Krug x Lemon

Every year, Champagne Krug decides on a single ingredient to inspire top chefs and home cooks a like. This year, that ingredient is the lemon, a fruit that my wife Cinnamon is obsessed with. We have two Meyer Lemon trees in our yard, and I must ask for special permission to pick even one lemon. The promise of Krug makes everything possible at our house, and together we started to think about what we wanted to cook.

We decided on a variation of one of my mother’s signature dishes, lemon chicken. But instead of the regular Western presentation with sides, we decided to do it as a Japanese style chicken katsu bowl. We pounded out two halves of a chicken breast, dredged them in egg wash and then coated them with panko with fresh lemon zest mixed in, then pan fried them. We served them on top of sushi rice, with avocado slices quick marinated in lemon (a great tip to keep them from browning) and enoki mushrooms cooked in butter and finished with a touch of soy. We capped it off with halves of meyer lemon, charred in a cast iron pan.

To pair with it, we chose the Krug "Grande Cuvée" 170ème Édition Brut Champagne, Krug ID 321048. Readers of this blog are familiar with this ID, printed on the back of every bottle, which allows one access to all of the details about the wine. This bottle has 12 vintages inside it, spanning 1998 through 2014 and is composed of 51% Pinot Noir, 38% Chardonnay, and 11% Meunier. It was disgorged in summer of 2021.

 I found that the lemon mirrored the citric zip of the 2014 base while the chicken and mushrooms brought out the toasty side of this fabulously complex Champagne. It was like having multiple courses all in one bowl, with the scorched lemon bringing out Puligny-Montrachet-like citrus in the Krug, and the enokis teasing out Meunier savor. It was a kaleidoscope that changed both with the different bites of food and with time in the glass. The finish of the wine was like a second knife for the richness of the pan-fried chicken… I can’t wait to do it again!

A toast to you!

- Gary Westby, Champagne Buyer