Beau, the fancy shirted chap behind Basic Juice, is off to Austria; and by heck don’t he want everyone to know about it! Discovering an oldish book that covers Austrian wine and the countries cuisine a fun continuation of his Austrian-theme, I concluded, would make an interesting point for Combinations 2.

The recipe, detailed below, is for a dessert that interestingly utilises green tomatoes (just hope I can find some here in the UK). So no apfelstrudel for us, nothing so easy, instead Griseknödel mit Grünen Paradeisern (Semolina Dumplings with Green Tomato Compôte). Austria has a superb reputation for its sweet wines; Beau has sampled some recently and an Austrian tasting I went to last year yielded a few; but perhaps there are other wines, from other countries, that you would prefer?

Entries should be in by the 24th of the month. Background to Combinations can be read here.

Griseknödel mit Grünen Paradeisern (Semolina Dumplings with Green Tomato Compôte)
From The Wine & Food of Austria by Giles MacDonogh. Serves 4.
For the tomato compôte

• 6oz/175g green tomatoes in strips
• 6oz/175g green apples, cored and finely chopped
• 6oz/175g brown sugar
• juice of 3 oranges and 3 lemons

For the Dumplings

• 2oz/50g butter
• 2oz/50g sugar
• 1 tbsp rum
• grated zest of half an orange
• 1/2pint/300ml milk
• 2oz/50g semolina
• 1 egg beaten
• 4oz/100g crushed nuts

to serve

• 8oz/225g fresh blackberries
• 1/4pint/150ml soured cream

For the Compôte: place all ingredients in a bowl, mix well, leave to marinate overnight.

For the Dumplings: melt butter over a low heat and add sugar, rum and orange zest. Add milk and bring to the boil. Stir in the semolina and simmer for two minutes. Remove from heat and then beat in egg. Leave to cool for 2 hours.

Shape the mixture into dumplings 1inch/2.5cm across and poach in simmering water. Roll in crushed nuts.

Bring the compôte to a gentle boil and simmer for 10 minutes.

To serve: spoon a little compôte onto a plate, add a few blackberries and soured cream. Place the dumplings on top. (or something similar).

Serve with a wine – but which one?