!

My idea of a top breakfast involves a (preferably a New York) bagel with lox (smoked salmon), cream cheese, and a touch of lemon. When I lived in NY, I would have a bagel almost every day for breakfast on the way to work. You can find bagels practically on every block and in the morning I would crave a bagel with scrambled eggs, American cheese and a bit of ketchup. On the weekends it was usually lox with cream cheese. I don’t have bagels as much as I used to, which I guess is a good thing on my hips.

Finding the perfect bagel in England isn’t the easiest of tasks. We have tried bagels in Sainsbury’s, Waitrose, Tesco … you name every popular Brit supermarket and we’ve had their bagels. Our favourite bagels in England, thus far, are sold at Brick Lane Beigel Bakery in London. Small in size, but with a sweet savoury taste. They don’t have any toppings and are plain, yet delicious. My favourite NY bagel would be an everything bagel and my favourite bagel shops are Astoria’s Bagel Shop & Deli and Murray’s Bagels in the Greenwich area.

There are a number of different spreads you could have with your bagel. One favourite used to be walnut and cream cheese. Then there’s vegetable cream cheese, strawberry cream cheese, cinnamon raisin cream cheese, scallion cream cheese … you get the drift. You also have your large list of choice of bagels; blueberry bagel, strawberry bagel, egg bagel, everything bagel, sesame seed bagel, poppy seed bagel … you name it they have it. And that’s the greatness about NY - always catering to their customer needs.

I set myself the challenge of making a NY bagel. It was high on my list of things to make and so I tried my best to search for a recipe which I felt would come closest to a NY bagel and found the following: Authentic New York-Style Homemade Bagel Recipe. Always read the comments when you choose a recipe online, they’re extremely helpful.

The one ingredient I found difficult to get hold of was malt syrup. You can substitute honey or molasses for the syrup but I really wanted to try the original recipe first. I eventually purchased malt syrup at a health shop in town. The recipe is quite easy to follow but I would recommend reading the comment about shaping the bagels. You want to divide the dough into eights and then form a small ball, press your thumb firmly down in the center and twirl the dough around your thumb. I think it’s also fine to just drain your bagels on your counter space and there’s no need for the extra baking sheets.

The bagels were far better than the supermarket ones and I really enjoyed making my own. However, the question is were they as good as a NY bagel? Maybe it’s psychological, I’m not sure, but for me, the answer is simply NO. Perhaps, it’s because you can’t beat walking the streets of NY and taking in the smell of freshly made bagels and viewing all your choices. Or maybe it’s the water used in making the bagels; yes, the water. I read several times online how the water from NY is the key ingredient to the success of a NY bagel.

Would I continue making bagels? Absolutely!!!! I will hunt and try all the possible recipes out there till I find my favourite bagel recipe, even if it will never quite be as good as a NY bagel.

Our champion for England is Julia from the A Slice of Cherry Pie food blog. She has made the Full English Breakfast and has even gone the whole hog (literally) with the inclusion of black pudding.

I was delighted when Caitlin asked me if I would represent England in her Global Breakfast Tournament and immediately I knew the dish I would have to enter would be the Full English Breakfast, or ‘the fry up’ as it’s also known. We’re very lucky in Britain to enjoy a wide range of breakfasts from around the world, whether a croissant and latte grabbed on the way to the office, a bowl of muesli or even kedgeree. Toast and a cup of tea features heavily in British homes at breakfast time, as does cereal, but ask most Brits what the ultimate breakfast is here in the UK and the answer will be a resounding ‘the fry up!’. Now I know what you’re thinking; “Greasy, artery-blocking, heavy fried breakfasts served in greasy spoon cafes, well they may be classically British but what’s so great about them?”. Well, read on!

The great British fry up has regional variances across the country; in Ireland you may find white pudding or soda bread, in Scotland haggis or potato scones are often included and in Wales lava bread may feature. But regardless of where you are in the UK, at the heart of this fantastic breakfast you’ll pretty much always find bacon, eggs and sausages. Being from England, I’ve cooked the Full English Breakfast for my entry. After the bacon, eggs and sausages, generally any combination of mushrooms, eggs, tomatoes, hash browns, baked beans, fried bread and black pudding are added, sometimes with toast on the side for the very hungry. Eggs are sometimes scrambled, but more commonly fried and served runny, and you can’t beat the delight of that first burst of the egg as you dip in a piece of sausage or toast into that gloriously yellow yolk. In my research for this entry I’ve found that black pudding is something of a contentious issue. Many people insist that a full English breakfast must include it but quite a few people really dislike it and many don’t even get as far as trying it, being repulsed by the idea of a sausage made from blood. I have to say I don’t usually include it in my breakfast, but as I continued my research and spoke to various people it soon became very apparent that I would be committing blasphemy of the gravest kind if I didn’t include it for this post. So I made an exception and there it is, right next to the bacon, tomatoes and beans!

As always, the best ingredients will give the best dish. If you use poor quality ingredients you’ll get a poor quality breakfast, simple. So choose large free-range eggs, preferably organic, fresh ripe tomatoes, flavoursome mushrooms, thickly cut bacon and good quality black sausage from your butcher. And now for a few rules, meant light-heartedly but taken seriously by many; baked beans must be Heinz baked beans, sausages must be British, fat and juicy, and whether you prefer brown sauce or tomato sauce the choice can only be between Heinz ketchup and HP sauce.

Let’s talk about fat content for a minute. Now I do concede that the Full English isn’t the healthiest of breakfasts, not by a long shot, and if you eat it every day you’re going to pile on the pounds and give your arteries a challenge. But it really isn’t eaten every day by your average Brit. It’s something to be enjoyed in moderation, a real treat, generally eaten on an occasional weekend when there is more time to potter in the kitchen and really enjoy this hearty breakfast, or when staying in a hotel or bed and breakfast somewhere across the country. Those very concerned about the fat content could grill instead of fry, and many people do, but if you’re looking for true authenticity only the frying pan will do. You don’t need much fat for frying at all; some will come out of the bacon and sausages, and olive oil is a good choice, being healthier than most fats. After frying place the bacon and sausages on kitchen paper to soak up the excess fat before serving it.

So just what is it about this part of the British institution that makes it so special and dear to the hearts of so many Brits? Well let me see, could it be the gentle sound of the sizzling in the pan, the smell of the bacon and sausages making your tummy ache or the oozing yellow egg yolk? Maybe it’s the taste of the mushrooms or the sweet, warm tomatoes that burst in your mouth, or the taste combinations, different with each mouthful. Could it be the way this hearty breakfast fills your tummy, warms you up and puts a contented smile on your face as you read the Sunday papers? Or perhaps it’s the fact that this breakfast reminds us so much of home and makes us proud to be British; after all, whilst there are many fantastic breakfasts all around the world, no one can do a fried breakfast like the British. Whatever it is, I really don’t think that there’s a better way to start the day.

This a guest post from Rose, also known as Pixie, a New Yorker now living in the UK. Pixie blogs at You Say Tomato, I Say Tomato and A SweeTart.

I consider myself to be a fairly ‘new cook’. There are a few recipes I’ve learned from my Maltese mother and my blog is my personal journey of learning how to cook; trying new recipes and improving the few I do know. Originally, living in NY a majority of my life I love food from all cultures. My main food blog is You Say Tomato, I Say Tomato and I’ve recently discovered how much I enjoy baking and started my sweet blog, A SweeTart.

Rhubarb has been appearing everywhere and since I’d never tasted it before I thought I would attempt Nigella Lawson’s Rhubarb Tart recipe from one of her many books, How To Be a Domestic Goddess. I chose this recipe because I’ve yet to try any of her recipes from this book.

Rhubarb Tart

Ingredients
for the filling
1kg rhubarb (untrimmed weight)
300g caster sugar

for the pastry
150g plain flour
1 tablespoon caster sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
85g cold unsalted butter, diced
85g cold cream cheese, diced
2-3 tablespoons cold double cream, to bind

for the cream cheese filling
200g cream cheese
200ml double cream
2 tablespoons caster sugar
4 tablespoons muscat or rum

for the glaze
6 tablespoons rhubarb juice, reserved from stewing

Equipment
1 deep 23cm flan tin or shallow 25cm tin.

Method
Heat the oven to 190C/gas mark 5.

Trim and cut the rhubarb into 2cm pieces, place in a shallow ovenproof dish (I use a Pyrex dish of about 20cm x 30cm), pour the sugar over the rhubarb and toss it all together so that the sugar is well dispersed. Cover with foil and cook for about 45 minutes, or until tender. When you take the rhubarb out, slip in a baking sheet. When the rhubarb cools, strain it and reserve the juice.

Meanwhile, get on with making the pastry. Using a food processor, mix the dry ingredients, then add the butter and cheese and pulse to make a crumbly mixture. Bind with the cream, pulsing sparingly. Let the pastry rest in the fridge for at least 20 minutes before lining your tart tin. After you’ve rolled the pastry out and lined the tin with it, put it back in the fridge for another 20 minutes.

Remove from the fridge and line with foil. Fill the pastry case with baking beans (though you could just as well use any dried beans) and put on the sheet in the oven for 15 minutes. Gingerly remove the beans and foil and cook for a further 5 minutes or until it’s turning golden brown and is cooked through. Leave to cool on a wire rack.

When you want to assemble the tart (and you can do the steps above a good day in advance, though keep the cooked and cooled flan case in an airtight container), reduce about 6 tablespoons of the reserved juice to a syrup by boiling it robustly in a small saucepan. Don’t leave this unattended, though, as the juices will become thickly syrupy within a matter of minutes.

Now for the filling: use a whisk, soften the cream cheese, then add the cream, whipping until it has mixed well and thickened slightly. Take care not to over-beat - this must be voluptuous and undulating. Add the sugar and muscat (which is lovely to drink with the tart) or rum, stir to a soft marscapone consistency, then drizzle over your puce-pink glaze. Stand back and admire - then eat.

Makes about 8 slices.

Road Test

Ingredients
Since I didn’t have any muscat and rum was an option, I used 3 tablespoons of dark rum. I believe this was likely the main reason I didn’t care for her filling. Perhaps, white rum would have been better. Still, I feel the rum was overly powerful in the recipe. I would suggest those who attempt her rhubarb tart to get hold of the muscat.

Method
The instructions were quite easy to follow and it’s not very difficult at all. However, I feel she could add a few more sentences to explain the method of making the tart. Such as, explaining the desired firmness of the rhubarb, how thin the pastry should be rolled out, the importance of greasing your tart pan. (New bakers like myself sometimes forget to do these things!). The few changes I made to the recipe was using 3 tablespoons of dark rum, instead of 4 tablespoons and adding a bit of lemon peel to the pastry and allowing a further 10 minutes for the pastry to cook.

Results
The rhubarb was quite shredded, not making it much of a pretty sight. However, it had an interesting tart taste combined with sweetness. For me, the filling was over powerful and the pastry was a disaster. It lacked flavour and I’m still not certain if it was because it was undercooked or it was just the taste of the pastry itself. My father-in-law enjoyed it, so I gave him the rest of the tart (all ¾) of it.

Verdict

I don’t believe I would make this again. There are so many rhubarb recipes out there that I would like to try. I’m not entirely sure what to make of rhubarb yet, it had an interesting tart flavour to it but I’m not convinced of its brilliance.

I’m not completely turned off by rhubarb, but would likely be far fussier about what recipe to follow. I would want one that was previously tested and was given rave reviews. If I were to ever try this recipe again, I would surely make changes to it. I would reduce the cooking time of the rhubarb, lesson or omit the alcohol (perhaps trying muscat instead) and likely get rid of her pastry recipe altogether.