What food combinations do you like that you were certain would taste awful.
Examples I was surprised I liked:
-beer and tomato juice with pepper
-Blueberry and peach smoothie
Kalimotxo/Calimocho: (red wine + cola) not something I’d drink daily, but not too bad
Strawberries + balsamic vinegar + sugar + black pepper: learned about this one from SDMB
Hot cheetos and pickle juice
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When I first of a clam juice/tomato juice/chili powder/lime juice/beer concoction I knew I had to try it. Only because it sounded hideous enough that I had to try it just to see how bad it was.
I actually like it! Its available at locol convience stores. I get a big can once in awhile.
Chocolate cherry ice cream and cheddar barbeque potato chips. My roommate asked if I was pregnant; nope, just gluttonous!
Pear covered in a mixture of mascarpone (or Philadelphia) and very strong blue cheese.
My husband and I love candied carrots (sliced carrots simmered in brown sugar and butter). Once while I was cooking this, one of my cats was in the cupboard over the stove, and the cat knocked over a shaker of garlic salt. Quite a bit of garlic salt fell into the carrot mixture, and I thought it was ruined. I took a little taste, and it was delicious! I always put garlic salt in my candied carrots now. Sometimes accidents result in wonderful discoveries.
Apple pie and cheddar cheese.
Strawberries or apples or almonds or dates or bacon with blue cheese. Yum!
Tilapia with sliced bananas.
My husband makes “enchilasagna” with eggplant, banana squash, zucchini, corn tortillas, a rich tomato sauce and mozzarella. He tops it with gorgonzola. Weird, but freakin’ delicious.
Maybe not the same as most of these, but please take into account that this went through the mind of the 9 year old me. My mom told me she was going to make some special sandwiches.
She took out a couple of slices of Jewish Rye bread… what, we’ve got perfectly good Wonder Bread right over there.
She buttered them… fine, I like butter.
She put some Thousand Island Dressing on them… Salad Dressing on a sandwich?
She added Corned Beef… You’re kidding me, we’ve got Ham or Bologna.
Then the Sauerkraut… No Way, just throw that away.
Finally she added some Swiss Cheese… Again, why we have perfectly good American Cheese.
She grilled them up and I had never been more disgusted. She got mad and told me I had to take at least 3 bites. The first was a nibble. The second was almost a regular bite. The third was about as much as I could stuff in my mouth. I believe I ate 3 Reubens that day and eat them whenever I get a chance now.
Tuna patties, which were introduced to me by my brother in law (his recipe is very similar to this one here: http://www.cooks.com/rec/view/0,1645,156172-242197,00.html)
At first I thought they would be horrible, but he convinced me to at least try one. They are pretty damn good.
Coffee and butterscotch.
Whenever I order a butterscotch sundae, I have it with coffee ice cream. I sometimes make instant butterscotch pudding with coffee.
Mmmm…Coffeescotch.
Spiced apple rings and yellow mustard on hamburgers.
Peach chili. Just substitute chopped peaches for about half the beans, and make sure to use a jerk powder (i.e. contains allspice) in addition any other ingredients you might add.
I knew that the flavor would work, because the sweetness of the peaches and the christmassy flavor of the allspice would complement each other, but I was sure that the peaches would either be too hard or too soft.
Instead, I found out that it was pretty easy to get the right consistency as long as you monitor it well.
Does that peach chili have meat in it or is it just spicy peaches?
Strawberries dipped in sour cream and then rolled in brown sugar.
Mascarpone under jalapeno jelly.
My recipe also has meat in it, and beans. I could see the recipe working without meat (although of course some would then not call it chili,) but without beans it would be a fundamentally different recipe which I have not tried yet. It also requires chili powder, which would probably ruin the flavor if used to excess, but a bare minimum is needed (like 1/8 teaspoon for a batch), otherwise there is some umami flavor that is just missing from the final product even if you include meat.
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IRT the OP:
Mango Salsa.
You’d think there’d be a clash, but there isn’t - Instead there’s a wonderful fusion.