May 11th - White Beans with Pancetta and Foccacia

I had started some pancetta and knew it would be ready this past weekend. I couldn’t find large pieces of pork belly, so I had to make do with a couple of smaller ones. I didn’t use enough garlic in my last batch of pancetta and it did taste a little off, but was mostly fine. I use the basic pancetta recipe from Michael Ruhlman and Brian Polcyn’s Charcuterie but like most recipes, I’ve altered it a little to suit my own tastes. This go around I went a little overboard on the garlic and you could smell it through the bag as it sat in the fridge (I normally keep it in a zip lock as it cures). After curing for seven days, I washed off the cure (and garlic) and let them sit out to dry out some. Despite the intense amount of garlic, these ones came out quite nicely. The color is beautiful and the meat really tastes perfumed. Strangely, the garlic isn’t overwhelming and seems to tame the bay leaf which sometimes seems to strong. I made a pot of white beans with some cubed pancetta, onions, rosemary and parsley. On the side I made a batch of focaccia topped with basil and garlic. Beans and bread is still one of my favorite foods and this didn’t disappoint me.

While I was cooking I had a bottle of the current Full Sail Brewmaster’s Reserve Brown Ale. It’s a really impressive beer. It has full, smooth malt profile with a slightly dry, bitter chocolate note in the finish. The hops play a background role in this beer. It’s all about the malt in this one. It used to be available year round but got dropped from the line up many years ago, because, unfortunately, brown ale doesn’t sell well in the US. (Too low in hops? Too malty?). It would have been a fantastic beer with food, but it didn’t last long. At 6% alcohol, it’s bigger than many English examples, but it’s still an easy drinking beer.

With dinner I actually had a Hair of the Dog Fred, in honor of Fred Echkhardt’s birthday. This bottle had been lingering on the shelves of a supermarket for some time and was showing some age (not in a good way), but it was still a remarkably complex beer. Even though it’s intense and rich, it was a nice match with earthy, comfort food quality of the white beans and focaccia.