A few weeks ago, I spent a day helping a friend traitor to the cause pack her kitchen for her move to Austin. Since I’m one winged, the most I could do was clean out her fridge. We started talking about all those parts of/left over items that you use a few times and they get shoved to the back. We both can, shop farmers markets and generally try to minimize our carbon foot print (her husband makes a wicked beer by the way). Fast forward to a get well soon gift from a college friend who knows of my love of canning and quirky gifts. The result ? 2 jars of beer jelly (you read that right, beer jelly) from a Brooklyn company called Anarchy In a Jar. I have to admit, I was a bit perplexed. I like beer, I like jam/jelly. But along the lines of I like chicken and I like peanut butter cups, I’m not seeing how they work together.
The only thing saving me at the moment is the Food Network. I’m sick of daytime television as I am recovering from this Bankart repair. On a whim In a moment of insanity, I decided to do my very own Chopped challenge. Mostly to alleviate the fear of opening the jar of beer jelly. For the record, beer jelly has a heavy beer taste with a sweet undercurrent along the lines of apple juice (which makes sense since they are the top 2 ingredients). I didn’t know any of this before deciding to use what was in my fridge to make dinner using the beer jelly as the gotcha.
Beer jelly, walnuts, spinach, horseradish sauce, pork chops, soy sauce
So there are my mandatory items: all selected before the opening of the jelly (or reading the label). Knowing that jelly can be a bit sweet, I went with something salty to try to balance it. I prefer a bit of a kick so went with the horseradish sauce. The meat is from the absolutely fantastic 8 O’clock Ranch (really, if you are in their delivery area and don’t buy from them?). The walnuts and spinach are from Wegman’s. The horseradish was rescued from my friend. I used the gluten-free soy in my fridge but needed the smaller one for the pic.
I created a marinade of the jelly, 2 tablespoons of horseradish and a tad too much soy (I had to cut it with 2 tablespoons of local honey). It probably should have been a jar of jelly and 2 tablespoons each of the horseradish and soy. I had to use the honey to kill a bit of the salt.
I seared the pork on both sides on a very hot grill pan turning 4 times (these were completely thawed boneless chops). In what would cause the Chopped judges to take off points for creativity, I opted for a variation of a spinach salad.
Local honey, madeira vinegar, hard boiled egg, pancetta, Dijon mustard
With the meat resting, I chopped the egg and added it to the spinach and walnuts. I cooked the pancetta (points off, it was a bit saltier than I expected). Then deglazed the pan with the vinegar (around 2T and 1T of Dijon mustard).
Frying pancetta
Deglazing with mustard and vinegar
I tossed the warm pancetta into the salad to get a bit of a wilt, tossed in the dressing platted I’m sure I would have been axed (I forgot a starch; you know how those judges are). But a ton of fun when trying to figure out how to use beer jelly. And yup. I contacted Anarchy in a Jar to see where I could get a few more bottles. I’m really not in the mood to start making beer jelly. But it is a great base for fun cooking.
Really glad I was kicked off before the dessert round. :)
