However, I simply cannot allow the mixing of sweet, juicy fruits with savoury, meaty...erm...meats. Sweet fruits are lovely - but for pudding. I cannot for the life of me understand why you'd want to sweeten meat. It's MEANT to be savoury and chewy and flavoursome. It doesn't need to be tainted by fruit. Also - if people were going to be consistent, why does meat never get put in desserts!!?
Am I making sense? Perhaps some examples would help. Below are some of the worst offenders in my humble (but completely correct) opinion:
1. Ham and Pineapple (on pizza, or otherwise)
This is just plain wrong. I don't like cheese and pineapple either, but mixing salty, delicious ham/gammon with sickly-sweet pineapple is pretty much unforgivable. You certainly wouldn't do it the other way round, would you? I mean, a friend of mine cooked an absolute gorgeous pineapple upside down cake the other week. It really was special. However, I would imagine that at no point within the process would she have thought to herself, "You know what would perk this recipe up a bit? Some nice slow roasted gammon! Yeah! I'll dice some up and throw it in the mix!"
It's absurd isn't it? And yet people think nothing of throwing diced pineapple chunks - or, unbelievably, WHOLE pineapple RINGS - onto their ham in savoury dishes. The mind boggles.
This is another one that gets me. Think about it - apple sauce is, effectively, a cold version of the filling that you would find inside a delicious, warm apple crumble. It's a beautiful, hearty and sweet dish. Quintessentially English. Now why on earth would anyone want to mix that with the salty excellence of some roast pork!? Would you throw a bit of crackling into your home made apple crumble? Of course you wouldn't! So why is it ok the other way around?
3. Turkey with cranberry sauce
People often complain that turkey is a very dry meat, and they use this to justify the use of cranberry sauce. FOOLS! It's the equivalent of putting strawberry jam on a roast chicken, essentially. It makes no sense at all.
There are two excellent sauces that can and should accompany turkey brilliantly, without the need to resort to putting sweet fruity jam on it. Firstly, there's a proper turkey gravy, which is a piece of cake to make once you've roasted your bird. And secondly, there's bread sauce - which is a subtle but savoury and tasty way to moisten and flavour the meat.
I might also suggest to those in the 'turkey is too dry' camp, that they try brining the turkey first, in saltwater. It flavours and moistens the meat brilliants. I tried this recently and received excellent comments from people who tasted it!
4. Raisin/sultanas in curry.
I can't even bring myself to comment on this abomination.
So - there you are. Fruit and meat should never mix. I think I've proved it fairly conclusively! However, I know lots of you right now are thinking of all sort of comebacks and challenges to my controversial statements. To try and anticipate these reactions, I will admit that there are certain caveats and exceptions to this rule, as follows:
1. Citrus fruits - mainly lemon - are allowable. Simply because I think we would all agree that they don't provide a sweet taste so much as a savoury tang to a food. Lemon chicken does not taste remotely sweet, and therefore, I'll allow it.
2. Pork and apple sausages. Cooking apples are not really sweet - certainly not compared to normal eating apples. When turned into apple sauce, cooking apples do become 'sweet' and are at that point it's unacceptable to add them to meat. However, a few diced chunks of cooking apple placed in a juicy pork sausage can just about be ok I think. They don't taste sweet.
3. Tomatoes - yes, yes, tomatoes are a fruit. But generally, they're not sugary sweet. They're salad items, and therefore, allowable.
I have a feeling this post may generate some debate. But BRING IT ON!
No comments:
Post a Comment