Not so weird. Unsweetened chocolate with peppers is called mole. It’s used as a sauce on meat – chicken or beef. In the movie Chocolat it was one of the items featured at the birthday dinner. A couple years ago Dreyer’s came out with Chilly Chili, vanilla with a mole ribbon and pepper-coated spanish peanuts. Loved it but they never made another batch.
My chili secret ingredient is a couple teaspoons of ground clove. It smells totally weird the first hour or so, but by the time its done it’s mellowed out to something . . . unusual. No one’s objected to it.
Thea Logica: I had the opportunity to try a few red chili chocolates some time last year. They were pretty good. Apparently, they were Korean; keep an eye out at your local import food store (or ask them to order some)
I rarely cook anymore, especially since I don’t have a kitchen, but mint and hot pepper combine particularly well. Almost everybody likes sweet and sour; why not hot and minty?
And if you want weird flavor combinations, try watching Iron Chef (which you probably do anyway).
Cocoa is one of the ingredients that gives that special flavor to Cincinnati-style chili, too. Mmmm, chili. If you visit Cincinnati without coming to a chili parlor, you might as well have stayed home.
At the Minnesota State Fair, in among the Pronto Pups, Cheese Curds, and Mac-and-Cheese-onna-stick, there is always a couple of booths selling “Pickle Dogs.” Take a slice or two of thinly sliced corned beef, spread cream cheese evenly on them, and wrap them around a dill pickle spear. Delicious!
Of course, whenever I buy one, my friends all make gagging, retching noises. What can I say? It’s healthier than the deep-fried Snickers bar that one of my friends gets every year.
Liver and lima beans. I don’t mix them together, but they are my favorite meal (with maybe a baked potato on the side). Unfortunately, I can’t have either all that often since my wife hates them both.
No no no, that’s fava beans that go with liver and Chianti!
Fun fact: liver, fava beans, and wine all contain a substance that can kill you if you’re taking a first-generation MAO inhibitor. (MAO inhibitors used to be frequently prescribed for mental patients as an antidepressant drug before things like Elevil and Prozac came along.)
Ever since I was a child, I’ve eaten peanut butter and pickle sandwiches. My mother eats them, and her mother eats them, and her mother ate them. . . and so on. When I was a kid it was pretty basic, you spread peanut butter on two slices of bread, sliced up a pickle, distributed it evenly, put the two slices of bread together and ate it. Now that I’m older though, I’ve become more picky about it.
First, it absolutely HAS to be creamy peanut butter. Second, it absolutely has to be crunchy dill pickles (like Claussen). Finally, the bread HAS to be toasted whole wheat or onion rye. Honestly, the flavors mix perfectly. DELICIOUS. I think i’ll have one right now. . .
[QUOTE=jjimm]
Cheese and strawberry jam sandwiches.
And if I can get just one person reading this to try my favourite sandwich ever, I’ll be a happy man (I believe Elvis was partial to a deep-fried variant of this):
According to the woman who cooked for him, Elvis’ favoritesandwich was a a peanut butter and banana sandwich panfried in butter (not deep fried and she didn’t mention anything bacon on it). this has been mentioned several times in the Memphis newspaper and the woman also appeared on David Letterman show and fixed it. David Letterman was totally grossed out by all of the butter.
Boy, I can’t compete with some of these combinations! I was going to mention our neighbor when I was a kid, who ate peanut butter and Spanish onion sandwiches, but that’s already been mentioned. As much as I like both, I couldn’t bear to try them together…
I like toasted peanut butter and banana sandwiches, but the very idea makes my wife ill. She says her brother eats peanut butter and pickle sandwiches too, which I’d never heard of until I read this thread.
My wife also used to refuse to eat tomatoes of any kind, until I turned her on to BLTs with Miracle Whip instead of mayo. Now she can’t get enough of them. I didn’t know prior to coming here what a bad reputation Miracle Whip has. But I prefer it hands down over mayonnaise, which I think is thick and oily and bland-tasting goo. That said, the only things I would use MW for is the BLTs, in cole slaw (haven’t had this since my mom died) and in potato salad. (I read another thread about midwesterners who put it on everything - tacos, Jello fercryinoutloud… that’s just wrong).
Ooohh…Reality Chuck just posted my favorite meal: liver and lima beans. My husband won’t touch them either, Chuck, so I rarely eat them. But if he’s away on business or something, and I want to go to the trouble, it is a yummy indulgence.
My first thought when I saw the thread title was potato chips and chocolate which, having read some of the combos you all like, doesn’t seem that weird anymore. More of that oft mentioned sweet/salty sensation, I guess.
Yookeroo Thank you for that link.
