Your favourite food Combo

[dazindiansfanuk]

I was just thinking it might be an idea to get a thread going on peoples favourite food combinations..... hey, maybe someone will come up with something some of us will never have tried before.

For me, I'm probably a little traditional..... my favourite combos are Rosemary & Garlic and Tomato & Basil.

As an obscure aside (and an idea for perhaps a new taste for others), my girlfriend is a big fan of cream cheese with sweet chilli sauce - usually scooped up with some tortilla chips.

[Cerebral_DownTime]

Garlic and red chili flakes.

[mistero]

potato pancakes and pork and beans.

[waborat]

Not sure if you mean ingredients or meals?

Components:

-Tomato & Basil
-Potatoes & Rosemary
-Shrimp & Garlic
-Salt & Pepper

Concoctions:

-Bacon & Eggs
-Burger & Fries
-Grilled Cheese & Tomato Soup
-Spaghetti & Meatballs

[FUDU]

I see where you are going with this.

I was going to say peanut butter & chocolate (with milk close by).

[Cerebral_DownTime]

Frank's Buffalo Sauce and Cheez itz.

[OldDawg]

Some of these are obvious, but I love 'em:

Steak and baked potato
Ruffles chips and French onion dip
Nachos /nacho cheese / salsa
Toasted cheese sandwich and tomato soup
Ribs and pierogies
Roast beef and mashed potatoes
Waffles /strawberries / whipped cream
Sausage patties and scrambled eggs

[jordan kramer]

cereal and beer. beereal.

[Loo]

I have very simple tastes, but my favorite meal is Grilled Ballpark hotdogs (only of my grilling, of course) with Tostito's chips and salsa. Just a great meal.

[swerb]

~ Sausage & peppers
~ Ballpark hot dog (lathered in Cleveland brown mustard) & peanuts
~ Veal & pasta
~ Fried rice & anything Kung Pao’d
~ Corned beef & cabbage
~ A Caesar salad & really spicy chicken wings

[crumejack]

anything sweet and salty... usually nuts and dark chocolate/homemade trail mix... or apple slices with almond butter

[RickNashEquilibrium]

Chicken and Waffles

City Chicken w/Gravy on White Rice

Coffee and old fashioned cake donuts. Dunk the donuts. One of the best flavor profiles ever.

[jb]

[jack_tors]

I was going to say peanut butter & chocolate (with milk close by).

+1, isnt a better flavor combo out there.

[Spin]

A nice Damon's steak and a Blue Moon.

Oh yeah.

[Spin]

I see where you are going with this.

I was going to say peanut butter & chocolate (with milk close by).

If you're on the road, Nutter Butters and chocolate milk.

[andrestratus]

My favorite combo is Roasted Lamb and a fresh warm sweet mint sauce...

[abendkleid]

cheese and toast = grilled cheese sandwich. yummy.

[Ziner]

Ballreichs Chips and Helluva Good French Onion Dip.

[Boston_butt]

Frank's Buffalo Sauce and Cheez itz.

I was actually going to say Frank's Red Hot (different from the Buffalo sauce) and Mac-n-Cheese.

What? You expected something haughty and "sophisticated"? I mean, we can't always fuck the prom queen guys. Sometimes, in the immortal words of the noted American poet David Allan Coe, "She's fat, I'm drunk, It's on." Mac and cheese is good food, and there are 100 ways to make it. But each of those 100 ways are made exponentially better with the addition of Frank's Red Hot to the top of it. It even turns the "open box add water nuke" shit into something delightfully edible. One caveat: never mix it into the sauce, just douse it on top so your tongue gets fatty salty cheesy umami on one side and spicy vinegar on the other.

There are two things that make flavor combinations taste good together. The first, as evident above, is around completing the flavor profile. Mac and cheese by itself is flabby and stupid, not unlike my prom date. Frank's Red Hot is spicy and unfulfilling, not unlike the psychopath I dated my junior year in college. Together they make the perfect woman - hot, exciting, but makes you feel warm and cosy inside, and nourishes your soul. This is one of the most important things to learn in cooking - how to add the right amounts of sweet, salt, acid, bitter, and umami to a dish to deliver to your palette a culinary equivalent of combination of Mary Ann and Ginger, all in one bowl. If you ever taste something and can't figure out why it tastes flat, salt, the right sort of vinegar, and/or lemon or lime juice can really wake up a dish.

The second type of food pairing is when two foods have a common chemical in them that allows them to work together. This is the foundation for the category of cooking called "molecular gastronomy", which is a lot more than just using beakers and test tubes to cook dinner. A lot of surprisingly strange combinations, can be found by breaking food down to the molecular level. Chocolate and roasted peanuts, for example, have a strong connection, which is not surprising because they work so well together (as noted above). But chocolate also works well with cilantro, cod, carrots, chicken, and chardonnay. Like Brigitte Nielsen banging Stallone, Mark Gastineau, Flavor Flav, and now apparently Schwarzenegger, one side of your brain recoils in horror to think about it, and yet if you can make peace with it, you may actually find out it works quite well. And the concept makes sense if you think about it - your perfect woman will have something in common with you, like she loves the Browns, loves beer, or enjoys sitting in front of the computer for hours. And what makes the relationship more interesting is not as much what you have in common, which is needed to make the relationship work, but more what you don't have in common, which makes it exciting.

One last thing: bacon really does make everything better, as it works on both levels. Bacon brings salt and a healthy dose of umami to any party, and pairs well with anything from strawberries to cheese to mustard to chocolate. Which makes me wonder, why do we call the women we love "honey" when we should call them "bacon"? Oh, right, the whole not-wanting-to-get-slapped thing...

[Cerebral_DownTime]

Yep. My wife makes buffalo mac & cheese bake. I prefer the oven baked style over the stove top. A couple trays of that is one of our game day staples.

And I always eat the corners first.

[Ziner]

Yep. My wife makes buffalo mac & cheese bake. I prefer the oven baked style over the stove top. A couple trays of that is one of our game day staples.

And I always eat the corners first.

Recipe?