WE may be still a couple of weeks away from the official mid-autumn festival, but chances are that you've already had more than one bite of snowskin covered white lotus paste in myriad flavours. Who knows, some may even have gone beyond edible mooncakes to limited edition products like Puma's Moon Festival Clyde shoes, which were designed just for the occasion.
While moon-decorated sneakers may be a far-fetched way of celebrating the mid-autumn festival, there are other ways of enjoying these seasonal pastries besides just sinking your teeth in them. For example, aficionados are discovering that just as a good steak is much more enjoyable when paired with the right wine, and a hamburger much more satisfying with the right micro-brewed beer, you can double your pleasure by picking an appropriate beverage to go with your choice of mooncake.
Food and beverage specialists and chefs from Raffles The Plaza, Pan Pacific Singapore and the Shangri-La share their two cents on the issue, with alcoholic and non-alcoholic recommendations.
Junie Sng, Chinese operations manager for Shangri-La Hotel, recommends the most traditional option - Chinese tea. 'Chinese tea helps to rid the stomach of the bloated feeling when one consumes rich, oily food,' Ms Sng explains. Shang Palace's executive Chinese chef, Peter Tsang, says, 'Yolks add to the fat content of mooncakes', pointing to another factor that favours Chinese tea.
Otto Weibel and Patrick Behrens, director of kitchen and F&B manager of Raffles The Plaza, respectively, agree with Ms Sng as far as traditional baked mooncakes go. 'I still prefer Chinese tea - ideally Iron Buddha (Tie Guang Ying) as the best accompanying beverage to complement the sweetness of the baked mooncake,' Mr Behrens says.
Exotic drinks go best with the unusual snowskin mooncakes from Pan Pacific Hotel
Pan Pacific Singapore's executive chef, Joseph Martin, is even more specific with his tea recommendations. He recommends cinnamon tea for the restaurant's Imperial Golden Custard and Osmanthus Divine mooncakes. For the Lustrous Wolfberry and Wai Shan mooncake though, he prefers Jasmine tea.
But while tea may go well with traditional baked mooncakes, the snowskin variety may sometimes call for something else. 'Cold beverages such as juices may go well with snowskin mooncakes since these mooncakes are best eaten when chilled,' Shangri-La's Ms Sng says.
The more unusual mooncake recipes elicited the most exotic recommendations from Pan Pacific's Mr Martin. He points to vanilla-flavoured buttermilk for the Aromatic Clove and Figs mooncakes created by Rang Mahal's executive sous chef Vinod Kumar.
But wait, what about alcohol? Mr Martin gets around to that, and recommends Orange Muscat dessert wine for Ambrosial Honey and Ricotta Cheese mooncakes, created by Dennis Sim, executive chef of Zambuca Italian restaurant. But Mr Martin feels sweet plum wine goes best with Velvety Umeshu and Sweet Potato mooncakes.
Moving to more conventional alcohol recommendations, he pairs Inniskillin Gold ice wine with Pan Pacific's Heavenly Red Wine and Chocolate mooncakes, and Cloudy Bay Sauvignon Blanc with Decadent Brandy Truffle mooncakes.
Raffles' Mr Weibel recommends some bubbly: 'If the mooncake has chocolate filling, pairing it with champagne and port wine truly defines the richness of luxurious chocolate and the sweetness of the silky white lotus paste.'
Mr Behrens recommends demi-sec champagnes in particular, or a Sauternes dessert wine. This makes intuitive sense, since sweet food saturates the tastebuds and makes sweet drinks taste less sweet, so having a beverage that starts out a little sweeter is probably a good idea.
If you'd like to experiment with your own mooncake beverage pairings, Mr Weibel shares this warning: 'It is very difficult to match any alcoholic drinks with fermented food. Various factors will influence the pairing as mentioned, such as the salted egg yolk, the level of sweetness of the different lotus paste variety as well as the other ingredients used.'
Shang Palace's Mr Tsang adds this last tidbit: 'If consuming a mooncake with durian paste, it is good to drink herbal teas to balance the 'heatiness' of durian.'
Whether you decide to go with one of these pairings, or roll your own, you've got quite a few pointers to get you started. Now you have yet another reason to justify trying out one of the endless varieties of mooncakes on sale this year - not that anyone really needs an excuse.
