Sometimes oil and water do mix. In this case bacon and beer, at a cooking class this past week I learned how to use bacon to make appetizers, main courses and desserts.
The only thought that I had at the end was that perhaps we needed more bacon in the dessert, but I normally don’t even like dessert!
In life, like in food, a good pairing can change the outcome. Whether relationships, work or play, a well-contemplated, engineered, aesthetic can change the context of what could otherwise be misery.
Here are the pairings and my thoughts:
Trumer Pils with bacon sliders, with a sweet green tomato jelly.
The light beer complimented the sliders fairly well. The sliders, bacon slices topped with jelly on rolls lightly toasted in bacon grease, were lighter than anticipated, but still quite salty. The sweet of the jelly softened the saltiness and when combined with the beer provided a taste that was quite fresh.
This is an appetizer that I believe to be quite versatile, and I’ll definitely make it on occasion to go with a heavier dish. I would definitely prefer this over chicken wings in bleu cheese.
Alaskan Amber with corn fritters, topped with a cheese fondue.
Possibly my least favorite dish, the flavors worked well, but the cheese had solidified by the time we were eating it and so it was distracting to say the least. The pairing of the ale and the cheese was delicious, something that I need to try at least once more to form my opinion on.
Lagunitas IPA with bacon topped purple potato wedges.
The pickles made this dish, The bitterness of the IPA combined with the pickles made this one of the smoothest drinking IPAs I’d ever had. Lately I’ve always had a jar of pickles to have with the IPAs.
Damnation golden ale with bacon topped panna cotta.
The very best dessert EVER!! Can you beat sugar, cream, raspberry jam, bacon and damnation ale? I can’t, I haven’t, yet I hope some day I will. All I can say is that wish there would have been slightly more bacon in my glass. The bacon here was cooked very lightly, still soft and tender. It was almost like morsels melting in your mouth. So delicious.
