Begun as a little exercise between myself and Beau at Basic Juice, Combinations, was designed to generate interesting content for our respective blogs. Not that Beau has joined in yet as he has been too busy slumming it around Austria (looking for fancy shirts no doubt). But it is great that a couple of other bloggers have joined in with the wine and food matching challenge – especially given the reluctance of most food bloggers to venture into the world of wine and food pairings.

This month Eating Leeds has selected a very American recipe that includes za’atar, sumac and Aleppo pepper – none of which I could find locally! Improvisation required. A hasty attempt at blending a thyme heavy za’atar (sesame seeds, thyme, oregano) mashed with salt and olive oil before mixing with the chicken and other ingredients. Eating Leeds suggested the addition of chili powder in place of the cayenne for a little spiciness to an otherwise under-flavoured mix. The mix is slathered on a tortilla before baking and sampling with the wine…

In preparing the dish I opted for wrapping the chicken-spice mixture in tortillas, lying strips of pepper on top (sprinkling inside the wraps with the pistachios) during baking and adding needed moisture via the yogurt drizzled over the top. Surprising how subtle (did someone say bland?) the flavour of this dish turned out to be. Interestingly so, as the list of ingredients suggests something spicy, complex and forceful of flavour. It wasn’t – tasty but under flavoured. Two wines – a lightly chilled red with a hideous label and a ‘so new to the shelf’ white that it lacked a pricing slip. Both from Oddbins. It is not a ‘refined’ dish, slumped with a couple of mates in front of a DVD. Chicken indicates a white but I wanted to see if a lightly chilled red would work. But neither selection worked that well.