>>Today on "Un-Wine'd," Sage Bird Ciderworks in Harrisonburg.

We'll taste some cider paired up with some delicious food.

So go grab your glass, it's time to unwind.

>>Production funding for "Un-Wine'd" was made possible in part by ... >>The Virginia Wine Board, promoting the interest of vineyards and wineries in the commonwealth through research, education, and marketing.

There's a movement growing in Virginia's vineyards.

Discover more at virginiawine.org.

>>And by ... (soft music) >>I loved my time with Zach and his wife at Sage Bird.

They are so much fun and they have really built an amazing business in Harrisonburg.

So today on the show, I'm going to pair up their delicious ciders with some amazing foods, including a chicken with a peach salsa, pork vindaloo, and an apple dumpling.

I love chicken with peaches.

It just reminds me of summer.

And this particular cider is infused with a lovely peach flavor.

And it just goes together so perfectly.

Today, we're gonna make a peach salsa and a peach marinade for the chicken, so let's get started.

Right now, I'm gonna make the marinade and it's simple to do.

You can use a blender or you can just mix things up if you want.

I have half of a peach and I just wanna peel that peach and then just kind of cube it up just a little bit and put it down in my blender.

Now the peach can be used fresh or you can use canned if you have to.

If you're in off season definitely use a canned peach for this.

You may not be able to use it with the salsa, but still the marinade is wonderful and I think you'll enjoy this all year long with canned peaches.

So I'm gonna take half of this fresh peach and I just wanna peel off all of the peelings and then stick it chunked into my little blender.

And then, I'm gonna add a few ingredients that will just make that chicken break down a little bit.

Get those fibers from the meat all nice and tender for me, and give me some amazing flavor.

So the first thing is a red chili pepper.

Now I grow these every year in my garden and I keep them from one year to the next.

I grow so many.

This one is actually left from last year and it's dried.

So I'm just gonna pop that in.

Now if you want, you can use a little fresh jalapeno for that.

Three quarters of a cup of rice wine vinegar.

And I'm using a seasoned rice wine vinegar, because then I don't have to add any extra sweetness or salt.

And I wanna add about a half cup of olive oil.

A little less oil than I have vinegar.

Now, let's just process that.

Okay, so I have a little salt and pepper.

I'm just gonna sprinkle in a little salt and pepper, about half teaspoon salt, quarter teaspoon of pepper or half and half, half teaspoon of salt, half teaspoon of pepper.

Just kind of swish it around there.

Now I've got four chicken breasts that have been skinned de-boned, and trimmed of any sinew.

I wanna take my wonderful marinade and just kind of pour over that.

And I like to start with a little bit of chicken first.

Then, let's pour in more chicken.

That way we're not getting little pockets of chicken that have not been marinated.

And then, get under that chicken.

Make sure that you stir that through so that the chicken is marinating all under the meat and on top.

And then, I really like to let this sit overnight, an hour at minimum.

So let it rest a little while while you do any other dishes that you want to do for your dinner.

Now I have a batch of chicken that I marinated overnight and it's all ready to go in my pan.

You wanna make sure that you have a grill pan really, really hot.

And then be sure to turn it back to about a medium high heat so that you don't completely smoke up your kitchen.

Drain the chicken as well as you can before you put it on the grill, knowing that the flavor has really imparted into the meat.

So once you've made that marinade and you've marinated this chicken, it takes no time at all for the chicken to be done and for you to make the salsa.

So it's super easy.

I want to take four really nice ripe peaches.

Nice fresh peaches for this.

And again, you can make peach salsa with a canned peach, but it's just not the quality that you get with a fresh peach salsa.

So then peel off all of that skin from the outside, all that peel.

And then, you just want to cube up your peach.

I always try to get free stone peaches when I can for this recipe so that the peach seed, the pit, pulls away immediately and then you don't end up with a lot of lost peach.

You'll notice in the grocery store that a lot of the peaches that you find that are canned say cling peaches.

That's the difference.

Cling peaches simply means that the pit clings to the fruit.

Freestone peaches means that the pit comes away from the fruit.

It's super simple, but a lot of people just don't know that.

They're not aware that that's what the definition of cling and freestone peaches happen to be.

So this recipe can also be made with pineapple.

And pineapple is usually fresh all year round because you can get it at the grocery store anytime of year.

So if you wanna make a pineapple salsa and a pineapple marinade, that goes great.

And I suggest that you look for a cider that has a pineapple flavor to it.

Or you can even pair this with a very tropical chardonnay.

Now I'm gonna add some red onion, about a half cup.

Quarter cup to a half cup red onion.

Depends on how much onion you like in your salsa.

I like a little bit.

Oh, about two tablespoons to three tablespoons of a nice fresh lime juice.

And then, I'm gonna take two tablespoons of brown sugar that have been packed and then I just loosened them.

And I wanna take one red jalapeno and one green jalapeno.

I like the color in my salsa.

If you'd like, you can always grate in a little bit of lime zest, but it's not necessary.

And then I wanna add, oh, two to three tablespoons of olive oil and a sprinkling of salt and pepper.

Let's give that a stir.

You want to let your salsa sit for maybe five to 10 minutes before you serve it.

You can make this the day before, but remember it will get very syrupy.

So you want to make sure that if you're using fresh peaches, they look like fresh peaches and they taste like fresh peaches.

Mm, this looks and smells amazing.

All right, let's give that chicken a check.

Mm, beautiful.

I'm just trying to get crosshatching on both sides.

I'm going to grab my plate so I can get my plating started.

Today, I'm going to serve this with a little bit of sauteed snow peas and some cilantro lime rice.

Let's give this a taste.

I am so excited about this pairing.

Again, this peachy wonderful apple cider.

Mm, look at that sparkle.

All paired up with the peaches and the chicken.

Ah, can't wait.

All right, let's give it a little try.

Mm, I can see the residual marinade on the chicken.

I love that.

(soft music) Oh, wow.

What a pairing.

Mm, I love that.

It is so good.

The chicken, the peach, and the apple.

Wow, what an amazing flavor.

So the next time you wanna pair up a grilled chicken, a little peach salsa, and some delicious cider.

Hope you'll give all this a try.

Well, I'm here today at Sage Bird Ciderworks in Harrisonburg, Virginia with two of my favorite folks, Zach and Amber Lee Carlson and they own and operate this amazing cidery.

Thanks so much for having us here.

>>Thanks for having me.

>>I was really excited to come here 'cause I've been coming with my students for a while and you have grown, you have done some amazing things, and I wanna hear all about >>Yeah, so we opened in August of 2020.

Obviously, a weird time to open, but, yeah, here we are.

We've definitely grown, like you said, and have been excited to watch the community really kind of accept us and start to learn what we're about and learn about the cider that we're looking to make.

>>Yeah.

So how does your cider different from others?

>>Most of our cider is dry.

So I think a lot of people's idea and understanding of cider's kind of a sweeter apple flavored alcoholic beverage.

And there's room for that and a lot of people really enjoy that.

But cider can be so much more and there's the idea of a drier wine is something that cider can very much fit in.

So we have very little residual sugar in most of what we're doing.

And you're gonna get kind of that complexity, some of that astringency and the different acid levels that you might find in different grape varieties.

>>Cool.

So while we talk about your cidery, let's taste some of your wonderful ciders.

What do you have here poured for us?

>>So what we have here is our peaches for me.

This is cider that was aged in apple brandy barrels from Laird's Applejack and then infused with peaches.

So it's, again, not super sweet.

We don't do much that's super sweet, unless that's an intentional choice.

But this has that vanilla and that barrel, that oak coming through.

And then, kind of a subtle peach.

Peach, really the majority of a peach flavor is acid and sugar.

And when you take that sugar away, you're left with kind of this aromatic perfumy peach that I think really compliments the barrel profile in the cider.

>>Awesome.

So shall we try it?

>>Yeah, let's do it.

>>Okay.

Let's do it.

Ah, nice and cold.

I do love a nice cold cider.

Mm, and I smell that peach.

Peach is probably my favorite fruit.

I love peaches.

Oh, wow.

>>The vanilla and the peach just like play really nicely together.

Kind of that peaches and cream idea, but very natural still.

It's not forced.

That flavor's not forced.

>>Yeah, the apple still comes through.

It's still the shining fruit.

>>And it will always be in our cider.

That's definitely something that we value is if you're gonna use apples, use apples, show the apples, you know, let the apples shine.

And bring in adjuncts and other flavors, but if the apple's not there, you know, what are you doing?

>>Yeah, it's not apple cider.

Wow.

So let's try another cider while we talk a little bit about the cider process because it's a little different than wine.

>>Sure.

So we'll break into our Hewes Crab.

So Hewes Crab is a single varietal cider.

And folks are familiar with that in wine with a chardonnay is a type of grape.

And so we can do that in cider too, where Hewes is a crab apple that is kind of famous in Virginia.

And it's a cider that is or an apple that's particularly suited to being a single varietal where it's got a nice balance of sugar, tannin, and astringency and acid.

>>Nice, yeah.

>>So this is a really valued apple in kind of Virginia cider history.

It's also a gold medal winner for us.

>>That is amazing.

This is so good and wonderfully dry.

I love that.

Love that.

Now, how long is the process for making cider?

I know wine it can take years.

How about cider?

>>So, we are wine really.

Cider is wine.

It's fermented fruit.

We're a farm winery.

And we're not grape wine, but our processes are similar.

So we're harvest based and we get everything from Winchester, so about an hour north of us.

And usually our primary fermentation lasts about three weeks.

We ferment pretty cold and slowly if we can.

So that's just the process of, you know, we add a specific yeast culture.

We kind of shepherd that fermentation from start to finish as the yeast consumes all of the available sugar that's there and leaves us with a dry cider.

At that point you have alcohol technically, but it's not ready to drink.

And so, we usually age for a minimum of three months, but we'll go much longer if the cider kind of demands that.

So some of the varieties that have some more astringency, some higher tannin, definitely benefit from some more age just so that they can start to round out and really come together.

Everything that we package in the bottle, we do pasteurize.

And so that, in one sense, kind of stops some elements of aging at that point, but it also will kind of stop it in a place where we want it to be stopped.

And so, we feel like this has reached where it's supposed to be, when you pasteurize that, it stops it there.

>>Well, this is outstanding.

>>Thank you.

>>And congratulations on the gold medal.

It certainly matches the color.

>>Just so beautiful.

>>The hue is awesome.

>>I love a classic cider.

One that's all apple, but really dry.

Not sweet, but dry.

I love this cider and it's so great with pork vindaloo.

So pork vindaloo, like most Indian dishes, will have a lot of spice with it.

It's cut down by that wonderful flavor in the apple cider.

So what we're gonna do is start with a nice hot pan and a little bit of oil.

About two tablespoons of olive oil is all you need for this.

Now, the first thing we're gonna do is to saute some onions and some other aromatics, so let's get in our onions.

I have three large onions here that are chopped and just ready to be sauteed.

(soft music) (pan sizzles) Pretty much anytime you cook you want to start with your aromatics.

You're building a flavor base.

It's really important to build that flavor base because if you don't have the flavor with the meat going into it then the meat never develops a great flavor.

So the next thing we're gonna add is a chopped jalapeno or any style green chili and about a tablespoon of chopped ginger root.

Mm, that smell is amazing in here.

Now let's just let that saute for about five minutes until the vegetables start to get nice and soft.

So my vegetables have just started to soften and now I want to add some garlic.

Now, the reason I didn't add garlic initially is because it burns so quickly.

So you wanna make sure that you're really protecting that garlic.

Now this is about 12 cloves of garlic.

It takes a lot of garlic for pork vindaloo.

Lots and lots of flavor.

So let's just add that and then we'll stir it through and add some more aromatics this time in the form of spices.

So I have some cayenne pepper, about a half teaspoon of cayenne pepper, about a quarter teaspoon of cloves, and a half teaspoon of cinnamon.

Let's just sprinkle those in.

And I want all of these things to hit the heat of the pan.

What you're doing is really blooming those flavors because if you bloom them they get a much richer flavor at the end result.

Then I wanna take about two teaspoons of a nice smoked paprika.

Now, smoked paprika in this is one of those flavors that is really important to add because it adds to the depth of the vindaloo.

And last but not least, an Indian tradition, a teaspoon of turmeric.

All of these things will give that beautiful, reddish orange flavor, color palette to this dish.

Now I've got about two and a half pounds of pork loin and I've trimmed it up.

It's a nice lean pork loin.

And to this, I'm gonna add some salt and pepper about two teaspoons of salt, about a teaspoon of pepper.

You just want enough that you can really cover and season it.

And let's just stir that through.

You wanna coat it all so it's all seasoned a little bit.

Now let's stir that vindaloo base one last time.

And I want to pull all of my vegetables to one side of the pan so I can drop my meat in and it's nice and hot.

You can turn your heat up to high at this point if you want to sear that pork.

Or you can leave it at medium high and add a little at a time.

I kind of like to turn the pan up high and then get it all in there at once.

Now you don't have to sear the pork to the point where it's brown.

You're just trying to get the juices to stay inside.

So make sure that you let the heat hit all sides of your pork.

This dish is also great with chicken, particularly with chicken thighs because they have enough fat in them, enough base that they really take on the flavors and they don't become dry.

Chicken breasts can become very dry in this dish, but pork and chicken thighs work out perfectly.

Now at this point the pork is starting to turn white a little bit all over so I'm just going to start stirring in all of that onion mixture and I'll continue to sear that pork.

It's looking really great.

You can kind of see that you want this little whiteness on the pork and try to get that on as much of the pork as possible before you add any liquid.

Oh, that's looking great.

All right, now it's time to add some more flavor components.

First of all, a can of coconut milk.

This is about 14-1/2 ounces.

Mm, I love that rich smell that happens when the coconut milk hits all of those great herbs and spices.

And now we wanna add about two tablespoons of a white vinegar.

You can use a white wine vinegar, a white cider vinegar, or you can use a champagne vinegar.

This will make the dish really bright and it works really well with the cider.

So particularly, if you're using a white cider vinegar, that's great.

Nice distilled vinegar.

Mm.

And last, but not least, about two cups of water.

Now I'm gonna let this simmer for about 30 minutes and then we're gonna serve it over rice.

The vindaloo will be done when the pork temps out at about 160 to 165 degrees.

Now this beautiful dry apple cider with a wonderful pork vindaloo.

The pork is at about 160 degrees.

It's done, but it's still tender.

It's wonderful.

And all of this yumminess, oh, I can't wait.

Now if you like a thicker pork vindaloo, don't add quite as much water.

I have a tendency to like mine a little bit thinner because I think then it's absorbed by the rice.

That moisture is absorbed.

But if you like yours thicker, by all means, don't thin it so much.

Let's just ladle that right around some rice.

Mm.

Oh, wow.

This looks amazing.

It just smells so good.

I love all of those Indian spices.

Oh, and just a nice little bit of rice there.

You can use Jasmine, basmati, brown, white, whatever you have.

So wonderful.

Can't wait to taste it.

You can see the steam just rising up.

Oh, beautiful.

(soft music) Mm, that's good.

Let's try it with a little bit of our cider.

Again, this is a dry apple cider, so no residual sugar.

Low residual sugar for apple cider.

You always have a little bit of that residual sugar, but just really, really good.

And I hope the next time you wanna try something a little bit different, go for this pork vindaloo.

Many thanks to all my friends at Sage Bird Ciderworks for letting me pair up their ciders with these fun recipes including this chicken with peach salsa that I paired up with a peach infused apple cider.

This delicious pork vindaloo with a very dry apple cider and this amazing apple dumpling with vanilla ice cream that I paired up with their apple dessert wine.

For these recipes and a whole lot more visit me at vpm.org/unwined.

So until next time, remember I'm Tassie Pippert saying, "Go grab that glass."

It's always time to unwind.

>>Production funding for "Unwine'd" was made possible in part by-- >>The Virginia Wine Board, promoting the interests of vineyards and wineries in the commonwealth through research, education, and marketing.

There's a movement growing in Virginia's vineyards.

Discover more at virginiawine.org >>And by ... (soft music) (soft music continues) (majestic music)