After trying the exquisite pairing menu at Gabrielskloof (covered adequately, if not exhaustively here) last week, I’m suddenly the world expert in pairing things.
So far, I have paired a steak and some chips – which may seem rather unoriginal, but was nevertheless entirely successful – and then, in a fit of wild and daring experimentation over the weekend, I paired some Black Label with some more Black Label. Repeatedly.
It went surprisingly well. As far as I can remember, anyway.
Then, last night, the pièce de résistance as I paired some Lindt and Sprungli Chili Chocolate with some Louiesenhof Marbonne Brandy.
At first sight, this might appear to some to be nothing more than a thinly-veiled excuse to eat chocolate and drink brandy, and those individuals wouldn’t actually be far wrong. But what an unexpected and serendipitous revelation.
Suddenly, the steak and chips thing and the Black Label and Black Label thing paled into near insignificance.
This was unequivocally my third and best pairing to date. The tastes complimented each other perfectly, mingling pleasantly before producing something almost akin to a citrus burst upon my palate. I’m no culinary expert, but I’d hazard a rough guess that it was the mixture of chocolate and brandy which gave this result, based mainly on them being the only two things present on or near my palate at that particular moment.
Approaching this scientifically, I have decided to further pursue this research by testing the blend again this weekend: reproducibility being the cornerstone of any solid scientific result. It’s probably also worth checking out the components individually (especially the brandy) as well, right?
This “pairing” thing may well become a recurring theme on the blog. After all, food is ever so cool right now. Sadly though, the chili chocolate and really good brandy thing was just so good that there’s part of me that thinks that I’ve probably peaked too early (again) and future pairings just won’t match up to this one.
I will keep looking though.