Tuesday 17 March 2009

FAB POW! Okell’s Aile with Fish Pie and Spaghetti Bolognese

FAB POW! No. 2 coming at ya! That's the Food and Beer Pairing of the Week, by the way. And as it’s St Paddy’s Day it’s a pint of black stuff. But not Guinness. I’ve got nothing against Guinness, I just find it a tad heavy to be a quality food pairer. Instead, we’ve got one of the finest porters I’ve had this year (and I’ve had some good ones – Elland’s 1872, Meantime’s London Porter, the Porterhouses’s Plain Porter): Okell’s Aile, a smoked Celtic porter (which I first had here). The pairing is not just for one dish this week, it’s for two classics, both of which are spot-on matches.

FAB POW! Okell’s Aile with Fish Pie and Spaghetti Bolognese

The beer is a great looking deep brown with a cappuccino head. It’s got a sweet nutty aroma with hints of charcoal and burnt toast. It’s incredibly drinkable, the smoke is very delicate and smooth, there’s candy sugar sweetness and chocolate in there along with an earthy hop quality. It’s a real moreish glugger, packed with flavour and the perfect buddy for plenty of dinners.

It’s great with the fish pie because it pulls out all the sweet fishy flavours and lifts them up, especially if you use a bit of smoked fish in the pie. It also cuts through the richness of the white sauce and clears the palate leaving a really pleasant nutty, smoky flavour. Tomato-based pasta dishes, I think, are difficult matches, but the smoke in a porter like this softens the sweet sharpness of the sauce, bringing out the earthy nuttiness in the beer and grabbing hold of the charry flavours and seasoning (especially the black pepper) in the meat.

It’s a really superb and versatile beer for pairing or just for drinking. It also does the job against mild spice and with a barbeque. I got my bottle from Utobeer but you can also buy it from Beers of Europe and Hi-Spirits. The beer is definitely worth hunting down. Yum.

Anyone had anything good to eat and drink this week?

10 comments:

  1. Meantime, Fuller's, and Sam Smith's Taddy Porter are on my list of shit hot porters.

    Currently drinking Sierra Nevada Torpedo IPA, not green Bud Light.

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  2. Fuller's and Sam Smith's are both great too! The London Drinker beer fest has apparently got the Fuller's on so I'll be looking out for that.

    Stay away from the green stuff, it's freaky!

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  3. I just had a Nogne O porter with wild boar and chili sausages and balsamic roast veg (fennel, sweet potato, carrots & onions). Surprisingly good match (and a good porter, although could have been a touch drier)

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  4. Cor, that sounds like a cracking match Zak. Great dish for a fairly strong porter like that.

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  5. Are you going to The london drinker Mark?
    Which night are you heading in?

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  6. Yo Tim, yes I'm heading along tonight. I always get to festivals on the last day and miss the good stuff so I'm going on the first day this time!

    Will you be there? Anyone else going?

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  7. I made a mean beef stirfry with chili, beansprouts, pak choi, garlic, spring onions, ginger, sugar snap peas and udon noodles.

    With all that chili going on it needed a big bottle of Meantime IPA to cool things down.

    Bloody lovely!

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  8. IPA and chili heat is a big favourite of mine too.

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  9. Zak, what kind of IPA with what heat?! New skool US style or old school UK style? I think the US citrusy stuff is all about mexican or thai whereas the UK earthy stuff is super with indian dishes.

    And am I alone in thinking that uber-hopped beers just don't work with spicy dishes? I think the bitterness and chili heat crash rather than compliment.

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  10. I made a tartiflette the other night and had a stone IPA with it. It wasn't as good as I expected. It picked up the browned cheese a little put the piney and earthy flavours were a bit too much for the sauce.

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