Sunday, February 20th was The Fearrington House’s first Beer Dinner and who better to have it with then North Carolina’s - and Durham's - very own Fullsteam Brewery. This great local company takes its inspiration from the local land and passionate farmers of the Triangle to make the South’s own distinct style of beer. They even have their own tavern at 726 Rigsbee Avenue in downtown Durham, where you can sample many of their great beers and sample some experiments as well, with local musicians setting the mood in the background!
For the Fearrington chefs it all started the week before. Sitting in the office at the end of a busy service, Chef Bedford cracks open the first beer. It’s time to taste. We have to try several beers to pick our favorite five for the Fullsteam Beer Dinner (It’s a hard job, but somebody has to do it).
With each mouthful, we discussed and deliberated everything we could pair with each beer; some beers seemed obvious to us and others not so. The complexity of the beers would sometimes push us in the wrong direction, so we knew we had to get help from our Sommelier Max Kast, the best nose in the South! With his guidance we finished the menu, a little light headed and happy with the result.
Funny enough in my last blog I mentioned that English food doesn’t fit in with what we do at the House, but when it comes to beer pairing we couldn’t help but fall back on some of our homeland experiences growing up dining in pubs.
With the Fullsteam Lager we made a beer batter out of it to enjoy the pleasures of fried fish! We also took the humble Fish Pie and re-thought it, Sous-vide cooking the salmon, curry dusting a scallop, crushing the peas and frying the skate, finishing it off with a potato and parmesan foam and a hot tartare cream sauce.
For the First Frost Persimmon Ale, we fell back on England again, making a Wellington of Confit Duck (even using the ale to season the meat), Mushroom and Tarragon Duxelle, Foie Gras Espuma and Onion and Sage puree. It was a dish that worked very well with the beer.
Now the Hogwash beer was the one we picked for dessert because of how interesting the flavors were. It’s safe to say that this beer isn’t going to be many peoples’ cup of tea, or beer! Due to its strong smoky flavor we were surprised when Max suggested that we try it with chocolate sauce however we knew there and then it was a pairing that made the beer taste great. So with that in mind we took our famous Chocolate Souffle and added hazelnut to it, then served it with a tasting of Chocolate - Milk Chocolate Mousse, Dark Chocolate Cremeaux, White Chocolate, Thyme and Orange Ice Cream.
Over the weekend we challenged ourselves and pushed hard to create the food for the menu during what feels like to me one of busiest weeks on record. The reward was the pride and satisfaction of sending out great food. I would personally and on behalf of all the chefs in the kitchen like to thank everyone who made it out for the dinner. I hope you enjoyed eating, drinking and being merry as much as we did creating the experience for you.